Wall Street Banks and Private Equity Firms Compete for Young Talent - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/business/wall-street-banks-and-private-equity-firms-compete-for-young-talent.html <comment><USER2> One reason that you see this sort of behavior in the first place is that very few people are able to successfully become lifetime bankers. The skillset required to be an excellent investment banking analyst is extremely different than the skillset needed to be an investment banking vice-president (or higher). Modeling skills and pitchbook formatting knowledge will do little for you if your job is to try to bring business to your bank. Analysts know that the internal track will end at the associate level (or, more likely, they'd be booted out after two years with no internal promotion to associate at all). Therefore, it makes sense for them to jump ship, and the subsequent prisoner's dilemma also makes sense.

What's interesting is that a similar thing happens after two years as a private equity associate, in that almost all PE associates are booted out after two years, being told that they don't have the skillset to be promoted within the shop. At this point, I believe that many employees move onto internal corporate development, but my knowledge here is pretty incomplete about what happens after that break in the track. ("Greatness", perhaps?[0])

[0] [http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2007/07/breaks-in-the- track](http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2007/07/breaks-in-the-track)

<comment><USER3> > Analysts know that the internal track will end at the associate level (or, > more likely, they'd be booted out after two years with no internal promotion > to associate at all) > What's interesting is that a similar thing happens > after two years as a private equity associate, in that almost all PE > associates are booted out after two years

Many PE shops, VC funds and banks do this because they want you to get an MBA. This is why many of the associate hiring positions are described as pre-MBA associate and post-MBA associate. Post-MBA associates are the ones that will go onto internal promotions and potentially the partner track.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole time I read this article, I could only think of PG's "The Submarine."

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

This article describes a process that's being going on for decades, but manages to do so while imbuing a "drama" that only a headhunting firm could truly muster (or the guy who wrote the book selling for $299).

It's true, that the pressures have ramped up over time as private equity becomes a monster approaching the size of the banks themselves.

But at root, this article is about people in one great job, looking to go to another great job. News, indeed! Nice work to the press people who put this together.

<comment><USER5> Just read The Submarine for the first time. For those who haven't, it's well worth it. Very enlightening. Still very relevant today seeing how it was written in 2006

<comment><USER6> Journo here. Very, very true. PR runs most of the stories you see. They don't usually run the hard news, like disasters and such, but they often glom onto those things so after a day or two, it's hard to tell who's actually reporting, and who's just regurgitating, and who's being spoon fed bullshit.

We could debate the many reasons for this fact, but suffice to say that there is A: a lot of money riding on getting such stories printed, and B: not enough time in the day or money to pay journalists to do the real work.

This plays out in a couple ways. The most common form is where the PR firm is also representing a company that advertises in the outlet. The New York Times writing about suits was probably printed on a page next to an ad for Macy's. The editorial guys are not complicit, but it's become common for sales to make "intros" to editors at parties and such. It's gross, but common.

Another way it plays out is that we get some amazing, long article with in- depth journalism that's just the best thing you've ever read. Then no one reads it because it's really long and doesn't have pretty pictures, so compared to the story linked next to it on the front page, it's basically a one or two day blip in the system, then it's forgotten. Meanwhile, that other story with a title like "Docker will revolutionize datacenters," or "Google Glass User Assaulted," are getting the same number of hits, and they took about 10 seconds to write, so as a journalist, it can be a bit frustrating to be beholden to "hits," rather than to "quality."

Which, frankly, is what most journos are dealing with. Most outlets want quantity over quality. That means the writers tend not to understand what they're writing about, but rather, they're just flying over and giving a scouting report in a vain attempt to be first.

The Wire got this soooo right in season 5. Beat reporters need to cover their beats. The smaller the beat, the better they should be able to cover it. If you have one reporter on programming only, you can really get the pulse of the industry, rather than just having your tech reporter check in every 3 months.

Journalism remains broken, with many examples of great work being ignored in favor of "10 reasons Beiber is made of plastic, and what types of plastic those would be if he were made of them," stuff. How are we going to write about people places and events when those people places and events are writing about themselves for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't speak for the PE side, but on the IB side be prepared to work with some truly awful tech and systems. Seriously crappy. Given the tech budgets and spend, it is amazing how much duct tape and band-aids hold together the IT systems across the bank.

<comment><USER8> I think it really matters which part of a bank you end up in... I've heard some horror stories about back office roles, but I work on a front office trading system and it's the most technically challenging, interesting and plain old geeky role I've ever had.

<comment><USER9> how did you get in?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This situation is always painted as a "prisoner's dilemma" because otherwise talking about coordinating with regards to hiring smacks of anti-competitive collusion. However, I don't think the timeline is, on the net, disadvantageous to recruits. It's hard to argue that folks on a two-year contract at a bank are somehow disadvantaged by being able to line up their next gig a year or more in advance. It's also hard to ignore the fact that the long lead time gives recruits a lot more margin for error, because they get to make a run at private-equity well before their contract runs out at a bank.

<comment><USER11> I'm not so sure. The high-energy physics community created an ethically (but not legally) binding agreement on the date of theorist postdoc offers to prevent a useless race for ever earlier commit dates.

>In recent years, we have seen a growing number of early offers with short deadlines for high energy theory postdoctoral positions...We are worried that this practice is preventing young researchers from making a free and fair choice among their job opportunities. And, while there may be some short term advantage for the institutions which do this, we believe it will have serious negative effects in the long run....Thus, we commit to make no postdoctoral offer for the fall of a given year, whose deadline for acceptance is earlier than January 7th of that year.

[http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/itp/postdoc- agreement.html](http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/itp/postdoc-agreement.html)

I think all the postdoc applicants generally like this, so it does seem to be in their best interests.

It's very plausible that various private companies have a harder time than HEP professors coordinating on a pledge like this given legal restrictions and the fact that they do not have the common framework of academia. So I think this really could be a prisoner's dilemma.

<comment><USER10> There was a similar agreement among federal judges for the hiring of term clerks. There was much gnashing of teeth when the plan broke down, and judges started hiring two years in advance. But I don't think there is any real prisoner's dilemma. What do the candidates lose? It's great to have a job lined up that far in advance. It lets you plan, especially if you have a family. Its obviously more burdensome for judges that way, but if they didn't think it was worth it to break the plan, they wouldn't have!

<comment><USER11> If it was beneficial to have the date earlier, then everyone could have just agreed to an earlier date. The problem is that everyone wants a certain date, but defecting employers can benefit by making early job offers with acceptance windows that close before their competitors have made any offers; students are risk adverse and so will accept the earlier offer rather than gamble that they will get a later offer from a better employer.

Contrary to your intuition, most people do not want the inflexibility of needing to decide on their next job 2 years ahead. For example, if you're a young law student, you're still learning what kind of law you actually want to work in, and it's very inconvenient to have to choose years ahead of time what court you work in, at which point your academic (or love) interests may have changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm currently working in science, and ultimately interested in science and entrepreneurship. I don't have a PhD yet, and the financial situation in science and with startups makes me pretty nervous. Is it feasible for someone without a finance/business background to jump to an IB/PE job for a few years? I just want to feel more financially settled, before moving on with other things. I'm not quite 30-something, and if it helps at all my microecon professor in college apparently called my parents to get them to convince me to major in econ (I must have been the only one in the class who cared).

</comment><comment><USER13> This article talks about a lot of things these firms do to attract talent. What about just offering more money?

<comment><USER14> PE does. But only for some, it's anti-scalable. This is a nice little trick - if you only accept 2% of a highly competent applicant pool, you must hire the best, right?

Eh, maybe, but you could just get everyone to apply and make the same decisions. Now you've got brand and people give you money...

It's intentionally a ludicrous amount to suggest that they're Just. That. Good. to all their potential clients. But we can't all be payed three times going wage, can we?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sorry to be a cynic, but:

"Promising to take a job with a particular firm can create a conflict of interest for an investment bank analyst, especially one assigned to work with private-equity firms on deals, bankers say."

Really, I don't think there will be too much hand wringing for these folks.

<comment><USER16> It's not a matter of professional ethics, it's a matter of them making decisions in favor of their future employer to the detriment of their current one.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like the revolving-door career path that many politicians follow.

<comment><USER3> It's exactly like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Epicurean Dealmaker's thoughts (he's an MD for some big shot bank): [http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com/2014/07/you-go- first....](http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com/2014/07/you-go-first.html)

<comment><USER2> "The solution to this dilemma, of course, is simple. Private equity firms have become large and rich enough that they should do their own damn recruiting at colleges to hire junior personnel."

This is already the case, at least at Wharton. A number of the PE megafunds recruit undergraduates here, specifically Blackstone and Silver Lake. I only really know of one or two offers being extended per year, but that's because private equity shops simply have fewer entry-level positions -- they can therefore afford to be picky.

I'm sure that PE middle-market companies also recruit here (my knowledge here is more limited, as I gravitate toward the technology portion of my education rather than the finance portion), but it seems likely that students would take a bulge-bracket investment bank over a middle-market PE shop.

It's simple supply and demand.

<comment><USER18> Interesting, thanks for the feedback. It's good to hear the other side of the story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's important to dispel a certain myth about this sector of finance.

Around and past an IQ of about 135, work boredom is a chronic risk and sometimes a disability. If you're in this set, entry-level banking ("analyst" programs) and private equity aren't where you want to go. Past 135 (much less at 140, 150, or even 160) even 8 hours per day of grunt work is impossible, much less 17.

There are plenty of 135+ in finance, but either they go for trading and quant or even IT roles, or they move to "the soft side" at a higher level: usually at least VP.

So, yes, these people are above average in talent, but they're not "the most talented" in our generation. Depending on bonuses, they're not even the best paid. Oh, and they're the ones who go on to become VCs (not you, programmers, despite your superior talent).

The 23-year-olds making half a million in private equity do exist, but they're (a) uncommon, and (b) not especially smart, just connected and unusually able (top 1%) to grind out hours. If you want to become a Master of the Universe, the optimal IQ is probably in the low-mid 120s: enough that you can build something in Excel, but not near the level that brings boredom or anti- authority risk.

<comment><USER20> Plenty of high IQ people in PE and hedge funds, especially those who entered direct from college, skipping IB. They seem to be people who can tolerate grinding though.

It may be true that the work gets boring but the alternatives aren't significantly better (how many people at Google are doing substantially more interesting work?) and pay and career advancement are much better.

<comment><USER19> I acknowledge that there are plenty of very smart people in finance (especially in quant roles). I said:

 _There are plenty of 135+ in finance, but either they go for trading and quant or even IT roles, or they move to "the soft side" at a higher level: usually at least VP._

Smart people tend to avoid competing on hours. Why? Because if you're putting out a 17-hour day (which is necessary at the entry level on "the soft side") anything that is a disadvantage can (no, will) derail you. That includes being too smart for the work. So they prefer trading and quant jobs where the hours are reasonable and also where the work is more interesting and they're not as much at risk of high-IQ problems.

 _[P]ay and career advancement are much better [in finance than software]._

Absolutely. This is completely true. Any idea what we should do about this in engineering? (Or just call it hopeless and exit for finance?)

<comment><USER20> I'm not convinced that smart people gravitate to quant roles. The hours may be longer on the "soft" side but it is more prestigious and the work is less taxing and doesn't require continually learning new skills.

I don't know how you can enter "soft" finance at the VP level.

> Absolutely. This is completely true. Any idea what we should do about this > in engineering? (Or just call it hopeless and exit for finance?)

I think the ship has sailed for many people, you can't get into PE or non- quant HF mid-career. When I was younger I often thought along the lines of "if only everybody..." but I realized the hard way that it is much easier to change yourself than to change the world.

When I give advice to smart kids entering college I tell them they should strongly consider targeting PE/HF: If they hate it they will know from experience and still have superlative exit ops, trivially able to land a management/executive-track job at a tech company or elsewhere.

<comment><USER19> _When I give advice to smart kids entering college I tell them they should strongly consider targeting PE /HF: If they hate it they will know from experience and still have superlative exit ops, trivially able to land a management/executive-track job at a tech company or elsewhere._

This is not a comment on what you're saying (I don't think you're far off) but it's pretty disturbing a reflection on tech that executive roles in our companies are what finance people _fail_ into.

Most tech management and VC is failed finance/business guys who failed down into those roles, not programmers who worked their way up the ranks. The latter almost never happens, to tell the truth.

<comment><USER20> Yup, definitely something I didn't understand when I started out which is why I make an effort to inform others in college.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Investors Tranche Fundraising To Reduce Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2009/06/why-some-vcs-like-to-tranche-fundraising.html

<comment><USER2> Avoid tranched deals. It is an abusive practice.</comment>


America Was Ripe for Humiliation - <AUTHOR> https://abovethelaw.com/2020/07/america-was-ripe-for-humiliation/ <comment><USER2> There are no countries that are perfect models for COVID. The ones that have totally "contained" it are either tiny and isolationist or lying / not testing. Previous countries that seemed like models of good now have outbreaks. This virus is simply too difficult to contain, it seems to spread extremely easily.

America has decentralized governance. Every state, and even every county, can determine their own rules to a large extent. Money is handed from the federal government to the states with very few strings attached. It is constitutionally impossible to have a "one size fits all" approach, and also people are so independent-minded that any iron fist is immediately given the middle finger.

Articles like these that harp on about how bad America is seem to be unable to explain why so many people want to come here, and why we have to pass laws to prevent them from coming. For all America's warts it's still the best place to live.

<comment><USER3> > For all America's warts it's still the best place to live.

Serious question: have you lived in another country?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes the US was shamefully arrogant about Covid (bipartisinly so) but saying the Trump electorate is racist basically destroys the article's credibility.

The US has historically been in the top tier of nations because of 1. their universities, 2. their acceptance of immigrants 3. their culture (Hollywood etc) 4. public works (GPS, internet, etc).

Perhaps the US is on the decline. The apex of the Byzantine empire after all was Justinian's plague. I wouldn't say the US decline is due to a failure to enact socialist policies though. Europe is hardly the world center of creativity and innovation.</comment>


Getting Good Estimates - <AUTHOR> http://use-cases.org/2011/06/04/getting-good-estimates/ <comment><USER2> When managers request software estimates from engineers, engineers should frown, look them dead in the eyes, and tell them that making estimates is a managerial/administrative task.

Managers should collect, maintain, and have access to substantial historical data upon which they can make estimates and other administrative trivia. What else are managers for?

Of course, what engineers need to understand is the game at work here: making an estimate is primarily about making you commit to a date, with which you will be flogged by those asking for such an estimate.

Your job is to solve problems - not to make estimates, nor to be flogged.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a relationship. Managers shouldn't choose a date, they should come to an understanding with the engineer doing the work. The whole point of the discussion and the range is to discover what could go wrong and pro-actively look to mitigate that.

Managers help manage, the discovery of risks and issues that I talk about in the article are where the manager comes in. The identification of the risks, inter-dependencies, unknowns and so on inherent in the task comes primarily from the person doing the work. I believe this is part of the "solve problems" that you talk of.

Engineers should have no concern working through an estimate with their peers or their manager (be it direct line or part of the project).

Neither engineers nor managers should be asked to deal with unrealistic or overtly broad indications of a date. In the article I talk about a range and a confidence. If there are strong unknowns, that can't be determined, then that is risk that is carried within the task. That is part of the problem that needs to be solved.

I don't believe I talked about commitment, flogging or anything else. I am talking about planning and discovery.</comment></comment>


White Papers on Horizontal Partitioning of Databases? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I was wondering if anyone has ever come across a good paper on scaling horizontally (Sharding) a survey of strategies used in the field. I am a beginner and I am trying to build a scalable image store for fast retrieval and slow writes, and data integrity. <comment><USER2> It is pretty straightforward to do ... the only suggestion I can offer is use a random hash instead of doing it by something silly like a key prefix. The random hash gives you better balancing between the shards. Also check out the recent issue of the communications of the acm. A dude from Joyent wrote about the issues in scaling an image transcoding system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Assume I know nothing about this, where would you go to get started on this any books?

<comment><USER2> This stuff is defn in books ... check out the O Reilly book on MySQL. I think they have a few chapters on this topic.</comment></comment></comment>


Kindle e-book sales overtake paperback books on Amazon.com - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/01/27/milestone-kindle-books-overtake-paperback-books-on-amazon-com/ <comment><USER2> I'm confused, the title says paperback, but the statistics are mentioning hardcover books. I imagine they sell quite differently. Edit: Ah, read the amazon quote for more accurate information.

<comment><USER3> _Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it's on top of continued growth in paperback sales._

Also in the announcement it said that the Kindle books excluded free ones, impressive.</comment></comment>


Red Hat, CentOS and Fedora: Which Is Best for You? - <AUTHOR> https://techplanet.today/post/red-hat-centos-fedora-which-is-best-for-you <comment><USER2> This article has one of the best explanations I've seen of what CentOS Stream is.

I'll summarize my decision tree when selecting the best for my case (which presumes usage of Fedora-based distros already):

1\. Is it a desktop/laptop/workstation? -> Fedora 2\. Is it a server for personal or small business use? -> CentOS 3\. Is it a container image? -> UBI [1] 4\. Is it a server for medium to large business use? A. Existing RHEL subscriptions or is it an important server? -> Red Hat Enterprise Linux B. Else -> CentOS</comment>


Toronto man builds park stairs for $550, irking city after $65,000 estimate - <AUTHOR> http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/toronto-man-builds-park-stairs-for-550-irking-city-after-65-000-estimate-1.3510237 <comment><USER2> As much as I love the idea of people going out and doing it for themselves, this sounds like a liability minefield. If somebody goes over and wrecks themselves coming down these stairs, is the hero of the piece liable for damages? It's a pity really.</comment>


It's Insanely Hard to Make a Kick-Ass iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://www.georgesaines.com/?p=513

<comment><USER2> Are there many examples of iPhone apps that are simultaneously (and somewhat objectively): (1) beautiful, (2) easy to use, and (3) useful, that still don't go anywhere?

I've been trolling around the app store for awhile trying to understand the market and what I see are _tons_ of novelty apps, fugly apps (by anyone's standards), buggy apps, and apps that break usability in all kinds of ways. And judging by the lack of any reviews for these apps, it's hard to imagine they spent much time on marketing, even just sending some free copies to bloggers to get their feedback and see if they might review it.

I'm not saying it's easy to hit points 1-3 above; it's not. But I wonder if a lot of indie app developers threw together something crappy in a few weekends of work because of all the stories out there about the big money being made, and then when it failed to materialize for them, they just gave up.

The App Store has gotten millions of people to collectively pay billions for software made by indie developers, which is amazing. But it's still a _marketplace_ and the normal rules of any marketplace apply.

I would love for an experienced iOS developer making money to tell me if I'm wrong, and why.

<comment><USER3> I have $420 revenue from 285 sales (started $3, dropped to $1) in 6 months from my side project. <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alcohology/id437180278?mt=8>.

Getting attention is hard. Ridiculously hard. Insanely, impossibly hard. I couldn't get a review from a single website. I submitted the app to dozens of review sites, food/drink blogs, and tech blogs and didn't get a single response. Actually, that's not true. I got responses from app review sites that wanted me to give them money in exchange for a review.

I made a trailer that has gotten 2,700 views (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctsk1QVs8OI>). Almost all hits came from a video a friend and minor internet celebrity made for me. His video has 14,000 views. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFn6eW2Kb0g>

I fully admit my app is a niche app, but I think it's worth more than $420. Sites like Gizmodo have run "Best Cocktail Apps" and Apple regularly lists "Martha Stewart Cocktails" in Staff Favorites for iPad. It has approximately 12 total recipes but lots of high quality, high res images.

<comment><USER4> This may sound harsh, but, from the screenshots, your app would fall in the fugly category. On the cocktail screen, you use a bunch of fonts and clashing colors. At first look, I thought the "Tall" text thingy is a slider for glass size. It isn't.

Compare with the Martha Stewart app. It is extremely polished and the photos look gorgeous.

<comment><USER3> Harshness is fair and appreciated. It's not particularly beautiful and it has some usability issues. It's lack of success isn't a total shock, but it is certainly disappointing. The minimum bar for entry right now on iOS is pretty damned high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > the reason why developers are shackled to Objective C is to make sure > processes finish in human time, and this is fundamentally a performance > bottleneck in mobile hardware.

This is completely false. You can get good performance with high level languages like lisp. It doesn't have to look like C to be fast and to be possible to optimize it well.

The whole "writing low level code is faster" mentality is WRONG for 99% of apps.

The software game industry is wrong too.

Abstraction is a good thing, not a bad thing. Abstraction helps us write better code, and can help improve performance. Abstraction is not something to sacrifice for performance; in general sacrificing abstraction _hurts_ performance because the bottlenecks are things like humans understanding what's going on, being able to write good algorithms which is harder with lower level code, and how long it takes them (so how much time is left over to analyze and fix code bottlenecks).

Low level languages _waste time_ while making things harder on programmers. And they do this to no particular benefit.

None of this is to say that Objective C is terrible. It's certainly a lot better than C or C++. It has some good abstraction capabilities. But there is absolutely no reason we couldn't use a higher level language on mobile devices and get better performance for less developer time.

(The biggest real obstacles are things like the unpopularity of lisp -- it would, sadly and irrationally, mean less iOS devs and hurt Apple -- and the lack of high quality programmers who understand these things available to hire to make it.)

<comment><USER6> How is Objective-C a lot better than C++?

What do you mean by "the software game industry is wrong too"?

<comment><USER7> 1) Objective-C is a very dynamic (think Smalltalk), less cluttered and more nicely designed language than C++, that can just as easy fall back to plain fast C.

2) For writing applications, desktop or mobile, nothing in the C++ libs ecosystem comes close to Cocoa/Touch.

3) For the task under discussion (iOS apps), it's the standard that get's 100% of official support from Apple, C++ is not.

<comment><USER6> DirectX is a pretty nice lib in the C++ ecosystem. OpenGL is comparable but I'd argue DX usually leads the cutting edge of graphics capabilities.

<comment><USER7> Yes, it is. But on mobile at least, I don't think there is much difference, is it?

I mean, if Windows Phone 7 uses DirectX, that is, compare to OpenGL ES.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree with two of your three points:

(paraphrasing, fairly I hope)

> Objective-C is too much work/too low-level for your app/required because the > hardware is limited.

Disagree. I wouldn't be disappointed to see solid Cocoa bindings in another approved language, but any programmer can learn C, and should. ObjC is a superset of C, and Cocoa is a beautifully consistent framework. The brackets might take a day or two to get used to, but they pretty much disappear after that. The much talked-about memory management model is not nearly as daunting as bloggers make it sound.

> Designing hugely complex monolithic apps is difficult on the iPhone.

Well, OK. I don't disagree with that entirely. But design is always serious work, information architecture is an art and science, especially for highly complex applications. That said, your app is not Photoshop and a good designer can solve your problems. Photoshop on an iPhone would be Difficult. So would XCode.

> App store discoverability is poor, marketing around launches is > unpredictable, betas and limited releases are complicated or unworkable, > audience feedback is a big problem.

Agreed 100%...! :)

Good luck with your dev!

<comment><USER9> Photoshop is modular, not monolithic.

Designing a large monolithic anything is insanely hard. It's often best to design around it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It's insanely hard to make a kick ass _____"

One of the reasons mobile design is so hard is because you have to use 100% of the screen. Not only do you need to make it look good, but you also need to squeeze the resources of the phone. You have to worry about battery life, network usage, and storage space. It's a challenge, but it makes the end result a lot better.

The same rules really should apply to development on any platforms. Keep it light, simple, and focus on one thing.

<comment><USER11> >>"because you have to use 100% of the screen"

I think the that kind of restrain on the user would make work on native mobile development side easier. All you would have to deal with is 2x views (portrait & landscape) vs all the possible combinations of web screen sizes.

<comment><USER10> >> 2x views Yeah, your right. Even if you consider Android, it becomes just a bit more complicated.

Your point is very true for development (It's what I love about iOS) but for design it's a challenge.

It really makes you focus on the one thing. Take gmail for example. On the web, I can do 20 different things, but in iOS the choices are limited to 3-4. It's really hard to make things simple, so where you make the compromises is the challenge.

<comment><USER11> I was trying to make the comparison to iOS (theoretically iphone/itouch) vs web. Whether you focus on a single native mobile environment or multiple, I kinda think the scales at least from the UX design perspective if not also the development side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "For a generation of coders accustomed to limitless managed memory, high-level programming abstractions, and thousands of deeply functional opensource libraries, mobile is a step back to the Byzantine world of Commodore 64s."

This made me chuckle. Maybe if you define "generation" as "this year's college output" then you might be right, but if we're talking "generation" as in the past lifetime of software development then it's nowhere close.

Only in the last 5-10 years have we seen the rise of the well put together framework.

Also, I have no experience with iOS, but the Android framework is pretty damn nice from the perspective of somebody who actually lived through the C64 days!

<comment><USER12> I don't think it's a lamentation over framework per se, but rather a step back from the web-hysteria of a few years ago, where you can pretty much, with a lot of elbow grease (aka Perl) tie together component A with component B and feed it into component C to do something cool/wicked/useful, where they're all giant open source projects.

Think of all the crazy things we did pluggin ImageMagick into PHP backed by giant MySQL instances.

This is no longer really possible with mobile. I recently pulled in some image recognition libs to my app, and it's an _extreme_ struggle keeping a large, legacy, C++ lib from exploding all over a mobile device. We really are stepping far, far, back from the previous trend of writing code as if the metal they run on is but a detail.

<comment><USER7> """Think of all the crazy things we did pluggin ImageMagick into PHP backed by giant MySQL instances."""

While I agree those were easy to use, I can't think of any crazy/cool things from that era websites.

Most of the cool/useful/nice web stuff is from the Ajax/fast JS/jQuery etc era of late.

"""I recently pulled in some image recognition libs to my app, and it's an extreme struggle keeping a large, legacy, C++ lib from exploding all over a mobile device. We really are stepping far, far, back from the previous trend of writing code as if the metal they run on is but a detail."""

It was never "but a detail", it was just that web development is seldom CPU/Memory-bound. Mobile development in the main is.

Also, if you were trying to do a competent 3D game engine, back in the same era you did PHP/MySQL stuff, you'd see that the PC metal was not "but a detail" at all.

It's also a little contradictory to lament about how easy it was to "plug ImageMagick into PHP backed by giant MySQL instances" and then compare it to the difficulty of not only programming for a mobile device, but also "pulling in some image recognition libs to my app".

Not only you're attempting something much more cpu intensive and difficult than using ImageMagick/PHP for web development, something that could have been just as difficult if not more so back in your web days, but you also try it in a device with less memory/cpu. Something's gotta give, right?

That said, nothing stops you writing plain apps for mobile that just do the same stuff you did on the web. There are plenty of frameworks that basically provide you with a browser view and let you do stuff (Platinum, etc).

<comment><USER13>
        Most of the cool/useful/nice web stuff is from
        the Ajax/fast JS/jQuery etc era of late

Wikipedia, Blogger, Flickr, a bazillion forums on which I spent countless hours. Ajax/JS/jQuery are cool, however when it comes to usefulness many times they are superfluous. The old Twitter interface was a lot more usable.

        web development is seldom CPU/Memory-bound

This is only an impression because the hard work gets done by the database or other external processes that are outside of your web server. Business logic is cheap if you can delegate the actual data processing and when you delegate, of course it's going to be I/O bound. On the whole if you count every component, web applications are the biggest consumers of these resources.

        nothing stops you writing plain apps for mobile that
        just do the same stuff you did on the web

I agree, you can also have a native mobile interface, while the whole logic is done on server. Like in the case of a chess game, you could have the minimax algorithm (or whatever) on the server, with a push mechanism to notify the client when the move is ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> buff-a _But the reason why developers are shackled to Objective C is to make sure processes finish in human time, and this is fundamentally a performance bottleneck in mobile hardware._

I use monotouch. Compiles to ARM assembly. Not seeing any problems.

 _For a generation of coders accustomed to limitless managed memory, high- level programming abstractions, and thousands of deeply functional opensource libraries, mobile is a step back to the Byzantine world of Commodore 64s._

Really? An 8bit 1Mhz processor with 64Kb? Or is it a 600Mhz 32bit processor with 262,144kb. Sure it doesn't match up to my i7, but when java first came out we had Pentium 90s. The lack of ObjC library support is changing as more developers pile on, and if you go with C# then that's pretty much solved.

(As a kid in the UK, you had a ZX Spectrum, a C64 or a BBC Micro. The next gen Commodore was the Amiga. The next gen BBC was the Archimedes. The Archimedes had the ARM2. Same instruction set as an iPhone... in 1988. I shipped a game on it. 100% Assembly. Much prefer C# to hand-rolled assembly, so its not just the new kids.)

<comment><USER13> Yes but Moore's law is applied to phones differently, because battery life is as important as processing power, or even more so.

This is the reason the 600Mhz processor in your phone will have worse performance than a normal 600Mhz processor. Mhz is useless as a measure for performance and it became popular only because of marketing campaigns by Intel, when they had an edge in the Mhz race. A more useful measure (other than running unbiased benchmarks) would be MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and MFLOPS (millions of floating-point instructions per second).

For example an ARM11 from 2002 at 412 MHz was able of 515 MIPS (millions instructions per second), while a Pentium Pro from 1996 was capable of 541 MIPS at 200 MHz. Also an Intel Core i7 EE is capable of 177,730 MIPS at 3.33 GHz, while an AMD Phenom 2 X6 from 2010 is capable of 78,440 MIPS at 3.3 GHz.

Basically your 600Mhz mobile processor is not the same processor you had when playing Counter-Strike a couple of years ago. That's because it is optimized for consumption rather than performance.

<comment><USER14> While I agree with you that the instructions matter, are your numbers x86 (or arm) instructions, or are they micro-instructions that your high level instruction set is translated in to? If so, the other factor is how many micro-instructions your instruction is broken down in to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've found it far less insanely hard than what you need to know to make a kick ass web app.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is it just me or does anyone who seriously thinks any app that resembles "photoshop, but on your phone" is going to be successful really have a strange perspective on what people use their phones for?

</comment><comment><USER17>
      Photoshop's submenus, window management, and setting
      screens afford that software package a level of feature
      depth I don't believe can be achieved in a mobile
      environment no matter how sophisticated and intuitive UI
      conventions become.

I wonder if the author is aware of Photoshop for Android tablets - <https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.adobe.pstouch>

Granted, it doesn't have all the features of desktop Photoshop, but it looks like it has a lot of the features, and it has great ratings.

<comment><USER18> A tablet only app isn't the same beast as a smartphone app. You can throw a large number of menus onto a 10 inch tablet and gain functionality rather than lose it; try the same thing on a 3.whatever iPhone and you'd have an extremely cluttered, useless app.

<comment><USER19> There's also Photoshop Express for the iPhone. It's worth looking at to see what kind of design decisions they've made. [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop- express/id331...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop- express/id331975235?mt=8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > But it won't run on anything less than an iPhone 3GS.

This is a general problem with mobile given how fast the hardware is moving along. And given that the 3GS is what, ~2.5 year old hardware? I don't think that it's crazy that an app won't run on anything less (I do think it's crazy that Apple still sells the 3GS). And I think consumers also kind of expect that if they do have older (pre 3GS) hardware, things are going to be slow. Also, despite the overall evilness of American cell carriers, it is kind of helpful to us mobile developers that they do their best to enforce a 2 year upgrade cycle with hardware.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think making anything "kick ass" is insanely hard. The depth of knowledge/creativity/intuition/etc. required to make incredible products in general is certainly non-trivial.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well, the number one reason why my iPhone is a much less useful device than it could be is that many apps are insanely slow to launch.

Dictionary.com - what do I use it for? As a non-native English speaker, sometimes I do a quick check on a word I'm not sure of. But the app takes so long to launch. It activates GPS, it connects via the Internet to download some obscure data that I don't care about, it does so many things that leave me completely indifferent... and it fails to do the one most important thing that I DO care about: find out the meaning of a word really quick. Like, right now, please.

Sure you can turn off some of the extra features (but not all), sure you can reboot iOS to make it a bit more snappy, but the app still feels sluggish. And this is on an iPhone 4.

Folks, sometimes an app is just an app. All those features that you think make the app more appealing to the customers - are just dead weight that pull it down. Please, keep the apps lean and quick.

</comment><comment><USER23> Marketing is even harder!

Although not an iPhone app, we've spent a lot of time in both developing and marketing our iPad game. But the revenue doesn't justify building another game which we would've loved to do. Developing an app is only half the battle, the other half is marketing it and as developers we are very bad at marketing.

Our criteria for a success was: Polished Graphics, Engaging Gameplay, Sense of Humor and a Cool Trailer.

Paddle Battle for iPad:

<http://paddle-battle.com/>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2gnq6z3Fc>

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paddle- battle/id415463249?mt=...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paddle- battle/id415463249?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER24> Discovery is not the issue. The issue is keeping the app on the device. With so MANY apps new every day, the average person loses track of the new apps they downloaded, and they stop using the older ones unless they really are kick ass.

Spend less on marketing, more in making your app indispensable.

</comment><comment><USER25> The only major problem I see here is the app store itself. Discoverability is a huge problem... It is the one that I am most shocked that Apple has done nothing about. I routinely have trouble finding apps that have been released, and it is easy to get lost in the crowd. My company has released a few apps (we contract for other guys) and it is almost pure luck which ones end up picking up steam (certainly not our best work).

I don't know the android market well... it seems to be better, but only on the margins. I am surprised that noone has come up with a better way.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's no worthwhile "Dip" when it comes to making an iPhone app since it's become commoditized, and crowded. There's a lot of effort, luck, sweat, etc, don't get me wrong, but the cost/benefit ratio just sucks. You're better off putting that sweat to creating an enterprise app for Fortune 500 clients, or creating the next big social network.

Also, remember.. there's a lot of commotion over mobile, but in terms of monetization, it still lags behind web display, and search ads.. it's not even close.

</comment><comment><USER27> Making an iPhone app is relatively easy compared to most app development for the history of computing. Doing it well is significantly harder, but then again so is any craft. I dare say it's quite a bit easier than writing your program on a stack of punch cards and waiting 24 hours for the output. Or for that matter, making a chair that will last 100 years.

</comment><comment><USER28> I.T.O monetization, you can also take the route of not developing iOS apps for yourself and trying to sell them for $0.99. You can instead offer your services to mid-sized companies' marketing departments and build iOS apps for them. You won't make millions if it explodes in popularity, but what are the chances of that anyway?

</comment><comment><USER29> As he talks about the marketing problem for small players, I've just posted an Ask HN survey for Mobile Game Developers to get some feedback on something I've been working on to help small players. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3334832>

</comment><comment><USER30> For some excellent examples of apps in the vaunted league that he mentions, check out Beautiful Pixels.

<http://beautifulpixels.com>

The user interface is everything if you want to compete in the major leagues (e.g. top 100).

<comment><USER31> May get downvoted for pedantry, but the spelling error in the first paragraph on that page drives home the OP's point. There are so many ways to undermine yourself as an indie dev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If your product is that good , Apple does your free promotion on its sites,partners sites and Apple ad network sites for free, App store is just as beneficial to small players as large. You just have to create something remarkable and worthwhile to catch there attention.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think one if the most beautifully designed app loaded with desktop level functionality, yet optimized for mobile, is Intua's Beatmaker II. Amazing. One of the best apps.

</comment><comment><USER34> The fart app guy (his app was the _#2_ fart app in the app store) is retired with a $4-7 million bank account.

</comment><comment><USER35> do android developers have many of the same issues?

<comment><USER36> What I've found difficult to navigate is that while it feels a little like the joy of programming your old C64 (or in my case, Osborne 1), the truth is you're putting your work out there and it suddenly becomes open to both harsh criticism and support expectations - even if you're giving it away for free, without advertising.

My app is for film-makers, and it's called Acacia ([https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ephemerald.cameraa...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ephemerald.cameraassistant)), and I'll fix the bugs when I have time :)</comment></comment>


NativeScript – Cross-platform framework for building native mobile applications - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.telerik.com/valentinstoychev/posts/14-06-12/announcing-nativescript---cross-platform-framework-for-building-native-mobile-applications <comment><USER2> The comments on this post are the lowest quality I've seen on HN for a long time, so I feel compelled to actually make a meaningful one.

This project exposes the native platform APIs to a JavaScript VM running on the device. It does not try to build cross-platform widgets as far as I can tell. This is generally a good idea.

It's much better than WebView and friends because the DOM will always be slow and not have native-feeling interactions unless W3C decides to break backwards compatibility (they won't).

It's also much better than trying to do a "write-once-run-anywhere" cross- platform widget library because those solutions never feel like the target platform either (see Swing vs SWT)

This approach lets you teach your team one language and one set of idioms and then implement across different platforms. While I have some beefs with the details of the implementation it appears to me to be a winning strategy.

BTW: I don't work for Telerik and know nothing about them.

<comment><USER3> "lets you teach your team one language" \- good idea, but why pick one of the worse languages?

<comment><USER2> It's everywhere, and JS isn't so bad that it's unusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the name I was hoping this would be some kind of alternative platform to JavaScript that kept the deployment model and dropped some of the baggage that comes from emscripten-like solutions. Instead, I found the opposite- putting JavaScript in between the app and the platform.

It's a nice idea, and works pretty well. But instead of the idea of JavaScript-as-assembly, I'd like to see a standard bytecode, integrated into the browser as well as JS, designed for apps as well as/rather than document tweaking, with better control over the memory model, data manipulation, and thus performance. We could still run JavaScript, and even crazy C++-emscripten-asm.js stuff on top of that bytecode, but it would enable much faster (startup and runtime) and more power-efficient apps with a much simpler stack.

<comment><USER5> That's call asm.js. asm.js is just a bytecode with a particularly baroque serialization right now; if it is widely adopted expect a more compact serialization to be one of the first "optimizations" released.

asm.js is a really clever play to leverage Javascript to get JS out of the way, while never making it obvious that's what it's doing.

<comment><USER4> asm.js is still stuck with the JavaScript memory model and type system no matter how it's serialized. I would almost be okay with a textual serialization of a language with better semantics.

<comment> vertex-four > asm.js is still stuck with the JavaScript memory model and type system no > matter how it's serialized.

What? You're stuck dealing with ints and a heap of memory... which is exactly what you get when developing native code. On top of that, you can implement any memory model and type system you want.

Are you saying you want a managed VM, so something further away from the processor? What features do you want, and which tradeoffs would it make? Why can't you just implement your managed VM on top of asm.js?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These kinds of frameworks will be quite useful, when mature.

Though -- they're of course tackling a problem that gets harder the deeper you get into it, and has already been tried a few times, never with really great success.

Java's AWT made a "lowest common denominator" kind of cross-platform UI back in the last 90s, and was fairly universally disliked (so Sun made Swing after that, which switched from "native components" to "over-engineered fake native components").

I hope the people building cross-platform UI for mobile devices now have studied the lessons to be learned from previous attempts -- mainly, I suspect, that getting something that kind-of works is exciting and fairly easy, but getting the _detail_ right is grueling, thankless work, and ultimately impossible.

It might be wise for them to start with the hardest, least-cross-platform- appropriate bits, and see in advance what compromises those will force.

<comment><USER7> The application UI is the native one. It's just that you use NativeScript to create it. It's not like an 'ugly' cross platform common denominator.

<comment><USER8> I think you're misunderstanding jtheory. It's not about whether it's native or not - it's about using each platform's idioms and peculiarities which don't exist in other platforms. There isn't a 1-to-1 mapping between iOS UI elements and Android UI Elements. What do you do then?

The Android Spinner is an example: [http://developer.android.com/design/building- blocks/spinners...](http://developer.android.com/design/building- blocks/spinners.html)

There is no alternative in iOS, but if you don't use it in your Android app you are missing out, because people on that platform expect it and know it.

What about Back buttons in iOS? You don't need them in Android. If you are developing a cross-platform UI without using these elements, you are probably compromising the UX of your app.

I am very interested in how those problems are solved. Will try and play around with it.

<comment><USER7> The application you are building will use each platform's idioms. So the UI layer code will be platform specific and can not be reused. All other business logic code will be reused thought.

<comment><USER9> This is often a returning topic here on HN where most users probably work in startups and/or companies with consumer facing apps. Those would want every platform to have the look & feel of the platform you're running on. Although... Seems the new version of iOS Skype is WP8 styled and feels a bit alien on iOS while it's not unpleasant at all. So not sure if I agree always. Anyway; if you have apps for internal use or use with partners, it is actually often better for the apps to be 100% identical on all platforms as that will save tons of support calls. That's why a lot of companies just do iOS first, design it for that and will make the Android version exactly identical. To save time there, often HTML5/Cordova is used for that by internal departments / IT, but I know you can make MUCH nicer apps in the same / less time if you use Xamarin (Forms or Metaframe) (or maybe a solution like this) (although I cannot imagine IT would pick JS over .NET or Java, ever).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are there any screenshots showing side-by-side comparisons between the same app implemented using this technology running on the different platforms it supports?

I looked quickly through the article and the NativeScript web site, but couldn't find any. All I saw was rather useless marketing imagery.

<comment><USER7> You can check the companion apps on Google Play and Apple iTunes. Search for "NativeScript".

<comment><USER11> I've seen iOS UIs in Android apps before, but I've never seen an Android menu in an iOS app before:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nativescript/id882561588?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nativescript/id882561588?mt=8)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telerik.Na...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telerik.NativeScript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is mostly the same as [https://github.com/appcelerator/hyperloop](https://github.com/appcelerator/hyperloop)

I'm very, very curious to try it.

<comment> T-A I haven't looked closely at Hyperloop, but I thought it was meant to be a JavaScript-to-native compiler. NativeScript looks more like plain old Titanium: run JavaScript in V8, with an interface to native UI (and other) APIs.

<comment><USER12> The point is where the Titanium-esque part is built: kernel-land (native) or user-land (JS)? In Hyperloop/NativeScript (as far as I can understand NativeScript) it is done completely in JS-land, so there's no difference between Titanium code and app-code. In plain old Titanium (Ti.Current) the bridge is in kernel-space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone doing Titanium development, this is an interesting development. On one hand, good to see more players getting in to this space, but... Telerik _might_ get some strong traction because of the reputation for UI controls. Most other toolkits I've seen don't come with any, and you end up having to build a lot of stuff that you wouldn't think you'd need to build.

</comment><comment><USER14> Everytime I see one of those, I want to love them. Then I remember how hard it is for those tools to keep up with the OS features. Not being able to add or fix stuff because a new OS version is out and the tool is not up to date (yet) is a total deal breaker.

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

I would love to be proven wrong though! ;)

<comment><USER15> After trying every cross platform framework under the sun, I'm inclined to agree. I can appreciate the talent and engineering ingenuity required to build something like this but I'll take a wait and see approach.

These things are almost constantly breaking so good luck to the team working on this, its a hell of a problem to bite off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting and look promising. Hopefully the announced performance improvements in v0.2 will solve stuttering scrolling in the demo[1] I am experiencing on Nexus4

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telerik.Na...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telerik.NativeScript)

</comment><comment><USER17> Very interesting! To help give some context is it similar to Xamarin's approach but uses Javascript instead of C# as the base language?

Also curious if you will be encouraging/hosting a components store similar to [http://components.xamarin.com/](http://components.xamarin.com/)?

</comment><comment><USER18> I would expect <space> to work like on all other websites... scroll down 1 page, not to the end of content (and beginning of comments) :)

At least they're not breaking the back button, but they are breaking all the keyboard scrolling buttons, such as PgUp/PgDn/UpArrow/DownArrow in FF

<comment><USER19> I don't understand the motivation to override the keyboard shortcuts on a non- interactive page. Nobody ever advertises it, so it's always a surprise. And some places even make it a nearly integral part of the experience, which makes the site almost completely useless on a mobile device. It's like someone said, "hey, let's jerk off back of our customer's heads while they're eating dinner, they'll really be impressed with that."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So does it compile JS to native code for each platform (I highly doubt) or does it utilize a JS interpreter in each platform? If the latter, does it ship the same interpreter or utilize one that comes with each platform?

</comment><comment><USER21> Its using javascript. Seriously? Why? The only sensible reason to us it, is that a lot of users are using it. Technically there is no good reason to use old javascript imho.

</comment><comment><USER22> The name makes me think it's a language, not a framework.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm curious how this exactly differs from Titanium.

<comment><USER24> "No Mac machine required to build for iOS"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> so this is like Appcelerator?

use javascript api to connect with native components and compile...

</comment><comment><USER26> Reading through this thread it appears most are not familiar with what a joke Telerik is, at least in the .Net community where they sell a lot of control add-ons.

Whenever I've had to work with there stuff I've ripped it out every time and replaced it either with a .net baseline control that was actually easier to work with and extend, or wrote my own. Now if I'm considering a job and I hear they are a heavy Telerik shop I know they are probably either all newbies or simply don't know what they are doing and I don't even interview there.

I'm curious, do these guys actually have a positive rep outside the .net community?

edit: typo.

<comment><USER27> I live in the city where their hq is. Here they're colloquially called "the source code mill" or "the source code factory". As in, they take in junior cs students and mill out source code.

A lot of people like working for them because they do take almost anybody and don't have high standards. You could call it the "bullshit job" of CS.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like a lot of companies :) But yes, the target audience for the components is probably the not very technical CTO (company wide or departmental) who believes that this will save a lot of money because stuff can be bought and not built. It'll end up as a few 100(0) developer licenses on a shelf, next to the 20 enterprise CMS licenses, the unused CRM licenses, the magic bullet never touched BI licenses etc.

Edit: typo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I got really excited about this but then saw the pricing page and it immediately killed any further motivation. I feel like they are trying to squeeze every cent out of developers every month. Lot of developers are against subscribing to develop on a proprietary platform.

        $1,299  / developer

That was downright enough to lead me away.

As I recall, a while back, there was another open source solution llvm or something like that which also let's you write cross platform mobile apps with Javascript but have not heard about them since.

</comment><comment><USER29> Opensource? no?! well, thank you but I already have a lot of problems with platform/vendor lock-in in the mobile world.

But if you guys decided to change your mind and open the source, I will be glad to try :-)

<comment><USER17> There are many areas in the article where they describe their plan to open source this. It's in their roadmap for v0.4 projected to be released in Oct. 2014.

Also, "...This is the reason why we decided that once the core framework is implemented we will release the framework code under the Apache License Version 2. We already have an organization on [http://github.com/NativeScript](http://github.com/NativeScript) where the project will be hosted and will be pushing the code shortly - now just go ahead and star us."

... from the section titled, "Open Source - not yet another proprietary framework".

<comment><USER30> I just wonder why they don't do it right from the start?

<comment><USER31> Possibly because there's a load of distracting crap (early/redundant code) they want to clear out before releasing to the public.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Major Update of Vector Class Library - <AUTHOR> https://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=1013 <comment><USER2> From the docs:

        1.2 Features of VCL
        ∙ Vectors of 8-, 16-, 32- and 64-bit integers, signed and unsigned
        ∙ Vectors of single and double precision floating point numbers
        ∙ Total vector size 128, 256, or 512 bits
        ∙ Defines almost all common operators
        ∙ Boolean operations and branches on vector elements
        ∙ Many arithmetic functions
        ∙ Standard mathematical functions
        ∙ Permute, blend, gather, scatter, and table look-up functions
        ∙ Fast integer division
        ∙ Can build code for different instruction sets from the same source code
        ∙ CPU dispatching to utilize higher instruction sets when available
        ∙ Uses metaprogramming to find the optimal implementation for the selected instruction set and parameter values of a given operator or function
        ∙ Includes extra add-on packages for special purposes and applications

(Tldr: this is for CPU vectors and isn't directly comparable to a linear algebra library like Eigen.)

<comment><USER3> > ∙ CPU dispatching to utilize higher instruction sets when available

What's the advantage of hand rolled CPU dispatching over compiler intrinsincs like function multiversioning in GCC/Clang?

<comment><USER4> FMV is pretty neat but there are scenarios where it's not ideal, so I'm not surprised to see it not used in what is meant to be a lightweight high performance library.

Notably the fact that the dispatching is done at runtime means you are trading off the convenience factor for code size and running extraneous dispatching code in your critical path. Additionally I've anecdotally seen on modern Intel hardware the power heuristics can penalize you for even _speculatively_ running some of the wider instruction sets.

<comment><USER3> Am I missing something? The CPU dispatching in this library is done at runtime too... I thought FMV only has a penalty on the first call?

<comment><USER4> Ah apologies, I only took a cursory look at his dispatching logic. It looks to me like it supports both modes, but you have to hand roll the dispatching logic if you want to use it at runtime (but he provides an example). If you _really_ need the runtime dispatch then yeah I'd agree FMV is probably cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why would I choose this over [http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/](http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/) or [https://bitbucket.org/blaze- lib/blaze/src/master/](https://bitbucket.org/blaze-lib/blaze/src/master/) ?

I am just curious.

<comment><USER6> I think these are much higher level with larger vectors.

With vectors he means the low level vectors of the CPU.

So if you want to write your own low level algorithms, without going down to the actual intrinsics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> this is a great simd resource, even if you don't use it directly the source can be a great guide on how to implement various tricky things you often need when doing simd intrinsics programming.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. I've pieced together something like this for [https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/tree/v1/include/simd](https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/tree/v1/include/simd) in C++11, but it only works for SSE2.

</comment><comment><USER9> He mentions using new metaprogramming techniques enabled by C++ 14/17 to choose optimal tuning parameters during compile time. What is the main upshot of this? Are their benchmarks showing they improve performance? Due they improve maintainability? Possibly both?

<comment><USER10> I haven't digested just how it works, but "if constexpr" is used to choose different, more efficient instructions, when "special" permutations are chosen. Here is the implementation for a 128-bit permutation: [https://github.com/vectorclass/version2/blob/master/vectorf1...](https://github.com/vectorclass/version2/blob/master/vectorf128.h#L2402)

Implementation and comments related to "perm_flags" function here: [https://github.com/vectorclass/version2/blob/6b16b1aaa388067...](https://github.com/vectorclass/version2/blob/6b16b1aaa38806704dd308fb731af2ccdfe632c9/instrset.h#L564)</comment></comment>


Space Junk a Growing Threat for Astronauts in Orbit - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/11305-space-junk-astronauts-bigger-threat.html

<comment><USER2> One of my favorite details in Wall-E is how when the ship blasts off from Earth, it scatters a bunch of orbital debris.

Any ideas on how to clean up space junk?

</comment><comment><USER3> Which is a more pressing matter, the great oceanic garbage gyres or the orbital gyres.

How do we fix these? Garbage and space taxes?

We need a garbage x prize for cleanup ideas for both.</comment>


The Four P's: Two forgotten principles of Software Design - <AUTHOR> http://javadots.blogspot.com/2008/05/four-ps.html

<comment><USER2> Here's what I took from that: Don't use Java. ;)</comment>


Spaceengine – explore the galaxy - <AUTHOR> http://en.spaceengine.org

<comment><AUTHOR> "a free space simulation program that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies."

I always liked the idea to explore the universe virtually and being able to land seamlessly on planets. This was really something i hoped come to Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous. But seems there are already some nice indie Sim Engines out there.</comment>


Video shows 10-year-old autistic boy getting arrested at school - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/04/19/i-dont-like-to-be-touched-video-shows-10-year-old-autistic-boy-getting-arrested-at-school/?utm_term=.e61719548254 <comment><USER2> Sometimes I genuinely feel that common sense is lacking when it comes to law enforcement in the US. Arresting people and violence is the first response when it should be the last response.

I wonder why the US, as a country that defines itself as the "land of the free" or "leader of the free world", is so prone to resorting to these kind of extreme actions? There's a certain disconnect between the propaganda and the reality and it's sad because people suffer for it.

<comment><USER3> This is the land of the hypocrites.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I don't disagree, I do think there's a general lack of empathy here; we're so overloaded with information, our senses are always tingling at 11/10, making it even more difficult to understand others or appreciate their version of the human condition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lets get this straight: A "professional" who claims to and is paid for working with developmentally disabled children attempts to physically force a child into a "time out" against his will and is surprised when the child resists... to the point of thinking that criminal charges against a 10 year old is a proportionate response?

Perhaps a new profession for this "professional" is in order. Somewhere where they don't contact people, animals, or scary plants like overly tall grass.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see a case of clueless police here, not the "evil police". They don't apply excessive force and are generally respectful. They execute dumb instructions the best they can; what they don't know is that for this particular child the experience could be 100x more traumatic than for a neuro-typical child, and this child shouldn't have been arrested in the first place, even if he misbehaved.

Instead of blaming police I would see this is an opportunity to educate everyone on the autism and how to properly deal with it. Especially given the fact that April is the National Autism Awareness month.

People talk about diversity and inclusion a lot, in the context of gender or race or anything; I have never heard "diversity specialists" talk about neuro- diversity even though this impact major part of the population. This has to change.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is quite interesting how I as a European citizen often come to think I would understand American culture (because I'm constantly confronted by it on reddit, hackernews, the NYTimes etc.) but get disproved a lot. Is it generally acceptable in the US to handcuff children as young as 10 and take them away from their parents although they appear to not currently be a threat to anyone? (And btw: can a 10 year old even be an actual threat to an adult?) The fact that the boy is autistic seems to be the point of the article and (part of?) the reason for the outrage, but in my opinion the whole process of doing that to a small child is just unbelievable.

<comment><USER7> America is a pretty large country with big cultural differences between different regions. I'd imagine the more authoritarian or puritanical subcultures might be okay with it (who probably are the same people that say that adults who resist cops had it coming when they get shot / killed unnecessarily).

I don't think I know anybody personally (right or left leaning) who would think that it's acceptable to handcuff children like this. I would hope that most people I associate with would think it unacceptable.

At the same time, this kind of thing is so common that I think people have been numbed to it. What maybe could be said is that in general, Americans don't protest this kind of thing as often as they should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There must be very little going on in the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe you disagree, but I believe our country's (USA) treatment of individuals with mental health conditions is extremely important. There is much room for introspection - could we "fight crime" and improve quality of life by treating affected criminals medically in lieu of, or in conjunction with, punishing them criminally?

It speaks to the broader issue of prison reform, not to mention the embarrassing history of how society has shunned, abused, and generally mistreated individuals with mental health conditions.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What podcasts MUST you listen to each week? - <AUTHOR>

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, but there are only a few that I MUST listen to as part of my lifetime learning regiment:
EconTalk - consistently insightful and thought provoking discussions framed for economic understanding
The LSE talks - London School of Economics shares its speaker events with the world
if I want entertainment, I turn to the storytelling shows: Snap Judgment Radio Lab The Moth Story Corps <comment><USER2> While i listen to lots of podcasts these are the ones i learn the most from:

Ruby Rogues Not only ruby stuff but general programming stuff with interesting people

SE-Radio In depth interviews about technical topics

Cognicast Focused on clojure but also interesting discussions about other cs topics

Omega tau podcast german / english in depth interviews about technical topics</comment>


Click Here to Kill - <AUTHOR> https://harpers.org/archive/2020/01/click-here-to-kill-dark-web-hitman/ <comment><USER2> Jesus that was crazy to read...this guy is doing god's work "There is just one reason that a local police department in Minnesota was aware that someone had paid an obscure site on the dark web to have one of its teenage residents killed, and that reason is Chris Monteiro. Monteiro, a systems administrator who runs I.T. security for a midsize firm in London, spends his nights as a white-hat hacker and independent cybercrime researcher, navigating the shadowy spaces of the dark web. Murder marketplaces have in recent years become both his signature area of expertise and his exhausting burden"

Imagine you can pay in bitcoin where AI drone and carry out the hit...all anonymous

<comment><USER3> Now imagine trying to be a politician in that hypothetical world. Make _one_ person angry enough to kill you, and you die.

If you haven't, I recommend reading "Assassination Politics" by Jim Bell. It's an interesting though exercise.

<comment><USER4> > Now imagine trying to be a politician in that hypothetical world. Make one > person angry enough to kill you, and you die.

Politicians already more or less live in that world... it's why they no longer ride in convertibles with the windows down.

<comment> barry-cotter The level of political violence in the US is so low that every time antifa and Proud Boys have a rumble it's national news. If there was a real political violence problem every governor, senator and congressman would have their own security detail. Supreme Court justices sure as hell wouldn't take public transport in DC.

<comment><USER4> And I'm arguing that adding drones and crypto isn't going to move the needle very far. The US already has the Second Amendment, a thoroughly armed populace and a deeply ingrained cultural belief in the necessity of political violence to a free state (watering the "Tree of Liberty" and such.)

Violence isn't going to explode exponentially merely because an efficient market forms to enable it - if that were the case, the US _would_ already be knee deep in blood, because having that is literally baked into its system as a feature.

<comment><USER5> The key here is _anonymous_ market. Random "well-armed" individual contemplating a political assassination is most likely considering it as a suicide attack. An easy-to-use anonymous assassination market would be a qualitative change here.

<comment><USER4> That still assumes there is a large and untapped consumer base of potential assassins out there who are only not killing politicians because doing so isn't easy enough or anonymous.

People like Jim Bell assume everyone is as sociopathic as they are, but most people aren't. Everyone hates politicians, the government, taxes, etc, but most people aren't willing to kill even if they can get technically away with it. Meanwhile, the personality type willing to commit political violence to begin with is already radicalized enough in their beliefs to likely be willing to risk being caught, even if only for the notoriety. There's no real "casual" market, here.

Then, when you consider the fact that most such sites will always be either honeypots or scams, and the fact that people make OPSEC mistakes all the time (DPR,) meaning people _will_ be caught (and thus, people will _know_ that it's possible to be caught,) then it doesn't seem as qualitative a change as it initially appears.

<comment><USER3> > That still assumes there is a large and untapped consumer base of potential > assassins out there who are only not killing politicians because doing so > isn't easy enough or anonymous.

I don't think it does.

Consider that the purpose of a marketplace is to connect people who want to produce a good or service with those who want to consume it. Right now, there is a disconnect between "people who want to kill <public figure>" and "people who are willing to kill <public figure>". A market would change that dynamic.

> People like Jim Bell assume everyone is as sociopathic as they are, but most > people aren't. Everyone hates politicians, the government, taxes, etc, but > most people aren't willing to kill even if they can get technically away > with it. Meanwhile, the personality type willing to commit political > violence to begin with is already radicalized enough in their beliefs to > likely be willing to risk being caught, even if only for the notoriety. > There's no real "casual" market, here.

A market would require two parties: someone who cares enough to pay, and someone who needs the money enough to do it.

If payments are truly anonymous and untraceable, then I'm sure that there are _plenty_ of people and entities out there willing to post the bounty.

If payments are ensured and publicly verifiable, then the consumer here isn't an "assassin" - it's someone who needs money badly. Someone who is suicidal but wants to set their family up for life, for instance - or someone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and sees claiming an assassination contract as a means of ensuring that their family is taken care of after they're gone.

At any rate, it's all in the essay. At the end of the day it's just a thought exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since this kind of scam "murder for hire" site has been around the dark web for a while and apparently, there are people dumb enough to pay them something, one would hope that various law enforcement agencies have set up fake sites and are harvesting erstwhile 'clients'.

However, based on the article, there's an apparent lack of law enforcement interest due to jurisdictional challenges. Perhaps it's also harder to get govt funding for something as 'routine' as attempted murder vs headline fodder like pedos.

I imagine there might be an opportunity for a reality TV producer to create a "To Catch a Murderer" show along the lines of "To Catch a Predator." Once they have a real 'client', they could let the client know a date and time for which they'll need an alibi and then suggest a nearby location that has video surveillance by which the would-be client can establish their presence.

That creates an oppty for the host of the show to approach the client at the alibi location, ostensibly to return the client's money because there are 'problems' with the hit. The ensuing conversation would likely lead to some high ratings as well as broadcast-quality, multi-angle indictment evidence.

<comment><USER7> > one would hope that various law enforcement agencies have set up fake sites > and are harvesting erstwhile 'clients'

This is entrapment, and is therefore highly illegal and in my opinion immoral as well.

<comment><USER8> Given that FBI is famous for catching terrorists 'red-handed' with bombs they provided, who were recruited to commit terrorist acts by FBI agents, and sometimes are mentally ill, I'd say the standard for entrapment is quite high.

<comment><USER9> Are you sure that's real? If so, do you links to further reading?

<comment><USER10> This is a good read: [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the- plot...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-plot-against- occupy-187832/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > In June 2018, news came of a second death from the kill list. Twenty-one- > year-old Bryan Njoroge was found dead in Indiana, shot in the head on a > baseball field. The police ruled the death a suicide. Weeks earlier, a user > with the alias Toonbib had paid around $5,500 to order his murder and > provided details of his upcoming travel. Njoroge was a U.S. military > serviceman who, before he died, had made a female friend the beneficiary of > his life-insurance policy. His father questions whether the death was a > suicide, but the local police department has said that it is aware of the > dark-web assassination order and stands by its conclusion.

It's possible that the police know something the father does not. I would not put it past a suicidal person to order a hit on himself.

<comment><USER12> Ordering a hit on yourself doesn't really make it a suicide, someone has still committed murder

<comment><USER13> I know nothing of the particulars of this case, but a person could order a fake hit and then kill themselves in order to make it _look_ like a murder to ensure the life insurance payout.

<comment><USER11> I mean maybe, if you thought the hit was real and were disappointed when nothing happened you might go that route.

<comment><USER13> Or if you fully intended to commit suicide and were only interested in a hit as a way to make sure the insurance pays out.

Trying to make sure someone gets a life insurance pay out is a really common feature of a lot of stories about suicide.

<comment><USER14> Most life insurance policies actually do cover suicide.

<comment><USER15> After 2 years.

<comment><USER16> Remember to check the terms of your contract, folks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >Now it's easy to purchase bitcoins on any number of mainstream markets and "tumble" them so that their point of purchase is obscured. Similarly, thanks to Tor, accessing the dark web requires only opening a browser and enduring slower download speeds.

lol has the author tried buying bitcoins and then tumbling them? I would not call submitting tons of ID to buy and withdrawal $5000 of bitcoin and then setting up tor and getting a tumbler working to be easy, and not getting scammed in the process. Also tor and tumblers are not necessarily fully anonymous.

<comment><USER18> > _Also tor and tumblers are not necessarily fully anonymous_

Money quote right there.

I'm not sure how many people consider using this sort of thing to skirt the law. But believing in the anonymity of anything on the internet _while_ you're skirting the law has landed many a naive person in prison. Especially if that person was within the jurisdictional reach of the US government.

<comment><USER19> Bitcoin Fog did pretty well during its run. It mixed Bitcoin from at least two _huge_ thefts. At least one of them generated a huge Reddit crowd-sourced tracking effort. And as far as I know, nothing was ever tracked.

I do get that Monero is ~anonymous by design.

But then, how does one buy it anonymously? All I see are exchanges that implement KYC. Using bank transfers and credit/debit cards. Are there any cash by mail exchanges? Or even local meatspace exchanging?

<comment><USER20> There are atm machines popping up where you can go and deposit cash to get btc. They typically have phone number requirements for transactions under $3000 (over requires ID) and they are located in places with cameras (e.g. gas stations/convenience stores), but those restrictions are easily worked around (burner phone/pay a homeless person/disguise) if you have the desire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've read another article related to this about a year ago:

"The unbelievable tale of a fake hitman, a kill list, a darknet vigilante... and a murder": [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kill-list-dark-web- hitmen](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kill-list-dark-web-hitmen)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18767657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18767657)

</comment><comment><USER22> This was a really interesting and worthwhile read despite the two pop ups.

The Beau Brigham case mentioned is sad[0]...guy seems to have been given a shit lot in life (bedridden with illness for 5 years), payed a token $3.50 for an assassination attempt on his stepmother, then received 3 years in jail. No one should allow their frustrations to build up to actionable murderous intent but you I can't help feel for the guy to some extent. 3 years in jail is probably not the sort of help he needed.

That article also mentions how Monteiro is a registered sex offender related to child pornography. This article[1] goes in to more detail, stating that Monteiro had "58 images of child pornography on his computer, most of which he created" and that "he committed illegal acts in order to access content on the dark web. Monteiro said he compromised and shut down websites while obtaining information about the case". Seems like these child porn sites require users to generate content to gain and maintain access.

Hard to tell from the testimony the intent and extent of good or harm Monteiro did around the child porn stuff. There should really be more published details around the sex offender registry - did someone swap nudes with their underage girlfriend or actively film abuse of their kids? There is a massive difference.

Regardless, Monteiro is doing awesome work around the murder for hire business. Really tricky field to navigate, and seemingly quite taxing and unrewarding. He published this cool public data on murder for hire statistics here [2]

[0] [https://calcoasttimes.com/2019/08/15/jury-finds-beau- brigham...](https://calcoasttimes.com/2019/08/15/jury-finds-beau-brigham- guilty-of-trying-to-hire-a-hitman/) [1] [https://calcoasttimes.com/2019/07/31/key-witness-in-slo- murd...](https://calcoasttimes.com/2019/07/31/key-witness-in-slo-murder-for- hire-trial-admits-to-being-sex-offender/) [2] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AICLS8bS6Kh4GgRTWkSf...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AICLS8bS6Kh4GgRTWkSfBe96cKHWwf8EPYiFc3pcgMY/edit#gid=0)

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://web.archive.org/web/20191212221610/https://harpers.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191212221610/https://harpers.org/archive/2020/01/click- here-to-kill-dark-web-hitman/)

[https://outline.com/y7DM9v](https://outline.com/y7DM9v)

[http://archive.is/DHAg6](http://archive.is/DHAg6)

</comment><comment><USER24> The Wired article on the original Silk Road back in 2012 was responsible for driving a huge amount of traffic to the site. Harper's has a smaller readership than Wired and fewer people are interested in pursuing hits than getting high (hopefully), so maybe that won't happen here, but I worry that the article will put these forums on people's radars. Thankfully the clearnet sites that track darknet .onion addresses usually avoid having sites like these listed.

</comment><comment><USER25> Could natural language processing and machine learning feasibly identify who wrote the source code for dark web websites?

<comment><USER26> I don't know about NLP or ML, but the keyword you are looking for for the general process of identifying code authors is "code stylometry".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A headline designed to make me not want to.. click on it. Luckily reading the comments here got me much of the sense.

</comment><comment><USER28> So while I don't really participate in cryptocurrencies anymore I have a basic knowledge of how it all works and have read up on ETH contracts. Couldn't someone create a contract on the ETH network (my terminology might be off) that allows you send a message to contract with a name (maybe more PII), a date, and some amount of ETH to create the system Jim Bell hypothesized?

Obviously a big issue would be "death confirmation" as is how do we know X person is actually dead so we can pay out to the "winner"? I imagine it could be done through some kind of majority system but what incentive would other "donators"/"would be killers" have to confirm a death has happened if they aren't the beneficiary? I'm sure someone clever could think of some way to do it...

<comment><USER29> > Obviously a big issue would be "death confirmation" as is how do we know X > person is actually dead so we can pay out to the "winner"?

Put people on the blockchain, obviously.

<comment><USER30> Well this just gave me a chill down my spine. It isn't too crazy to imagine this happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _Her father gave her a pocketknife, and her boyfriend gave her a bigger > knife to carry in her purse._

Stories like make me appreciate that someone can purchase and conceal a small firearm (in most cities). All things unequal, a person with a gun is always extremely dangerous.

The police, after all, have no actual legal requirement to protect you[1] — and never forget that.

1\. [https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty- protect-y...](https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you- federal-court-affirms-yet-again)

<comment><USER32> Miss Stern graduated high school in 2018, so she is probably too young to purchase or legally carry a pistol — that age is 21 across the U.S., to my knowledge and perhaps with a few exceptions.

I would agree that arming herself is a _really_ good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was sure that TFA would cover the US drone program. That's exactly how it works for the people controlling the drones. Just like a game.

</comment><comment><USER33> Interesting Story. Nice of the journalist to forewarn the suspect so any proof can be destroyed.

Suspect on linkedin I see. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian- fry-366693b2/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-fry-366693b2/)

</comment><comment><USER34> You'd think it'd cost more money to kill someone. You'd have to pay insurance for the assassin. If something went wrong you'd need to pay the costs of taking care of the assassin's family. Whole lotta trouble.

<comment><USER35> Indeed, as revealed in his court documents, Ross Ulbricht paid a lot more more money than this (by an order of magnitude) to have his darknet hits carried out (although he was likely being scammed).

The price mismatch makes me skeptical of this story.

<comment><USER36> > although he was likely being scammed

It was the FBI posing as a "Hell's Angel" gang member. That part was revealed pretty early on after his arrest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Makes be think of slaughterbots based on some comments and concepts touched on here

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw)

</comment><comment><USER38> I thought this might be about a viral facebook post that said something like "click here and a <something> will die" and how many people clicked.

</comment><comment><USER39> Potentially unpopular opinion: This is one of the reasons why we as a society can't afford to allow untraceable electronic money transactions.

Imagine the combination of perfectly untraceable money transactions with actual working low-cost swarms of facial recognition-based killbots/drones.

That's what, maybe 5-7 years away from now?

The risk here is that the cost of a hit could go down to very low costs, say between $1k to $10k per hit/murder. If it goes that low we're screwed as a society, especially if the transactions aren't traceable.

<comment><USER40> Thing is, it doesn't really matter what you "allow". There's no way to enforce it for these kinds of uses. A blanket ban can put it outside of purview of your average mildly curious common person for purposes like, say, buying recreational drugs. But if they have seriously decided that they want to murder someone, they'll find out how to make that payment - and you can't meaningfully trace that short of full online Panopticon (all connections wiretapped 24/7, all Internet access tied to secure real name ID).

There's a lot more coming. 3D printers similarly enable access to stuff that a lot of people would like to get banned, such as firearms and accessories to them. For example, it is already possible to 3D-print a high-capacity Glock magazine completely from scratch (the only metal part is the spring, and even that is bent to shape out of a suitable steel wire using a 3D-printed jig). And it costs about $200 one-off for the printer, and <$1 per magazine thereafter. There are already laws that make doing this illegal in some locations, but again - how do you actually enforce them?

Our societies will have to either go high-tech totalitarian, or learn to live with these possibilities. I hope it's going to be the latter; after all, past societies - before the growth of administrative state with its IDs, registries, accounting, and pervasive bureaucracy - already had to deal with a situation where it was very hard to track a determined criminal. But looking at the evolution of surveillance and police power laws in modern developed democracies and China, it's probably going to be the former.

<comment><USER39> My informed gut feeling is that legislation is surprisingly efficient.

Your tangent on 3d-printing aside: If we decide to make cryptocurrencies illegal, I think that will solve like 80% of the problem. Given the tradeoffs involved, I think that's worth doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What an amazing, jarring read.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hard to not come away from this article with a sense that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations are simply incapable and unwilling to do their jobs.

For example, this sentence: "The FBI has a mandate to pursue only those crimes that violate a federal statute." Sorry, but how can a crime over the Internet like this NOT violate federal statutes? It's impossible. By definition all these crimes would be pursued at the federal level.

Then there's the description of the interview where they interviewed the husband and wife together despite the husband being the main suspect. That's like pulling the plug on your server and wondering why the website's down. Beyond incredibly stupid to the point where it's hard to believe that actually happened. Those agents should themselves be charged for facilitating that murder.

I won't bother to go into the failing of allowing the identification of the British guy who placed the hit either by not allowing his ex-gf to read his messages. How dumb are these fucking cops?

The whole piece reads like a story of police, FBI, and law enforcement failings at every level. It's practically guaranteed that hits are taking place online and this is law enforcement's response? Making things worse or at the very best, fucking up investigations with their extreme stupidity.

</comment><comment><USER43> Too many popups I quit

<comment><USER11> Stock firefox, default tracking protection. I received a single nag about free articles that was easily dismissed. One first-party subscription ad at the bottom of the right column, another at the bottom of the article. No other ads of any kind.

<comment><USER44> I got two. For those that don't know, a good portion of these nagging modal windows play nice in the sense that pressing ESC closes them - good to be able to instantly dismiss them without having to hunt for the close button. The first one I saw could be closed with ESC, the second one required clicking "Close".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> so this 'journalist' Brian Merchant has not been able to prove shit, but he felt comfortable enough to dox someone, full name, and accuse him of being a murderer based on 1. his ex's suspicions and 2. the fact that he refused to give an interview?

I suppose before you do this sort of thing you make very sure that your target is not rich enough to sue you for defamation.

<comment><USER46> It's safe to assume that Harper's legal team have a lot more information than we do, and that this information was sufficient for them to OK this story.

Don't forget how complicated the world is. If something looks too simple to be true, it probably is.

<comment><USER45> I imagine the legal review goes like this: "he's not rich, he doesn't have a social media following, and if we spin this shit right everybody will think he's a creepy stalker-slash-murderer so nobody will stand up for him. What's he gonna do, _actually_ put a contract out on us? Yeah, print that shit."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> >After a few minutes, Monteiro succeeded in hacking into the site with stolen administrator codes and installing an automated script that scraped the entire site every three hours and dumped the data on his server.

Ugh, fuck off. I think the big question here, the one that should be at the top of the article, is "Has a hit ever been purchased and carried out via darkweb sites", and the answer is "obviously not, lol".

<comment><USER48> Someone didn't read the article :-)

> While I was working on this story, journalists at BBC News Russia confirmed > the first known case of a murder being ordered on the dark web and > successfully carried out by hired assassins.</comment></comment>


Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - <AUTHOR> http://www.hpmor.com <comment><AUTHOR> Lots of good suggestions on the previous discussion too: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053606)</comment>