Plundervolt: Software-Based Fault Injection Attacks Against Intel SGX [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://plundervolt.com/doc/plundervolt.pdf <comment><USER2> At this point, I really don't understand how people can still believe that SGX is ever going to work. The threat model is so incredibly hostile that it is basically impossible to create something that isn't vulnerable through some kind of side channel or physical manipulation such as this. When it is compromised at just one site, then the whole security model topples. In the end, you will only be able to "securely" deploy it in environments where you trust the parties to not tinker too much with it. But in that case, why not just go for something a lot simpler when you already rely on trust?

<comment><USER3> The idea behind sgx is that you don't need to trust your cloud provider.

There are already simpler solutions for local execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These kinds of brownout/undervolt attacks have been used in console cracking for decades.

Surely someone involved would have known about that. I wonder what chain of events led to the creation of a secure enclave with such well understood flaws.

<comment><USER5> While the premise is similar, this is much different from the decades old brownout attacks. The researchers are causing the undervolt with software, not by manipulating the supply lines to the chip.

<comment><USER4> Yes but not really? Intel just made it easier than oldschool hardware attacks:

> adversary abuses an undocumented Intel Core voltage scaling interface

Instead of having to buy hardware to mess with the power rail in a controlled manner, you can now just do it with a code snippet!

<comment><USER5> And you can do it remotely. But the certainly made it easier because this is (presumably) behind the brownout detectors and other circuitry usually attached to the supply lines to combat this sort of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understanding how screwing with the voltage can cause execution errors. If a random flop somewhere in the design flips state (or fails to when it should) the resulting behavior could be anything, including hanging the chip.

How does such a random event get turned into an exploit?

<comment><USER3> There are a bunch of different methods but the old school method was mainly to make a control point to make an incorrect decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't you think Intel's "fix" of disabling DVFS amounts to a post-release product downgrade?

<comment><USER8> All their security fixes are. My 2 year old laptop feels noticeably slower in day-to-day usage now. I haven't tested it, but I would bet a small sum of money that it would go back to its original 2-year-ago performance with mitigations=off specified to Linux.

If I can't undervolt anymore, then my laptop will be unable to run the CPU at 100% without thermal throttling. Not Intel's fault that Dell used a shitty cooling system and a too-high default voltage, but it's yet another penalty that I have to take because Intel failed.

<comment><USER9> Intel is playing a dangerous game if you ask me. AMD lost a class action lawsuit because someone was disappointed in the performance of an AMD chip even though all the performance metrics were available for them to research[1]. Intel is still selling hyper-threaded processors. You cannot buy an Intel laptop that isn't pre-configured to be vulnerable to Zombieload[2], unless you find one of the 4 obscure Intel chips like the Core i5-8500 _B_ Processor in a laptop

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/8/28/20837336/a...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/8/28/20837336/amd-12-million- false-advertising-class-action-lawsuit-bulldozer-chips) [2][https://zombieloadattack.com/](https://zombieloadattack.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most comments simply missed the point.

Power analysis attack and power glitch attacks are well-known in cryptography and electronics. The classic technique is to monitor the Vcc voltage and current on an oscilloscope and try deducing the internal operation of the chip and extract the secret, or to inject a glitch by on the Vcc rail to induce a fault. A classic side-channel attack, but these attacks required complete physical control over the hardware, and you need to put a dozen of probes on the motherboard in a lab with an elaborate setup, so it was typically not a concern unless it's a crypto key or something ( _if so, it would be done on a separate security chip with physical defense internally_ ).

But this attack showed that, since every CPU and SoC now has builtin dynamic voltage scaling and power management, by using these features, you can use the CPU to launch a power analysis attack against itself, and you don't even need to touch even a single trace on the PCB, the attack can be launched remotely, and all you need is root access!

This is frightening. Who knows what is going to be the next.

</comment><comment><USER11> Terrible for those of us who use undervolting to keep their laptop as cool as possible. I hope they allow it enabled in the bios settings.

<comment><USER12> "After carefully reviewing the CPU voltage setting modification, Intel is mitigating the issue in two parts, a BIOS patch to disable the overclocking mailbox interface configuration. Secondly, a microcode update will be released that reflects the mailbox enablement status as part of SGX TCB [Trusted Computing Base] attestation. The Intel Attestation Service (IAS) and the Platform Certificate Retrieval Service will be updated with new keys in due course. The IAS users will receive a 'CONFIGURATION NEEDED' message from platforms that do not disable the overclocking mailbox interface."

Seems like you should be able to just avoid applying the bios patch. That said, you won't be able to keep your BIOS up to date.

<comment><USER13> But then again, the researchers state: "In the paper, we show that Plundervolt may affect SGX's attestation functionality" so they are apparently able to fake at least part of the attestation.

Also it will be interesting to see whether directly talking to the voltage regulation controller on the mobo will circumvent the microcode protection.

<comment><USER10> > _whether directly talking to the voltage regulation controller on the mobo_

Is it even possible to do that without physical access?

Can you confirm that? Do modern motherboards expose an interface that allows directly control over the voltage regulation in software without physical access?! If so, it's terrifying...

<comment><USER13> I am talking working around attestation for someone who operates the computer and wants to subvert SGX enclaves. Whether you need physical access or not is thus inconsequential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Intel just keeps getting kicked in the nuts, huh

There is no way to get _the most_ performance out of your Intel chip without undervolting - especially on mobile, they run really hot under constant load and often throttle. Manufacturers using barely capable heatsinks doesn't help.

Time to switch to AMD when the new Zen mobile chips arrive.

<comment><USER15> Honestly, I was considering to return to AMD while getting a new system. This is the final nudge for switching back.

Thanks Intel, you really tried and succeeded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is no such thing as a "trusted" computing.

The very same DFVS is also possible to exploit for side channel attacks. Say, one branch makes the processor kick in in a higher gear, and over millions of branches, you can reliably deduce branch result for operation behind the MCU barrier.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder, with formal verification being a thing, could you formally verify that a chip would be resistant to all types of power attacks according to the current laws of physics?

Such a proof can never be final, because the laws of physics aren't either. But just because it's not perfect doesn't mean it wouldn't be good.

<comment><USER17> An Intel CPU is a pretty large design. I'm not sure it's feasible to run all formal verification benchmarks on a full RTL design of the entire chip, including caches, memory controllers, etc.

Not to mention - these sort of fault injection attacks are way past issues in high-level RTL, and instead are in the post-synethesis, analog/metastable domain specific to a given target process. Simulating those effects sounds prohibitively expensive, and I'm not sure there is any existing formal verification suite that can even do that.

Unless someone modeled at a higher-level that modifying an MSR can cause undervolting, and then this undervolting can in turn cause bitflips to occur, this wouldn't have been caught. And if they did model it, they would have probably thought of this attack anyway :).

<comment><USER18> > An Intel CPU is a pretty large design. I'm not sure it's feasible to run all > formal verification benchmarks on a full RTL design of the entire chip, > including caches, memory controllers, etc.

Agreed. It's still possible to verify smaller components of the design, though.

> [...] These sort of fault injection attacks are way past issues in high- > level RTL. [...] Simulating those effects sounds prohibitively expensive, > and I'm not sure there is any existing formal verification suite that can > even do that.

It's possible to have a "high-level RTL" design that inherently resists some types of fault injection attacks. TMR is a trivial example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_modular_redundancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_modular_redundancy)

In fact, there is a wide body of literature studying the application of formal verification to side-channel and fault-injection analysis. Some systems can even synthesize a fault-injection resistant design. Unfortunately it is not realistic to be resistant to "all types of [fault injection] attacks according to the current laws of physics". We _can_ , however, make different models of fault attacks and then prove (or synthesize) that some design is resistant to attacks in that model.

If you're interested, look for publications in CHES, TCAD, FMCAD, DAC, DATE, etc. with keywords like "DFA", "DFIA", "SAT", "fault injection", etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Important caveats, for the lazy:

\- SGX is disabled by default, it has to be enabled for this exploit to be relevant

\- POC requires privileged execution, at which point you can safely assume all is already lost

Anyone who has spent time around digital logic circuits will know that messing with voltages will cause errors. If the power lines are too low some transistors will not be able to switch their load. Or too high and you will cause parasitic losses or capacitance in unexpected places. This is actually a really nice attack to show off to people with an interest in computer/electrical engineering because it demonstrates how a basic design constraint can cascade in unexpected ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> > SGX is disabled by default, it has to be enabled for this exploit to be > relevant

This is an attack on SGX. If you are not using it, it is irrelevant regardless of whether it is enabled.

> POC requires privileged execution, at which point you can safely assume all > is already lost

For SGX, this is different. The threat model behind SGX is that anything outside SGX (including OS, BIOS, motherboard, etc.) is untrusted. The whole motivation behind SGX is to create a trusted environment in an untrusted host.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> isnt Netflix using SGX for DRM?

<comment><USER15> Not on the client side, at least. My desktop doesn't have SGX capabilities, yet I watch Netflix.

<comment><USER21> They use it on client side for higher resolutions, you will not be able to watch 4k content on laptop/PC without Intel SGX.

<comment><USER15> Actually my plan is not UHD since my displays don't go up to 11. Do they warn me if they block UHD streaming due to hardware deficiencies (i.e. SGX not available)?

<comment><USER21> Possibility to choose 4k quality will not be available on that kind of platform (Widevine L3).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone have a ELI5 explanation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Intel SGX is a Secure Enclave embedded in Intel CPU, which aims to provide secure and trust computation environment. For example, storing and processing cryptography secret keys, etc. It is similar to the enclave in Apple A chips used in Touch ID/Face ID. Currently, there is no wide adoption of SGX in the production environments, mainly due to the attacks like this.

In this attack, the researchers found that by adjusting the voltage and clock frequencies of the CPU, they are able to generate errors inside SGX enclave and recover the secret keys inside.

<comment><USER23> IME lack of adoption is more due to lack of tooling and integration with popular languages and libraries.

Also, the domains that have the most to benefit from SGX (heavily regulated ones like healthcare) tend to be very slow adopters of new technology.

I guess there is definitely some level of concern for sidechannel attacks, given Intel's track record, but I don't think that's whats been holding back adoption.

<comment><USER24> It also requires a very expensive license from intel, and to allow them partial control of your code via codesigning.

<comment><USER25> No it doesn't. Getting a whitelisted code signing key just requires you to agree that you won't distribute malware. You pay nothing for it and Intel don't see the code you sign. Please don't make things up because they "sound right".

<comment><USER26> Are there non-Intel remote attestation servers now?

<comment><USER25> Only Intel know what chips they've manufactured and what microcode patch levels are currently considered secure, so that wouldn't make much conceptual sense. But the new DCAP feature lets you run some of the RA infrastructure yourself, yes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What has happened to agile? - <AUTHOR> http://gastonnusimovich.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/twelve-years-after-what-the-heck-has-happened-to-agile/

<comment><USER2> A nice article by Alex from 2007: [http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Great- Pyramid-of-Agile.a...](http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Great-Pyramid-of- Agile.aspx) In particular, I like this sentence: "a simple, painful truth: you have to know what to build before you can start building it."</comment>


The Document Liberation Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.documentliberation.org/

<comment><USER2> How is this really better than Office Open XML?</comment>


Show HN: Mailtrigger, web endpoints that trigger an email notification - <AUTHOR> https://mailtrigger.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> In order to finally advance my knowledge in Elixir and Phoenix, I decided to create this project today. You can basically register web endpoints that trigger an email notification when they are hit. Can be used for exception notification, IoT devices and much more.</comment>


Amazon S3 now supports Object Versioning - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/amazon-s3-enhancement-versioning.html

<comment><USER2> Now somebody should re-implement git/mercurial on top of S3.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Normal S3 pricing applies to each version of an object. You can store any number of versions of the same object, so you may want to implement some expiration and deletion logic if you plan to make use of this feature._

Hehe. Users of VMS learned pretty quickly the DCL command to set the number of versions to 3 or so. That way, they would only have "note.txt;32", "note.txt;31" and "note.txt;30" around, instead of running out of disk quota with all the versions down to "note.txt;1".

One of the filesystems for CDs (UDF ?) supports this.

<comment><USER4> This is a deal breaker IMO. Pushing responsibility onto the application isn't going to work.

What was needed from S3 was something more like filesystem snapshots, where the cost is proportional to the amount of changed data. Or deduplication.

I was hoping S3 would get this right so I could just fling database backups at it and my bill would increase, but only a little. Maybe JungleDisk will work out a way so this can still happen.

<comment><USER5> I agree - while this new feature from S3 makes sense for a segment of users, just like in normal S3 usage, the complexity is left for the client application to deal with. This is a non starter for most companies.

Full Disclosure - I am an employee of Nasuni. We just (today!) launched a versioned, encrypted filesystem sitting on top of cloud storage (including S3) (<http://www.nasuni.com>).

You are right to point out that this implementation put the burden on the application developers. The fact that each version is a complete copy of the object means that your storage growth could be massive depending on your write pattern.

For example, take MS Word - the number of changes generated when editing a file means that if you were to use this feature directly you could end up with hundreds of versions of that single object.

This is a good feature that will apply to certain types of S3 users, but those S3 users will not likely fall in the class of generic file/file system application users. Amazon is the only cloud vendor that supports this right now - if you plan on using multiple cloud storage vendors you'd need to consider a design a cloud-neutral application yourself to handle this.</comment></comment></comment>


SoWink Alpha - <AUTHOR> http://www.sowink.com

<comment><USER2> "SoWink has the safety of our female users in mind—instating multiple levels of security..."

So, the safety of male users isn't important?

<comment><USER3> Exactly what I was thinking. I expect the assumption is that male users are the security threat that females need to be protected from.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let me clarify. The safety and security of women tends to be far more important and of a concern than men. That is not to say that we don't care about the security of our male users, but rather we focus more on the safety and security of women as a priority.</comment>


Should we stop keeping pets? Why more and more ethicists say yes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/01/should-we-stop-keeping-pets-why-more-and-more-ethicists-say-yes <comment><USER2> Having grown up in a pet-friendly family, I have started to think about how we view pets as property. For the most part, being a pet does have advantages to the animal involved - they get a warm, dry bed, regular food and someone to play with. For many, that's a substantially better life than living feral. But we do restrict the animal's freedom in the process.

I realised back in my teens that I have no right to keep a caged animal. As a family, we lost a lot of rabbits due to foxes, and had a procession of hamsters. If I have children, they won't be allowed caged animals, ever.

On the flipside, I love cats, mostly because they are highly independent animals. A cat will keep coming around so long as it benefits them; the scheming little creatures hold grudges. Dogs, by contrast, are sometimes subject to horrifying abuse and will still trust humans. Behaviours like this have probably been deeply ingrained in animals as part of being domesticated.

It is wrong to keep an animal against its will, I'm starting to appreciate that now. But I would find it very difficult to give up the idea of keeping a pet cat - they're reliable companions, and probably some of the lure is that they don't talk back, like family members.

I'd heard about the numbers of shelter animals killed (let's not beat around the bush here, they're not 'put to sleep', that's the nice term for an animal with a terminal condition. These are healthy animals, and we as humans have decided they need to be owned like property) every year. Though I am astonished to read that people used to have their animals killed and buy new ones when going on holiday - that's disturbing.

It's difficult to answer. I think a balance can be struck with mutual respect - so long as the animal has a reason to stay with you, and isn't restricted from breaking off on their own, I don't see a problem.</comment>


Pioneering gay dating startup seeks replacement founder - <AUTHOR> http://norbauer.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/lovetastic-looking-for-a-new-adoptive-home.html

<comment><USER2> OkCupid would be a perfect fit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree! Know anyone there?

<comment><USER2> No, but you can always try <http://www.okcupid.com/contact-us>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> fabulis seems like another good match.</comment>


Mozilla's Open Web Apps Makes It's Debut - <AUTHOR> http://techsplurge.com/3013/mozillas-open-web-apps-makes-its-debut/

<comment><USER2> That post is not well written. It's hard to tell what they mean. This may be inaccurate, but all I got from it was:

 _"Chrome Web apps,failed to gain a lot of popularity,because it functions more like a website than a web app"_ ... _"It failed to interest the developers as well."_ ... _"Well, after a long wait"_ we are going to create web apps too.

<comment><USER3> I actually think Prism was the first concept, they started it before smartphones got apps(tores):

<http://prism.mozillalabs.com/>

EDIT: ok, maybe the iPod was first ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its Debut.

</comment><comment><USER5> What is up with the erratic commas and spacing in this article?

<comment><USER6> English as a second language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> terminology is being muddied by calling these 'web applications'.

how about 'browser apps'? or just, something else</comment>


ObamaCare's New Theory of Employment - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303496804579365091252549588 <comment><USER2> Their conclusion, while ingenuine, is not surprising. Since the Bancroft family sold the publication, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has become a propaganda mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch.</comment>


Rush: the ruby shell - <AUTHOR> http://rush.heroku.com/ <comment><USER3> Slightly embarrassingly (is this bad form?), I feel I should point out my _really_ rather new and beta shell, Urchin:

<https://github.com/Spakman/urchin/>

I really like a lot about existing shells like Bash and Zsh, so it operates much like a standard shell - pipelines, job control, redirections, tilde expansion, aliasing, globbing, etc.

However, actual shell scripting feels really grim, so sometime in the near future (hopefully) it will be able to pipe into Ruby when needed. This will let you write Ruby directly on the command line, without escaping quotes and such and should make loops and custom shell functions much more fun for a Ruby programmer.

I also fancy experimenting with some things I've not seen in other shells - fuzzy filepath completion, per-project history, etc.

Any ideas are welcome!

<comment><USER4> Your vision sound much closer to what I was hoping Rush would be. I don't think it is bad form at all to mention it.

Not sure if this exists in Bash at the moment in the various/terminals and consoles but a searchable history of the commands I've run would be handy. Also, some easy way to get command history in segments (maybe allowing me to comment my command history and pull everything from one comment marker to the next) so I can make a repeatable shell script out of the correct set of commands once I get the commands right.

As another idea to play with, if there is a way (probably using github) to index shell recipes others have made and look them up on the command line, that could be fun. So I could do "urchin search 'postgres 9 snow leopard' and grab someone else's command recipe to build postgres if one is out there.

<comment><USER3> Nice one - I'm glad I'm not the only one where this type of shell sounds like a good idea!

I'd definitely like some clever types of history management. I've not looked too closely at those facilities in other shells (I would guess some of them have some cool ideas), but it sounds like we can certainly come up with some more!

I'm going to quickly lose track of this thread if I'm not careful. Do you use GitHub? Can you contact me there so we can stay in touch more easily, please?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Neat if you don't know the unix shell and you do know the ruby shell and I guess you work in a strictly ruby environment... but doesn't really make things easier, and many tasks may suffer performance wise when it comes to text processing compared to the standard unix shells & commands.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know that this is a pedantic criticism, but isn't that convoluted "kill stray mongrels" command just a simple pkill? The first example is made excessively complicated as well (why not just grep -c)?

Certain things are definitely annoying to do with just the standard set of UNIX tools, but not knowing them well certainly won't help.

<comment><USER7> _The first example is made excessively complicated as well (why not just grep -c)?_

"grep -c" is great if you know it. The problem is it's a trick which only works for grep, and learning and keeping track of all of these tricks for every tool you use is a real pain. Never mind that "grep -c" will never be as flexible as wc.

It's more reliable to follow the Unix philosophy:

 _Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together._

<comment><USER8> _"grep -c" is great if you know it._

This is a tough criticism, since "wc -l" is great if you know it too. And that, in the rush version, you need to use .lines on the result of .search() in order to get something you can call .size on to get the exact result you want (because it seems you can't just call .size on the result of .search(), I suspect that would just return a count of files where the string appears at least once).

In that vein, with a pipeline, you can look at each bit independently and reason about it. You can't reason about what .size returns (lines or bytes or whatever) without looking at what is immediately to the left of it (and then you have to know that .lines returns an array and that .size is returning the length of that array). And you have to know that whatever .lines returns actually has a .size method. wc -l always counts lines, no matter what its context is, because it's only ever dealing with text based input, never more complexly structured data like objects or arrays. This may or may not be what you want, but it does lend itself to wider (re)usability.

<comment><USER7> I think you've mistaken my argument as being against pipelines, but in fact I was arguing _in favor_ of pipelines and against one-off tricks like "grep -c". Yes, "wc -l" needs to be memorized, but _once, for everything you ever wish to count_ , as opposed to once for every command. In this respect, "grep -c" has the same problem as you pointed out concerning "lines".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally, since I am not an expert in shell commands and always work using python, I use IPython for all the shell needs. Works pretty awesome.

Here is how you go about it, for those interested:

[http://ipython.scipy.org/doc/stable/html/interactive/shell.h...](http://ipython.scipy.org/doc/stable/html/interactive/shell.html) [http://magazine.redhat.com/2008/02/07/python-for-bash- script...](http://magazine.redhat.com/2008/02/07/python-for-bash-scripters-a- well-kept-secret/)

Seems like, Rush is the ruby counterpart of what IPython is in python.

<comment><USER10> It's indeed comparable. I've used IPython for quite a while, and though it's great, I somehow fall back to using bash every time.

Conceptually, I like Python much more than shell script, but it seems I end up having to type and think more when simply using it as a shell.

When I get to the point where I actually need a real programming language such as Python to express what I want to do, I generally make a script and don't type it in the shell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How about a Linux distro where Rush is used for startup and admin tasks, Gems are used to install everything, and besides the kernel and the VM, just about everything is in Ruby?

I know there was a RubyOS once, where they were trying to use Ruby in place of the shell.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this is pretty cool. I've wondered what a ruby shell would look like. I don't "get" bash at all, but I find ruby very natural. I've gotten better at writing bash one-liners for basic sysadmin tasks, however anything more complicated is hopeless. I've found it easier to write chef scripts to automate any server task than using bash.

The ability to easily execute commands on several remote servers is really appealing. At work, I only need to be able to ssh to 5 different servers and I frequently don't have a free screen terminal.

<comment><USER13> _I think this is pretty cool. I've wondered what a ruby shell would look like. I don't "get" bash at all, but I find ruby very natural. I've gotten better at writing bash one-liners for basic sysadmin tasks, however anything more complicated is hopeless. I've found it easier to write chef scripts to automate any server task than using bash._

I'm no sysadmin, but I think you're doing it right as is. Scripting languages and DSLs like Chef are designed to be a better solution for those problems than shell scripts.

It's kind of funny, in a way. Perl was originally a scripting language for sysadmin tasks designed to replace shell scripts, that matured into a programming language, that influenced the Ruby programming language, from which we have a Ruby shell in which, presumably, we can write shell scripts again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good work but just shy of being 3 years old (I posted about it on Ruby Inside in Feb 2008). A lot of old stuff resurfacing on HN recently it seems - <USER2> we should be dropping the "N"? ;-)

<comment><USER15> Hacker reNews?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> While I agree that bash and Co. are somewhat unintuitive and their syntax a little bit weird, the examples of commands Rush is supposed to make easier are intentionally made complex. That prevents me, as a potential user, from seeing how exactly would Rush appeal to me for administration and everyday tasks..

</comment><comment><USER17> First I thought this was a replacement for irb, which would have been welcome.

Firstly, this will never have the adoption of bash, sit down on any Linux and you will be familiar. If you get used to shell and a normal human being which will have some delay context switching it will be a performance hit (same argument I'm sticking with qwerty for now)

Secondly, bash uses a domain specific language to tangle your fillesystem, simple things are simple, and unfortunately harder things Gerald blinked in the process. This comes with the overhead of learning some unintuitive things about ruby (blocks anyone?).

<comment><USER18> As an alternative to irb, you may be interested in ripl, <http://github.com/cldwalker/ripl>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well it's an interresting project, although i fail to see the improvement over a regular bash/zsh shell.

> bash and ssh, we love you, but your era is past.

I'd love for that to be true, but let's see how their first example does compare against bash/ssh:

        local = Rush::Box.new('localhost')
        remote = Rush::Box.new('my.remote.server.com')
        local_dir = local['/Users/adam/myproj/']
        remote_dir = remote['/home/myproj/app/']

        local_dir.copy_to remote_dir
        remote_dir['**/.svn/'].each { |d| d.destroy }

versus

        remote=my.remote.server.com
        local_dir=/Users/adam/myproj/
        remote_dir=/home/myproj/app

        scp -r $local_dir $remote:$remote_dir
        ssh $remote "find $remote_dir -name .svn | xargs rm"

Okay so, bash/ssh is a tiny bit shorter, but that was to be expected.

Contrary to bash reputation, there is a lot less hard to type line noisy characters in the bash/ssh version than in the rush one, namely all the |[{ etc of the ruby version.

In my opinion, due to the reduced line noise, the bash/ssh version is a lot easier to read too. But it's less self-explanatory, in that scp/ssh commands are replaced by full names.

One might argue that the rush version is more conceptually elegant, because everything is objects, and you can streamline treatments this way, but :

\- Even if this isn't true for bash, in practice it's the same thing, because connection strings are treated like hosts by all relevant programs, directory strings like directories by all relevant programs, etc. You lose in typing but not in usability

\- This is in a context of a script where the authors considered it was better to actually have variables for everything, so that, i guess, the thing be better configurable, readable, and reusable. That's a good goal, but it's not always necessary.

Let's see how "raw" versions of the two compare :

        scp -r /Users/adam/myproj/ my.remote.server.com:/home/myproj/app
        ssh my.remote.server.com "find /home/myproj/app/ -name .svn | xargs rm"

versus

        root['/Users/adam/myproj/'].copy_to Rush::Box.new('my.remote.server.com')['/home/myproj/app/']
        Rush::Box.new('my.remote.server.com')['/home/myproj/app/**/.svn/'].each { |d| d.destroy }

The verboseness is of course worse when you don't declare variables. Let's be honest, i don't often declare variables for one off commands on the shell. I use auto-complete and i'm done with it. And for having typed this rush example by hand, i can assure you i'm not really ready to type that again anytime soon.

So i seriously doubt something like rush can replace something like bash/ssh. The benefits are likely to show up for bigger operations, where lots of people already use perl/python/ruby anyway because bash is a PITA for any serious programming, but bash still seems a lot more usable as a "shell", and i kind of understood this was the purpose of this.

</comment><comment><USER18> For those interested in ruby shells, there's also a framework for building ruby shells: <http://github.com/cldwalker/ripl>

</comment><comment><USER20> I can't imagine taking the effort to learn and use a new shell. That said, I'm always grateful when people try to end the chicken-egg problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally, I hate bash. Besides having syntax which is totally foreign to me, which I forget every after every time I attempt to learn it, it is _extremely_ slow.

Besides that, I like structured data in the form of an object vs parsing _everything_ from text.

However, this really is more of a unix criticism and less a bash criticism.

<comment><USER21> You use something like bash or zsh when it is convenient rather than to actually do anything with. If you are finding it slow use python, perl ,or something else to do your task; the real power of the shell comes from the easy access to all the unix tools that work well for their singular tasks. That power would be the main criticism I would find with the ruby shell, it seems so foreign and without access to the tools available (unless of course it is using them on the backend) but piping and other one off things would be interesting to see as examples because right now this shell looks like ruby with some libraries added in (sorry not a ruby programmer so I don't know the proper term)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A ruby shell in a ruby based editor (Redcar) working on ruby projects might be productive as a mental context-shift free way to work.</comment>


Ask HN: just bought my first iDevice (iPad) - essential apps? - <AUTHOR>

My first iDevice since my (now unused) 1st gen iPod touch. Right now I just have fb, twitter, spotify, pandora, gmail and Dropbox. What am I missing? Also: best HN app? <comment><USER2> Well, if you want a "hardcore" game that works really well (user-interaction wise) on the iPad, get "Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition" - a game originally released for the PC about 15 years ago and one of the best in it's genre (CRPG).

One word of warning though: this version is still quite buggy and might be considered an alpha release. Very enjoyable game though and I'm confident Beamdog will release updates in the coming months to further improve gameplay and reduce bugs.

Might also want to download the "12 days" app by Apple. Near the end of the month they will give some apps / music / books / etc... away for free. Last year got (among others) a "Broken Sword" (adventure) game this way.

<comment><USER3> +1 to Baldur's Gate. It's the right mix of nerdy humor, deep gameplay, and play-for-15-minutes you want in a thoughtful iOS game. It's also sold me on picking up Baldur's Gate II from Good Old Games once I'm done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three must have apps: Goodreader: PDF reader which also plays audio and video, it's like having a proper file system on the iPad. I use this endlessly

Awesome note: great note taking app with todo features, link to calendar and great organizing features.

iThoughtsHD: mind mapping par excellence, and the author is really responsive to new ideas; he implemented a feature to automatically number sections so I could use the software for work breakdown structures

<comment><USER3> Yes on Goodreader. It's amazing if you're constantly trying to manage a collection of textbook PDFs or academic papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Twitterrific for a no-frills Twitter client with a clean interface. The antidote to Tweetbot.

NextDraft is a great "summary of the day's news" app. No frills, no Newsstand subscription, and it's free.

The NYT app is a bit unstable, but it's arguably the best Newsstand app (yes, better than The Magazine, which is too barebones for me). You also get top stories for free.

Check The Weather gets you hourly rain forecasts (using the Dark Sky API) as well as daily/weekly weather.

Xbox SmartGlass is great for the 360 gamers here. The second screen is useful for, say, checking challenges or K-D ration in Halo 4.

</comment><comment><USER5> I just started using Textastic to code the next issue of our iPad magazine and I LOVE it. Freaking awesome app, can't say enough good things about it. On an iPad 1, never crashed, always smooth, its just a blast to use.

</comment><comment><USER6> Recently, I've been addicted to Ticket to Ride (board game).

If you like music (or have kids), check out Tiny Piano (shameless plug, as I'm the developer).

For typing notes, I like Daedalus.

Also consider checking out the Anomaly graphic novel. You get the first chapter for free. It's interesting to see if this could be the future of graphic novels. (It's a big download.)

</comment><comment><USER7> What I use: chrome, flipboard, iSSH, sketchbook pro, pages, evernote, kindle, iBooks, dropbox, AvPlayerHD, garage band

</comment><comment><USER8> Instapaper, Google Authenticator and Google Chrome and Youtube Player, 1Password.

There is no good HN reader app

</comment><comment><USER9> Penultimate

Paper by 53

^^my inner designer coming out^^

<comment><USER3> I also like Note Taker (forget if it's HD or Pro) for notes. It lets you zoom in on a part of the page and write there, which gives you a ton of control over how your page is laid out. Great app for going paperless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Prompt for SSHing into servers. ia Writer for writing.

</comment><comment><USER11> As in apps for developers or just apps in general?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just apps in general - I am a developer though, so geeky stuff interests me. Not necessarily apps _for_ development though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Angry birds.

</comment><comment><USER13> Chrome</comment>


Ask HN: Expertise in Data Modeling - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I have a basic understanding of Data Modeling concepts and am looking to improve this.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Might want to checkout Zipfian Academy if you're in the bay area! [http://zipfianacademy.com/](http://zipfianacademy.com/)</comment>


How America Fractured in 1968 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/us/1968-history.html <comment><USER2> I'm seeing a body of growing evidence that the _long-term_ fracture was due to the War in Vietnam:

* it created anti-government groups like the Weathermen

* it spurred activist groups on campuses around the country to stage admin building take-overs, sit-ins, and attempts to disruption to the war draft

* it created a group of Veterans-- like John Kerry-- who came back and described for the general public horrific war crimes committed by U.S. servicepeople

* it created an even larger group of veterans who came back and described a war which-- even if the serviceperson believed in the aims of the U.S. gov't-- was clearly unwinnable

All of those things led to the use of federal resources domestically to try to quell the growing anger and violence against the war.

There is just no other way the national guard would be deployed and end up _firing_ on students without the war.

Without that war, you would have had an older population who thought the younger generation was naive, wrong, lude, and in some cases immoral.

With the war you had one side thinking the other was becoming a growing existential domestic threat to the country.

Sound familiar?

edit: clarification

edit 2: Don't forget that toward the end of his life, MLK Jr. spoke out against the war and ended up _splitting his own base_. (Oddly the article doesn't mention that.)

<comment><USER3> I watched Vietnam In HD (great series) and I came away with many of the same observations that you did.

Do you feel like this was also a generation that missed their chance to be "men"? What I mean by that is that in all past memory, men had gone off to battle and were welcomed home as heroes. This was different, and I feel like in some ways led to the emasculation of the American male. They missed their chance to be heroes like their fathers had been in WWII. The women's rights movement also started at the same time. It was a complete upset to the social norms that had been established in society.

<comment><USER4> A contributing factor to this phenomenon is the overwhelming presence of news cameras in that war. In previous US wars, the news was censored under war time powers. In Vietnam, citizens watched every night in gory, uncensored detail, what was actually happening. Of course time takes it's toll as the war drug on with no meaningful resolution.

<comment><USER3> Very good point. It also underscores the rise of television, which imo contributed to the fracturing of society that has been most fully realized now via social media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was eight in '68, and remember it well. The shootings, especially the Kennedy one, the strange Mexican olympics, the Czechoslovakia debacle, the American election, TV of longhaired protesters, and of course Apollo 8, which at the time I considered by far the most monumental event of the year- and still do.

The Vietnam war made no great impression. It was a constant stream of background noise in my European childhood, I don't recall one single specific episode of it, let alone any idea what the whole sorry thing was about.

<comment><USER6> If you're curious in retrospect, I found this to be the best book I've read about the entire Vietnam period. (along with historical context before and after)

[https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley- Karnow/dp/014...](https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley- Karnow/dp/0140265473)

Granted, there's a lot we know now that wasn't known at the time (e.g. MACV- SOG's pre-Tonkin activities and concealment of same from Congress, or the serious consideration of tactical nuclear weapons during the Battle of Khe Sanh), but if you're into history it's a good read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've recently read an account of that time by UC Berkeley professor and it was terrifying: young men terrorizing and using violence towards students and professors during classes, setting fire and planting bombs/dynamite on university buildings, openly calling to killing policemen on radio stations. It seemed like their program was pure anarchy and destruction.

<comment><USER8> Why not link that account?

Mentioned in another comment:

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

> Military intelligence officer K. Barton Osborne reports that he witnessed > the following use of torture:

> > The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my > detainee's ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The > starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of > being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local > villages...The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached > to...both the women's vaginas and men's testicles [to] shock them into > submission

Yes, I bet a some anti-social people used the protest movement to engage in their own oppression ("killing pigs" and "killing commie charlies" is the same thing in a way), but using them as a fig leaf is blatantly profiting of _their_ deeds to hide yet _other_ vile deeds, and to smear the best parts of a generation that at least tried.

That professor may never know even just one first-hand account of a person murdered as they looked away, and in turn may never know the life they actually lived. People don't like to hear that, but sometimes, who you think you are is just a shiny consolation price for being distracted from what you're actually serving. People can fool themselves and beyond a threshold, they're usually too weak to ever stop fooling themselves. They fell down the gravity well, let them serve as a warning. See them, see the well, and judge their words accordingly.

<comment><USER9> Moral-based violence is the worst because the people actually believe they are doing you a favor as they force you to accept their world view or face the consequences. They establish new totalitarianism and feel they make the world a better place.

Late teen and early twenty-something kids have some amount of knowledge, but zero experience. We are reliving the same problem today. Antifa, just like the protesters in the 60s are a bunch of naive kids led by people exploiting that naivety for political gain.

<comment><USER10> > Antifa, just like the protesters in the 60s are a bunch of naive kids led by > people exploiting that naivety for political gain.

Just like the kids the US government sent to Vietnam. That war _was_ "Moral- based violence" and the idea that the counter reaction was the real evil is insane.

Edit: There are plenty more recent examples of the government using moral justifications for war - "They hate our freedoms". "Axis of evil". "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists".

If "Moral-based violence" is scary, the US government is its number one peddler, not the protestors.

<comment><USER9> I'm against it when it's students 50 years ago or the government today. What if they had "won"? We'd have the same problems and evils -- only the leaders would be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It says radio tv and papers were it, then.

Having lived pre internet news days i am a minority that can truly describe how it was a different world back then. Our world is so much better because tv radio and newspapers matter so much less. We have to think for ourselves and decide which topics are newsworthy:not have others coax and decide what is important.

Long live the internet

<comment><USER12> I graduated from high school in 1968 and I find that media and its contents _including the internet_ are more centralized and homogeneous now than they were then. The internet did not not just add to the mainstream media, it replaced some of its most interesting parts and replaced much the underground media that existed alongside it. In those days it was not just Time/Life/Newsweek/ABC/NBC/CBS, you could also find on the newstand left- and dissident journals like Ramparts and Evergreen Review, and their right wing counterparts. And, some of the contents of the mainstream media itself were higher quality and more varied. Compare a current issue of Esquire or Rolling Stone - now mostly entertainment industry promotion and fluff - with a 1968 issue, where they had very long articles by authors like Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Oriana Fallaci, and many more. Beyond that there was a thriving world of underground papers and newsletters with contents ranging from sharp and pertinent to crackpot, with odd and sometimes wonderful DIY production and design. Not just print media - the FM radio station I listened to was literaly underground, their studio was in a church basement. People organized huge demostrations using these DIY media. Yes, it is probably easier now for a random person to get their opinions in front of a lot of eyes, but most of these carry little information, they mostly just repeat what the writer has seen/read elsewhere - and it appears on the same homogeneous platform with everything else. It takes a bit more energy and ingenuity to express your opinions or self-expression in a self-published mimeographed or xeroxed newsletter, but it contributes more variety and might even make a bigger impression.

<comment><USER13> Agreed, "real" alternative voices were more noticeable back then. On the newsstand, in the library, in a magazine everyone read, at a campus talk or on TV. Noam Chomsky used to appear on PBS when was young - now you have to go to RT (literally!) or other foreign media like AJ/BBC/DW to see anyone outside the dualistic status-quo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In a college architecture course we were asked to write a paper on 1968, with little other guidance. I remember digging in and being surprised at how pivotal that year was. In 2016 I found myself thinking about that paper, feeling like we might be living through a year that future professors would ask their students to write about.

</comment><comment><USER15> The US has always been fractured, the country wasn't even created by choice as much as necessity. The whole Electoral College system is in place to keep it politically unified.

There comes a point were States like New York and California are better off alone. As it stands today large parts of the US are underrepresented. A suburb in Miami is more important for the presidential election than all the votes in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is related in time and U.S. Political scene: the documentary "Best of Enemies" which centers around ABC's coverage of the U.S. Presidential party conventions hosted by William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal. It also analyzes their histories and it analyzes the rise of identity politics in the U.S. And this identity politics / these debates perhaps showcase the ideological fracturing of the U.S.

> > [http://www.magpictures.com/bestofenemies/](http://www.magpictures.com/bestofenemies/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I must be alone in thinking that times are pretty good and the US is not fracturing, and today is nothing like the late 1960s or 70s.

Crime/violence:

Both violent and property crime rates are way down [1].

My home region of the Ozarks (SW Missouri, NW Arkansas, NE Oklahoma) is much safer than when I was in jr. high and high school (1995-2001) when there was a huge amount of rural violence associated mostly with the meth trade. I had friends and neighbors killed both purposefully and incidentally with this, none of whom were users or involved in the trade in any way--just children or landlords or neighbors or whatever. We used to get out of school because the cops would be raiding meth labs within shooting distance of the school. This has largely subsided. There is definitely violence associated with the opioid crisis, but the deaths have been overdoses and suicides at least among the people I know.

War:

There are definitely some nasty and protracted conflicts abroad, but, unlike in 1968, the US is not mired in them and losing thousands of soldiers a year-- Wikipedia gives 4,491 deaths for US soldiers for the entire Iraq war, for example. Not that it wasn't a horrible and unnecessary loss, and several orders of magnitude worse for Iraqis than the US, but this was also the case for Vietnam (and Cambodia, Laos, etc). While there continues to be strife in the Middle East and a few other places, and I worry about Africa being a major site of east vs. west proxy war in the coming decades, globally the situation seems more peaceful and democratic than in the Cold War or the colonial era.

Societal issues in the US:

There is a lot of sound and fury, but protests are largely peaceful. The protests involved with Ferguson, Charlottesville, etc. were much more mild than in the 1960s, or the race riots of Tulsa (1921, 39-300 deaths, 10,000+ people left homeless [2]), LA (1992, 63 deaths [3]), and so forth.

Gay rights were granted largely peacefully as well--lots of progress here, though it wasn't frictionless.

Similarly, the recent wave of defenestrations of powerful men due to sexual abuse is to me a net positive even if there are inevitable witch hunts associated.

Domestic terrorism seems to be less of a concern. I don't know about rates but from what I understand there were a lot of bombings from both far left and far right sources in the 1960s and 1970s. We haven't had any high-profile political assassinations in a while.

The rise in single-parent households is a concern. I have no idea how much this reduces the incidence of domestic violence as moms don't live with abusive dads. Maybe a little?

Homelessness is also a major concern but is slightly decreasing over the past decade, not even accounting for population growth [4]. I have no idea how it compares to the 1960s or so. I think a lot of mentally ill people were institutionalized then, which isn't the case now AFAIK.

The economy:

Parts of the economy are good (stocks, general employment levels), and though there are still problems with stagnant wages for many, debt levels (particularly student loans), and housing prices in many places are terrifying (I'm living in SV on a pretty meager nonprofit salary, because my wife has a great job that pays OK). But it's a lot better than it was a decade ago, or in the 70s. There are still huge issues with medical care that need to be resolved, but at least lots of people are employed as paper pushers...

Inequality is a major concern, I concede. And I worry about an upcoming stock market crash.

I think it's possible that trade work will pay better and better, and as more tradespeople rejoin the middle class communities (neighborhoods, school districts etc.) some of the inequalities of social status between the higher- income blue-collar work and lower-income white-collar work will dissipate.

The environment:

Way better than in the mid-20th century. We have a lot more protected lands than in the 1960s, and air and water quality are much improved (thanks, Nixon!). From Wikipedia:

"In the United States between 1970 and 2006, citizens enjoyed the following reductions in annual pollution emissions:

\- carbon monoxide emissions fell from 197 million tons to 89 million tons

\- nitrogen oxide emissions fell from 27 million tons to 19 million tons

\- sulfur dioxide emissions fell from 31 million tons to 15 million tons

\- particulate emissions fell by 80%

\- lead emissions fell by more than 98%"

Without looking stuff up, I think that the broad population shifts from rural and semi-rural to urban and suburban since the 1950s are decreasing the pressure on the environment; national forests in most places are recovering from the ~1850s-1950s logging period.

Climate change is bad, forest fires are bad, the decrease in insect populations are probably quite bad and may indicate a very rotten ecological foundation. However, the _effects_ of climate change aren't directly tearing our country apart at present; the _debate_ over it (and the underlying struggle for power and authority between science and government vs. church and business) is or did contribute. Once agriculture begins to fail in the Great Plains and CA central valley, it'll get real.

\---

Honestly, I don't get it. Sometimes I think things have been decent for long enough that we've forgotten what it was like when things were really bad--the Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, Vietnam, etc.

I also think that a lot more of the seeming chaos is that more voices are included than previously, particularly from marginalized communities.

This aren't perfect, but are they awful? Or are we just bored and riled up about small matters such as the rhetoric of our politicians, or their seeming inability to get stuff done?

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

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

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots)

[4]: [https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/health- ca...](https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/health- care/homelessness-u-s-trends-demographics)

</comment><comment><USER18> As side note: gif with nytimes article headlines are totally useless on phone, not readable at all

<comment><USER19> What gif? I only found a couple and they were at the bottom of the page in the related article stuff.

<comment><USER20> There are graphics simulating push notifications of 1968 news every few paragraphs, captioned "Photo: Associated Press". They animate only once, so try reloading?

I agree that it animates a tad too quickly, and that the animation really isn't needed.

<comment><USER21> I think figgis may be responding in a sarcastic way and trying to point out that those are not animated gifs, but are actual HTML page elements, animated with CSS. If you view on desktop and use a browser DOM inspector (like Chrome Dev Tools) you can verify that this is the case.

To be honest I'm quite impressed that NYTimes went this length to create these technical widgets. Do they have software engineers or web developers working in conjunction with journalists on articles like these? Seems like a relatively high cost of production.

Although I'm not a fan, I have to say in this case it does do its job quite well, which is to demonstrate how having twitter news would feel like back in the 1968s~ time.

<comment><USER22> >> To be honest I'm quite impressed that NYTimes went this length to create these technical widgets ... Seems like a relatively high cost of production.

That's because the article is really just an advertisement for TimesMachine, a subscription newspaper archive. I didn't notice it at first, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > It was also the year of the Tet offensive, an enormous attack by North > Vietnamese forces, and of more than 16,000 American deaths in the Vietnam > War, more than in any other year.

Sigh...half a century later the Tet offensive is called "an enormous attack by North Vietnamese forces".

How about an enormous attack by "South" Vietnamese forces, like the National Liberation Front? Who took over the American embassy in Saigon, the "North Vietnamese forces"? It was a local NLF C-10 Sapper batallion. The North Vietnamese attack had its main thrust toward the Vietnamese border, the ARVN's I Corps Tactical Zone. Further south it mostly aided the NLF (and local populace) uprising.

The Tet Offensive was costly to the NLF - after years of fighting the French, the Americans, and their Vietnamese collaborators, the NLF was somewhat worn down, and the Tet Offensive was kind of its last hurrah. From 1968 on, the resistance in southern Vietnam became more dependent on North Vietnamese aid.

Insofar as "North" and "South" Vietnam, these themselves are created entities. In 1940, Vietnam was under the control of the Vichy French, who were somewhat hostile to the US. Then it fell to Japanese control. In March 1945, the Vichy French were completely ousted. The OSS was arming and supporting Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, people like Archimedes Patti.

At the end of 1945, the French wanted to take colonial control of Vietnam again (Ho Chi Minh had declared independence with a very pro-US speech and policy, seemingly approved by local American government officials). The French did not have the manpower to take over Vietnam though and asked the English for help, as French/English interests were not 100% US-aligned (see Suez crisis). The English did not have the manpower either so they sent Nepali Gurkhas to take back Vietnam. Many events took place in the next weeks and months, I can't go into it all here, including the British rearming the Japanese to fight against the Vietnamese.

So years of guerilla warfare ensue between the Vietnamese and French colonialists, ending in the 1954 Geneva conference. There, a promise for elections is made. Also pledged is reunification. The US is not a party to the conference.

Eisenhower says in his memoirs he could not allow elections as Ho Chi Minh would have won. So the US starts a policy against the promised elections and reunification. Like the Japanese, French and English, the US at some point invades southern Vietnam. It begins a war against the mostly southern NLF resistance, which includes not just communists but Buddhist monks, Vietnamese nationalists etc., all of these comprise the NLF. Of course, on the long war from 1954 to 1975, including things like the Phoenix Program where the CIA went around south Vietnam murdering school teachers, newspaper columnists and anyone seen as being against US forces being in Vietnam. By 1972 the US began pulling out, and was ousted in 1975. By then the southern resistance forces had been decimated (along with millions killed in the south) and the "northern" forces had become more prominent.

<comment><USER24> The strangest thing to me was how pro-US Ho Chi Minh was and how strongly we ignored that, largely for a policy of colonialism that everyone already knew was dead. France doesn't catch near enough crap for that.

We should have told France to stuff it.

<comment><USER25> Should have? Yes. Could have? Probably not. No one in the US gave two shits about French Indochina, it was all about Western Europe and containing the USSR/Communists during the scramble to pick up the pieces after the war. France had a large Communist party that was a key part of the resistance during the war and maintained a good reputation after, and large proletariat revolutions had a historical precedent in France that probably scared US government officials to death. No matter how much he was hated, you backed de Gaulle over the alternative so that you only had to worry about Eastern Europe and not have a grenade explode in the middle of the continent. Not a good choice, but even in hindsight it seems like there were not a lot of good options available to the US.

<comment><USER26> > _Should have? Yes. Could have? Probably not. No one in the US gave two shits > about French Indochina, it was all about Western Europe and containing the > USSR /Communists during the scramble to pick up the pieces after the war._

And what exactly business was of them to contain anything in foreign countries?

<comment><USER25> It was no more the business of the US to contain the USSR in Western Europe than it was the business of the USSR to violently repress any possibility of democracy in Eastern Europe and install puppet governments in same. Realpolitik is a bitch, but better to understand the real world than pretend that some fantasy of how things "should" work is a useful guide.

<comment><USER27> Very well put. I would say that containment went too far (even Keenan thought so later in life) but violent class struggle and Communist takeover was exactly what was being pursued by the Soviet Union. Although initially the hope seems to be an international coalition of workers under Communism (i.e. there would be no need for an invasion, workers from all nations would unite under its banner) the Bolsheviks quickly crushed that idea by turning the first truly communist state into a virtual dictatorship, and crushing any opposition using violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If the NYTimes' tweets had the same level of quality as their pretend tweets from the past, I'd follow them.

<comment><USER29> Do you mean the would-be push notifications? That's the same level of quality as what they do for current events. The push notifications are in the top three reasons I pay for the Times. I can't recommend a subscription enough.

<comment><USER30> Do you have a sample of what the current ones contain?

<comment><USER31> "No one is bombing Hawaii"

<comment><USER30> Not sure I need to spend $15/mo to know that. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jony Ive Is Making People Uneasy - <AUTHOR> http://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2016/8/25/jony-ive-is-making-people-uneasy <comment><USER2> At least 4 things:

1) Apple had iPod and iPhone, 2 massive hits, most companies are lucky to get one. The hangover will be long.

2) There doesn't seem to be a lot of 'meta' thinking. Watches have been around. Cars - definitely a big lateral move, but what does the car do that is special? Is Apple able to make initiatives that are more than the sum of it's parts?

3) Apple would not exist without tech foundations. Engineers delve into areas that are boring to designers. Without engineering leadership ... the designers won't have the building blocks they need.

4) Software. Software at Apple is lagging. So much focus on physicality, and UX. What about that the fact that my 'Notes' app on Mac is a POS and doesn't work? It's broken. iTunes is slow and crappy. The UX keeps changing in odd ways. Weird things happen on my Mac. Are there problems in the foundation?</comment>


Next Facebook Killer - <AUTHOR>

What could it be? any ideas?
This is the technology industry which means that you can't stand around for a long period of time without expecting or preparing for another entry. There are other startups coming in the scene addressing this issue of "privacy" and "open source" etc... With time Google and Microsoft will follow as well as VCs looking for potential candidates... MySpace could have re-designed their interface and added relevant features to stay competitive rather than switching their focus which was their main down turn. Ex. Microsoft buys yahoo to compete with google... no success.. Microsoft creates bing (sort of like a copy of google) and takes a good share of the market.
Facebook "basically" gave users what myspace and friendster had + some more in a very nice and easy to use format (even though both companies had largely taken over the market based on our expectations at the time - p.s. expectations change). Is that what a startup can do in this area to potentially "viral" and gain AT THE LEAST 100,000 members? Ex. StudioVZ, Chinese facebook copy etc...
Expectations of a market take over can now be defined as 500 mill members and in 2004 and on myspace was considered at the top of its game etc... you guys probably see what im getting at. But 2004 and now is a huge difference with access to computers, technology and cell phones being extremely convenient so is 500 mill a REALLY BIG NUMBER or Can it get even BIGGER in the future? <comment><USER2> There won't be any "facebook killer", instead the entire social netowrking buzz will gradually cool off over time. Facebook will remain the center piece "hub" of social networking, while audience interest will shift towards niche sites and apps, and most of them will be heavily integrated with / rely upon fb's api...

</comment><comment><USER3> Facebook will remain as long as people support it. In the short history of the net we have seen sites come and go with little more reason than they simply became passe. AOL had all the makings of a facebook (every ad on TV/poster had AOL Keyword:"...") but focused on their dial-up margins. MySpace had it but failed at modern design. Geocities, TheGlobe, etc, etc, had potential to do it before that. So many sites have come and gone in a social space. And now, where FB has picked up the slack they still can't replace the numerous forums out there where people really congregate to interact with "not friends".

Eventually, I believe, FB will be passe. And whatever out there is quenching people's social interaction thirst will thrive. Yes, it will be bigger because there will be even more people hooked up to the net.

</comment><comment><USER4> I imagine that it won't be an all inclusive social networking site- it will instead, be a collection of sites that focus on single features (work, education, social groups, hobbies and so on). People are going to just grow out of this everything model- especially those that have been using it since high school (even grade school). There is something to be said about staying in touch with people from your past, but realistically how much does one have in common with an acquaintance from 15 years ago? I would venture to say that even the most active facebook users reduce their usage within the first few months and this trend continues as one transitions out of being a student.

<comment><AUTHOR> you may be right but there are others who say that everything is moving towards a more universal location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Let's assume facebook stays the basic social networking layer but most of the time people spend, and most of the data they give will be inside facebook apps. not so good for facebook.

Zynga/farmville is a great example of such process.

I'm not sure that one application will replace facebook, probably few/many games and virtual worlds.

<comment><AUTHOR> impressions are still in favor of facebook..

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> there would have to be an app that -with a single click- would migrate an account over to a new site. Certainly FB could block this. Otherwise ppl are too lazy for the most part.

<comment><AUTHOR> you mean just export facebook account to this new social network? facebook would eventually block it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think looking for the next facebook.

Doesn't seem like facebook is going to be "killed" anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> The next 'FB' will come from India

<comment><USER9> Thanks for your trust on India...your prediction might come true...

<comment><USER8> It's the market potential, rather than the country of origin, that I make and support my statement on. Though India is home to many intelligent and dedicated developers, I believe the next 'FB' killer will be developed in the States, but not for the States [market].

<comment><AUTHOR> Orkut is quite strong in India... but theres plenty of market still to capture there so I Wouldn't be surprised if a couple of networks tried to capture that market...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think that, the "Facebook Killer" will be something entirely different to what Facebook is today. The reason is based on a few things but look at all these "Google Killers" - Mahalo, Cuil, Blekko, DuckDuckGo etc with the exception of Bing none are really seen as a threat to Google. Cuil has deadpooled, Mahalo has changed business model and we're only really seeing what Blekko can do which goes to prove the idea, that for something to beat Google/Facebook its going to have to be something new. Such as the evolution, of Facebook becoming a threat to Google so much so they are focusing more on social aspects with +1 etc.

However, going back to your question and looking at it with regards to "open source" issue you raised, its important to note that at Facebook they are very open to the idea of opensource having, released many things into the open source community themselves - <http://developers.facebook.com/opensource/> and Facebook even provide a public mirror - <http://mirror.facebook.net/> of many open source services. This shows that, an "open source" service won't kill Facebook - look at Dispora (the "open source" Facebook) that hasn't worked which goes to show that, if something is going to "kill Facebook" then it won't look like Facebook.

For instance, Facebook doesn't look like Google but as I highlighted earlier Google are noting Facebook is becoming someone considered a competitor - especially if they move into search - which is why they are focusing on +1 etc.

Additionally, there's actually an interesting article about the Facebook Killer not looking like Facebook posted by Mashable's Pete Cashmore on CNN here: [http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-26/tech/cashmore.facebook.ki...](http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-26/tech/cashmore.facebook.killer_1_facebook- social-network-digg?_s=PM:TECH) which is also worth a read.

<comment><USER11> I think it's silly to make claims about Diaspora having failed, when the project is still in its infancy. These things take time.

The Diaspora effect isn't just about Diaspora - it's about all the other projects like it and the fact that they are trying to standardize how these sites can communicate. If they succeed, then social networking becomes a bit like e-mail, and Facebook becomes a bit like AOL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Disapora picked up media attention to early in the game... That kind of coverage may not happen again or be entertained by people who were once engaged... Concept can remain but surfacing it to the public will be difficult.</comment></comment></comment>


The defiant stand by Yanis Varoufakis in the E.U. economic negotiations - grey-area http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/magazine/a-finance-minister-fit-for-a-greek-tragedy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hm, I never thought I would come to admire a Greek politician. He is really superb. What the article failed to notice is the EXTREMELY deep domain knowledge this guy has. He literally blows everyone out of the water!

In his last interview (on Monday 18 May 2015, at tv show 'enikos') he made a quick reference to BTC stating that it's not going to work 'very well' as a currency but the underlying technology was amazing and sure as hell will heave many real-world applications in the future. He was accused of talking 'macro- economics' at the Eugogroup, as if the 'Eurogroup' is the 'kindergarten' where people are not supposed to have basic macro-economic knowledge.

Really amazing guy. I'm proud he is my FinMin.

UPDATE/OFF-TOPIC: I see many comments that are disheartening for me as a Greek on a _national_ level. However, I also noticed a lack of basic economic concepts from large parts of the HN crowd. I'm talking about those who take the time to comment.

I noticed the same thing in bitcoin-related post discussions. Ultimately I stopped commenting on the subject because there were many people who clearly understood the theory around the protocol bad had really a very narrow (if any) understanding of how macro-economics, currencies, surpluses and public finances (generally speaking) work.

This is something that puzzles me and I can't find any reasonable explanation. In other domains, like biology, molecular biology, medicine - domains which I'm able to understand at some level because I'm a pharmacist - the HN commentators seem to be extremely prepared.

I wonder if I'm the only one who noticed this (for the specific topic of economics at least) or there are others who think that when talking 'economics' or some other topic, the HN crowd is, on average, not well prepared and the comments are not up to the expected level?

Sorry for the huge comment, have a nice day everyone :-)

<comment><USER2> For your question about HN comments and Econ:

If you are discussing molecular biology, it's easy to tell that you don't know anything. Not that no one makes mistakes about the subject, but at least there is a sizeable group of people prepared to say "I know nothing about that"

Economics is something that everyone participates in. This increases the ease of having an opinion about it, and decreases the number of people willing to say "I know nothing about that"

As for Bitcoin, that may be partly due to the halo effect. Bitcoin has an effective technical base. That can lead us to assume that all aspects of Bitcoin are effective.

(Note that this is not an argument against Bitcoin. Instead it's an explanation for why people might overestimate it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's it. It's so obvious I wonder, y I didn't figure it out! Thanks for adding subtitles for me :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Historically Europe was a region constantly reminded of people power. The Greek crises is the first "European" action in the Eurozone since the foundation of the European Union.

Like everyone else I curse under my breath when train drivers on strike make me late to something (german train drivers just closed one of their longest strikes of recent memory). But I'm also grateful that these actions happen as they remind everyone including myself of, well, power of the people, at some point other than the token 4 year vote.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Greek elected confrontation. They got it.

<comment><USER5> No, they had one-sided confrontation, derision and bullying from the other side for several years. [1]

The Greeks merely elected a government to stand up to it.

[1] That side of the German stance has been thoroughly discussed even in the Economist, Bloomberg, Financial Times, NYT, etc (as well as the huge financial gains Germany got from the "assistance" they provided).

<comment><USER6> Voluntarily accepting conditions attached to a loan is not bullying, particularly as the countries giving the loan are in no way at fault for Greece's dire need for a loan.

<comment><USER7> 'at fault' may be too strong, but Germany surely benefited in the zero-sum game that resulted from the Euro fixing exchange rates within the eurozone: in the old system, Greece could have (and did) increase the exchange rate wrt the Mark to boost exports and keep the economy running.

The inability to do this benefited Germany, at the cost of Greece.

<comment><USER8> The main problem with the ECB is that it's supposed to be for the Eurozone but operates like it's for Germany.

<comment><USER9> I recommend that inform yourself about the decision making process on the ECB board, and who's the majority there. Germany almost always votes against the ECBs decisions but is outvoted by other countries. several German ECB members have resigned because of that.

This gives a pretty clear indication in whose interest the ECB works. Namely in the interest of the majority of the board members.

<comment><USER5> For many years, the debate about whether the European Central Bank (ECB) was too heavily influenced by Germany was confined to academic papers. As of late, it has become the central policy question of the eurozone. Germany is more influential at the ECB than it should be. In fact, Mario Draghi's penchant for seeking German approval has been his biggest mistake as head of the ECB. He should end it.

(...)

The ECB was modelled on the German Bundesbank. As a result, it is one of the world's most politically independent central banks; its mandate is focused narrowly on price stability; it does not take broader economic goals like unemployment into account in the way other central banks, such as the Fed, do; and it is de facto more restricted than other central banks, since controversial measures can lead to complex political and legal struggles, involving 18 (soon to be 19) countries. Its setup and philosophy are therefore 'German', that is, conservative and cautious.

(...)

A wide range of studies have so far failed to establish a firm consensus on the influence of various countries on the ECB during the euro's first decade. However, most studies have found that the ECB behaved like a multinational central bank, in which each country has a weight proportional to the size of its economy.

This gave Germany a higher weight than other countries because it is the largest economy in the eurozone.

But it is hard to argue that there was a German bias at the ECB before the crisis. In the post-crisis period, the ECB has failed to stabilise the economy, and inflation has fallen to just 0.3 per cent. It is tempting to see this as the product of a German bias, because the German economy has suffered least from the ECB's hesitation to do more. But it is hard to argue that German pressure prevented the ECB from lowering rates faster during the last two years, for example, or managing the inflation expectations of consumers and investors more aggressively. Rather, the ECB's misjudgement of the economic dynamic in the eurozone prevented a more timely and aggressive stance. However, now that the ECB has to move further into unconventional territory to correct its previous errors – potentially by buying government bonds – Draghi has taken German resistance into account and delayed quantitative easing (QE).

(...)

In the governing council of the ECB, all relevant monetary policy decisions are taken by simple majority, with the smaller countries having one vote each, and the larger countries traditionally two (because of the additional votes of executive board members). Some of the more fundamental decisions, like recapitalising the ECB, need a two-thirds majority, based on the ECB's capital shares, but even then Germany has no veto. What is more, there is currently a clear majority for more aggressive ECB action in the council, which Draghi can draw upon whenever he decides that the time is right. Formally, there is no need for German approval, either from Berlin or from the Bundesbank. Why, then, is Draghi waiting for German approval? There are two possible reasons. First, he might consider it unwise to conduct monetary policy in the face of opposition from the largest eurozone country. There is some merit to this view but it loses validity when the ECB is failing to fulfil its inflation mandate by a wide margin, as it is now.

(...)

Even the relatively cautious OECD has now come out in favour of further monetary stimulus, and the IMF has been urging the ECB to do more for a while. Given that the Fed and the Bank of England have bought government bonds on a massive scale, the ECB would be well in line with consensus views on monetary policy if it did the same.

(...)

The second reason why Draghi might want to get Germany's backing is that he may fear losing the German government's consent for the ECB's other operations, which are not strictly monetary policy. The most important of these, of course, is the OMT programme, which was announced during a panic- driven run on eurozone government bonds in the summer of 2012. The ECB declared that it intended to buy unlimited quantities of these bonds if the panic did not subside – which it then duly did. This programme makes the ECB the implicit guardian of the eurozone as the lender of last resort to governments, but the OMT is in part a fiscal operation. Without the support of Germany, the country with the deepest pockets, the OMT might fail. Draghi therefore does not need the Bundesbank's support but that of Merkel and the German government – which has backed him on the OMT.

[http://www.cer.org.uk/insights/ecb-not-german-central- bank#s...](http://www.cer.org.uk/insights/ecb-not-german-central- bank#sthash.VY9jG4O3.dpuf)

<comment><USER9> Did you actually read the arcticle?

       [I]t is hard to argue that German pressure prevented the ECB from lowering rates faster during the last two years, for example, or managing the inflation expectations of consumers and investors more aggressively.

The article says quite clearly that the ECB has been going against German interests and wishes.

<comment><USER5> Is that line the only thing you got from the article?

Because it goes on and on about how Germany affected ECB for several paragraphs, and explains the reasons and how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, if one believes that Varoufakis is right, but also believe that the European Commission and the European Central Bank are idiots, empowered by the EU democratic deficit, does anyone have any ideas how to best invest to bet against the EU?

<comment><USER11> buy dollars and wait until the euro explode? It netted me quite a bit this last year

<comment><USER12> If dollars are overbought, gold is an option. A couple of my gold mining stocks more than doubled during the dollar's advance in the past few months. Gold price in USD steady, USD rising, foreign currency and mining costs fall, soaring profit margins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> sadly, Varoufakis combines alternative policy views with a personality a bit too over the lines.

I think a more "traditional looking" minister might have produced more results, as Greece work seems to suffer from his "big personality".

On the other hand, this[0] wouldn't exist without him.

[0] the funniest video on an economic minster I've ever seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afl9WFGJE0M)

<comment><USER14> I believe that's why they replaced him at the negotiations with the lenders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Austerity politics is bonkers. When there is a recession, the state is the entity that can still borrow and lend at reasonable rates. The money will still be borrowed, but with the state pulling back, it is borrowed at rates that would make a loan-shark blush.

<comment><USER16> That's strange, because it's working fine in the UK.

<comment><USER17> Whhy do you think it's a success in the UK? There are many that don't think it's working at all. I'm not criticising your position, I'm just intensely curious.

<comment><USER18> Because the UK went on heavy on cutting its budget, whereas the US went heavy on increasing expenditure (Fiscal keynesian style). The way the UK did it should have dragged them into recession but the UK employment rate improved to under 6% (in spite of the sensationalised immigration 'issue') and the economic growth rate is doing pretty good (on a relative basis to the other G* countries).

I don't want to get into the contentious political issues involved but I'll say this too: There may be some argument to the loss involved due the budget cuts but on the typical economic numbers its not too bad/quite good considering austerity was used.

1\. [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united- kingdom/unemployment-...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united- kingdom/unemployment-rate)

<comment><USER19> I've seen this claim as well, but the data don't seem to support it. UK spending for all levels of government 2008-2014 in constant (2005) pounds (data from: [http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/download_multi_year_2008_2...](http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/download_multi_year_2008_2015UKk_10c1li111mcn_F0t)):

        Year	GDP	Pop	Spending £ bln 2005
        2008	MW gdp	61.548	582.23
        2009	MW gdp	61.904	623.50
        2010	1564.9	62.262	697.65
        2011	1600.2	62.649	699.89
        2012	1621.6	63.067	692.43
        2013	1632	63.488	661.32
        2014	1665.6	63.912	525.22

There's a huge drop 2013-2014, but before that the spend-up was pretty considerable, and economic growth has been solid since the start of 2013, so if this be "austerity", make the most of it!

EDIT: the drop in 2014 is due to local government not being added in. If I look at just "Central Government" from the same source:

        2008	MW gdp	61.548	427.07
        2009	MW gdp	61.904	458.29
        2010	1564.9	62.262	516.99
        2011	1600.2	62.649	517.16
        2012	1621.6	63.067	522.42
        2013	1632	63.488	496.97
        2014	1665.6	63.912	525.22

Again, hard to claim much "austerity" in these data.

<comment><USER18> Austerity can't be looked at only from the spending point of view, especially since it carries with it an element of affordability. Its also about looking at taxation receipts.

On overall the deficit between the two has been decreasing which is where the 'austerity' terminology is used. The comparison comes in handy where alot of Europe has been going through this (in spite of decreasing or low economic growth) whereas the US increased its deficits too.

What I mean to say is austerity is tied more to the affordability as opposed to the absolute dollar amounts.

Deficits

Year Amount 2009 156.3 2010 148.6 2011 120.6 2012 99.5

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've heard of 1 tax dodger being forced to pay in Greece, but why haven't I heard about other measure to get some of the money back from the previous corrupt government? Surely there's more that can be done there.</comment>


What is Your favorite free/open license to work with? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> GPL → [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html) Because it provides the highest ensurance/protection that others that get my software will have the same freedoms I had when I got the GPL-ed software and noone can take these freedoms away.</comment>


Unilever threatens to pull online advertising from 'toxic' platforms - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/12/17004598/unilever-advertising-online-toxic-platforms <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16362705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16362705)

250+ points</comment>


What's New in Web Development in WebKit and Safari - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/?id=501

<comment><AUTHOR> * Backdrop effects (frosty glass)

* Scroll snap points (tile-based scrolling)

* Class Syntax (ECMAscript)

* Forcetouch Events: [https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releaseno...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewInSafari/Articles/Safari_9.html)</comment>


'Do You Trust This Computer' Gets a Whole Lot Wrong About AI Risks - <AUTHOR> https://www.skynettoday.com/content/news/do-you-trust-elon/ <comment><USER2> The link does not work</comment>


Facebook Tells Parse Developers "No Plans To Change How App Data Is Used" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/27/parse-facebook/

<comment><USER2> The question people keep asking: 'What does this change about whether or not developers will use Parse?'.

Before being acquired by Facebook, there was a non-trivial probability that Parse would not be around for the long run. Being backed by a large company that isn't going away anytime soon makes Parse a viable option for larger businesses that are more risk averse than smaller startups/developer shops. Early adopters are great for shaping a product, but the majority of the money is in those risk averse enterprises. In other words, being acquired by Facebook hops Parse to the other side of the chasm [1]. There was a similar effect with Heroku being acquired by Salesforce.

I'm not sure what the long term effects of being associated with Facebook's brand are going to be, but there generally is a lot of short term vitriol associated with _anything_ Facebook does that eventually ends up being inconsequential; if I were Parse, I wouldn't be too concerned, especially when their actual numbers indicate developers haven't lost faith in them.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm>

<comment><USER3> I don't care how long the company will be around. I care how long the product will be around. I don't think the acquiring company being around increases the likelihood of the product being around.

<comment><USER4> It's case by case and there is no general rule. My hunch is that in this case it makes decision makers at big companies feel like they'll be around for longer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Meanwhile, to calm fears about Facebook spying on Parse developer data, the > company issued the statement "We currently have no plans to make any changes > to how Parse app data is used."

Keyword: currently

So yeah, we all rag on Facebook pretty hard here. What I'm most interested in is, if the uptick in adoption for Parse is true, why do developers feel more comfortable now that Facebook owns the product/company? Given the general pessimism about Facebook's fostering of their own API, and their laughable advocacy of privacy this whole article smacks of PR.

In my mind the whole modus operandi of companies like Facebook and Google is to absorb and mine as much information as possible. So if they _aren't_ going to peek and analyze did they really just buy Parse for the API expertise?

<comment><USER6> _"why do developers feel more comfortable now that Facebook owns the product/company?"_

This happens with the majority of acquisitions that, as soon as they are acquired they see an uptick in signups. The uptick would be more interesting if they announced it in a month's time or in an even longer period of time. There are several reasons for this including, the perception of "X has acquired them and they're a massive company which means that the service will be around for a while" (which is not necessarily true) and the fact that, the acquired company gets a lot of press from areas they may previously not have done so they get new users either as customers or simply joining to 'look' at the service – although they may not become actual valuable users – by those I mean 'look' at the service, I'm talking about other employees of the acquiring company, shareholders of the acquiring company etc.

<comment><USER5> I'll go even further to say that this can probably be attributed to the Facebook + Parse announcement being the first time many developers ever heard of Parse.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. I'm in that boat.

I had heard of Parse via Hacker News, but didn't ever pay attention to what they did. After the news of the purchase I looked at their offering and said, "This is exactly what I need for my next project."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this the same Facebook that would take a handoff approach to Instagram?

The first comment is right, currently being the keyword.

<comment><USER9> How did Instagram change since the purchase by Facebook? (honest question, I don't use Instagram at all)

<comment><USER10> They dropped Twitter card support so you can no longer preview Instagram photos on twitter or inside the twitter apps.

<comment><USER11> That was Twitter, not Instagram, and it was well before twitter cards had an API. Keep in mind Twitter also removed "find your friends using Twitter" functionality from Instagram too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally, I'd rather bet on a start-up succeeding than bet against a publicly-traded corporation shutting down a not-as-profitable subsidiary/product. In the former case, I know that folks' livelyhoods are hanging on the line and they're going to try pretty damned hard to keep their business afloat, whereas I don't have any faith in Facebook keeping Parse around looking the way it does if it doesn't meet the right numbers.

</comment><comment><USER13> "No plans to ..." Is the standard non-committal reassurance.

I'm currently investigating migration plans and checking the stability of my Fast Lists app if I just delete the API key on Parse. I only use Parse for logging and crash reporting and all access goes through a shim class so that I can swap and replace at a single point.

I'm trying to pick a good way of crash logging at the moment as I'm fed up of manually symbolicating. Crashlytics, crittercism and Flurry look nice but I'm not keen on their privacy policies. Hockey app might do the job but doesn't look as slick and the initial install instructions aren't completely clear. I'm also trying to get JIRA and Mobile Connect working although I'm not sure if that does the symbolisation.

Suggestions welcome.

</comment><comment><USER14> What concerns me most is how Facebook may use Parse as a way to consolidate their place in the mobile app space. Just as they've done in the past with their SDK, what if Facebook decides to block access to apps that compete with for example, their messenger, Instagram etc?

Also, who owns the data?

</comment><comment><USER15> Until, you know ... we change our mind.

</comment><comment><USER16> Same thing we were told with Instagram, basically.

<comment><USER17> Instagram really hasn't changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Pretty sure we told the American Indians "we come in peace," too.

<comment><USER19> Wow, that comparison is a bit of an insensitive stretch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> aka we haven't decided yet how to best squeeze all the juice.

</comment><comment><USER21> Uh, huh. Nothing will change...until it changes.</comment>


Show HN: Measure and compare your viral risk the easy way - <AUTHOR> https://howfunctional.com/viral-risk <comment><AUTHOR> Developer statement

IMPORTANT: Android + Chrome only! (for now)

They say you can't manage what you don't measure.

This is a system to help people who feel fine but are worried about becoming infected by COVID-19 or any other dangerous virus. If this is you, now you can actively measure your risk and see a live dashboard in your Android phone's notification bar.

Your regularly refreshed dashboard shows your own risk pattern and compares it with your recent past as well as the risk patterns of other people. This makes it easier for you to manage both your behavior patterns and your mental health.

It's an early release by a single developer, extended from an existing platform. Please don't expect perfection.

Geographical awareness is an obvious next step. Infection/symptom awareness is another.

Feedback welcome!</comment>


Let's Learn About Waveforms - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just found the prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16378458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16378458)</comment>