Ask HN: Agile development at big companies - <AUTHOR>

I work at a big company with dozens of websites driving our business.  There are almost 100 developers split up into system-based teams (Architecture, Billing, Content, etc.), almost as many QA testers, and hundreds of content managers, business analysts and other non-dev roles.
My team, Content Services, develops and maintains core APIs for the front-end developers; and we develop, maintain & support a web app Content Management System used by our non-dev creatives, content managers and business owners.  We have 10 very skilled developers and a slim but effective support team for our CMS.
In terms of process, we are lightyears ahead of where we were even 3 years ago.  Since then, we have gone from opaque 6-month waterfall "iterations" to bonafide 2-week agile iterations.
However, agile methodologies were not developed by  teams at big companies, and in many ways, we are struggling to "own" the agile approach.
I am coming to you all for help: Does anyone have experience with this?  Given the context I've written and the pain points I'll detail here, can you see any quick wins or necessary process/cultural shifts?
- Our business owners don't write our user stories.  Generally our dev team analysts write the user stories after meeting with the users.  We have an enormous backlog of over 500 stories--remember, we're serving dozens of business owners working with different sites and types of content (everything from ecards to custom printable mugs).
- We have too many "epics".  Implementing a story and doing it "right" often involves so many layers of changes--from db schema to CMS interface to framework updates to API support to documentation to test cases to validation scripts--that fitting it into 2 weeks requires herculean effort and brain-bending cross-team planning.
- We now involve our stakeholders in daily standups and planning, which is GREAT!  But we have a lot of trouble with confusing them by talking about tech stuff.  There's just no reason for our content managers to know that CouchDB is having stability issues because our custom serialization module isn't handling unicode conversion properly.  But switching from "tech mode" to "business mode" is difficult, and many developers just aren't interested or capable of it.  Nor should they be, necessarily--a certain amount of specialization is necessary.  In a company of almost 500, you can't have everybody know everything.
What do? <comment><USER2> Dennis Stevens gave an interesting talk on adapting agile techniques to big companies (with big projects). The slides and audio can be seen here: [http://www.screencast.com/users/SoftwareGR/folders/Software%...](http://www.screencast.com/users/SoftwareGR/folders/Software%20GR%20Meeting%20Recordings/media/f592aca5-4513-47b7-abd5-45b7c007d11e)

A short commentary on the talk is here: [http://spin.atomicobject.com/2010/12/15/dennis-stevens-on- th...](http://spin.atomicobject.com/2010/12/15/dennis-stevens-on-the-hardest- problems-of-enterprise-software)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've worked at a place that did a 'tiered' scrum, where developers would meet at 9:30 and report, and then at 9:45 the tech leads would meet with business analysts, project managers, etc. and report their group's progress. It seemed to keep everybody on the same page, and it avoided the "tech to business" switch you talked about for most developers. Further, the understanding was that if you needed to talk to someone on the business side you could just do it - there was very little separation.

The problem that place was trying to solve was that the standup meetings simply got too big to handle - not everybody could give a meaningful status update in 15 minutes. It's not "pure" but it did work, and you might be able to take something from that approach.</comment>


The WhatsApp Story Challenges Some of the Valley's Conventional Wisdom - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/23/the-whatsapp-story-challenges-the-valleys-conventional-wisdom/

<comment><USER2> I made many of the same points recently (albeit in a cheesy Facebook post -- [https://www.facebook.com/alex.feinberg/posts/101002165710317...](https://www.facebook.com/alex.feinberg/posts/10100216571031784?stream_ref=10)), but I had a different take on this: I saw this as a hearkening to Valley's original values as opposed to a media-fueled distortion of them that doesn't quite correspond to on-the-ground reality.

Full disclosure: I worked at Facebook and am still holding on to some stock. I also worked on a project ("Panama") with Acton at Yahoo and knew the reputation of others involved in WhatsApp like Rick Reed. Rick Reed built a high performance messaging bus in C++ at Yahoo that was the foundation of much of Yahoo infra outside of search, so the use of Erlang was not a surprise for me. Nonetheless, I'm sure my opinion would be the same even if I never worked at FB or Yahoo and didn't know of anyone involved.

Keep in mind that while I know nothing of Brian's rejection from FB (it happened before my time), but "Facebook has good talent" is not mutually exclusive with "Facebook rejected some really great people". It's also very likely that he was going for a more senior/leadership position and interviewing engineering leadership is an even more of a dubious "science" than interviewing individual contributors.

<comment><USER3> _Panama_

Ah. Has there ever been a Yahoo project that had more hype?

<comment><USER2> The entire survival of Yahoo under a specific business model was staked to this. At the time -- this was my first job out of college -- I didn't care at all about those aspects, but the technical learnings for me (primordial NoSQL data stores, software-based high availability, hugely distributed architecture spanning many continents, what later came to be known as "devops" practice, etc...) were immense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This illustrates the challenges of pattern matching in a hits-driven black- swan-finding industry.

Investors are looking for the next Facebook, so it only makes sense to invest in people who seem very Zucklike, which the WhatsApp founders are not (at least superficially). It reminds me of how generals are always preparing to fight the last war rather than the next war. Or how political pundits are convinced the US will never have a black president, let alone a Democrat from the North, until suddenly we do.

I guess predicting the future remains a hard thing to do. :)

<comment><USER5> The only conventional wisdom is to be contrarian, and even that doesn't work half the time.

<comment><USER6> > The only conventional wisdom is to be contrarian, and even that doesn't work > half the time.

True, but if (a) the choices are binary ones, and if (b) they only work half the time, then (c) it's not wisdom, conventional or otherwise.

But now it occurs to me that your post was meant in fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bit about recruiting is definitely on to something. Management and culture are significantly more important than hiring the absolute best people. I've had the (mis) fortune to witness individuals flounder in a poorly manage company only to shine later on in good ones. Great employees won't fix a broken company; Great companies will succeed with good (but not necessarily great) people who are motivated.

<comment><USER8> I have been preaching this for awhile. It is my sincerest hope others start to catch on and really focus on the environment and culture they are trying to build and the ramifications seemingly little decisions they make have on it.

<comment><USER9> "The Advantage" by Patrick Lencioni is also a great read on this topic of Organizational Health and how much it matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article missed the biggest one. Whatsup is built by outsourced russian talent. Jan hired the first programmer thro RentaCoder!

<comment><USER11> So was Digg, with Owen Byrne being hired on Elance.

</comment></comment><comment> alok-g Many of the assertions made by the OP seem highly uncorrelated to the event being discussed, which is may really be a significantly outlying event as OP itself notes, though not astronomically rare of course.

>> "Yahoo! doesn't have talent." ... The two WhatsApp founders worked at Yahoo!

OK, so two people from Yahoo were talented. How does this lead me to any conclusions about Yahoo's talent overall (positive or negative)? Without any disrespect to them, I am sure the smartness levels of Whatsapp founders is not astronomically greater than those of other Yahoo employees to change the overall Yahoo averages significantly.

>> "Companies like Facebook have the best talent." One of the WhatsApp founders applied for a job at Facebook and was rejected.

I am at a complete loss for this one. This rejection at best speaks to inadequacy of the interview processes.

>> "The best founders are relatively young." The WhatsApp founders were in their mid to late thirties.

Let's say there is a probability distribution relating startup success with the age of the founders. You sample this distribution a very large number of times and find that for a very rare event, the founders are in mid to late thirties. Can you really draw any significant conclusions about the shape of this probability distribution from it?

>> "The center of gravity for consumer products has moved north from the Valley to San Francisco." Well, that's largely true, but WhatsApp remained headquartered deep in Silicon Valley.

I would assume that WhatsApp's location was not a criteria for the acquisition given that the locations considered here are relatively close by. Surely there would be correlations between a startup success and location within Silicon Valley based on talent pool available, startup atmosphere, etc., but again, the estimated probability distributions would not see a significant change from the new knowledge of this event.

>> "Mobile products should be delightful, beautiful." ... apps should look nice, but at minimum, they should work to solve some problem ...

I wonder if the conclusion really needs this specific event to be seen as generally valid. It is quite obvious that the app should solve some problem, most probably even if it is a beauty product.

>> "Don't worry about making money, just grow big."

This one was an eye-opener for me given the scale of this acquisition, under the assumptions that this high a valuation was sensible and that this event is not actually astronomically rare. Founders and VCs always ask themselves questions on how to monetize. Unless we are in an acquisition bubble, the relevance of this question partly comes under question.

</comment><comment><USER12> No one is arguing Yahoo! didn't _have_ talent. We're arguing Yahoo! doesn't _have_ talent now (except for H1B people who are basically imprisoned there, and not many of them). You'll note that the WhatsApp guys are _not at Yahoo!_ today.

Yahoo! used to have some of the best people.

<comment><USER13> I'll be honest, this is a pretty despicable comment, Ryan. The fact that you personally don't like the culture at Yahoo certainly does not mean that everyone who is talented also dislikes the culture at Yahoo. For example, I know a very talented woman who chooses to work there because her judgement is that the company has superior procedures for dealing with sexism. Versus, say, the generally-toxic startup scene. You should carefully consider whether you actually understand why someone would choose to stay in a situation like this, because I suspect you don't.

Beyond the fact that I don't think you understand the reasons why people would stay at a company like Yahoo, I don't think you actually know much about the people who work there. Yahoo owns Tumblr, which still employs some of the best engineers I've ever met. More than 20% of the hires the first year after the Mayer takeover were boomerangs, which is a good indication that your implication that between 2009 and now Yahoo suddenly lost every talented non- immigrant employee is just wrong. And so on.

I'm not saying this to pick on you or just to be critical for its own sake. I'm sure you're a nice person. But this comment was just painful to read. Please think carefully about this sort of thing before you say something else like it.

EDIT: Ah, HN. Where telling someone that a company with 10,000 employees probably does in fact have a few talented engineers earns you anonymous down votes. :(

<comment><USER12> Technically competent and borderline-or-better ambitious people do not work at Yahoo!, generally.

There exception are people who are trapped there (H1B, a massive side project, sick family member, whatever), or are vesting out after M&A. Come back to this in 0.5 to 3.5 years when the Tumblr team have filled their vesting.

(You can make a reasonable case that big companies are better at EoE than startups, but I don't see a strong case that Yahoo! is better than Apple or Google or ...)

This is because the culture at Yahoo! has been horrible in terms of actually turning technology into products, or at any real innovation. A succession of utterly incompetent CEOs and ossified and incompetent upper management pretty much killed the company, technically.

Every Yahoo! I've talked to said it was a "nice" place to work if you're just collecting a paycheck. It was a horrible place to actually try to do anything meaningful (with a few exceptions, like Panama, and even then). So, it depends on your goals with a job: a paycheck ,or a chance to change the world. It's up to the individual which it is.

However, people who are neither competent nor ambitious are irrelevant in general, and those who aren't _both_ are largely irrelevant in creating anything new. (I know many highly-competent but situationally-lazy people who remained at Yahoo! a bit longer than was good for them. They had impressive personal projects during that time. They were vastly happier when they moved on to other companies.)

(As an indicator: outside of Government, Yahoo! had more contractors in more key roles than anywhere else I've ever seen. Microsoft had a lot of contractors, too, but they were generally not in core roles, and after that court case, were only there for ~a year.)

So, I stand by my original comment.

<comment><USER13> Let's recap a bit. You said there wasn't any talent. I said that's not true, and there talented people who have good reasons for staying. You now say that the culture sucks and the talented people who stay are there because of they're handcuffed, or because they're lazy, or they're going to leave soon.

My opinion is that you're now debating a completely different set of points.First you only told us that no one talented works there, and I think we both know that's just wrong. That you haven't brought it up again indicates that you concede this point. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Look. This is not to say that everything you've said is completely wrong. A lot of what you say is true. But I do think your case is pretty overstated, especially since these things depend pretty dramatically on which team your on. The disparity between a good Yahoo team and a good Google team is miniscule, even though the difference between a good Yahoo team and a bad Yahoo team is really high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I really like from WhatsApp/Telegram/Apple's Messages is their simplicity, no over-engineered app for msging, an app that even my dad can use. I want to use the app that any of family members can use.

Unlike, for argument sake, Path, which requires me to register with them, makes me use a "complex" menu, unnecessary status wall, tell me how many connections I should have, etc.

<comment><USER15> My ex didn't have a smartphone but her phone had WhatsApp and Facebook and pretty much nothing else from the smartphone world was supported. I don't think that I had any choice other than WhatsApp since the person I wanted to talk had no other choice.

I was using it not because of the interface or anything but because it enabled me, I personally don't like the visual design of WhatsApp btw.

WhatsApp become incredibly popular here in Turkey and I suspect that it's mostly because of the fact that it was the only messaging app that almost everybody can install to their phone, including non-smartphone users. Everybody here have at least one phone but not everybody had a smartphone and if some of your friends are out of reach, its a deal breaker.

Line, I belive had little bit traction, Viber too. WeChat even run TV ads but eventually, everybody have WhatsApp :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _this particular VC firm [Sequoia] missed the first wave of social networks, invested a large sum in the debacle known as Color, and then, in about three years' time, turned their investment in WhatsApp into one of the great IRRs in the history of venture capital?_

Ahh, Color.

Could the differences between Color & WhatsApp be any more pronounced?!

</comment><comment><USER16> Rules like "only fund Harvard dropouts under 25" screen out big hits.

<comment><USER17> Personally, I'm happy VC screens keep them in their bubbles. Unfortunately, the rest of the world has their own screens and their own bubbles, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh bloody hell. I'm tired of this "Oh but they did X and Y!!!! That's the magic key!"

They did this, in order of importance:

1) They built something that solved a problem.

2) They sold it at a price that the people were willing to pay for that problem to be solved.

3) They built something with powerful network effects, drawing in new users & keeping old ones.

Ian's magic guide to making money by building things:

1) Build things that people will pay for

2) Sell it to those people

ADVANCED COURSE (DLC - send payments to 1QKocu7qqiSGbmaviR4aFVTq3zVWtvdFiA )

3) Charge more than it costs you

4) Charge no more than those people are willing to pay

Astoundingly, I've missed off things like "be mobile first" or "don't be mobile first" or even "it should have been built in this city". I've also managed to not dwell on the language anything like that. Turns out, having loads of people pay you money for a service somehow makes a good business! WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE FORESEEN THAT? TIME TO CHANGE ALL OUR PRECONCEPTIONS!

> I'm not suggesting we throw out all the rules and engage in chaos. But, it > is a good time to reexamine them.

If a business that makes a profit and has nearly 6% of the _global population_ as active users (and growing, it seems) being bought for a lot of money is shocking then I cannot fathom what world you live in.

</comment><comment><USER19> interesting tweets from Jan Koum:

"Be so good they can't ignore you" \- [https://twitter.com/jankoum/status/262099630773399552](https://twitter.com/jankoum/status/262099630773399552)

"If you run a startup and your goal is to get on techcrunch, you are doing it wrong." \- [https://twitter.com/jankoum/status/199240645745979392](https://twitter.com/jankoum/status/199240645745979392)

</comment><comment><USER20> As Steve Sailer said "Perhaps one reason these two guys couldn't get hired by Facebook is because they are so old: Koum is 38 and Acton 42."</comment>


Ask HN: E-ink reader supporting RSS? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm looking for an e-ink (e-paper) reader supporting RSS feeds.
Any suggestion? <comment> a-saleh I bought myself Onyx Boox Nova Pro, that runs modified version of Android 6. It is fairly expensive, but so far it serves me well and I don't have to think about compatibility/sync much (have Play Books, Amazon Kindle apps installed, and it has decent PDF reader).

But other commenter recently shared fairly in-depth their problems with the device (the build quality can be apparently quite shody): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22614971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22614971)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feeback!

Isn't it Android 6 too much handicaping?

<comment> a-saleh Not more than the custom shell or slow refresh-rate :-) But that is E-ink for you right now.</comment></comment></comment>


The fastest sorting algorithm? (2000) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nada.kth.se/~snilsson/fast-sorting/ <comment><USER2> Isn't radix sort o(n) ?

> The algorithm will only work if w ≥ log n.

What does that mean ? It doesn't make sense to me. The algorithm will _work_ regardless of the magnitude of _w_ relative to log(n).

Radix sort will be faster than n log(n) if _w_ < log(n). I would add that it is only worth to use if _w_ << log(n). In fact radix sort process the sorting by groups of bits, so _w_ is usually smaller than the number of bits.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will quote from the linked article:

Other sorting techniques may be faster. For example, using radix sorting, you can sort n word-sized integers by scanning the data a few bits at a time. Each scan can be done in linear time, and the number of scans depends on the word length w. Hence, the time for radix sorting is proportional to nw. Here, it's easy to make a mistake. On most computers, w is a small number (typically 32 or 64), and you might be tempted to state that radix sorting is a linear time sorting algorithm. Not so. The algorithm will only work if w ≥ log n. If not, you wouldn't even be able to store the numbers. Since each memory address is a word consisting of w bits, the address space won't accommodate n numbers if w < log n. Hence, in the unit-cost RAM model, radix sort also runs in time proportional to n log n.

<comment><USER3> He's essentially cheating. When he analyzes the algorithm presented, he says "I'll now describe an algorithm that does not depend on the word length. For any word length w, w ≥ log n, it sorts n word-sized integers in time proportional to n log log n."

But that's entirely cheating. If you give the same assumption to radix sort, then you could say "For any word length w, w ≥ log n, radix sort sorts n word- sized integers in time proportional to n". Which is much better.

The only time radix sort actually goes slower than linear time is when the size of the integers is not polynomial in n. If the size of the integers is exponential n, I think this algorithm would similarly slow down, as it would take a linear number of words to represent a single integer, meaning that it would take log n reductions to get the integers to fit into a single word, not log log n as he assumes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish nloglogn.c would come with an open source license. I'd really like to use it.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's faster sorting algorithms:

1) ZEN sort: O(0)

a) It is build on the realisation that it is all about numbers that do not really mean anything.

b) It converges to NOTHINGNESS.. while it deletes all data there is.

2) Intelligent design sort (also known as miracle sort) O(1)

The probability of the original input list being in the exact order it's in is 1/(n!). There is such a small likelihood of this that it's clearly absurd to say that this happened by chance, so it must have been consciously put in that order by an intelligent Sorter. Therefore it's safe to assume that it's already optimally Sorted in some way that transcends our naïve mortal understanding of "ascending order". Any attempt to change that order to conform to our own preconceptions would actually make it less sorted.

3) Numerology Sort: O(n)

a) Employ gematria to calculate a divine hash sum of all the elements of the array, taking O(n) time. The specific method depends on the data type, and is left as an exercise to the reader.

b) Use this value to seed your PRNG.

c) Using the PRNG, sample pairs of indices and swap the indicated elements. Do this 4n times.

d) If the array is not sorted at this point, you have likely made an error in computing your hash. A debugging message is numerologically embedded in the output array that will guide you.

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

4) Sleep sort: O(largest number to be sorted)

a) read a number to be sorted, call it n

b) start a new thread, that sleep n seconds

c) insert the number in the result array

5) Chuck Norris sort

Chuck Norris once wrote by far the fastest sort algorithm ever. In Python:

      def sort(x):
        # I will roundhouse kick any array that isn't sorted at this point. Twice.
        return x

<comment><USER6> Quantum sort: O(n)

1\. Use quantum device to randomize order of array

2\. Check if sorted

3\. If not sorted, destroy universe

In all universes which are left, the array is sorted. (Dependencies: Many worlds interpretation, Doomsday device.)

Edit: Formatting.

<comment><USER5> What happens if you have a bug in there ?</comment></comment></comment>


Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and the universe - <AUTHOR> http://nordic.businessinsider.com/freeman-dyson-interview-2016-9 <comment><USER2> I had read before that Dyson was not big on the higher education system. This was interesting, about his time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton:

 _Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I 'm now retired, but when I was a professor here, my real job was to be a psychiatric nurse. There were all these young people who came to the institute, and my job was to be there so they could cry on my shoulder and tell me what a hard time they were having. And it was a very tough situation for these young people. They come here. They have one or two years and they're supposed to do something brilliant. They're under terrible pressure--not from us, but from them._

 _So, actually, I 've had three of them who I would say were just casualties who I'm responsible for. One of them killed himself, and two of them ended up in mental institutions. And I should've been able to take care of them, but I didn't. I blame the Ph.D. system for these tragedies. And it really does destroy people. If they weren't under that kind of pressure, they could all have been happy people doing useful stuff. Anyhow, so that's my diatribe. But I really have seen that happen._

</comment><comment><USER3> What most struck me is his comment on Chinese's brain washing media landscape actually helps the country to stay upbeat and optimistic. There is definitely truths in it and at this point I can see it as a grand strategy to help the economy in a positive way. Maybe any country in the unique situation as China will tend to the exact same thing.

<comment><USER4> I think it's one of those situations that is only going to be clear in some measure of hindsight. After all, any short-term benefit might be offset by the backlash when the media either evolves, or people (as they are now) gain access to foreign media sources. It seems to me that you'd utterly erode any sense of authority or trust you could build with your populace.

Shortsighted in other words, but what you'd expect from a gerontocracy.

<comment><USER3> I spent a couple of years in Beijjg. I think most Chinese people in major cities are fully aware of the brainwashing goal and agendas of the media and would even consider CCTV1 to be funny. Young people create memes and satires on news content all the time. The thing is, CCTV1 has quite literally evolved into its own genre and it is therapeutic to listen to when you feel unsatisfied with your life.

<comment><USER4> That's an interesting take on the situation, and I appreciate the insight with someone with experience in China (I have none at all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really liked the following quote, I certainly needed his upbeat mood and view of the future.

 _" The key to having an interesting life is to always say "yes" to anything crazy. Orion was obviously crazy. So I said "yes" and had a great time."_

<comment><USER6> He put it very well. I'm a big believer of doing crazy things that the average joe wouldn't do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "mathematics is really an art, not a science. You could say science also is an art. So I would say the difference is something you can't really describe - you can only recognize."

This reminds me of the slippery definition of Quality explored in Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.</comment>


Annoying Car horns – Can technology ever replace vehicle horns? - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_horn <comment><USER2> I don't even remember when I would have heard a car horn last time, so what's the problem? It happens so rarely.

<comment><USER3> That just means you live on a wide street more than a block from any major artery prone to traffic jam.

My street empties into one of the biggest and most jam-prone avenues in the city. During certain times, traffic backs up on my block too, and people sit outside my window leaning on their horns.

We also get the same effect at random times of day whenever anything larger than a sedan (often a truck so large it probably shouldn't be on the local streets in the first place) gets stuck behind a double parked delivery van or renovation contractor's truck.</comment></comment>


Does disabling Wi-Fi prevent my Android phone from sending Wi-Fi frames? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01575519/document <comment><USER2> One of my frustrations with Android is the fact Google Maps constantly bugs me to enable "Google's Location Service". Even if I've asked for something as simple as centering the map on my GPS location. I must have answered 'no' to that prompt a hundred times by now.

My phone has GPS, which is privacy-preserving and more accurate when outdoors - which is any time I'm navigating, as I don't need maps indoors. So "Google's Location Service" is useless to me. I don't understand why Google has made it so difficult to avoid sharing my location "anonymously" with them.

<comment><USER3> What I find particularly aggravating about that is the UX dark pattern they've utilised for the dialogue. I forget the exact wording, but rather than "Would you like to switch on Google's location service? [Yes] [No]", it's something like "To continue, enable Google's location service. [OK] [Cancel]" \- implying that you need to switch it on to do what you wanted to.

<comment><USER4> Not surprising.

Your lifetime value for Google multiplies when they can track your location. They learn where you live/work, how you commute, who you hang out with, whether and where you travel, when you get sick, etc.

Much of it can be approximated by looking at your searches alone, but the correlation with your location record yields much higher accuracy.

<comment><USER5> I am SOOO glad that in iOS 11 I'll be able to force apps to only get my location data when they're running (e.g. Waze). Right now some of these apps can get location data because they the app only presents old-style privacy controls (all the time / not at all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TL;DR (from TFA): No. We show that another option, called "Always allow scanning", when activated, makes a device send Wi-Fi frames which can be used to track this device, even if the Wi-Fi switch is off. This option is not clearly described in all Android versions, and sometimes even not deactivatable. Besides, the Google Maps application prompts the user to activate this option.

<comment><USER7> TL;DR: No. Just from the rule of journalism about asking a question in the title.

<comment> DC-3 In fairness, in this instance 'No' is the interesting answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A bit tangential but here's another reason to disable wifi: even if you don't join a wifi network your phone can be tracked via the packets that it sends out to find wifi networks. That can be used is triangulate people's location within closed spaces like department stores. Source: I work at a company where we sell this tech to department stores and such. We are still not allowed to join that data with our shadow profiles of the users but that might happen in the future.

I've become extremely privacy oriented ever since I started working here and saw how creepily companies track users.

<comment><USER9> I don't really get the concern. Retailers also install video cameras and track everywhere you go in their stores.

<comment><USER10> Yea but cameras won't show them what you bought last week, your credit, your social network, your criminal records.

Man the possibilities for fascism only get more and more exciting for future dictators.

<comment><USER11> Facial recognition is getting better; cameras may well be enough to do this soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yelp just paid 20 million dollars for Turnstyle Solutions, which specializes in tracking retail customers with the WiFi signals sent by smartphones, without asking for the phone customer's consent. If you want to opt out, you have to go out of your way to register your device's mac address with them.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-secrets-your-phone-is- shar...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-secrets-your-phone-is-sharing- about-you-1389663783)

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/yelp-acquires-wi-fi- market...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/yelp-acquires-wi-fi-marketing- company-turnstyle-analytics-for-20-million/)

<comment><USER13> This whole era of data gathering boggles my mind, what kind of fluff do they extract ? and how valuable is it really ?

I think it was S. Yegge that said we turned the smartest brains into like- button developpers. :sigh!

<comment><USER14> > and how valuable is it really ?

at least 20 million dollars

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Somewhat related is positioning your WiFi AP based on passive signal strength monitoring. Both Apple and Google do this to maintain their own private WiFi positioning databases, but there are also public databases with this information too. [http://find-wifi.mylnikov.org/](http://find- wifi.mylnikov.org/) is a great example of this - I was very surprised to find a brand new AP I'd installed less than six months ago already in the DB! I wonder how they track it - I certainly don't expect many people to be running their tracking apps. Perhaps there is some reporting SDK that gets bundled with certain free apps?

The author of the above page has a WiFi positioning demo app for iPhone and Android that uses those public databases - during my testing it was almost as accurate as GPS (even more so indoors) with instant results.

<comment><USER16> If I had to guess, Apple and Google use the GPS on the phones plus the WiFi information to feed back into those databases. It makes sense for them to do this as it helps improve the accuracy of their location services.

<comment><USER17> Presumably they also wardrive (war-fly with directional antennae??) when they're making maps/streetview?

<comment><USER18> No presumably about it, there was some minor outrage that they were capturing traffic when it first happened: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/198667/google_wifi_data_captu...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/198667/google_wifi_data_capture_unethical_but_not_illegal.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you are concerned about this "privacy issue" you should try Smarter Wi-Fi Manager from Kismet Wireless: [https://www.kismetwireless.net/android- swm/](https://www.kismetwireless.net/android-swm/)

But in newer versions of Android (afaicr > 7.0) is no longer using an aggressive approach (visible to other devices), it just passively collect frames ([https://plus.google.com/+mikekershaw/posts/DmpQ2no5bEk](https://plus.google.com/+mikekershaw/posts/DmpQ2no5bEk)) so it's no longer an a privacy issue to have this option on those versions, still would recommend SWM to increase security.

<comment><USER20> My Android 7 phone still sends WiFi probes anytime I wake the screen. Even though the power saving features are disabled such that it remains connected while the screen is off.

There's a lot Android could do better in this area.

<comment><USER19> If WiFi is on this is an expected behavior; The article is referring is when WiFi its off, haven't seen my android 7.0 launching probes on the network with WiFi-Scanning on and WiFi off, with WiFi on it does what you are describing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yet another reason for privacy-conscious individuals to switch to iOS and a newer iPhone. I hate the walled-gardens as much as the next person, but Apple's stance on privacy and security is unparalleled in today's ecosystem.

<comment><USER22> Any indication this is still the behavior in Android 7.0 and beyond? What about in Pixel phones? The one first-party Google device used in the study was a Nexus S running 4.4.

<comment><USER19> >= 7.0 improved on these and its not longer aggressively looking for beacons, it uses a passive approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [pdf]

TL;DR: when wifi is off, and the setting whose description reads "allow scanning when wifi is off" is turned off (not all softwares have this toggle available in the WiFi settings, it seems default-on) then it doesn't seem to send frames.

</comment><comment><USER24> PSA: Google stores your precise location, tied to your account, for every moment of every day. In about 1.5 years of using android regularly I generated 700,000 data points. I understand Google maps on iOS participates in this.

Go to takeout.Google.com to see what's in your personal dossier.

<comment><USER25> You can also go to maps.google.com/timeline for a better visual.

<comment><USER26> Fortunately you can skip this one by never signing in to Google maps, although you then lose the benefits of history.

Just checked and my location timeline is blank after several years of this.

<comment><USER17> >my location timeline is blank //

The one they show you is, at least. /cynic

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There really needs to be an alternative open source mobile OS. I had really hoped that would be Ubuntu touch, but now that development is moved over to ubports I am not sure wide spread support is going to happen.

<comment><USER28> I would go even further and say we need a free software mobile OS.

<comment><USER29> As long as it has a good UI. My experience has been that OSS can be functional, but often comes with a bad UI that turns off users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Android phones respond to ping when in airplane mode.

I have a speech bot that pings my phone (find IP by ARP) and it speaks randomly on successful ping.

Sometimes, at night, I put my phone in airplane mode, and sometimes my bot still speaks.

<comment><USER31> At least in iOS-land, you can be in airplane mode and still have wifi.

<comment><USER32> Wifi isn't forbidden on planes?

<comment><USER33> Airlines are pushing people to use Wifi on planes by installing Wifi based entertainment systems that display content on user devices (the airlines like it because they save weight and money by not needing seat-back displays).

Cellular transmissions are still technically prohibited, but I bet many people don't know how to turn on Wifi while in "airplane mode", so they don't use airplane mode.

Here's one such system:

[https://www.united.com/web/en- US/content/travel/inflight/ent...](https://www.united.com/web/en- US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/personal-device-entertainment.aspx)

<comment><USER34> _> Cellular transmissions are still technically prohibited_

In the US. Internationally they are permitted and several airlines offer GSM service in flight. [0]

[0] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Which-airlines- allow-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Which-airlines-allow-in- flight-mobile-use/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> To disable that deceptive snooping in 6.0 (Marshmallow):

Settings -> Location -> Improve Accuracy -> Toggle Wi-Fi scanning.

<comment><USER36> Any idea how to do this in 7?

<comment><USER37> google surreptitiously moved it to the ellipsis menu.

on android 7 and 7.1:

settings > location > three vertical dots on the top right > scanning.

And on this screen disable wifi and bluetooth scanning.

And, you would think that would disable wifi/bt scanning, right? wrong!

on the previous screen (settings>location), you also have to click on "mode". And then select "Device only". If you select "high accuracy" or "battery saving", it will ignore the wifi off on the ellipsis menu and still use it!

And there is more! ...still on the location screens, scroll down. Past the "recent location requests" and see a section called "Location services". It might very well include a "Qualcomm izat accelerated location". What it does? well, nobody knows! does it enable wifi from sleep mode on the chip? it might. it might not. again, who knows?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty simple and I don't think it's nefarious. Android WiFi is used for two purposes, networking and location. The main WiFi switch toggles the networking function and the main location switch toggles its location fuction as well as other location providers such as GPS and cellular location. If you want the main WiFi toggle to also affect its location function then that's what the "Always allow scanning" setting is for.

<comment> squeaky-clean Well apparently it's not just my phone using it to track my location. This article convinced me to disable the always on Wi-Fi scanning.

> However, Wi-Fi scans are not only used by the device to derive its location, > analytics companies now leverage the Wi-Fi probe requests to estimate the > number of visitors in stores and malls and to record customer mobility. > Indeed, by counting the number of unique MAC addresses broadcast in probe > requests, retailers can derive the number of smartphone carriers in their > store. Location tracking of these customers is performed by following these > MAC addresses as they are heard by antennas located in different spots.

<comment><USER9> Both iOS and Android started randomizing WiFi Mac addresses a few years ago to prevent that kind of tracking.

<comment><USER38> Then how is it possible for my iPhone to connect to my AP that has MAC filtering enabled?

<comment><USER9> I think the MAC address randomization is only for the scanning, not connecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does any body knows how to run a passive scan for networks in range from an app, even if the Wi-Fi is OFF?

I know this is possible for sure, the app "Wifi Analyzer" does it. As you can see on:

[https://snag.gy/cfYTmy.jpg](https://snag.gy/cfYTmy.jpg)

The only network related permission this app requests is "Wi-Fi connection information" so I'm wondering how they do it, and if it is possible to do so from a background service. I will like to run scans periodically and show up a notification once a predefined network is in-range.

<comment><USER15> This relates to the setting mentioned in the article, "always allow scanning".

</comment></comment><comment> tony-allan This also occurs on Apple iPhones...

[http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/01/21/iphone-ipad- location...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/01/21/iphone-ipad-location- services/)

[http://www.moutfitters.com/blog/iphone-privacy- settings/](http://www.moutfitters.com/blog/iphone-privacy-settings/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Title needs a pdf tag.

</comment><comment><USER41> People concerned about such matters use devices with cellular and WiFi radio nuked. With separate devices for cellular and WiFi radio. Connected using shielded wires.

Edit: OK, people _greatly_ concerned do that. I don't even use the damn things. But I know what it takes to secure them.

Edit: I note that none of my VM hosts have integrated cellular and WiFi radios. And I seriously doubt that devices used in high-security commercial, government and military roles have such things. Maybe not even integrated Ethernet. Also, devices with modular cellular and WiFi radios could be produced in the consumer sector. Maybe they'd cost more, and only sell in niche markets, but it's doable.

</comment><comment><USER42> Interesting that simple UI on/off switch requires a scientific paper as proper documentation.

</comment><comment><USER43> F Droid wifi police

</comment><comment><USER44> Sleazy. Then again, par for the course for modern Google.

</comment><comment><USER45> The honest answer is unless you physically disable your wifi antenna, you can't really be sure. The same thing with your laptop web camera or anything physical on your desktop/laptop/smartphone/etc.

If you want to be sure that your laptop camera isn't recording you, you have to put electric tape over it, if you want to make sure your mics on your devices aren't recording you then you have to physically block it.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/15/put-tape- ov...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/15/put-tape-over-your- webcam-fbi-director-warns/)

This is a very complicated issue of reliability of kernel/compilers/hardware/etc. We are dependent on these layers telling us what "reality" is. But how reliable is it?

And interesting look into "trust".

[http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack](http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack)</comment>


Was 2018 the Year of the Graph Database? - <AUTHOR> https://irishtechnews.ie/was-2018-the-year-of-the-graph-database/ <comment><USER2> We use a graph database at my company (OrientDB, having migrated from Neo4J). I don't really know what we need it for, aside from giving the graph database guy something fun to do. We also use Postgres as our main DB. As far as I can tell, we could implement our graph as standard Postgres tables, and it would work just fine if not better. Plus, there'd be more than one person who knows how to query it.

<comment><USER3> If you don't mind me asking why did you migrate from Neo4j to OrientDB?

<comment><USER2> Cost, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was it, or was it the year of graphql? The latter making the former more approachable.

<comment><USER5> GraphQL has nothing inherently to do with graph databases. It's a client-side declarative syntax where you specify what result you want, usually including composite relational objects.

The server-side database would be any supported datastore.

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree at all, but query languages like "SPARQL" and "Cypher" are no where nearly as approachable as the query by example like syntax of "GraphQL" (resolvers aside).

My feeling is that GraphQL has opened up a pathway and other than that I personally did not observe any other kind of sea change in the graph database landscape.

<comment><USER6> Sparql is not unapproachable at all, after one has learned the basics. It's not more difficult than traditional sql queries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nope [0].

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER8> You're just posting a trite meme rather than saying anything critical or constructive about the article itself.

<comment><USER9> I think the criticism is quite clear. Asking a question as a headline is a form of clickbait. If the statement implied by the question was a verifiable fact, it would be posed as such instead of lying by phrasing it as a question.

It's already a critique of the cliche being used in the headline. Use of this rhetorical device already casts doubt upon the veracity of the content therein, not to mention the skill of the writer.

Also, ironically enough, by posing a question in the headline, the answer of said question is automatically "no." You've now saved yourself the time you'd otherwise have wasted reading the article.

Although you may think that the comment pointing out Betteridge is a tired meme, you should really be ridiculing the writer of the article for utilizing the tired meme of putting unverifiable information into the world by writing a headline as a question.</comment></comment></comment>


Famous Transcendental Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/trans.html <comment><USER2> > Liouville's number 0.110001000000000000000001000 ... which has a one in the > 1st, 2nd, 6th, 24th, etc. places and zeros elsewhere.

Note that this is actually the binary representation of this number; in base 10 this number is approximately 0.77: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liouville_number#The_existen...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liouville_number#The_existence_of_Liouville_numbers_\(Liouville's_constant\)). Also note that the "ellipses" in this case are not at all obvious; stating that this is the factorial sequence or adding more terms would make this much clearer.

<comment><USER3> No, that's the binary representation of the _binary_ Liouville's number. It's also the decimal representation of the _decimal_ Liouville's number, which is typically what people mean when they talk about Liouville's number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chapernowne's number is a copyright violation, because it contains all possible numbers, some of which correspond to copyrighted works.

<comment><USER5> Conjecturally, every irrational algebraic number has this property, but I don't think it has been shown for any individually.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely false, [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LiouvillesConstant.html](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LiouvillesConstant.html) for instance contains only the digits 0 and 1 yet is not only irrational but transcendental even.

Also the second part of your comment isn't making sense, it has been shown for Champernowne's constant so how can you say it hasn't been shown for any individually?

<comment><USER5> I wrote "irrational algebraic", meaning irrational and _not_ transcendental.

According to Wikipedia, no irrational algebraic number has been shown to be _normal_ (normal is a slightly stronger condition; see last paragraph in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number#Properties_and_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number#Properties_and_examples)).

<comment><USER6> Ah, I did not catch that. My apologies, this is actually a fascinating point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It feels like every time there's a mathematics post on the front page I post a video by Matt Parker.

This time, here's a video that explains from the basics what kinds of numbers exist:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TkIe60y2GI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TkIe60y2GI)

</comment><comment><USER8> I was surprised when I learned that e + pi is not known to be transcendental. Everyone would be floored if it weren't, but it's still an open question.

<comment><USER9> It's not even known if e + pi is irrational.

It is known that at least one of e + pi and e pi is irrational, though. That's because e and pi are both transcendental, and so the polynomial (x-pi)(x-e) = x^2 - (e+pi)x + e pi cannot have all rational coefficients. If it did, e and pi would be roots of a polynomial with rational coefficients, and therefore not transcendental.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember avidly reading Clifford Pickover's books when I was in my late teens in the later half of the 1990s. _Time: A Traveller's Guide_ was the first I began with (after reading a brief endorsement by WIRED), later _Keys To Infinity_ and so forth. An idiosyncratic collection of mathematical facts and musings.

<comment><USER11> I always loved _Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty_.

He's also keeping the 90s style alive with his whimsical Reality Carnival.

[http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/realitycarnival.h...](http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/realitycarnival.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Champernowne constant[1] is the most interesting one for me. It is simple yet powerful at the same time.

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

</comment><comment><USER13> Not a mathematician, by a long shot, but does this begs the question...Is something "wrong" with decimal? (Would a numbering system e.g. like base- pi/base-tau or base-e make any sense?)

<comment><USER14> The most fundamental constants in mathematics are zero and one. The transcendentals are called such because they can't be expressed in terms of algebraic operations using these two constants as starting point. Changing the bases of a number system doesn't change this fact.

However, we can have alternative, more powerful formal systems that are able to capture well-known transcendental numbers in a finite amount of notation. The most powerful class of such systems are Turing-complete systems. However, even such systems won't capture all transcendentals, since there exists a subset of transcendentals called uncomputable numbers. Uncomputable numbers outnumber computable ones.

More powerful formalisms also have the downsides that they lose some "nice" properties such as ability to always prove equality of two numbers, as they gain power. Algebraic numbers and especially rational numbers are super nice and well-behaved in comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Astoundingly, at the end of the minute, there will be a quick-talking ant > that will actually say the "last" digit of pi!

This is incorrect. There is no last ant in an infinite line of ants, just as there's no last digit of pi.

</comment><comment><USER16> Famous numbers that are believed to be transcendental, anyway.</comment>


comiXology Unlimited - <AUTHOR> https://m.comixology.com/unlimited <comment><AUTHOR> This is big news. ComiXology, which is now owned by Amazon, was pay per view until now. Now it's also offering subscription plan for $5.99 per month. Netflix for comics?</comment>


The Root Cause of Procrastination - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-root-cause-of-procrastination-0c37b8d650 <comment><USER2> Thank you. This is insightful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad it was helpful!

I also recommend this related article by a psychologist that explains:

"When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it's typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being "good enough" or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness."[1]

[1] Laziness doesn't exist: [https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not- exist-3af27e...](https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not- exist-3af27e312d01)

<comment><USER2> Both apply to me, but especially b -- except, not the first steps so much as after the "low fruit" has been picked...</comment></comment></comment>


How Hackers do Invites - <AUTHOR> http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing. In the spirit of reading comments before actual links: The title brings innovative physical invitation mechanisms to mind. This, however, is a collection of funny/interesting email invitations to a regular hacker meetup at MIT.

</comment><comment><USER3> good ones:

* [http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gs...](http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb1996-09-27.html)

* [http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gs...](http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html)

girl scout benefits

</comment><comment><USER4> Man, it's this kind of stuff among others (e.g. <http://www.cs.indiana.edu/mit.research.how.to.html>) that make me envy the spirit of CSAIL in the 80s.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it just me, or are fake callers getting out of control? - <AUTHOR> I am getting at least 5 fake phone calls from random numbers daily.
Sometimes they call and hangup after half a ring.
Sometimes it rings a few times and I pick up and it's some bot on the other end of the line who speaks perfect english and just keeps asking "Hello... hello...? Are you there...? Hello?" and then hangs up.
When I order a bunch of domain names (and my phone number inevitably gets out into the whois database scrapers) I get at least 10-20 calls from india asking if I need website development on my domain that has no content up on it.
Is it just me, or are fake callers getting out of control in recent months?
It's getting to the point that I am getting more fake calls than real ones, and I am seriously reconsidering even having a phone number. <comment><USER2> Just to give you all an additional data point, I am based in Europe. I do have business contacts and give out my number freely (on resumes, etc.) I think I've gotten 1 robot call in the past 5 years (my thought was - I knew this would happen sooner or later! I know it's a huge problem! But it didn't happen again.)

I use this phone every day and it's always on. So: if you don't want robot calls, get an international number in Europe.

People who need to contact you can pay the international surcharge.

<comment><USER3> I got a job at an U.S. company and so I now have a T-Mobile phone as well as my Uruguayan phone.

I've never gotten a robocall on my Uruguayan phone and half the world must have it on their database (Spammy SMS, on the other hand, are a problem).

OTOH, my U.S. phone gets several calls a day, and I've seldom given it out. Most are marked "Scam Likely" by T-Mobile. But I've never gotten a spammy SMS.

A surprising cultural shock, to be sure.

I simply don't answer the U.S. phone anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree. It's out of control. There is not much you can do that is effective. Some people have had success with various black list apps for mobile phones.

My favorite consequence of these phone calls is the rise of the "its Lenny" bot (more than once discussed on HN) [https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/about](https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/about)

<comment><AUTHOR> The page you linked is dead, but /r/itslenny is a real sub and it's glorious. Thanks for that tip!

<comment><USER4> Hmm I just checked. That link still works for me. Either way I'm glad you liked it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I no longer pick up the phone unless the caller is in my address book. But the ringing is still distracting.

iOS lets you suppress calls from all but contacts, but to do that you have to put your phone in "do not disturb" mode, which also suppresses all other notifications. So that's a non-starter.

Any other ways to shut them up?

<comment><USER6> I really want a tick box and auto sends a caller to voice mail if you're not in my contacts. That would really help me.

<comment><USER5> No kidding. Weirdly, Verizon sometimes does that to me with legit calls anyway, even with perfect reception. Infuriating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the last 7 years I have had a callcentric account. I added telemarketer block to my calls, then callers have to press a number to get through to you which eliminates robocalls. You can assign friends into buckets which get different treatment such as dialing your cell number.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes overall I think numbers are up. What I find confusing is that people are allowed to phreak clid. I understand why hiding clid might be needed but randomly lying about it? What trip were the telcos on, allowing that?

<comment><USER5> My guess would be that it has something to do with corporate phone systems. In some cases they want all incoming calls to the front desk or 800 number regardless of the outgoing number - and it's not all that uncommon for each desk in an office to have an actual individual number instead of an extension. So that outgoing calls all have the front desk as caller ID, but individual employees can choose to give out their direct number to vendors or important clients or whoever.

Not that that justifies allowing the system to be abused like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At the beginning of this year, I had a lot of fake calls. What helped was blocking the numbers when I discovered it was a fake. They tried several days while they were blocked and it stopped. Then they tried a new number and I blocked them again. After a few weeks, they stopped calling and they haven't done it since then. If you don't want to answer the calls where you don't know the number, just reject the call, google the number and have a look at the owner or if someone says it's a fake. If it's a real person you can call back.

</comment><comment><USER10> 90% of my calls are spam. 10% are my mom. I use privacy protection (Contact Privacy Inc.) when registering domains but still get robocalls from numbers that are spoofed to look like mine (same area code and first three digits). One thing that seems to have helped reduce the incoming robocall volume is that I turned on Google Voice's call screening, which I think requires the caller to record their name before putting the call through.

</comment><comment><USER11> Take a look at my project that I wrote exactly for this: [https://phone.qnzl.co](https://phone.qnzl.co)

The idea is to stop using your real number for things and use a number that gives control of who can ring the number (among a few other features)

Looking for feedback as well. :)

(And yes, I concur. Robo-calls are terrible and I hate them)

</comment><comment><USER12> I started leaving my phone in airplane mode when not expecting a call, and that drastically reduced them. My friends all use Signal (which can use wifi) so I can go a week or more without turning on my cell. These bots mark people who don't pick up as bad prospects, so doing this will usually get you a couple months of peace.

</comment><comment><USER13> My boss started having his number get used as a spoofed number, so he was getting calls, voicemail and texts from other people asking why he was calling them. He was getting hundreds of calls a day when it started. His voicemail box was full. The carrier said wait it out or change your number. After about a week it has died down.

</comment><comment><USER14> Definitely a growing problem > [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/florida-m...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/florida- man-accused-of-97-million-robocalls-says-he-s-no-kingpin)

</comment><comment><USER15> Concur. >50% of incoming calls to my mobile phone are robocalls. Many of are sourced from numbers in the same exchange, aka (nnn) XXX-nnnn. After the first few months I started ignoring any number I didn't recognize.

Thankfully my carrier flags many calls with "Probable Spam" or similar messages.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it's best to just ignore them. Sometimes I also look up the numbers on Google or some sites like [http://whycall.me](http://whycall.me) and block their numbers. It would save a lot of our time rather than talking to them.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure this is new. Additionally, I get a spammy text message every day or at least every other and have been for the past few years. Even if the recorded message (either phone or SMS) is the same, they always use different numbers so number blocking doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER18> I qualify these calls as an attack. The economic toll of decreased phone system reliability cannot be allowed to continue.

The parties responsible must be destroyed... economically if possible, physically if necessary.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yeah, I had the same question lately, since I think about a month ago, there are a lot, 5 a day seems like it.

It's very annoying and distracting. Proper solution I think would be appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's worse if you're older. My parents get 30-40 calls a day.

</comment><comment><USER21> Namecheap offers free whois guard. So use that.

Or burner phone and po box address for the whois.

</comment><comment><USER22> yes, 3-5 per day I get but less because I add each number _via carrier blocklist._ don't ever trust an app to do this, most of them sell your data anyway.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm getting a lot of robo calls with a foreign language speaker. Not sure what it is exactly, but it happens every day now.

Ideally there would be a way to setup a filter and whitelist. Some prompt and captcha for first time callers.</comment>


Full email validation regex (RFC 2822) - <AUTHOR> http://code.iamcal.com/php/rfc822/full_regexp.txt <comment> l-p Please read this : [https://nikic.github.io/2012/06/15/The-true-power-of- regular...](https://nikic.github.io/2012/06/15/The-true-power-of-regular- expressions.html)

RFC5322-compliant regex:

        /
            (?(DEFINE)
                (?<addr_spec> (?&local_part) @ (?&domain) )
                (?<local_part> (?&dot_atom) | (?&quoted_string) | (?&obs_local_part) )
                (?<domain> (?&dot_atom) | (?&domain_literal) | (?&obs_domain) )
                (?<domain_literal> (?&CFWS)? \[ (?: (?&FWS)? (?&dtext) )* (?&FWS)? \] (?&CFWS)? )
                (?<dtext> [\x21-\x5a] | [\x5e-\x7e] | (?&obs_dtext) )
                (?<quoted_pair> \\ (?: (?&VCHAR) | (?&WSP) ) | (?&obs_qp) )
                (?<dot_atom> (?&CFWS)? (?&dot_atom_text) (?&CFWS)? )
                (?<dot_atom_text> (?&atext) (?: \. (?&atext) )* )
                (?<atext> [a-zA-Z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+ )
                (?<atom> (?&CFWS)? (?&atext) (?&CFWS)? )
                (?<word> (?&atom) | (?&quoted_string) )
                (?<quoted_string> (?&CFWS)? " (?: (?&FWS)? (?&qcontent) )* (?&FWS)? " (?&CFWS)? )
                (?<qcontent> (?&qtext) | (?&quoted_pair) )
                (?<qtext> \x21 | [\x23-\x5b] | [\x5d-\x7e] | (?&obs_qtext) )

                # comments and whitespace
                (?<FWS> (?: (?&WSP)* \r\n )? (?&WSP)+ | (?&obs_FWS) )
                (?<CFWS> (?: (?&FWS)? (?&comment) )+ (?&FWS)? | (?&FWS) )
                (?<comment> \( (?: (?&FWS)? (?&ccontent) )* (?&FWS)? \) )
                (?<ccontent> (?&ctext) | (?&quoted_pair) | (?&comment) )
                (?<ctext> [\x21-\x27] | [\x2a-\x5b] | [\x5d-\x7e] | (?&obs_ctext) )

                # obsolete tokens
                (?<obs_domain> (?&atom) (?: \. (?&atom) )* )
                (?<obs_local_part> (?&word) (?: \. (?&word) )* )
                (?<obs_dtext> (?&obs_NO_WS_CTL) | (?&quoted_pair) )
                (?<obs_qp> \\ (?: \x00 | (?&obs_NO_WS_CTL) | \n | \r ) )
                (?<obs_FWS> (?&WSP)+ (?: \r\n (?&WSP)+ )* )
                (?<obs_ctext> (?&obs_NO_WS_CTL) )
                (?<obs_qtext> (?&obs_NO_WS_CTL) )
                (?<obs_NO_WS_CTL> [\x01-\x08] | \x0b | \x0c | [\x0e-\x1f] | \x7f )

                # character class definitions
                (?<VCHAR> [\x21-\x7E] )
                (?<WSP> [ \t] )
            )
            ^(?&addr_spec)$
        /x

Also, if you want to validate a mail address, send a mail. There is no other way.

<comment><USER2> You should probably confirm it contains an @ first. The question is how much validation is necessary prior to sending the email?

<comment><USER3> There needs to be an @, something in front of it, and something behind it. If you've got that, try mailing to it.

<comment><USER4>
      $ echo "Hello" | mail claudius

<comment><USER3> Local email addresses are of course easier to identify. You can just check if the user exists on the server. But that's not much use to websites and other online services.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily, "checking if the user exists on the server" is ambiguous. You could check /etc/passwd, but the mail system may use virtual users for "local" delivery, where "local" is defined in this case as not requiring a domain portion. The only way to even check if a user exists even locally is to try to send it mail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I regularly tested the "email regex du jour" at my previous job whenever these types of articles came up. IIRC, it was against 15+MM known good email addresses, and probably double that in known bads and nearly every one tested had its issues. [edit: we had something like 150,000 distinct active domains, and probably 1/2 that of distinct MXes (if you rolled up all the google-biz and microsoft hosted stuff)... if you think getting your email delivered by gmail is difficult, try a school district in Wyoming that appeared to have a 300baud connecting it to world running an ancient version of Groupware that rejected email according to the weather report as far as we could tell...]

Most people working on the code for that sign-up page (/what have you) neither have the regex-fu necessary nor the understanding of email to write the regex correctly... So you get a lot of shitty regexes (especially large corporations) that don't support apostrophes or dashes/plus signs in the local parts. And it doesn't matter how good your regex-fu and RFC comprehension abilities are, there are a _lot_ of broken implementations out there and blocking a subscriber because of their broken system isn't a great business.

It took awhile, but eventually we switched our signup forms to do a couple of very effective things beyond a very simple address regex: 1) auto-suggest for common misspellings of our most common domains (gmal.com, yaho.com, etc.) 2) while the "please re-type your email" gave us enough user delay, we did a DNS lookup of the domain, then an MX lookup. If there was a problem with either, we passed an error to the user like "Please double check the domain of your email address..." 3) check for domains you know have moved. We were B2B, so if you watched your bounces closely, you'd know that asdf.com was moving to hjkl.com, so you could update your existing records, but people have serious muscle memory, and it's worth reminding them on the signup page.

I was working on tying in our bounce database (you _are_ keeping a record of all your bounces, right?) so that automatically flagged domains would prompt the user with an error like "We've been unable to deliver to your email domain recently, if your email address is typed correctly, we recommend using a secondary email address if you have one..."

</comment><comment><USER7> I worry about people putting things like this on the Internet. Any experienced developer knows it's a joke and that there are better ways to validate e-mail addresses; but there are plenty of inexperienced -- copy-and-paste -- developers out there. A colleague of mine did something similar, for example: he didn't even know what a regular expression was and I could see, as it was a much simpler pattern than this one, that it would fall quite far from the mark.

<comment> UK-AL I think its highlighting the fact that most email regex validation is wrong. Email is a more complex specification than most people realise.

I don't even think you can parse it using a regular language(though most regexe engines go beyond this).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Make sure there is at least one '@'

2\. Make sure there is at least one '.'

3\. Make sure the entire thing is at least 4 characters long (@, . and two other characters)

4\. Resist the temptation for something smarter

5\. Send an email with unique link to verify

<comment><USER9> Strictly speaking user@localserver is valid, but would fail test 2.

<comment><USER10> True, but is it something you actually want to accept?

<comment><USER9> Yes. Or no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ah, I remember this famous question at StackOverflow on this: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/201323/using-a-regular- ex...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/201323/using-a-regular-expression- to-validate-an-email-address)

The gist is to avoid regular expressions in favor for some third party library like so: [http://barebonescms.com/documentation/ultimate_email_toolkit...](http://barebonescms.com/documentation/ultimate_email_toolkit/)

This, of course, becomes an issue when you want to do everything in javascript and go down the rabbit hole of regular expressions. Sort of like deciding on a pattern from assumptions as one might make the mistake of doing with names: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods- programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers- believe-about-names/)

</comment><comment><USER12> /@/ usually does the job for me... hehe

<comment><USER13> I use a slightly more complex variation of that:

       ^.+@.+\..+$

Works wonders. I think when testing the addresses on a sign up form, we got only 0.5% that we couldn't relay too which was a pretty good hit rate.

<comment><USER14> It looks to me like you're neglecting email addresses from <[http://ai./>](http://ai./>). The 'ai' TLD does have an MX record.

<comment><USER13> Yes; I get told that every time I mention it :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is not really "validating" emails in the sense most people think of it. The RFC is about addressing SMTP envelopes, not entering email addresses. This would not be appropriate for e.g. checking if an address entered in a signup form is "valid." This includes a bunch of things that make no sense and aren't really email addresses (like embedded comments) and meanwhile has no idea that email@example.com is not an address that will actually receive mail. The only way to know an address is valid is to email it.

It's mostly a joke. One _might_ want to use this if writing a mail server, but even then...

<comment><USER16> This isn't even about SMTP envelopes. RFC 2822 is about email headers, so it's even worse. Totally invalid for any real world usage outside perhaps an email client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My most recent encounters with idiotic email validation is that many apps don't accept anything on a recent TLD. Even f-ing AWS SNS web console didn't let me add a perfectly valid address in a notification topic.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can somebody explain why it has to be so long? Are there so many special cases?

<comment><USER7> Have a read of RFC 2822[1] section 3.4

In brief, the address specification may look like the simple "local" @ "domain", but those subparts can be non-regular (i.e., making them hard/impossible for a regular expression engine to parse) or contain a lot of exceptions (e.g., the domain could be google.com, or it could be 220.127.116.11, or localhost, or a number of other things).

[1] [https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this partly overstates the complexity of validating an e-mail address in a registration form or similar. If your aim is only to get a syntactically correct address to which you can try to deliver mail to, you don't need to accept stuff like:

* "Name surname" <email@example.com>

* Name surname <email@example.com>

* Group name: Member 1 <firstname.lastname@example.com>, "2, member2"<email@example.com>, email@example.com

* guy@nonpubliclyresolvabledomain

There are many other RFC2822-valid kind of addresses that you don't _need_ to accept if you are not writing an e-mail client, SMTP server, or similia.

</comment><comment><USER20> Aka: do not attempt to use this if you are sane.

</comment><comment><USER21> ...and this is why you don't ask someone to write regex to match an e-mail address on an interview.

<comment><USER22> Surely it's exactly why you _might_ ask that — admittedly as a semi-trick question, which you should probably only direct at experienced people who really ought to recognise it as such.

Email validation is a problem with a lot of plausible answers — many of them wrong — so it has the potential to be quite a good discriminant (depending on whom you're trying to hire, of course).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neat visualization thereof - [https://www.debuggex.com/r/v99uZHQj97Tkgnjy](https://www.debuggex.com/r/v99uZHQj97Tkgnjy)

</comment><comment><USER24> I tried pasting this into Expresso so I could browse it with its analyzer tool, but it refused.</comment>


How Chicken Scheme compiles to C - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-compilation-process

<comment><USER2> If you're interested by this and haven't seen it already, Marc Feeley's talk about compiling Scheme to C is really awesome, and has been posted here at least once. I think it was targeted at people new to Scheme compilers (he diverges to explain why first class continuations are useful) so it's also pretty accessible.

[http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/2004102...](http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/20041020/minutes- en.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice writeup on their use of the Cheney Trampoline. As is always the case in such discussions, I'll mention these three fine books for Scheme implementers:

* Lisp in small pieces, by Christian Queinnec

* Compiling with continuations, by Andrew Appel

* Anatomy of Lisp, by John Allen

<comment><USER4> If you want to go further, Matt Mights papers on static analysis are excellent: <http://matt.might.net/#papers>

Older versions of techniques like those described in these papers were the basis of the Stalin scheme compiler by Sisskind. From Sisskind's research statement:

Stalin is an optimizing compiler for Scheme that performs whole-program static analysis and uses the results of that analysis to generate extremely ecient code. Stalin utilizes a large collection of static-analysis techniques. It performs a novel form of polyvariant flow analysis that uses iterated monovariant flow analysis to perform flow-directed splitting: cloning of specialized copies of procedures and per-call-site assignment of targets to such clones. It uses the results of flow analysis to perform life-time analysis, escape analysis, points-to analysis, and must-alias analysis. These analyses support a novel form of lightweight closure conversion that eliminates most closure slots, using techniques such as variable globalization and localization, compresses the static backchain, and usually eliminates most closures from programs. It also uses the above analyses to support flow- directed region-based storage management, where run-time garbage collection is replaced with static allocation and deallocation on a per-abstract-value and per-program-point basis. It also performs flow-directed lightweight CPS conversion, using extensions of the techniques pioneered with Screamer, to support extremely ecient rst-class continuations. Finally, it supports ow- directed inlining and low-level representation selection to choose the implementation (or nonimplementation) of tags, tag checking, and tag dispatching on a per-abstract-value and per-program-point basis. This eliminates most run-time tags, tag checking, tagging, tag stripping, tag dispatching, boxing, and unboxing from programs. These analyses and optimizations allow Stalin to generate extremely efficient code that outperforms all other Scheme compilers by factors ranging between two and one hundred, particularly for numerically intensive code. Stalin often generates code that outperforms handwritten c and Fortran code.

\-- ftp://ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/qobi/research-statement.pdf

Although flow analysis has been extensively published about, I couldn't find much information using the results of it for the stuff he describes. Does anybody have pointers?

<comment><USER3> Most of this sounds like a _very_ big bag of hefty tricks. Closure conversion, lambda lifting, escape analysis and allocating on the stack, partial evaluation, etc.

Maybe there are more clues over at <https://engineering.purdue.edu/~qobi/papers.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating approach. I would be interested to see benchmarks on the n-Queens solution in translated C vs hand-written C.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is great! However, I'd love to see this for Stalin.</comment>


Heroku announces pricing for Memcached - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/heroku/browse_thread/thread/bb47a35590e1266c

<comment><USER2> A 1GB instance costs $90/mo? A plain 1.7GB instance costs $30/mo. A 50GB instance costs $3500/mo? A plain 68GB instance costs about $1/hr, or $1k/mo. What's the other $2k/mo?

These prices look like 3x cost.

<comment><USER3> If you don't inflate your price substantially above your own cost, you can't afford a marketing budget, which makes it more difficult to grow additional customers.</comment></comment>


Google's Plan to Eliminate Human Driving in 5 Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-wants-eliminate-human-driving-5-years/ <comment><USER2> Having driven in London, Paris, Madrid, and Nice, this just serves to remind me of the bubble so many tech people inhabit.

Unqualified, it's laughable. Qualified, it's meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's say I view it as the inevitable next big disruption, even if five years seems quite optimistic. What would be a good way to invest in this as a modest individual ?

<comment><USER4> Buy stock in companies that are investing in self-driving cars. That's your easiest point of entry.</comment></comment>


On Wendy Davis, the Supreme Court, and Speaking Out As Women - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/wendy-davis-scotus-and-speaking-out-as-women.html

<comment><USER2> I wish I could double-upvote this post. There are a lot of resonant topics for women in technology.</comment>


Seiko UC-2000 (1984) – the dawn of wearable computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.inexhibit.com/case-studies/seiko-uc-2000-1984-the-dawn-of-wearable-computers/ <comment><USER2> How about a little "where are they now"...

MIT Wearable Computing, circa 1996:

[https://imgur.com/a/AlnEYkW](https://imgur.com/a/AlnEYkW)

<comment><USER3> Epic shot

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another interesting bit of history was the Seiko Message Watch, which had time-sync and one-watch messaging over an FM radio sideband:

[https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/tribute-to-the-seiko- messagewa...](https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/tribute-to-the-seiko-messagewatch)

Back before cell phones were ubiquitous that was pretty novel. I remember being struck by how cool it was to step off the plane in Taipei and see it update to local time while I watched. Getting pages about server downtime using the email gateway was also a nice way not to lug a pager around.

The system didn't outlive Y2K, however, and since it was clear where the market was going they simply shut it down rather than fix the Y2K bugs.

<comment><USER5> Microsoft also tried to build a smart watch in 2004 with the SPOT watch.

It's remarkable how a concept can stick around for decades waiting on an implementation that's good enough to be viable.

Instead of trying to think of new things it's perhaps better to go read tech magazines of prior decades finding failed ideas and trying to breathe new life into them.

<comment><USER4> Smartphones are a great example: I had Richochet wireless on a Handspring Prism almost a decade before the iPhone, including a web browser. The concepts were there but it needed generations of hardware and software improvements to make it viable as a mainstream product.

<comment><USER6> I had an iPaq and it was better than the early iPhone by far. PocketPC just needed a touch interface instead of the pen.

Although the pen allowed a lot of fun games. There was a tennis one I really enjoyed.

<comment><USER7> I had an iPaq too, along with a range of HTC/HP/O2 Pocket PC and Windows Mobile devices. The overall experience was dismal with a very slow Mobile IE browser and awkward UX using a stylus. Using the iPhone was like experiencing an alien technology. Flew to San Francisco from Singapore just to buy an iPhone and ordered a SIM delocker to allow me to use it on an non-AT&T network.

<comment><USER6> Having a 206MHz ARM iPaq in ~2003 blew my mind. I had the addon pack for the back and used it over WiFi without issues.

Built and sold several applications for it as well, so easy to develop for as well.

Hell you couldn't even install apps when the iPhone came out, so if you were using what was at least 5 year old technology it's no wonder you found the iPhone to be a better experience.

I bet you think the iPhone was better than the Newton too eh? Kudos on flying to SF instead of just having one shipped to you.

<comment><USER7> Yes, bought a Newton also. Gave up using given the Beta level software. Couldn't ship one from the states those days. Apple didn't allow shipping overseas and eBay price was way too high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This thing reminds me a great deal of the 1980s design aesthetic used in a bunch of "digital dash" cars, such as the Nissan 300Z:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=300Z+dash+digital&num=100&cl...](https://www.google.com/search?q=300Z+dash+digital&num=100&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFxsutl97cAhVollQKHVv5A3IQ_AUICygC)

<comment><USER9> Is there a name for this aesthetic? I like the way it looks. Reminds me of aircraft HUDs.

<comment><USER10> >Is there a name for this aesthetic?

AESTHETICS.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/VaporwaveAesthetics/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VaporwaveAesthetics/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That Epson RC-20 model looks ready for a re-issue, and with a programmable Z80, I wouldn't even mind an exact copy (with modern battery technology). The future looked so cool back then.

<comment><USER12> I'd get one now. Especially if Z80.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1984: Seiko UC_2000 - Z80 CPU 2-10 Mhz (?) - 8K ROM - 2K RAM

30 year later: From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_S1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_S1)

2014: Apple Watch. - ARM CPU 500Mhz - 8G Flash (?) - 512MB RAM.

                        -  X 50-250            - X 1000       - X 256000

30 year from 2014: Any chance for this?

2044: ??? Watch - CPU 25-125GHz (?) - 8TB Flash - 128TB RAM.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately, the UC-2000 seems to have a 1.5-year battery life, so your extrapolated 2044 watch will only work for 6 minutes before needing charged. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Slightly less capable I think but HP-01 was a wrist calculator (with data flow oriented operators) [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hp-01+watch&atb=v119-3__&ia=web](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hp-01+watch&atb=v119-3__&ia=web)

<comment><USER15> A fantastic video about this amazing device: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGQrsSEaZkI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGQrsSEaZkI)

<comment> collective-intl Great video, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a bunch of these: pocket and wrist. I like them. They still work and I would wear that over an Apple watch any day. That is just taste though. I would buy a small programmable, none networked, 'infinite battery' watch like this now.

<comment><USER16> Do you have a bunch of this particular model, or do you have a range of these types of watches. I'd love to hear what other watches like this there are!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I saw a cool project that uses an Android phone in lieu of the original keyboard. The signal from the keyboard is spoofed via the magnetic field of the phone's speaker</comment>


Stardock Report: Worst selling PC DLC earns more than almost any mobile app - <AUTHOR> http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2014.pdf?attachment.apsx

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this. I'm a huge Sins of a Solar empire fan, I really encourage anyone who's a fan of real time 4x's to give this game a try its honestly one of the best on the market.

Sad to hear their isn't any sequel news. The overall lore was going in a very interesting direction with the latest release.

:.:.:

Also on a side note SoSE has a huge user base, most their DLC for the game actually ads a decent amount of content, and is regularly dirt cheap <$5. With the games massive install/user base its not surprising paid DLC is one of their biggest profit bases.</comment>


USB glory holes: anonymous, offline file-sharing in public space - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/02/130997071/-an-anonymous-offline-peer-to-peer-file-sharing-network-in-public-space

<comment><USER2> As a security guy, the idea of connecting this to my system scares the bejesus out of me. I want to point two small things out: USB device drivers are universally poorly tested, and this device could be anything. There's nothing stopping such a device from running an exploit in ring0 and taking full, instant control over your system.

<comment><USER3> For that matter there's nothing to stop this device having 240V AC across its pins

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the term "dead drops" is better than "glory holes" but i suppose you're just a likely to get a virus no matter what its called.

<comment><USER5> To be honest, I think glory hole is a pretty accurate description.

I wouldn't put anything I value into either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> File-sharing in such form may not be anonymous, for example one may keep a snapshot of what's on that disk, and then check again after somebody have used it. That could catch anyone wet-handed for sharing anything, albeit legal or illegal. The anonymity is not as easy to preserve as it sounds like.

Likewise some may put virus into the disk (internally or automatically due to the virus itself) which the next person may not have their computers patched and have no anti-virus installed.

</comment><comment><USER7> Previous discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1851088>

</comment><comment><USER8> As much harm as could obviously come from this, surely we can agree that the potential for epic mischief and shenanigans is unmatched?

If I'd discovered one of these near my house in my early teens it would've obsessed me for weeks. I'd probably have ended up learning USB debugging or something to cause further trouble ;) I see this as an absolutely massive jolt to people's natural sense of curiosity which is so often neglected in urban environments.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't see why this is USB when the system could work much better with WiFi - multiple users can connect to the same hub without any of them having to physically tether themselves to the spot.

And as for the potential for malware outbreaks, this is basically like a public water tap and just like we filter that water before drinking, scanning the data before using it will solve the malware problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> The hack here is that someone got a ton of press for the cost of 5 USB drives and a gallon of cement.

</comment><comment><USER11> As with any time when you couple your device with some random hole you should take all necessary precautions to avoid contracting a disease.

<comment><USER2> (I know this comment was intended to be largely funny, but I feel I need to point this out.) Thing is, this isn't like downloading some files, but like dropping a random PCI card into your box. By connecting this to your system, you're really ceding complete control, with effectively no way of preventing any attack from taking place. Is it likely? Not particularly, but it's definitely possible.

<comment><USER11> It's intended to be serious, I just decided to add the humorous slant to it after I started writing.

If I were to use data from these drops I'd want a junk system that I could flatten between uses dedicated to the task. Connecting random usb devices to your system is a recipe for disaster in a billion ways. Even connecting well behaved usb devices to your system with unknown data on them is fairly risky due to the poorly chosen default settings of popular operating systems like Windows.</comment></comment></comment>


uVibe: Real Time City Guide - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/uvibe-real-time-city-guide <comment><AUTHOR> We all went out at some point in a pub or club and realised that we are the only ones in that place, even if it had very good reviews. uVibe solves exactly this problem: not only it shows you a list of the most relevant nearby places, but it also tells you in which moment of the day to go there and get the best experience out of it.

We listen to social signals so we can tell you in real time from real users, where and when to go out in your city.

My name is Romeo and I am one of the founders of uVibe. I am really looking forward for any kind of feedback, suggestions and ideas that you might have. Thanks!</comment>


The Dreadful Inconvenience of Salad - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-inconvenience-of-salad/382613/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> This reminds me some of what Livblends is doing: [https://twitter.com/LivBlends](https://twitter.com/LivBlends) .</comment>


Simple Macbook Dock - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOKu9uwdwZI&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, why doesn't Apple sell docking stations? It is my favorite accessory for my Dell and IBM laptops.

</comment><comment><USER3> The video claims you don't have to make any settings changes. The first question that springs to mind as a PC user with a computer hooked to a 40" TV - does Mac automatically adjust your resolution and overscanning properly when you plug it into a TV?

If so this seems like a cool little device

<comment><USER4> Yep, it does. Usually OSX gets everything right immediately after connecting my MBP to a TV, although sometimes (rarely, in my experience) it needs adjustment, but that only takes a couple of clicks.

I'd love to get one Henge Dock, but it seems they're only available for Unibody Macbooks. :(

<comment><USER5> This may be obvious, but they rely on all the needed ports being on the same side. On my non-unibody Macbook pro, power is on the left side and video is on the right side.

Also, I suspect a mini display port is much easier to snap into place than a DVI port.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://hengedocks.com/> Just ordered one. Looks like my media center dock problem is solved.

</comment><comment><USER6> Neat.

But I would much rather have a docking station which let me still use the MacBook screen so as to run a Dual Screen setup</comment>


A new Clojure book for beginners (Early access) - <AUTHOR> https://www.manning.com/books/get-programming-with-clojure?a_aid=viebel&a_bid=399d9d64 <comment><AUTHOR> Author of the book here. I am happy to answer any questions</comment>


Android sites - stop product news, reviews, leaks of Samsung devices - <AUTHOR> http://forum.androidcentral.com/general-chat/54680-request-androidcentral-all-android-sites.html <comment><USER2> Odd request when they advertise 4 Samsung devices and show 2 Samsung reviews on the page.

Do as I say, not as I do?</comment>


Content Injection Vulnerability in WordPress - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sucuri.net/2017/02/content-injection-vulnerability-wordpress-rest-api.html <comment><AUTHOR> Related Cloudflare blog post: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/protecting- everyone-from-wordpre...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/protecting-everyone- from-wordpress-content-injection/)</comment>