The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/11/25/the-bare-minimum-you-should-do-to-protect-your-familys-data/ <comment><USER2> More than half of that I wouldn't advice or would have serious caveats about the advice given...

This is really a strange document...

Just a few examples:

"Don't open emails, texts, ]...] from anyone you don't know, don't recognize, or weren't expecting" <\- sorry, that's not how email works. I want to get emails from strangers that care about what I do.

"Don't use unsecure Wi-Fi networks" Largely outdated due to HTTPS and completely impractical. Everyone uses the Wifi at starbucks.

"Even better, get a VPN (virtual private network) — but, just like with antivirus software, don't use a free VPN." How should an average user know if the VPN is a scam? (More than half of VPN providers are scam and there's little reason to believe that payed providers are always better.)

"Use tough passwords and change them frequently." Changing passwords frequently is considered deprecated advice. The single most important rule about passwords is to use unique passwords. Which they don't say at all...

I could go on...

Update: Mozilla deleted the post after criticism, see [https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329](https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329)

<comment><USER3> I ended up writing my own take on bare minimum security practices for less- technical people as a sort of response to the Mozilla article:

[https://medium.com/@perplamps/super-basic-security- advice-f9...](https://medium.com/@perplamps/super-basic-security- advice-f9ba900c416b)

If anyone finds any problems or disagrees with any of my suggestions, let me know and I'll update it!

<comment><USER4> I don't see any problem with the article but almost all the points you raised show there are things hardware vendors, operating system vendors, application developers, and essentially our world should fix on our end and not burden users with it.

For example, some web browsers (Google Chrome and Apple Safari) offer to create randomized passwords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec."

Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#Antivirus_vendor_cooperation)

<comment><USER6> Previously, from a former Mozilla developer [1]:

> At best, there is negligible evidence that major non-MS AV products give a > net improvement in security. More likely, they hurt security significantly; > for example, see bugs in AV products listed in Google's Project Zero. These > bugs indicate that not only do these products open many attack vectors, but > in general their developers do not follow standard security practices. > (Microsoft, on the other hand, is generally competent.)

In the linked Project Zero issue tracker, all 3 of these "reputable sources" have exploits in their anti-virus software.

[1]: [https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your- antivirus-...](https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus- software-except.html)

<comment><USER7> Vulnerability is not lack of security. You need a threat actor exploiting the weakness for it to become actual insecurity.

<comment><USER8> That's... not what vulnerability means.

vul·ner·a·bil·i·ty noun the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.

<comment><USER7> I did not define vulnerability,I only explained security.

This is security101. Risk is measured by multiplying vulnerability by threat.

Maybe an analogy might help. You are vulnerable to bullets. But your security with respect to your bullet vulnerability is measured by multiplying it against active threats that might shoot you with bullets. So,your security decreases when in a warzone as opposed to lying in bed at your suburban house due to reduction of threat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I expected better from Mozilla.

Connecting to unsecured WiFi is mostly not a problem. Most websites and applocations encrypt traffic and the security of the channel does not matter.

Plus, the recommendation to installl shady antivirus software throws the motivation of this article into doubt.

<comment><USER10> I agree. The section on "Use tough passwords and change them frequently", except for the final suggestion to use a password manager, felt like antiquated password advice.

<comment><USER11> As long as the password manager is trusted. Some are run by a single person nobody's heard of. I met a woman in Vegas who ran one and who couldn't believe that people trusted it so much.

<comment><USER12> And then there are ones like LastPass that people on HN seem to recommend even though their TOS basically says they spy on all your browser behavior and sell it to 3rd parties

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Use tough passwords and change them frequently._ The best practice for > passwords is to use real words or phrases you can remember easily — but > spell them incorrectly. They should be at least eight characters and have a > combination of letters, numbers, and special characters, such as 5pEAzhawh$ > for "five pizzas."

The result of encouraging frequent changes: 5pEAzhawh$, 5pEAzhawh$2, 5pEAzhawh$3, 5pEAzhawh$4, 5pEAzhawh$5, ...

> Even better, use a password manager like Lastpass.

They really should have lead with this.

<comment><USER12> When will LastPass stop being recommended? It says right in their TOS they collect all your browser behavior and sell it to 3rd parties. Why should I trust them?

<comment><USER14> Can you highlight where in the TOS they say this? I've used LastPass for several years and this would be concerning if true. I didn't seen any such language in their ToS: [https://www.logmeininc.com/legal/terms-and- conditions](https://www.logmeininc.com/legal/terms-and-conditions)

<comment><USER12> tos:

> You may use our Services only as permitted in these Terms, and you consent > to our Privacy Policy at > [https://www.logmeininc.com/legal/privacy](https://www.logmeininc.com/legal/privacy), > which is incorporated by reference.

pp:

> When you use our Services, we receive information generated through the use > of the Service, either entered by you or others who use the Services with > you (for example, schedules, attendee info, etc.), or from the Service > infrastructure itself, (for example, duration of session, use of webcams, > connection information, etc.) We may also collect usage and log data about > how the services are accessed and used, including information about the > device you are using the Services on, IP addresses, location information, > language settings, what operating system you are using, unique device > identifiers and other diagnostic data to help us support the Services.

> Third Party Data: We may receive information about you from other sources, > including publicly available databases or third parties from whom we have > purchased data, and combine this data with information we already have about > you. We may also receive information from other affiliated companies that > are a part of our corporate group. This helps us to update, expand and > analyze our records, identify new prospects for marketing, and provide > products and services that may be of interest to you.

> Location Information: We collect your location-based information for the > purpose of providing and supporting the service and for fraud prevention and > security monitoring. If you wish to opt-out of the collection and use of > your collection information, you may do so by turning it off on your device > settings.

> Device Information: When you use our Services, we automatically collect > information on the type of device you use, operating system version, and the > device identifier (or "UDID").

and

> Some specific examples of how we use the information:

> * Conduct research and analysis

> * Display content based upon your interests

> * Market services of our third-party business partners

and

> 4\. Information Sharing

> ... We may share your personal information with (a) third party service > providers; (b) business partners; (c) affiliated companies within our > corporate structure and (d) as needed for legal purposes.

and

> Examples of how we may share information with service providers include:

> * Sending marketing communications

there's more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It was removed:

[https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329?s=...](https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329?s=20)

But here's the original article:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181130081659/https://blog.mozi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181130081659/https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/11/25/the- bare-minimum-you-should-do-to-protect-your-familys-data/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also on Archive.today: [https://archive.is/7SYNe](https://archive.is/7SYNe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Use antivirus protection. Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec. Beware of free antivirus software, as it can contain malware. The iOS operating system has antivirus software built in..."

Do people still really install anti-virus? Isn't it just another vector for attack since they themeselves use exploits to manipulate the OS?

Linux for desktop, pixel or iOS for phone. Signal for communication, fastmail or Gmail on g suite for email.

Minimize installed apps on phone Run JavaScript blocker on Firefox if you're using an Android (and on your desktop).

<comment><USER17> Not only do people install it, I see it _required_ in corporate IT all the time. As in, they even set a VPN policy that checks your anti-virus definitions for currency and will refuse to connect if the definitions aren't current or if anti-virus is not installed. These same corporate IT who force 90 day password changes, and nonsense like 5pEAzhawh$ instead of fivepizzassoundsgoodbutdontforgetthebeer because no matter what longer is better.

<comment><USER18> I was on a site the other day, which I won't share publicly, that required "NO MORE than 6 characters, including precisely 1 number and 1 capital" (paraphrase, my emphasis) ... I definitely WTF-ed at that.

My default is 20 characters of alphanum, or 16 of "graph" (though I drop look alike characters; 32 chars if I'm entering payment details).

One has to hope they have a small limit on retries. They definitely carry commercially sensitive data and do payment processing.

What worries me is they used js to catch my attempt to use 20 chars, so they're not operating completely naively -- all I can think was it was a misinterpretation and s/most/least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Fine-tune your browser settings

This is not so great advice, especially as a "bare minimum." What setting would a user really want to change here?

The only advice should perhaps be the last sentence "Consider using plug-ins like Privacy Badger or HTTPS Everywhere to block tracking or keep your activity safer from snoops." And then explain what they do.

</comment><comment><USER17> Author needs to read, or re-read NIST 800-63B. [https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html](https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html)

Do not change passwords frequently. Do not use short passwords and try to compensate by using special characters and nonsensical word obfuscation, instead use long passphrases, the longer the better.

</comment><comment><USER20> Overall a good resource but please no to "antivirus" software like McAfee. Absolutely horrible and makes it worse.

<comment><USER21> Ok so you have kids who play say Minecraft, they download all mods they can in zipfiles and install all the other games packs from weird internet forums.

What is bigger threat and attack vector, McAfee, Symantec or modding forums for 10 year old?

For me installing AV is silly I don't download and run random crap from internet that friend from school also installed. But If I would have kids having installed AV and updated is quite good idea. I also wonder all time how my non technical close ones break their computers, I don't know what they are clicking but I do not get unusable windows 10 every 3 months. My gf is not technical but she almost never install anything on her laptop and it works fine, so for this one I am quite happy.

<comment><USER8> Is McAfee really better than Windows Defender in this use case though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Link to archive: [http://web.archive.org/web/20181127021739/https://blog.mozil...](http://web.archive.org/web/20181127021739/https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/11/25/the- bare-minimum-you-should-do-to-protect-your-familys-data/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, for posterity it can be found here too: [https://archive.is/7SYNe](https://archive.is/7SYNe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Mozilla should enable safe browser settings by default.

For example: third party cookies are never needed on 99% of the sites you visit.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ironically another advice to protect your privacy would be not to use Firefox - considering all the new telemetry, newtabpage, beacons, and calling-home that Firefox nowadays does.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Use tough passwords and change them frequently.

This is a futile advice, no sane person is ever going to follow it. You can memorize a tough password or two but change them and memorize the new ones frequently... nope.

> Tweak your home assistants.

Don't use home assistants unless you are a kind of person who really doesn't mind broadcasting their whole life as a reality show without even being informed when you're on air. I can't imagine a reasonable privacy-caring person who would.

</comment><comment><USER26> OK, ... so what _would_ the Hacker News Guide to Online Family Security look like?

\- ISPs \- Routers \- Ad Blockers \- OS \- Data storage / backups \- Facebook or not ? \- ios v android ...

<comment><USER27> I have PiHole running on our home network blocking ads, phisihing domains, etc.

I also don't use the ISP router / wifi.

I feel like those two things are good steps towards protecting my family. They give me some piece of mind at least.

<comment><USER28> Have you run into any issues that required tweaking of the PiHole set-up? I'm running PiHole + a hand-rolled VPN on Digital Ocean but I'm looking to put together little PiHole boxes for my family who live across the country. It needs to pretty much be perfect out of the box or they'll unplug it.

I've only had to disconnect once or twice to unsubscribe from spam lists, but I doubt my family would even bother.

<comment><USER27> The only thing that almost annoys me is that Google ads are blocked on the redirect, but not display. So sometimes I click them and have to go back and click the organic result. I could probably tweak it.

I am running it on a old Pi B (the old one with an RCA jack). No issues. if I was sending to family across the country, I'd probably add remote access of some sort for myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Sushi-san I think that it's beneficial that Mozilla pushes this privacy-minded ideology. People who aren't tech-savvy might not know these tips.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hitting a 404 now. Maybe all the comments here made them the blog editors realize they posted some bizarre advice.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been wondering recently, (how) do identity protection or fraud protection software services actually work?

I feel like someone actually doing that right would be a big deal but haven't heard anything special about the market leaders.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you don't want web sites to track you, you better not use a browser with JavaScript. eg. you better not user Firefox :P Also to avoid tracking you are better off using other peoples internet connection, eg. not your own.

</comment><comment><USER32> The advice was basic high level advice which at this point should be common knowledge for anyone using the internet. I can see why they took down the blog post because it was disappointing content

</comment><comment><USER33> Page not found 404 error.

<comment><USER8> They pulled it, because it was garbage: [https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329?s=...](https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329?s=20)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a mirror here: [https://archive.is/7SYNe](https://archive.is/7SYNe)

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know how data taken in data breeches is used by attackers? I've always been curious.

</comment><comment><USER35> Also avoid DNA services. If one family member does it it can compromise the entire family.

<comment><USER8> "Compromise" in what sense?

I don't find any sort of value in DNA services, but I don't feel "compromised" one bit that my brother uses them.

Anyway, the idea of "family" when we get into DNA is not useful, a skilled person can track you down because a total stranger who you share great great great grandparents with uploaded their DNA into an open source DNA database, which is what happened with the Last Area Rapist.

<comment><USER36> If you murder someone, they might be able to find you via 32andme.

Some people would say, "Don't murder people, then!" but folks sometimes prefer, "How dare they catch you, what a violation of your privacy!"

<comment><USER8> So don't use 23 and me to make sure if your relatives can get away with murder?

<comment><USER37> Everyone who doesn't want their genetics searched has a murder to hide.

The punchline: the series of rapes and murders that was used to institutionalize mass DNA collection turned out to have been done by a cop who didn't have DNA taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> >Turn off location services.

Will this make it impossible to find your lost iPhone?

<comment> Sushi-san Yes, but you can edit location settings for individual apps IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > They should be at least eight characters and have a combination of letters, > numbers, and special characters, such as 5pEAzhawh$ for "five pizzas."

Obligatory xkcd telling you to not do this: [https://xkcd.com/936/](https://xkcd.com/936/)

<comment><USER40> I'm by no means and expert is this field, but I thought at some point I had heard that using words like the xkcd comic were actually less secure, I thought what I heard was that there is a type of dictionary search that can be more efficient in cracking those "all words" passwords (as in, you don't really have 44 bits of entropy). Again, I've got no source, and am not very knowledgeable in this space, so someone correct me.

<comment><USER41> Assuming you pull these four words randomly (not-human-random, actually random) out of a dictionary of at least 2048 words, and separate them by a space, you have a password of (at least) 44 bits of entropy. There's no way a "dictionary" attack can reduce the possible password space to less than 2 __44 possibilities.

<comment><USER40> Some quick googling gave me this:[https://paul.reviews/passwords-why- using-3-random-words-is-a...](https://paul.reviews/passwords-why- using-3-random-words-is-a-really-bad-idea/)

(also good stuff here: [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/151165/is- rando...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/151165/is-randomly- generating-passwords-from-an-assortment-of-dictionary-words-cryptogr))

It seems the consensus is to use 5-6 words, and following the xkcd trick of 4 may not be enough.

<comment><USER42> Your first link uses a few assumptions that are very good security practice but may confuse the unexperienced reader:

It assumes that the attacker has complete knowledge of the password generation method. This is good security practice and provides you with a worst case boundary. In reality, though, an attacker seldomly has that advantage. Before an attacker spends x hours/days/weeks to crack pure word-based passwords, they will spend time to crack "passw0rd". If you remove the advantage of password generation method knowledge, all numbers in this article are very different. The reader should know about that!

It assumes that whoever is storing the password may do so badly. It even states "assume the site stores our credentials in the weakest possible way". Which is a dangerous assumption since the weakest possible way would be plaintext and then the whole article would be moot. So, obviously we exclude plaintext. The article goes with simple, single md5 hashes instead. While some kind of worst case, it's pretty unrealistic nowadays that someone makes an effort not to store passwords in plaintext and then fails so miserably in googling how to do so. This worst case is probably chosen to have easier and more impressive cracking numbers. The reader should be aware of this.

It assumes that the attacker obtains the password database. Again, good security practice and a worst case scenario. But still not exactly 100% realistic. If you argue with this assumption, the reader should be aware of that.

In essence, this article proves that the "3 word method" is not secure enough when absolutely everyone uses this exact same method (with knowledge of the exact same words) with a service who incompetently stores passwords and got its password database stolen.

While that is true, the advice it gives "Don't use words in passwords. Ever." is just another example of great oversimplification that is harmful in the end.

Instead of bashing methods for being not secure enough (whatever that means), we should provide users with practical methods to come up with usable passwords that are reasonably secure for the service in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 404? Has it been taken down?

</comment><comment><USER44> As someone who has dropped almost all social media (mostly so I can get more done, but also for privacy), I can point out some non obvious consequences. This blog post mentions that stopping the use of Facebook will prevent you from seeing your nephews baby pictures... This is true.

My extended family and remote friends actually got upset when I dropped Facebook. They asked why I didn't want to be part of their lives, asked why I was choosing not to talk to them anymore... All while texting me on phones that allow instantaneous communication of any type of election media imaginable, more so that Facebook allows.

Moral of the story: Facebook and other social media makes most people socially lazy with continuous use. If you don't believe me, go try to meet someone under the age of 30 "out in the wild", at a bar or venue. Bars used to be easiest places to meet anyone at, just walk in, sit at the front, and start chatting. I'm not talking about people who are on their phones ignoring the outside world; even people just chilling and having a beer just don't know how to talk to someone outside of their social media platforms.</comment>


Building Polyglot (Scala/Erlang) Systems With Scalang - <AUTHOR> http://blog.boundary.com/2011/09/23/strangeloop-2011-cliffmoon.html

<comment><USER2> Their claim is: Erlang is good for building scalable distributed systems. Scala has actors too, but Erlang is more than actors (a lot more!). It's a language created to build distributed systems and highly scalable servers.

On the other hand, Scala is good for data crunching and mutable/immutable data processing. And you'd have a hard time dealing with mutable data on Erlang. As they are building a highly scalable data analytics system, it makes a lot of sense to couple the two languages. But I guess Akka is good enough to the other 98% of the use cases you may ever find. ;)

<comment><USER2> update: An older Cliff Moon's talk about polyglot systems (Erlang and Scala) is available at [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Building-Polyglot- Systems...](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Building-Polyglot-Systems-with- JInterface)

Disclaimer: in spite of thinking that Akka is a very cool framework, I think it can quickly become something like Spring, that is, a humongous framework that tries to solve everybody's problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Compatible type systems: lol :)

Can anyone expand on the "complementary set of features"? One of the biggest selling points for Scala is Akka, which is basically trying to implement Erlang (as I see it). I'm not very experienced with Erlang, so what's missing from Akka?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps by complementary he means: \- Scala allows you to break away from the share-nothing, strictly immutable constraints of Erlang when you really need to do that for performance. \- Erlang has OTP, Scala has access to the full ecosystem of Java libraries.

Not sure what else is complementary.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Career Advice for a Junior Developer - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone!
I am pretty sure that many people reading this are smart developers, and I consider myself one. I am a CS graduate and I have been working for 3 months as a backend developer in a company (in Italy) that delivers mobile and web apps, like many others.
The first problem that I'm facing is that my senior (and my junior teammates) constantly takes bad programming decisions that affects the long-term stability of the project, such as ugly db models or not following the single-responsibility principle for example. He gets to choose all the design but he's not the one coding so he also does not realise the errors by himself.
The second problem is that my company, like I think many small companies that work for clients, accepts projects with low budget and thus there is not enough time to properly write good code (we write js backends without testing >.>).
Obviously I'm not here just to complain. I thought about some solutions I can opt for:
- Work for a big tech company where there is less hurry to finish projects and there are clear coding rules to follow (like testing and so on). Good pay, less pressure but maybe no real engagement of designing complex systems (don't really know).
- Learn frontend technologies and try to slowly become a full stack freelancer. Good pay (hopefully), no boss and I get to design the systems. The problem is getting started, make the connections, build a resume and learn how to do it properly.
- Change from backend to frontend, where maybe design is not so important, though I don't really like it.
- Change to some other field like ML, but I would need some time to study and I don't think I could get a job without a master's degree (you tell me).
I'm really thirsty for your advice. I currently live in Italy but open to relocating pretty much anywhere in the world or work remotely. Thank you for reading this! <comment><USER2> First, the are smaller number of smart developers than you think.

Then see the project's scope. Big project's architecture may not works well for small scoped project, and vice versa. As long as it pays well, small, quick, with duct typing projects are worth to develop.

Usually the problem is small project with tight budget, which makes the margin small and causing you unable to improve / improving your tools.

If that's the case, you may look for other company which have higher margin and pay-to-work hours ratio. It does not necessarily means bigger companies.

Now for the paths:

\- front end knowledge is valuable even if you don't aim to be front end devs or full stack, so more or less knowing how they work is useful. Afaik react devs are in high demand and highly paid. However front end grows very fast compared to backend.

\- machine learning is good, but I lack the knowledge in this topic. My concern is the tooling today may be very different with the tooling in following years, CMIIW.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the comment. Do you have some advice on how to see the mode of working within a company during the interview process? Or how to choose a company before sending an application.

<comment><USER2> For me, I especially avoid companies which take and create multiple projects for clients, or outsourcing companies.

If you love quality, look for companies that have / makes product(s), or companies that use their own product (such as SAAS).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personal opinion to your 2 problems: 1\. Work with your teammates to figure out what is the best for the company. It may be hard, due to communication, personality, etc. But the bright side is now you get a chance to show your skill, your leadership. Maybe you are able to be the lead of the engineering team after 2 years, and become a partner of the company owner. If you feel the senior is making bad decisions frequently, talk to them, talk to their boss, talk to the company owner, WITH PROVE. (if the company's culture is truly toxic, quitting the job is also a good option).

2\. don't worry about test. the most popular open source project(linux kernel) do not have test code. it is overrated. When you interview for a job, nobody will ask you how good you are in writing tests. If I were you, I would prefer no test code required, so that I can focus on learning more important stuffs to grow myself: design pattern, infrastructure consideration.

3\. about ML: you don't need degree. if you can be top 10 in kaggle, nobody cares your degree. If you truly like ML, you probably don't care about the job. How do you learn ML: google, online courses, and the most important: projects. The best case is that you can work for a company that is willing to hire you as a software engineer but then they allow you to work on ML projects. But this is kind of luck and you have to do google search to find that type of company. But, getting a degree and naturally getting hired as a ML engineer would be safer plan if you have decided ML is what you like. But there is cost: time and money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the comment. For what I know about ML once you have a problem you just pick some solutions from the literature that apply well to that problem and use them. Apart from the engagement of reading papers, do you think there is some interesting problem solving in that field?

<comment><USER3> I am not a ML expert, so I cannot give you correct guidelines. But I do know that there are a lot of problems in kaggle. You can pick a direction/domain: cv, reinforce learning, nn, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Keep learning. Customers don't care if something adheres to SRP or not, they just want the output - if it works (good enough) you might get repeat business.</comment>


How I Lost $100 and Blamed It On cal(1) - <AUTHOR> http://acg.github.com/2011/03/22/how-i-lost-100-and-blamed-cal.html

<comment><USER2> The year calendar even showed the year as just '8', which is a dead giveaway.

<comment><USER3> But that wouldn't be visible in a standard 80x24 terminal, and since the month of November would be visible, there would be no reason to scroll up and check. He probably saw something more like this: <http://pastie.org/1702013>

<comment><USER4> (a) Do you really think people only use 80x24 terminals today?

(b) If the OP used an 80x24 terminal, then less(1) is his friend.

Yes, small terminals are restrictive, but those who use them nowadays should also understand unix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like he won't make that mistake again. This is as good an example of why people should RTFM as any.

I'm sympathetic to the notion that cal(1) behaved counterintuitively, but at the same time, there's no obvious right answer here. Different people have different ideas of what is obvious. I think '08' is obviously an octal number, but that notion isn't necessarily shared by everyone.

The take-away here is to read the docs, run the program, ensure the output is what you expect, then move on.

<comment><USER4> (And, I should mention, hopefully my notion that '08' is octal _isn't_ shared by that many people, since '8' can't be part of an octal number...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> More accurately, how not reading the manpage and not looking closely at the results cost him $100.

<comment><USER6> software should do what users expect it to do, not what developers think it should do.

<comment><USER7> And how would you suggest printing the calendar for the year 8?

<comment><USER6>
      GIT [team]  git stats
      git: 'stats' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

      Did you mean this?
              status

      $ cal 08
      cal: '08' is ambiguous.

      Did you mean this?
              2008
              8AD

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Date/time math is such a PITA. Honestly, I wish everyone would just switch to GMT, use 24-hour time, and write dates and times from most significant to least significant (ie, right now is 2011-03-23 02:30).

This is annoying for even technically advanced people - for example, set your phone to sync with the current timezone, then enter an event - it'll get added in your current timezone.

Lets say you get a call from home when you're in a different timezone for a meeting - you enter the appointment and when you get home it's off by a few hours.

Nobody realizes this as they're used to entering things on paper still, until it bites them.

Don't even get me started on Daylight Savings Time...

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a great quote in the coreutils documentation[1] to this effect:

"Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months, are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible. Indeed, had some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better than handing down our present system. It is like a set of trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy circumlocutions. Unlike the more successful patterns of language and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and persistently encourages our terror of time. ...

"It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals demanded a knowledge of five different languages. It is no wonder then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion."

— Robert Grudin, Time and the Art of Living.

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Date-...](http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Date- input-formats.html#Date-input-formats)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worse I did `cal 9 1752` and lost two weeks</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think there's a possibility Obama will pardon Snowden? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER3> Obama absolutely will not. His track record of abusing the "Justice" system to harass and torture whistleblowers says so.

Yes, it is torture. Facing an unwinnable war against the megalith for no reason other than you did the right thing will ruin your life, probably your family's, and adversely affect your health so that it will shorten your life.

Edit: It's my belief that exposing crimes committed by the government, which is charged with both obeying the law and enforcing it, is the right thing to do.

<comment><USER4> >It's my belief that exposing crimes committed by the government, which is charged with both obeying the law and enforcing it, is the right thing to do.

I believe you should get automatic, blanket immunity for crimes that directly produce tangible evidence of government wrongdoing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't believe so. If Snowden receives a pardon, it will be after a few decades of meaningful reform towards better privacy for citizens. I can't see this happening until most of the current political leaders have retired. The current generation will see him as a traitor and embarrassment for years to come.

The worst case scenario is that he will only be pardoned posthumously, ala Alan Turing. I hope that does not turn out to be the case.

<comment><USER6> I'd argue the worst case scenario is that he is never pardoned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not a chance. A president pardoning someone who released tons of information about the government is unheard of. It's the same reason why the blue shield exists and why judges rarely convict cops. When you start turning on the system everything starts falling apart.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unlikely. The U.S. voters best chance is to elect a candidate in 2016 who _will_ pardon Snowden in 2020 on his last day in office. Then we can draft Snowden's ass and make him president for 4 or 8 years. That's a suitable punishment for his crimes.

<comment><USER9> Can't tell if this is a joke about the office of president being terrible and thus punishment for Snowden.

Or a joke about Snowden being a hero and deserving to be president.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. It truly works both ways. Nice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No. A future president, possibly. This administration has shown a commitment to, and a strengthening of, the status quo of increased monitoring. The only changes they've made in that respect has been when they were caught with their pants down.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm going to go with "possibly." End-of-final-term presidential pardons are not subject to quite the same calculus as decisions made during term, i.e. reelection is not a consideration. Obama's constitutional law idealism may have been severely corrupted by the pressures of his current role, but it's still there. I could see him feeling conflicted about Snowden's de facto exile, and thus being willing to issue a pardon in his last hour in office.

Not likely. But possible. P(Pardon) > 0.1 ?

<comment><USER4> >Obama's constitutional law idealism may have been severely corrupted by the pressures of his current role, but it's still there.

Really? I have two words for you: Predator drones[1]. The sitting president of the United States, who has actually ordered drone strikes against American citizens who surely have Constitutional rights, joking about droning more American citizens. Whatever bit of constitutional law idealism was there was either an act or long since gone.

[1] [https://youtu.be/WWKG6ZmgAX4](https://youtu.be/WWKG6ZmgAX4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> He hasn't been convicted of anything. Can't pardon someone without something to pardon them of.

<comment><USER14> President Ford pardoned his predecessor Nixon, even though Nixon had not been prosecuted or convicted.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nixon+pardon+ford&ia=about](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nixon+pardon+ford&ia=about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think anyone will unless there's massive reform/change. Otherwise - <USER2> people just keep blowing the same whistle?

</comment><comment><USER16> Not a snowball's chance in hell.</comment>


Bush shoe-throwing game SockAndAwe.com sold for £5,215.00 on ebay - <AUTHOR> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140289808336 <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that the guy behind it was Alex Tew, the guy who did MillionDollarHomepage.com (or, rather, it was the company he built from the money he made, but he's the figurehead).

It's interesting that they put it together within 48 hours of the shoe incident and got the traffic while the iron was hot. Development tools and frameworks nowadays make this a lot easier.. so keep your eyes out for news items and the like if you want to have similar hits (not that £5,215 is a hit - not bad for a few days' work though - but the millions of visitors are great).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for filling in the details. It's amazing how fast they moved and were able to make a cool £5k and tons of publicity. If anything it shows very good thinking even if a bit opportunistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> another version of the funny game to throw bush by a shoe in <http://www.farewellshoe.com></comment>


Bootflat: Open Source Flat UI Kit based on Twitter Bootstrap 3 - <AUTHOR> http://bootflat.github.io/documentation.html

<comment><USER2> This looks very nice.

As a primarily backend guy I appreciate all the work people do on this stuff a lot (even if I don't use it I often refer to it for both inspiration and ideas on _how_ to do stuff).

Thanks for sharing.

EDIT: For example I'm already "borrowing" the colours from the notification dialogs, they look much nicer than the stock ones :).

<comment><USER3> Same thing here, though in the moment I'm having a hard time finding U[I|X] solutions/patterns for the webapp I'm designing, which is much harder than a theme (for me). In the sense that "now, this is organized from a database point of view, how do I make users consume and interact with it?"...

(Just looking at Facebook blows my mind when you start realizing how many tiny patterns they have for displaying more information on the screen. Things like "Jack and 13 more like your link" w/ click to expand)

<comment><USER4> [http://bootsnipp.com/](http://bootsnipp.com/) is nice, doesn't have everything but can speed up prototyping dramatically.

<comment><USER5> that's an awesome site, wonder if there is anything more like it

<comment><USER4> There are tons of them.

Below is a good list of them that has been around for a while, enjoy.

[http://bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of-twitter- boot...](http://bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of-twitter-bootstrap- resources)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another flat CSS theme for bootstrap? How many minutes did that take you? The layout on the site does look nice though.

[http://flathemes.com/](http://flathemes.com/) is your main website, it has a link to download version 1.0.1 (even though github says version 2.0.0 is the latest), then when I click download it says that I have to Like with Facebook or Twitter to download my "free gift" of your BootFlat theme, that rubs me the wrong way.

<comment><USER6> Stop the hating, please. It has a hugely negative effect on HN in general and on creators specifically. Don't use it if you don't like it.

 _Whenever I come across people who really hate me and my work it takes every ounce of energy to try and ignore them and move on. So hard._ \--John Resig, creator of jQuery ([https://twitter.com/jeresig/status/425483930918060032](https://twitter.com/jeresig/status/425483930918060032))

<comment><USER7> This is such a silly comment.

If people can't show their opinions of things, whats the point of even having HN. I didn't realise that everyone had to love everything posted on this site.

<comment><USER8> I think it's a question of the tone with which he "didn't love."

There's a difference between:

"Another flat CSS theme for bootstrap? How many minutes did that take you?"

and

"There have been a number of flat CSS themes presented on this site, so I find it hard for any one of them to really distinguish themselves. Have you considered [the idea that OP thinks is better or more original or more useful]?

\---

The reason it's less than ideal to weigh in with such disdain is that it discourages other people for whom creating something like that would be a MASSIVE undertaking.

Imagine a beginning designer who doesn't know anything about CSS or graphic design, so, for their initial project, they want to create a flat CSS theme. It's ambitious for them, and they're anxious to start and they log into HN and...oh. Wow. That person just made something better than I could ever make and got BLASTED.

What's the point of trying?

Comment #2 encourages them and points them towards a better suggestion. Comment #1 adds nothing.

<comment><USER4> Reason #1 for the harsh tone was the requirement of a social media Like before the download.

Reason #2 was that I was disappointed that a CSS file with a few colors changed passes as an HN article these days.

Humility is a valuable lesson to learn. I see no reason to lie to the person and pretend that they provide any real value to anyone actually using Bootstrap.

The point of trying is not to show off, it should be for self-growth. If the article said, "this is my first project as a web-developer, what do you think", then I would have been much more polite, instead this guy just wants as many Facebook likes as possible so that he can eventually make money off of you.

<comment><USER9> Did the page change in the past 15 hours? You can download the theme as a zip[0] without any social bullshit, or install using bower.

[0] [https://github.com/bootflat/bootflat.github.io/archive/maste...](https://github.com/bootflat/bootflat.github.io/archive/master.zip)

<comment><USER4> Yes, yes it did. Possibly because of my comment. Either way, good job on the changes OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks really nice, thanks for creating it.

I'm looking to use it for a small redesign project this week, and I had a quick concern - when I load the sample files on my OS X 10.9.2 in Chrome, the text won't show. Once I "inspect element" in Chrome, it pops in. Strange error for sure - just me or anyone else?

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkwjt7prm5a4xuh/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkwjt7prm5a4xuh/Screenshot%202014-03-15%2009.15.45.png)

<comment><USER11> Theres currently a bug in chrome 33/34 where web fonts won't render until you force a repaint.

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=336476](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=336476)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> .list-group-item warning has color #ffbf21, background-color #ffce54. This is almost impossible to read.

<comment><USER12> Also, I'm not sure SPAN is a requirement for the .active element in a .breadcrumb, but your .breadcrumb-arrow requires one.

<comment><USER13> I think your constructive criticism has more chance of being heard at the github repo:

[https://github.com/bootflat/bootflat.github.io](https://github.com/bootflat/bootflat.github.io)

<comment><USER12> I toyed with the idea of logging these as issues, but thought they might not quite qualify, and assumed the author would be reading this thread. Maybe I'll go log them there after all ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nexus 7, Chrome, portrait, dropdown menus don't expand.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a great looking theme, really like it. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER16> Arrgh, does this not bother anyone else? [http://imgur.com/X9kZZ5w](http://imgur.com/X9kZZ5w) There's more space below the text than there is to the sides or above, because there's a bottom margin on the paragraph within the popover and that gets added to the padding within the popover.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm sure there's going to be a lot of nay-saying here but I have to say I think this looks fantastic. I'm trying to reskin [https://code.google.com/p/svg-edit/](https://code.google.com/p/svg-edit/) and I wonder if I can use this to bring it a bit more up-to-date.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've used bootflat for a previous project, prior to bootstrap 3, but have since switched. It looks great, but it's just a slight modification in colour scheme now, whereas before it was a huge difference. Bootstrap's hosted on a CDN too, which is nice.

<comment><USER19> Hmm, that was a bit confusing. It's not clear what your prepositions "it" are referring to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thank God for bootstrap and bootstrap kits. I've got no skills in design and all, but still can make acceptable UIs for my servers by hammering bootstrap all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not an expert, but isn't shadows and rounded corners like anti-flat?

<comment><USER12> Why on earth would rounded corners be anti-flat? Shadows, I give you.

<comment><USER21> I think I read it somewhere. Maybe I was mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is not nearly as good as Designmodo's Flat UI. Seems that people are just going to keep making Flat design kits because they are easy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Love it.

</comment><comment><USER23> How many of those do we need?

<comment><USER24> Law of building - anything easy to make will be made over and over again. Anything difficult to make will be made once and complained about forever.

<comment><USER3> Seems true at first, but then shouldn't text editors be difficult?

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? There are tons of text editors.

Source: [https://www.google.com/search?q=text+editor](https://www.google.com/search?q=text+editor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think HN has jumped the shark.</comment>


RSA-230 has been factored - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/cado-nfs-discuss/2018-August/000926.html <comment><USER2> That's a substantial achievement, I look forward to reading the details. A little searching around suggests that it was a run of CADO-NFS[0] and it's likely that they simply ran it for long enough on a large enough cluster, but we'll wait for the details.

Congratulations to the team.

[0] [http://cado-nfs.gforge.inria.fr/](http://cado-nfs.gforge.inria.fr/)

</comment><comment><USER3> For the less numerate of us, rsa230 to rsa1024 is a linear or exponential increase in complexity? (Or some other nonlinear function)

Bitlength increase in crypto can be complex.

<comment><USER2> RSA-230 has 230 decimal digits, or 762 bits.[0]

RSA-1024 has 309 decimal digits, or 1024 bits.[1]

So the relative increase in size in bits is 1024/762, roughly a 34% increase, a factor of about 1.34.

Currently the complexity of the NFS is thought to be:

exp( c (ln n)^(1/3) (ln ln n)^(2/3) ) [2]

where c is about 2. That means that RSA-1024 (1024 bits) will take about 18% to 19% longer than RSA-230 (762 bits).[3]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-230](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-230)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-1024](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-1024)

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

[3] Program:

        #!/usr/bin/python

        from math import *

        ln = log

        def complexity( n ):

            return exp( \
                (64./9)**(1./3) * \
                (ln(n)**(1./3)) * \
                (ln(ln(n))**(2./3)) \
                )

        print complexity(762)
        print complexity(1024)
        print complexity(1024)/complexity(762)

<comment><USER4> It's very rare for something to scale sublinearly in the number of bits :-)

complexity(2∗∗1024)/complexity(2∗∗762) comes out to about 1500x more work.

<comment><USER2> You are absolutely right - I was misled by the page I referred to using "n" as the number being factored, and not the size of the problem, which is log_2(n).

So to correct myself, the difficulty factor is 1400 to 1500, and here's the modified Python program, using the simplest change I could:

        #!/usr/bin/python

        from math import *

        ln = log

        def complexity( n ):

            lnn = ln(2**n)

            return exp( \
                (64./9)**(1./3) * \
                (lnn**(1./3)) * \
                (ln(lnn)**(2./3)) \
                )

        print complexity(762)
        print complexity(1024)
        print complexity(1024)/complexity(762)

That's not the fastest or best way to compute this, but it's the smallest and cleanest change I could get away with that reflects how I think about this, which is number of bits. A reasonable alternative is in the parent comment to this one.

<comment><USER5> This should be slightly more efficient:

      lnn = n * ln(2)

<comment><USER2> It is, but not everyone is comfortable with why that is true, hence leaving it the way I did.

But you're right, it would otherwise be an appropriate simplification.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nabokov in Utah - <AUTHOR> https://theamericanscholar.org/net-gains/#.VYhuL6bwOt- <comment><USER2> So far, I have done two mountain climbs in the footsteps of literary figures: Nabokov on Lone Peak in the Wasatch, and Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder on Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra Nevada.

[http://thbecker.net/hiking/in_the_footsteps_of_jack_kerouac_...](http://thbecker.net/hiking/in_the_footsteps_of_jack_kerouac_on_matterhorn_peak/page_01.html)

Does anybody know of more climbs or hikes that offer this kind of perk?

<comment><USER3> I'm curious as to what inspired you to follow their trails? Their literature, a particular work, what?

<comment><USER2> About Jack Kerouac's and Gary Snyder's climb of Matterhorn Peak, I wrote this in my trip account (see link in my original comment):

"No other book has shaped my youth—and much of my adulthood, for that matter—as much as Jack Kerouac's 'The Dharma Bums.' [...] In particular, I always remembered how Kerouac said that the performance of these three guys on Matterhorn Peak, Morley who stayed down at the lake, Kerouac who gave up just below the summit, and Gary Snyder who made it to the top, mirrored each man's personal Karma. This made me think that perhaps I could find out about my own Karma by trying the same thing. So really, this hike was all about Finding My Own Personal Karma. Wow, that ought to be fun."

And although I'm being sort of facetious about the Karma thing here, I kind of did find my own personal Karma there, as I explain on the last page of my trip account.

In the case of Nabokov and Lone Peak, it was part coincidence that I was house sitting in Sandy, UT at the time, with a perfect view of Lone Peak from the hot tub in the back yard. So I had to climb the darn thing anyway; it left me no choice. Then I met a girl at Sugar House Coffee in Salt Lake who knew much more about Vladimir Nabokov and his stay in Utah than I ever will. It became sort of an obsession for us to retrace Nabokov's steps, do what he did, see what he saw, savor the feeling to sit on that breathtakingly lofty rock in the sky where he sat.

So I guess the answer to your question is, I see an artist's work, be it a writer, musician, painter, what have you, as an act of sharing with the rest of us. By conversely sharing an experience like a mountain climb with them, be in the same place as they once were, I mean literally, your butt being where their butt was, perhaps we can intensify that feeling of sharing. That may be an illusion, but it's a pretty darn good illusion, especially if you share it with another person.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for replying. I shared the same feeling as you describe when I sat on these steps [1] last summer!

[1]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solvay_conference_1927.jpg)

<comment><USER2> Nice!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


All hail the prediction machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121109-all-hail-the-prediction-machines

<comment><USER2> "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com. "

Thats pretty messed up :(

Especialy when reading the about page and you get this "WHO WE ARE

BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). We exist to maximise the value of the BBC's assets for the benefit of the licence fee payer by creating, acquiring, developing and exploiting media content and brands around the world. We also focus on creating value from BBC content and showcasing British talent both in the UK and international markets."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I for one welcome our new Pyschohistory overlords.</comment>


Give Python some type safety - <AUTHOR> http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~maggiolo/index.php/2013/10/give-python-a-bit-of-type-safety-with-pydoc-checker/

<comment><USER2> This looks very useful for development and unit testing, but I wonder what performance overhead it incurs for performance code. Then again if you need screaming performance you'd probably be looking somewhere other than python.</comment>


Page Weight Matters - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chriszacharias.com/page-weight-matters <comment><USER2> Just a heads-up, this is from 2012.

I'm baffled at the amount of stuff we put in a webpage nowadays. A simple page I developed the backend for, that shows a filter on the left and results on the right came to weight around 2.87 MB. 2.27 of those are libraries!

I mean, sure, they help with development. But I think we're tipping the equilibrium in the wrong direction.</comment>


On the Pleasures of Not Reading - <AUTHOR> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/08/31/on-the-pleasures-of-not-reading/ <comment><USER2> I was afraid this would be another lecture about trolls but it turned out to be quite profound.

We tend to define ourselves by what we like and dislike, which is fine, except, most of the time, it's not based on fact, but on arbitrary decisions.

This is quite obvious with kids; for example, my two younger kids (6 and 7, boy and girl) try to hate the preferred foods of one another, even if they have to admit they like its individual components. The boy loves fruit yogurt but "hates" fruits (will leave the table when someone's eating a raw fruit next to him), and the girl actually does love fruits but decided she will never eat yogurt... _or use a spoon_.

This is all fake, it's all an act, and yet it's quite powerful and difficult to overcome. (What gives it away though, is that these "tastes" vary according to location; when in school, those preferences disappear!)

We adults use spoons, but act the same with literature, or really most of our tastes in arts or crafts or products; we like the idea of ourselves not liking this or that (hello, vegans! ;-)

Dislike and contempt is also much easier to develop and maintain than an actual taste that has to be nurtured; it's like free money.

I really should get around to reading Houellebecq.

<comment> why-el There is a timeless quote by _why (of Ruby fame) that goes something like this: "You need to create, because otherwise you are defined by your taste in things." (my terrible paraphrasing).

<comment><USER3> I'm not a huge fan of _why (apropos of the article, I _have_ read some of his work), but I think this quote deserves to be posted in its entirety:

 _"when you don 't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create."_

<comment><USER4> But that's only _his_ opinion of others. He divided people between those who are defined as creators and those who are not. And those who are not are reduced to their `taste' \- _and they are the one who narrow and exclude people ?!_. But some people simply don't want to create, don't want to sprinkle the whole world with their little dot-me stickers.

All glory to the entreprecreator, the ubermensch of the internet.

Seriously, let people try to define who they are themselves. Not a quote, a guru or a motivational speaker who tell you `you are this, you are that, they are this, they are that'. Or worse, any artist trying to define himself through the impact of his works or personality on... _others_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No true Scotsman, and all... Books are no different than media in general: there was an article posted earlier today on HN about how there are simply too many TV shows right now, and at the same time new shows have to compete with every other great TV show that people might not have watched yet.

Media has finally evolved to the point where the long tail is starting to become the market. This has interesting implications on consumption patterns, though what we're seeing is that the long tail is increasingly served by a single company: YouTube for video (excluding "head" or "neck" content on cable/Netflix/etc), Amazon for books, Steam for games, etc. This points to discovery and market access being a problem: people don't look for the long tail elsewhere because the draw of the long tail is selection, and only one store/site can boast the best selection of obscure content.

Where does this go? I have no idea, honestly. Media is incredibly interesting right now because of that. I don't know if the long tail effect is good or bad for society, but we're seeing it play out in a lot of weird ways right now (Trump's campaign, the awakening that the police may shoot a lot more innocent people than we realized, etc). Polarization (which can be thought of as drifting into the long tail of less-popular ideas) is happening, but it's happening irregularly throughout society without much of a discernible pattern.

<comment><USER6> If the long tail is happening, than I'm truly oblivious and don't know where to find it. I've been looking very hard (believe me) for anything even moderately fitting my tastes in any media (books, music, film, games, etc.) I can't find anything! I wish there was a guide to whom I could describe what I'm looking for or even tell the things that I've liked previously who would give me even marginally better recommendations. I'm struggling!

<comment><USER7> ask.metafilter.com or the right subreddit could be good places to try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. What an incredible article.

 _> There are writers we instinctively, permanently dislike: not only will we never read them, we will quietly relish the not-reading, finding in it a pleasure that can occasionally rival reading itself._

I know exactly what the author is talking about, and it doesn't just apply to books; in fact, a far more visible and pervasive instance of this kind of behavior occurs with respect to music. So many people (and I don't exclude myself in the slightest) are so opinionated about what kind of music is "good" and make such gigantic points of what they refuse to listen to, sometimes to the extent of hostility! I fell into this trap for many years; within the last 6 months I decided to trash my preconceptions and force myself to believe that all music is good, and that "good music" is really just "music I like" since any judgement on the quality of art is necessarily subjective...not to say I completely stopped disliking some music anymore, but at least with that viewpoint I can happily coexist with people that like music I don't.

Anyway, great piece about a behavior lots of us engage in but few of us like to admit :P

<comment><USER9> I once tried to do this with my preconceptions about music. Phish and 311 were still terrible (to my ears).

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but at least you become able to acknowledge and understand (if not through direct experience) why other people like music you don't. Plus i've found that dropping a lot of my judgemental attitudes towards music resulted in a much larger breadth of material to listen to since I didn't hate myself for listening to it.

<comment><USER10> I finally admitted my uncool like for 1960's easy listening music. I have quite a collection of it now, bought from thrift stores and ebay.

I enjoy inflicting it on people who still believe it is uncool.

<comment><USER11> Brasil 66 is great stuff. :-)

<comment><USER10> Got me some of that. And also Conniff, Mantovani, Kaempfert, Jackie Gleason, etc.

A regular low treatment of that will keep the kids off your lawn. And the coolest (!) thing about easy listening is you rarely have to pay more than $.50 for an album of it. It's almost as if people are trying to get rid of their grandparents' albums!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The sad fact of the matter is that this boils down to: you will never live long enough to read even all the good books, for almost any value of "good" [1]. While the OP may be responding to another writer whom he deems "troll", the other author is just pointing out "look, I'm not going to live forever, and I've determined I don't like this author, so I'm not reading his works." albeit in a trollish way.

This old chestnut has been trod out so many times it's becoming a dead horse. Not that it doesn't have a point, but I can remember a discussion here a while back ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8492659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8492659)) where we went over a very similar topic, although with not as deep connections to culture in general.

Suffice to say, everyone selects, and usually from ignorance, unfortunately. The best you can do is force yourself to look at things you wouldn't normally, get out of your comfort zone, consider expert advice like that given in "How to Read a Book". And I say this as someone who _has_ read Pratchett, enjoyed some of it, didn't enjoy other parts, and I will (probably) never read the twilight series as I consider it garbage (and no, I've never even looked at it).

[1] - [https://what-if.xkcd.com/76/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/76/)

<comment><USER13> Except that is not what the orginal posts [1] author said, he slagged off Pratchett's writing calling it pot boiler and calling Pratchett himself mediocre, while being preachy about his taste. Despite having never read any of his work himself (he openly admits that).

The cynic in me thinks it all was really just a bunch of click-bait which in pratice it vertainly has been.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/20...](http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/31/terry- pratchett-is-not-a-literary-genius)

<comment><USER12> > he slagged off Pratchett's writing calling it pot boiler and calling > Pratchett himself mediocre, while being preachy about his taste.

Hence the trolling. And while it might be clickbaitish, he did have a very good point, and just pointed out what we all do, which is namely to select, and usually from a position of ignorance.

While the call to read Great Literature can be seen as preachy, it survives for a good reason: Great Literature enriches, makes people better for having read it. It's one of those things people _should_ aspire to for self- improvement.

<comment><USER14> Some of 'great literature' is dated and of questionable value. But of what endures, much is very good (or it wouldn't have lasted of course).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps when we select books to read them, we only do so in order to describe ourselves as a "Calvino reader" or a "Russophile" as much as the author rejects Bukowski so as to be thought of as "a person who despises Bukowski." In that case, forming an identity through the art you arbitrarily despise and have not experienced seems only _slightly_ more flimsy than doing so through the art you have experienced and have a real opinion about.

But, I think most of us read to learn or to gain new perspectives, etc. So, openly hating things you haven't experienced or examined critically is about as anti-intellectual as claiming to have read things one hasn't. Why not just say, "I am more interested in [ _some type of fiction with certain themes_ ], and my reading list is quite long." Easier and doesn't freeze out the conversation quite as badly.

I still haven't read Bayard's "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read"...

</comment><comment><USER16> "Someone is being an ass on the internet" and it's OK because "opinions". But it does touch upon one of more interesting problems. There is only so many years you have before you die and there are many more books than you can read and you will not know whether you like it or not before you read it because reviews are just too personal. Say you read an average of 100 books a year, that's 6000 books and that MIGHT just get you through all those top 100s of this and that genre. And it'd be nice to leave some room for serendipity. If not for that I'd never read any Murakami. This is an unsolved problem and all that amazon and goodreads does is recommend you more of the top bestsellers (and let's be honest, high street bookstores are even worse).

</comment><comment><USER17> Rather than griping about inaccurate dislikes, I would like to highlight the much, much larger number of books that you will never read simply because you've never knew about it. Go check out the Amazon best sellers list, for example.

It's not worth worrying about, I think. Even if 90% of all (fiction) books are destroyed irrevocably tomorrow and no more are written ever you'll have enough to last you the next thousand years.

An interesting problem may be how to maximize enjoyment per reading hour given a functionally unlimited library: something like a cross between spotify and tinder for books, perhaps: present random high-interest page of a book. Swipe right to read next page. Swipe left for next random book.

<comment><USER18> > An interesting problem may be how to maximize enjoyment per reading hour > given a functionally unlimited library: something like a cross between > spotify and tinder for books, perhaps: present random high-interest page of > a book.

This would make a great extension to Goodreads. I now wonder about sampling vocabulary and structure of various texts in order to match with your highest- rated books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The author's claim to "a kind of nervous contrarianism" in searching for new directions for growth is interesting. I think it highlights the limits of arbitrary aesthetics as detached from the more concrete needs of life. The themes in Hess's the Glass Bead Game come to mind - Hess builds a beautiful ivory tower of pure ideas, detached from reality, and then tears it down before your eyes, bringing the focus back to people and their need for growth.

I like the idea (can't remember where I saw it) for a service that helps connect readers with books that would help them with their evolution. I think this idea is powerful and can take the idea of self-help to a much deeper level that encompasses spirituality and psychological well-being rather than just fads and fashion trends by helping people find novels that aren't straightforwardly "about" an area of life but happen to address it deeply in their own way.

</comment><comment><USER20> Similar sentiment about the complex transaction of not partaking in parts of culture because of what you've been told about it: [https://nplusonemag.com/issue-6/the-intellectual- situation/t...](https://nplusonemag.com/issue-6/the-intellectual- situation/the-hype-cycle/)

Teaser:

"Of course there was never any such thing as truly independent aesthetic judgment. No cultural artifact ever appears out of nowhere, to be taken purely on its own terms; there is always what reception theory calls "a horizon of expectation." And who would want to possess independent aesthetic judgment anyway? It would mean you were impervious to the enthusiasms of your friends and the arguments of critics; it would mean that you were a total blockhead, ineducable, stupid."

</comment><comment><USER21> _On that point, at least, I can agree entirely with Jones: I am always crushed by how many books I have not read._

So much truth here. The sad thing is, barring some Kurzweilian breakthrough in life-extension technology, none of us will live long enough to read all the books we might want to read. I often joke with people "I wish all my favorite authors would quit writing for about 100 years and give me a chance to catch up, and they just won't". But even the joke is silly, because IF I lived another 100 years, and IF none of my favorite authors wrote anything else in that time, I'd still not "catch up". In fact, I'd venture I'll still be further behind at the end, as NEW writes keep spring up as well.

You can't win, really. And since you have to make a choice based on something, I figure it might as well be pretty close to arbitrary. There are authors I'll never read, although perhaps not many that I would make a fuss over actively avoiding. But out of that list, there are probably plenty I'd enjoy very much, if I bothered to read them. Maybe I'd like some of them more than some of the authors I read now. But the bitter irony is, you can't _really_ know if you'd like reading a book or... until you have already read it. _sigh_

I think the best most of us can hope for is simply to make it a point to try and be at least somewhat diverse in our reading, and take the occasional foray into unexplored territory. I did that a while back when I picked up my first Haruki Murakami novel. I'd heard of him, heard him mentioned by a lot of "literary" types, and assumed his work was probably snotty, pretentious "pat yourself on the back" stuff, and so put off reading anything by him for quite some time. And then I read _After Dark_ and I was hooked. I've still only read two of his works (the other being _Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki_ ) but I'd now mention Murakami as one of my favorite authors.

I resisted reading the Harry Potter books for quite a while because "they're kids books". Once I read them, I found that they were very much worth the time. OTOH, I started _Infinite Jest_ by DFW a while back, and I have been struggling to find any enthusiasm for reading this book. Should I continue with it just because it's so widely revered? Or should I read something I enjoy more instead? That's one of life's little conundrums. _shrug_

At the end, you just have to do the best you can. Nobody gets out of life alive and all that...

<comment><USER22> _Infinite Jest_ is a really brilliant book, but I remember the start of it seemed deliberately hard to read. Then I read enough to follow the rhythms and it became a compulsive read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I once spent a bit of time trying to avoid Kevin Smith's films, not because of any dislike per se, but because they were such universal unassailable cultural icons in the 90s that I wanted to have a go at not seeing them just to see if I could remain culturally relevant without doing so.

Then I realized I'd screwed the pooch when I saw the director's credit on Zack & Miri. Cute film, but not a real eye-opener in terms of humor or thematic content.

</comment><comment><USER24> Relevant:

[http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent- Read/dp/159691...](http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent- Read/dp/1596915439)

</comment><comment><USER25> I was going to read this article but..you know.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm enjoying not reading all of the article.

OK, I admit I read most of it, but I _really_ am enjoying not finishing it.

:-D

</comment><comment><USER27> tl;dr: Don't judge a book by its cover, its marketing, or its author.

<comment><USER28> Seems like you actually haven't read the article. That's not what it says -- at best it's a very small part of it just to counterbalance the main part, which advocates that it's alright to do the inverse: judge a book with prejudice.

<comment><USER27> I don't see anywhere that it says that. It _observes_ that people do that, and that they take pleasure in their prejudices, but nowhere does he _approve_ of that. Rather he talks at length about how it causes people, including himself, to miss out on good authors and books for no good reason - "Our distaste for the trappings of publication puts us off from something great." He also refers to this prejudice as elitist and says he could only defend it with a "pretentious" deflection.

Heck, just look at how he summarizes at the end: "And soon enough, it seems that what passes as taste is an arbitrary extension of our insecurities and neuroses, and that an insane hubris undergirds every value judgment, and that the best thing to do would be to start over, bringing no preconceptions at all into our lives as readers."

If I missed the part where he actually advocates prejudice please point it out.

<comment><USER28> He tiptoes around it a lot and goes back and forth in order not to offend anyone or seem too crude, but the core of the article is all about how it's common and joyful to not read authors due to prejudice, and how we all do it, and some examples of his doing it.

Let's put it this way: due to his guilt, instead of an unapologetic celebration of not reading with prejudice, it's an apologetic celebration of the same.

<comment><USER27> Having re-read it, I still can't see it as a "celebration." I would say he's acknowledging a bad habit that he can't kick. It's an admission of continuing weakness in the face of cheap pleasure, like a good critic that can't stop binge eating Spicy Cheetos.

<comment><USER28> There's guilt, but there's also: "hey guys I EAT Spicy Cheetos, and we all eat Spicy Cheetos. Let's admit it. And it feels good. Here are some funny Cheetos stories I have."

Then there are the advicing, "yeah, I know it's bad, yeah, health, yeah, nutricion, you shouldn't do it, we miss on better foods etc".

But that part is more like an obligatory guilt/save-face addition, whereas the core is "I do, you've done it, it's normal and even enjoyful".

It sure doesn't seem to me like an article written with the intention to putting an end to the practice -- more to admit it and excuse it. Eveywhere he stomps on the guy who dismissed Pratchett without having read him, he adds "but, ...", and "don't get me wrong, ...".

<comment><USER27> Hm. I think you're saying he's putting a faux-rebuke onto a happy article. Whereas I still think he's putting a happy veneer on what is ultimately a rebuke. I'm not sure how to tell which is the case, or if it even actually matters.

But hey, kudos for a cogent defense of your position. Good internetting!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Freader, an open source RSS Reader built with Node.js and Angular - <AUTHOR> http://geekuillaume.github.io/Freader/

<comment><USER2> I like that it is built using angular so I can get some tips on how authentication is done. However I think the UI needs work, for example expanding a feed button is all the way to the other side, why not slide down on click of title? I found some UI bugs for example, where the + and power icon was underlapping under my feed. The power button also does nothing for me. I also had issues with adding non rss feeds. Otherwise I like it. Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I aggre, it still need some work to be good, any help is welcome !

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wish it didn't have the MongoDB requirement. IMO something with a few thousand messages can easily be done w/o a full blown database.

<comment><AUTHOR> MongoDB runs everywhere and in a very short time and there is a lot of service providing free databases for it. For example, the demo App is using MogoLab free offer and it's working just fine !

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking at the source (userDB.js) it seems that passwords are stored as plaintext. A major disappointment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I still need to hash it before saving it. I found some libs doing that but I wanted to write an hashing function with salt without having to rely on a lib. Need some work !

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do I just submit a link like [https://news.ycombinator.com/rss](https://news.ycombinator.com/rss)? When I do that, it says "cannot connect to server." :(

</comment><comment><USER6> Are you using NodeJs for the cron jobs too? (I am assuming you have cron jobs running to fetch feeds periodically).

Edit: I looked and it seems you are fetching the feeds on-the-fly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it only get the feeds when a user need to, it's far more simple and unactives feeds are not refreshed uselessly

<comment><USER7> The issue with this is that, say a feed contains 10 items, and that between checking the feed more than 10 items are posted, you will miss items.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is not working and says invalid feed even though the address is correct and works with all other readers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird... What is the feed's URL ?

<comment><USER9> It crashes on any Atom feed. It seems the code in scrapper.js only handles RSS, and even there makes some assumptions that might not hold for all feeds.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I need to adapt it to handle any feed, stay tuned ;-)

Edit : I fix an error which crashed the application with a bad feed (without all the fields required) but I still need to adapt it to ATOM feeds

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the green background is gonna get annoying, fast :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think I will switch it to a simple white, I'm not a very good web designer but I need to improve the global UI / UX</comment></comment>


Show HN:What sector or industry should eGo disrupt first? In what form factor? - <AUTHOR>

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5845022/gemalto_ego_jane_goes_shopping_1260-720.mp4 <comment><AUTHOR> [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5845022/Gemalto%20Shorten%20w-o%20CG...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5845022/Gemalto%20Shorten%20w-o%20CG-H.264%20LAN%20Streaming.mov) [http://www.quora.com/Startup-Advice-and-Strategy/What- sector...](http://www.quora.com/Startup-Advice-and-Strategy/What-sector-or- industry-should-eGo-disrupt-first-In-what-form-factor-How-to-design-user- interaction-strategies-around-such-products)</comment>


Is London's tech scene about to explode? - <AUTHOR> http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/could-this-be-londons-moment--when-the-tech-scene-is-really-about-to-explode-8528837.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The facts at the end of this article tell the true tale of the growth of tech in London:

        200 Tech companies in east London three years ago.

        1,300 Tech companies in east London in January 2013.

        92,000m2 Area acquired by technology, media and communications start-ups in London in the first nine months of last year.

        39 Percentage increase last year of City office space rented to tech and media start-ups.

        61,300 New businesses launched in London in 2011, up from 51,000 in 2009</comment>


What the ctenophore says about the evolution of intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-evolution-of-intelligence <comment><USER2> My favorite part is the link to Henry James Clark's 1866 paper - which costs $8 to read.</comment>