Atlassian sold $320M worth of software with no sales staff - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-18/this-5-billion-software-company-has-no-sales-staff <comment><USER2> From Peter Thiel's CS183 class notes:

"People say it all the time: this product is so good that it sells itself. This is almost never true. These people are lying, either to themselves, to others, or both. But why do they lie? The straightforward answer is that they are trying to convince other people that their product is, in fact, good. They do not want to say "our product is so bad that it takes the best salespeople in the world to convince people to buy it." So one should always evaluate such claims carefully. Is it an empirical fact that product x sells itself? Or is that a sales pitch?"

[http://blakemasters.com/post/22405055017/peter-thiels- cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/22405055017/peter-thiels- cs183-startup-class-9-notes-essay)

</comment><comment><USER3> Atlassian has a sales staff.

Atlassian has a sales staff.

Atlassian has a sales staff.

Atlassian employs many people whose job it is to be on the phone all day with potential customers.

This is just marketing. Take it with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/head-of-sales- operatio...](https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/head-of-sales-operations- atlassian-JV_IC1147401_KO0,24_KE25,34.htm?jl=1835372015)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is one of Atlassian's go to PR pieces - here's one example a year, you can find multiple:

\- April 2014 "Australian tech company Atlassian valued at $3.5 billion despite having no sales staff" (1)

\- August 2015 "Atlassian ignored bad advice, avoided sales staff and grew fast" (2)

\- February 2016 "How Atlassian built a $4.4 billion business without sales staff" (3)

And while it's true that they have a different sales "culture" I wonder if the people they interviewing for Head of Sales Ops, Loyalty Advocacy, and Field Enablement may consider themselves salespeople?

"Head of Sales Ops" \- [https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/131036087](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/131036087)

"Loyalty Advocate" AKA "Sales Retention" \- [https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/136717830](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/136717830)

"Head of Field Enablement" \- [https://www.smartrecruiters.com/Atlassian/92170329](https://www.smartrecruiters.com/Atlassian/92170329)

(1) Australian tech company Atlassian valued at $3.5 billion despite having no sales staff

(2) [http://www.afr.com/technology/startup-war-story-atlassian- ig...](http://www.afr.com/technology/startup-war-story-atlassian-ignored-bad- advice-avoided-sales-staff-and-grew-fast-20150809-giv9s0#ixzz49RqGV1Xg)

(3) [http://www.sugarux.co/blog/how-atlassian- built-a-44-billion-...](http://www.sugarux.co/blog/how-atlassian- built-a-44-billion-business-without-sales-staff)

</comment><comment><USER6> When you want to buy 50k licenses of JIRA, there is a "Contact Us" button. The person who is responding to that email is a salesperson.

</comment><comment><USER7> >Tesla doesn't have sales people, You go into an apple store, [and] they don't have sales people.

God, I love these word games. Tesla doesn't have sales people; they have _Product Specialists_ [0]. Tesla doesn't have sales people; they have _Specialists_ [1] and _Experts_ [2].

[0] [https://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/careers/job/product- specia...](https://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/careers/job/product-specialist- fulltime-37953)

[1] [https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=USASP#&openJobId=USASP](https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=USASP#&openJobId=USASP)

[2] [https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=USAEX#&openJobId=USAEX](https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=USAEX#&openJobId=USAEX)

<comment><USER8> Palantir doesn't have salespeople. They have forward deployed engineers.

<comment><USER9> I fully expected the punchline to be "hobbits" or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Analogously, The title could have been changed to

>"Atlassian sold $320M worth of software with no engineering staff"

They just have to change job titles from _software engineer_ to _software expert_

</comment><comment><USER11> They don't have a sales team, but don't think for a minute they don't have humans helping out.

They invest heavily in their customers success, and they do this by hiring people to talk to the customers. Yes, on the phone, and sometimes even in person. They're closely in touch with how to sell to developers, and one of the best ways to drop the idea of big-up-front sales. If you can get one small zero-friction sale, the rest of the sales with people become "support upsells" and "customer success", and you can tell the world you don't have a sales team.

They might not be called sales, but there are people at Atlassian who's primary job it is to talk to people and sell them software.

<comment><USER12> >They might not be called sales, but there are people at Atlassian who's primary job it is to talk to people and sell them software.

And we're through the looking glass...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Atlassian does have a sales team, but it's an external one, their "Experts"[1]. These companies get a cut of each Atlassian license sold, and also charge for setup, configuration, and custom add-on development. Personally, I think it's a brilliant strategy... external, technical salespeople!

[1]: [https://www.atlassian.com/resources/partnerList](https://www.atlassian.com/resources/partnerList)

<comment><USER14> This has been Microsoft's model for many years. It's not clear whether it works very well for anyone in the relationship other than Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome graph comparison - [https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i6bkJnp_y46...](https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i6bkJnp_y46c/v1/-1x-1.png)

</comment><comment><USER16> If I were to say my priduct has no sales staff, it would be technically true(it's only me and word of mouth), but it really wouldn't at the end of the day as I try and push it every chance I get.

In the same way, Atlasan doesn't have sales staff, they just go under a different name(reference the comments in this thread).

I couldn't sum it up better than madeofpalk or aresant(from this thread).

It is an interesting view of attempted virul marketing going wrong though :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> There are at least two kinds of sales but in this case there's "Order taking" versus "product pushing"....

Is the boasting about"no salespeople" suggesting that they do not do outbound sales I.e actively working to drive sales?

Either way, wearing "no salespeople" as a badge of honor seems misguided, only technical people would value that. A well run sales operation is a key component of a healthy company.

<comment><USER18> I learned that from Lawhorn's books on selling. Always curious if it was his or some long-time categorization in sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Idk about Atlassian but this is part of the Costco model. They're at $100+bil a year without direct advertising. They pay the ad budget to staff instead with results getting word of mouth sales.

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/reasons-love- costco_n_4275774...](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/reasons-love- costco_n_4275774.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> OFC they have, but;

Sales team means, people who try to sell product aggressively or try to convince you with calls, emails etc.

They dont need that kind of team. As they said, product already speaks for itself. They dont need to focus sales.

How many JIRA owners get a mail/call from Atlassian? For sale?

<comment><USER20> Sales team means different things to different companies. To you it means an aggressive person hunting you down, to me it means a consultative person to follow up a lead.

How many JIRA owners get a direct contact from Atlassian? Every one which is likely to turn into an enterprise client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> To be fair, other companies are taking notice. Oracle is now allowing people to pay for cloud computing with a credit card and no contact with sales staff.

</comment><comment><USER22> So the guy who sent me free swag was what a developer? I mean I have got some irate bug reports but I never sent no one a tshirt!

</comment><comment><USER23> Jesus christ the "Sydney tech scene" got absolutely reamed by Bloomberg in this. Was that really necessary? Do we even hold ourselves out to have a tech sector worth mentioning as such (as opposed to a few lucky breaks that would be successful independently of location).

Does this reveal something about how venture capital interacts with software and software business models in general?

</comment><comment><USER24> This page is the case where HN comments provide better value then the provided article.

</comment><comment><USER25> It could've been more if they had one ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> That was then. This is now.</comment>


Elon Musk didn't like his kids' school, so he made his own without grades - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-creates-a-grade-school-2015-5

<comment><USER2> That not grade as in "A, B, C, ..." but grade as in age separation.</comment>


Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws - <AUTHOR> https://e360.yale.edu/digest/president-trump-to-sign-executive-order-waiving-key-environmental-laws <comment><USER2> This is extremely dangerous. Waiving environmental review and consideration when building roads and bridges is extremely foolish. They greatly effect water quality at crossings and alongside the roads. My guess is this will be held up in courts and not allowed to go further -- it is an extreme deviation from what we currently do (which is held up by supreme court precedent). Entire industries are built on doing environmental impact studies and mitigation.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps we can push back against what is effectively legislation by the executive branch. Then, here's the tough part, don't expand executive power when your own party is in the white house.

<comment><USER4> True. But the Senate is broken by being effectively owned by a single senator.

<comment> jude- Any four GOP senators can defect and depose Mitch McConnell, but haven't. The Senate is very much in control of 53 people.

<comment><USER5> 100% this. Towing the party line at all cost is what the GOP are doing today.

20 years ago this wouldn't be the case, but keeping the party unified at all cost, against morals, ethics, logic, is what is happening.

What saddens me is the majority vote says they shouldn't be in power in many cases but ultra effective wielding our laws in corner cases has led us to this point. Even while I loathe it, I must say it is quite effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone considers writing this off as a partisan or economic issue, it's worth remembering that both of the acts mentioned here -- the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act -- were enacted by a Republican president during a recession.

He was hardly an environmentalist, either. That's how important this was 50 years ago.

<comment><USER4> There's always an economic factor. But the politics you are describing died decades ago. Bipartisanship is as good as dead.

<comment><USER7> Republican environmentalists are mostly literally dead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why have we as a people allowed our past three administrations to continue to rule by fiat? Ultimately, these are probably perfectly reasonable ideas, but this kind of action must come from the legislature.

<comment><USER9> Because your system of government is so fundamentally broken it barely even qualifies as a democracy anymore?

All the systems built into the US government were designed for a country with 1% the number of people it has now, when the fastest method of communication was a horse and the majority of it's populace were farmers.

There are a few simple things that could be done right now to fix the US government (abolish the EC and gerrymandering to start with), but no one has the political will to do it.

<comment><USER10> I hate gerrymandering too. More competitive elections, in my view, makes politicians less partisan and incentivizes them more to deliver for their districts.

But who should determine who draws electoral lines? Right now, it's in the hands of elected officials, so you can at least vote them out if they gerrymander.

If electoral lines are drawn by a nonpartisan commission, who appoints the commission? How do you ensure the members of the commission stay nonpartisan? Can the public hold members of this commission accountable?

Definitely our current system is broken; what are some alternatives to elected officials drawing electoral lines that are promising?

<comment> munk-a Oh - districts should be drawn to guarantee mathematical fairness and a few relatively good measures exist[1] including one that was used in court in connection to a particularly egregious Wisconsin district (the efficiency-gap measure).

This is really less of an unsolvable problem than people make it out to be - it's just that most of the discussion you hear about it is from the political parties both of which benefit from its existence and, especially, the incumbents who have a much more secure seat with careful district drawing to make sure you don't get too many progressives that might vote out a centrist (or ditto on the other side)

1\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the- mathematician...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the- mathematicians-who-want-to-save-democracy/)

<comment><USER10> Got it, so you're proposing electoral lines by drawn by algorithms?

I don't see any problems with this myself, as long as the algorithms are fair -- what are some downsides of this, though?

<comment> munk-a A pretty common downside is a lack of adherence to historical boundaries and groupings - some neighborhoods that legitimately formed a district and a unified block due to strange geographic features could be broken up.

But actually - there are two classes of algorithms out there: one can determine how to fairly divide up a state and another measures how unfairly a state is divided up - instead of going full into computers-determine- everything it might be nice to just have a requirement that the result of the election in the state is relatively statistically probable given the proportions of votes for each party. So people could still draw districts we would just have a manner to prove their districts are acceptably fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The order will waive several long-standing environmental laws

Is it possible for an executive order to "waive laws"? I thought laws take precedence over executive orders. If this were possible, then the President could waive all the laws he didn't like, and have more power than a king.

I'd be grateful if someone who understands thew law better than I do could give some color here.

<comment><USER12> As far as I've understood, the president as boss of the executive branch can order the executive branch to not apply a law or at least not prosecute violations. One means to do this is to impose a certain interpretation, e.g. ordering "severe environmental impact" to mean nothing less than "making the area uninhabitable for anything beyond bacteria for more than 100 years" or something.

Also, laws are often vague and their intent is clarified in regulations issued by the executive, e.g. the EPA. The president could order those regulations to be changed.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but can't the next administration simply start enforcing those laws again? A company would have to be incredibly foolish to count on something like this to protect them.

<comment><USER12> Yes, the next administration could do that. But permits that have already been granted under the old rules usually remain valid. If not, possible lawsuits and damages awarded.

<comment><USER13> But does having a permit allow you to violate the law? What is the point of even having laws for this if they can simply be ignored?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm happy this is not forgotten. Am outside US, but we care.

</comment><comment><USER15> Could an executive order be made to make the approval process more effective and efficient? We did the fist part of the work by identifying the bottle necks (at least broadly), the Acts where approved by Congress so now let's optimize. It seems like a lot of these executive order get thrown out which if true seems like a big waste of time and resources.

<comment><USER16> I don't want one person determining our laws no matter who it is.

<comment><USER15> It's a subtle difference but it's the difference between how something is computed vs what is computed (i.e. the processes in place to enforce a law vs the word of the law).

I'm definitely not a legal scholar but I optimize code a fair amount that computes the same thing as the un-optimized code.

Take for example multiplication of natural numbers, e.g. 2x2=4, there are a number of ways this could be implemented to get the desired result, bit shifting, symbolic mathematics, heck even trained machine learning or an impl on a trinary computer. If The computation is correct the vast majority of the time great! If not, a judge can order the process be updated to implement the law.

Effectively, Congress Makes the laws, the executive branch manages their administration, and the legislative branch ensures they are being administrators in accordance with the law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why do we want the president to have this much power?

It's annoying how many laws flip flop every eight years.

<comment><USER18> Because when your guy gets in you want them to have power to make real change.

That's the idea anyhow. If we nerf the powers for one side, when our side gets in they will be nerfed also. Other systems do things differently of course, but every system wants to maintain itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ok, can someone please explain to me what the limits on executive orders are? It seems like the president is allowed to right executive orders at any time, for any reason, and completely side step the legislature?

</comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone done a study or analysis of how much this might benefit large scale civil engineering projects?</comment>


Petition: Justice For The Murder of Dr. Divyendu Sinha - <AUTHOR> http://www.change.org/petitions/mr-bruce-kaplan-prosecutor-middlesex-county-nj-we-want-justice-for-the-murder-of-dr-divyendu-sinha

<comment><AUTHOR> _He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1982, authored a number of technical papers in computer science. After teaching stints at Stevens Institute of Technology and at the College of Staten Island, he worked at Siemens, an international electronics and engineering company._</comment>


Do you really need $5k to bootstrap a business? - <AUTHOR>

So that begs the question (sorry, couldn't resist the reddit flamebait :), can launching a site be done for less than $5k (assuming development and design costs are not included). The question comes from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=594363.
I'm in the process of building an iPhone app with an online presence. The iPhone app does data gathering; the web site does visualization of the data.
I'm bootstrapping this at the moment and, frankly, don't have much in the pocketbook to apply. Is it possible to bootstrap something for an order of magnitude less? <comment><USER2> Absolutely...

I run a small but growing web business (about 500k PVs/month) thats getting very popular in its target segment.

I take it as a challenge to grow it without spending money on anything other than web hosting ($40/month).

Product is built on open source solutions and there is no better way to promote it than getting some relevant press.

What do you need money for?

</comment><comment><USER3> depends way too much on what you're building and how you define costs.

in a generic sense, can it be done? sure. can you do it for your specific site? maybe.</comment>


How I am Teaching Myself to Program - <AUTHOR> http://nathanbarry.com/how-i-am-learning-to-program/

<comment><AUTHOR> The follow-up post to last weeks: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3238834></comment>


Google is not your friend? (8chan entirely blocked from Google results) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@infinitechan/google-is-not-your-friend-5a6636af0651

<comment> norea-armozel I can't say that I'm sympathetic to Hotwheels' situation with regard to 8ch due to the fact that his audience has quite a few toxic individuals among the ranks. Some of which have a long history of being on the wrong side of the law (and good taste).

Plus, I really don't see why he's upset with the concept of online safe spaces (what his supporters call hugboxes). For example, I'm a transgender woman (mtf) so for me to speak on certain sensitive issues regarding the matter of gender variance it's a necessity that such discussions happen either pseudo- anonymously or in moderated forums. This isn't censorship or an impediment to discussion as there are many venues for cross cultural discussion that have historically happened. But it seems Hotwheels and company demand unfettered access to the lives of others to the point of violating expectations of privacy (and property rights for that matter).

Also, this claim that the Internet has largely been like 8ch is historically inaccurate. The majority of mailing lists, newsgroups, web forums, irc channels, and other communication mediums/methods have always been heavily moderated in some capacity. It's really 8ch and other similarly unmoderated venues that are the ahistorical entities being relatively new to the Internet and to its user base.

It's all well and good to demand some public spaces for sharing of ideas and opinions but it should never come at the price of all the other rights humans need to thrive. And that includes the right to be left alone.

<comment><USER2> 8chan was removed from google results. The entire page. I understand your arguments, but this is not about 8chan users saying mean things to people on different sites.

You argue that you want a gated community where some rules and regulations are in place for you to be able to discuss freely. That is fine. Hotwheels however wanted to make a discussion _platform_ where anyone can create an imageboard board and with any topic they want and moderate it as they would like as well. The only restriction being national law. This should be fine as well.

Google however has put themselves _above_ the law, refusing to index their site. It is of course within their right, but we should be worried when such an integral part of the internet as google is moral police, judge, jury and executioner.

Being unsympathetic to the situation due to the fact that his platform is used by "toxic" users is something that should warrant some serious introspection.

<comment> norea-armozel >Google however has put themselves above the law, refusing to index their site.

What law anywhere requires Google to crawl any site?

>Being unsympathetic to the situation due to the fact that his platform is used by "toxic" users is something that should warrant some serious introspection.

So I should be concerned that people who even Stormfront won't deal with aren't searchable via Google?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what this is about, probably 8chan is crap, but Google is so core to the internet that complete censoring is a big problem. Because censorship is abused by governments.

We need a real alternative to centralized indexing and search. Duckduckgo is another central search.

We have to move to the decentralized content-based web and we are going to have to index it ourselves. We cannot keep sucking the googlensa tit forever.

The direction for search is bitcoin, ethereum, massively distributed deep learning, etc.

This is actually quite urgent.</comment>


Ask HN: Finding people in London? - <AUTHOR>

I've lived in London my whole life however I've never really been able to find like minded people within my social circle. I'm an ex-military digital security specialist and looking to start some kind of company down the line, but right now I'm looking to just meet some people within the tech industry. Is there certain places you guys hang out or any specific meetups I should be attending. Failing that does anyone here want to share some stories and ideas over a coffee or a shot? <comment><USER2> I met some interesting people at the HN meetup a couple of months ago. I believe there's one every month. Have a look at <http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/>. There are also regular iphone, ruby and python dev meetups.

What are you working on at the moment?

<comment><USER3> where are the python meet ups? Last I checked there was a London Python users group but their page was dead and they hadn't run anything for years. thanks.

<comment><USER4> There's the monthly London Python Code Dojo (which is excellent). Announcements are on the python-uk mailing list. <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-uk>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> London Hackpace <http://london.hackspace.org.uk/>

Its near the Hoxton railway station.

Am an InfoSec student, so if your looking for any potential employees do call me.

<comment><USER2> Wow, that looks fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are a _lot_ of tech meetups in London, you could literally go to a different one every night if you wanted to. Finding out about them is slightly trickier as they're all organized in different places (mailing lists, facebook, meetup, etc.)

I've found the best way to find out about them is to follow tech people on twitter.

If your looking for startup events check out this blog post I wrote about the startup scene in london:

[http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/06/london-startup- event-g...](http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/06/london-startup-event- guide.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi Mate,

I'm an ex bootneck now programming in an investment bank. The London Financial Python User group is a good meeting to go to - usually about once every two months.

What are you into now?

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're into Agile then Skillsmatter ( <http://skillsmatter.com/> ) has a lot of free events

Or there's eXtreme Tuesday Club - <http://xpday- london.editme.com/eXtremeTuesdayClub>

Or if you want to meet a bunch of testers ( and me ) - London Tester Gathering - <http://www.meetup.com/agiletesting/></comment>


Hedge funds embrace machine learning up to a point - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21732147-investing-more-artificial-intelligence-need-not-mean-less-human <comment><USER2> Funds would not share what they are doing because then others would do the same, narrow spreads and reduce profits for all participants. But you can get a good idea of what they _might_ be working on by some of their workers' expertise. Notice how places like RenTech ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies) and [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how- renai...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how-renaissance- s-medallion-fund-became-finance-s-blackest-box)), Two Sigma, and others hire loads of NLP and machine learning academics.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps these newer hedge funds just want to give off the perception that they know what they're doing — I'm more sure about a company like RenTech since they have been through a recession and market crash, and has still come up net positive. So how much of this is simply the market rising; how much of this is due to chance? If we can remove these confounding factors then we could maybe actually evaluate the efficiency of ML-based hedge funds (or regular ones).

<comment><USER4> Many quant funds are market neutral. For every dollar long they have a dollar short. Such funds aren't necessarily benefiting from an upward rise in the market.

<comment><USER5> Are you referring to gamma hedging or another strategy?

<comment><USER6> It's called delta neutral afaik.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I worked at a hedge fund for 9 years. Regression models are used for EVERYTHING. Regression is machine learning. This article has a narrow focus and doesnt understand what machine learning is.

<comment><USER7> Usually « machine learning » is used to talk about things beyond basic statistical methods that predate computers. On the other hand, basic statistics are often good enough...

<comment><USER2> Other machine learning techniques _widely used on wall street_ for over a decade \- Dimensionality Reduction \- Clustering \- Classification techniques using trees, SVM, bayesian models

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An anecdote from 1990s continental Europe.

A friend of mine, upon reaching a status of a "high-net worth individual", was invited to invest in a hedge fund associated with a bank of regional importance (major for that small country). They demonstrated the best of the tech of the time, and then shifted the tone to, "but we also use more traditional approaches".

Unusually large portion of their "consulting research staff" was female and spread Europe-wide. Not because they were progressive or pursuing diversity agenda; these were call girls. The call girls were paid for timely tips. Even if they only report that a particular top executive stayed overnight far away from home, was in a foul mood, and a couple of top-ranking colleagues were present, this can be used to detect an significant internal event not reported publicly. If the girl was crafty enough to extract more information, even better.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think technically sophisticated funds are going to be sharing any details at all for pieces like these. There is bound to be fancy ML in play at hedge funds, though - do not underestimate the lengths to which people will go to get an edge in the markets.

</comment><comment><USER10> _" Share-price time series going back decades still contain far less information than, say, the image data used to train Facebook's facial- recognition algorithms."_

What?

Clearly these ML models aren't trying hard enough. Correlating stock movements with the weather, geo populations, ... there are potentially infinite patterns buried in the data that a hedge fund could uncover.

<comment><USER11> There are about 30,000 institutionally-investable stocks in the world. They have ~252 closing prices per year. This is the thing you're trying to predict, so it forms the outputs of your training set (be sure to hold some back for out-of-sample testing and there are probably distinct regimes you need to switch between). Yes, there may be lots of features (weather, geo populations, etc., as you point out), but you're often hard up against the curse of dimensionality here. Sure, intraday data is more voluminous, but there are fewer economically reasonable influences on that.

<comment><USER12> Also commodities, forex...

<comment><USER13> That only adds a few dozen items. There's only so many currencies and commods, bonds. Even if you include really illiquid stuff maybe you get 150 things.

<comment><USER14> > _There 's only so many currencies and commods, bonds_

Currencies are traded in pairs. Bonds are numerous, if illiquid off the run. Not to mention the bursting menagerie of derivatives our species tends to.

<comment><USER13> Highly correlated. I mean you can add option surfaces, but to count each option as separate is a stretch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like the shoutout to Numerai. I think they are so left field that traditional hedge funds don't even have the ability to understand how much better Numerai can be.

</comment><comment><USER16> Huh? I did my commute with a guy who worked for an automated trading shop when I worked in London in 1994 and he talked constantly about what sounded just like machine learning.</comment>


Treasury to Borrow over $1T in 2019 for Second Year in a Row - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-to-borrow-over-1-trillion-in-2019-for-second-year-in-a-row-11564428624?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> buy gold and bitcoin. not a lot but just to hedge. its very hard for the typical person (including myself) to understand how the last 20 years of USA monetary policy WONT debauch the currency.

im constantly surprised it hasn't happened yet. but i cant go all in against the dollar so im just hedging with some alternatives</comment>


Recent talk on xmonad, a window manager in Haskell (video) - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=335464970721710096&pr=goog-sl

<comment><AUTHOR> A recent talk given at FringeDC on xmonad, a window manager written in Haskell.

More information at the speaker's site: <http://byorgey.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/fringedc-talk/></comment>


Linux To Become Exclusive OS Of The International Space Station - <AUTHOR> http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112844374/linux-windows-xp-os-iss-international-space-station-opslan-051213/

<comment><USER3> Finally! This story has been submitted _so_ many times over the past few weeks, it's nice to see it finally get some traction.

Other sources may have different levels of detail, or different takes on the story, so in case anyone is interested in reading the story from other sources, here are some of the other submissions:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5668312> (zd.net)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5669927> (zdnet.com)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5677045> (linuxfoundation.org)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680490> (extremetech.com) (4 comments)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686586> (gizmodo.com)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5687720> (readwrite.com)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689142> (venturebeat.com)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5695447> (telegraph.co.uk)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5711378> (vice.com)

Interestingly, very few comments or upvotes on any of them.

</comment><comment><USER4> _"Back in 2008, a Russian cosmonaut managed to take a laptop to the ISS that spread the W32.Gammima.AG worm to all the other laptops aboard the station."_

Holy crap.

<comment><USER5> Why is it always the Russians or Chinese? Why isn't there a American or Western European scientist/cosmonaut committing similar mistakes/blunders?

<comment><USER6> Different cultures, different attitudes towards these things.

I was recently in Aschaffenburg (Germany) doing interoperability tests with some of our networking equipment and a large SCADA vendor. About two hours into the tests, we ran into some problems, which we quickly identified as being related to the firewall on one of the test laptops in their lab having a very restrictive firewall rule (wouldn't allow ping). We had to wait for the better part of two hours while they got approval to adjust the firewall rules to allow ping from another device in the same lab. Note that this was a lab laptop, and these were technically sophisticated people - they understood the implication of allowing ping - it's just that their policy/procedures with regards to security were very, very strict.

I can guarantee you, in any interop tests I've done in Silicon Valley - <USER2> would be zero friction (even with the utility companies, enterprise software vendors, scada vendors) around opening up icmp on a lab laptop firewall.

I cite this as an example where Americans (at least those in Norcal) are more lax regarding security than another culture (in this case, whatever was prevalent in the part of Germany Aschaffenburg is located in)

<comment><USER7> You can guarantee that? I dont think so, Im not a sysop but if I was, you would need to explain why ICMP needs to be open.

Whether Im in Norcal or not. Most sane organizations are going to turn off ping, its not a cultural thing and it doesnt seem like you faced any friction since you got it opened in 2 hours.

Ive been working here in norcal my whole life and I dont see a culture of lax security in shops that have actual security requirements. Its not the country is the quality of the network administration team.

<comment><USER6> I've been a network engineer for 15+ years, and I'm saying that 95% of all employees I deal with in the Bay Area would not think twice about opening up a firewall rule and allowing you to ping a lab machine, particularly when the purpose of your engagement was to verify end-end network connectivity. They would make the call, themselves, on the spot.

The reason I bring this up, is that I've been told by a number of my colleagues that german culture, in particular, has a tendency to be more rule structured than in the United States, so, if there was a security policy in place, it had a greater chance of being adhered to in Germany, than in the Norcal.

And the entire point of my little anecdote was to make it clear, that there is broad diversity of attitudes towards rules, policy - and that the "United States" doesn't have a lock on following rules/policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A good and suitable use of Linux based systems. They can now install custom installations with packages that are individually vetted. They also got source code, so there is no limit on how careful reviews and (continuously) testing that can be made. During crunch time, they can even crowdsource.

The malware threat will also be lower, mostly thanks to not installing every single default program and service that windows come pre-install. So long they are not completely lazy and just install a massive DVD sized distro like Ubuntu, the attack surface and number of packages needed to vet should be quite manageable.

</comment><comment> mh- _(slightly)_ more detailed article: [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international- spac...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space- station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability)

in related news, Debian 6 apparently ships with support for _the International Space Station_ , but still can't manage to sleep/resume peacefully.

<comment><USER9> It slept/resumed quite wonderfully here, and it continues to do so after the upgrade to Wheezy/Debian 7.

Did you break something?

<comment><USER10> More likely a bug in the ACPI support of the specific motherboard model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If they still favor ThinkPads on the ISS they can expect a pleasant Linux experience.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is anyone else horrified that they were running Windows?

<comment><USER13> On personal laptops? On machines that just do dietary stuff? No, it's okay.

It's a bit scary that this isn't the first time malware has got into space nor onto the Space Station.

Considering how intrusive the procedures must be for astronauts I'm gently surprised that intensive malware scanning isn't a requirement for anything that goes into space.

<comment><USER14> "Malware scanning" is a pretty dumb process. All it does is to check for certain _known_ signatures. Scanning for malware doesn't fix the problem.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I agree that malware scanning is dumb.

But in this case it would have prevented malware from being taken into space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Which distro?

<comment><USER16> Debian 6

Source: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/iss_linux_debian_dep...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/10/iss_linux_debian_deployment/)

<comment><USER17> Now that is what i would call a "success story". How many distros can claim to be used in the space? :)

I'm glad to see Debian being recognized for it's rock solid stability.

<comment><USER18> On a similar theme, the developers of matplotlib once got a polite enquiry about a bug report which mentioned that "the feature is needed for the Phoenix project, and their arrival at Mars will be in March sometime."

Needless to say, the bug got fixed. A team from JPL is listed in matplotlib's credits for various improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Finally it becomes the respect it deserves. I hope the project will receive more respect and openness by those damn hardware manufacturers.

Keeping hardware artificially closed, needs an end.

</comment><comment><USER20> wow... So $150 billion ISS was using _Windows XP_ until now?!!!

</comment><comment><USER21> Great news.

</comment><comment><USER22> How is it not already the exclusive OS?

<comment><USER23> it seems the debian guys are going to just drag us kicking and screaming to that destintion.

<comment><USER22> What do you mean?

<comment><USER23> Ah. you meant the exclusive OS for the space station. I was thinking far more broadly. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Laptops? On laps? Weightlessly?</comment>


PepsiCo Is Acquiring SodaStream for $3.2B - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2018/08/20/pepsico-sodastream-acquisition/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised PepsiCo would court this kind of controversy: SodaStream is a primary target of the BDS (boycott divest sanctions) movement[1] because of their Israeli origin and particularly their history of operating facilities in disputed territories.

[1] [https://bdsmovement.net/tags/sodastream](https://bdsmovement.net/tags/sodastream)

<comment><USER3> I've never even heard of the BDS movement until this comment, which is possibly a reason why PepsiCo didn't take this seriously.

<comment><USER4> BDS is, and I mean this descriptively and not as an endorsement, a big deal. It has been a focal point of left grassroots politics in the West for the last several years and is one of the major pain points for campus politics. I would say a simple majority of all communication from Jewish advocacy groups the last few years has been around the BDS issue. The US Congress has considered legislation around BDS. I don't really know anyone on any side of the politics divide that doesn't take the issue seriously (whether on a symbolic or on a policy level).

I suspect when you made your comment you thought you were saying "the Emperor has no clothes", but it was actually more like "I don't know anybody who voted for Nixon". Surely the better strategy in a case like this is at least to bother Googling to see if it seems like an active thing or an irrelevant fringe thing.

<comment><USER5> It's definitely a fringe thing. "Left grassroots" is fringe already.

<comment><USER6> Not if you care about Israel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The majority of all water consumed in the country is sparkling, [SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum] says"

Does anyone know what he's actually talking about? Is he counting all carbonated beverages vs. tap or something?

<comment><USER8> I find that statement odd as well. The only thing I can think of is he's looking at consumption of purchased products, and I'm assuming that bottled or fountain soda outsells bottled water. If it was actually "all water consumed", tap water would win out pretty handily I'd think.

Either way it's an incredibly misleading sentence, or at least a sentence stated way out of context.

<comment><USER9> No. It's literally what he meant. Germans drink a LOT of sparkling water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope the result is to broaden distribution of SodaStream refill canisters, and lower the price due to economies of scale. I'm not holding my breath though.

I've never tried soda flavor packets, but I enjoy carbonating fruit-infused water (watermelon and strawberry are great) and white wine (for cheap but surprisingly good "champagne"). Just be sure not to fill the liquid all the way to the line when using anything other than water!

<comment><USER11> Honestly, I would use my SodaStream machine if the cartridges were not so prohibitively expensive in the UK - £15 per refilled cartridge via Argos (being one one the few remaining places where cartridges can even be had).

Feels like Pepsi could revolutionize the carbonated water market in the UK/US by having machines installed in supermarkets to allow filtered bottled water on demand at better prices. Also, feel good and environment factor would be top given no CO2 emissions from trucking tap water around after fizzing it up!

<comment><USER12> Interesting geographic pricing discrimination. They're like £6 to swap in Sweden. I used to do it at my local supermarket. Maybe because there are compatible third-party gas canisters on the market they have to compete with e.g. [https://www.xn--ob- eka.se/hushall/koksmaskiner/kolsyremaskin...](https://www.öob.se/hushall/koksmaskiner/kolsyremaskiner/pafyllning- kolsyrepatron-1502193)

<comment><USER11> The competition is no doubt the driver of reasonable'ish price in Sweden. Honestly feels odd how Sodastream is almost certainly pricing themselves out of the market (I personally know of several families who have abandoned their machines due to cost which can hardly be in Sodastream's favour, unless they are committing a wilful "slow exit" from UK market)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recently tried a soda stream. I was legitimately surprised how poor the official syrups were (Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc). The bubbles were rich but the taste was nothing like store purchased versions of the same.

Half tempted to buy a box of the real syrup from Sam's club and try that with a soda stream.

<comment><USER14> Your local water supply may not taste the same as the factory water

<comment><USER13> I was using filtered water.

<comment><USER15> I was just in florida and was surprised at how bad even the bottled water tasted.

<comment><USER16> You have to check where it was bottled. No sense in refusing to drink the tap water when the bottles youre buying come from the same municipal source.

<comment><USER15> Yep, we ended up buying water bottled from the Himalayan springs, untouched by modern society. Just kidding, New Jersey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A few years ago we did SodaStream alot, and our latest fridge even has a SodaStream dispenser built in. However in recent years the variety, and quality, of syrups went downhill as I believe they were focusing more on flavored sparkling rather than mainstream soda. Hope this changes that.

<comment><USER18> Making syrup is dead simple. Hell, a little lemon juice and sugar and you've got lemon soda. And the soda water by itself is fine when it's hot.

I make chocolate syrup so I can have egg creams in the summer. Also, mint syrup because it grows wild in my yard.

<comment><USER19> I couldn't agree more. It's actually really fun too. I'd love to see more people finding new concoctions and sharing syrup recipes. We've got a few companies covering entire store shelf space with 10 variations each of the same 8-12 ingredients.

There's no better feeling than letting a friend try a soda you made yourself from scratch and watching their eyebrows go up in surprise because your cocktail of flavours is awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm slightly surprised by all the comments here about syrups. Our SodaStream is used a couple of times a day to make soda water, and I can't remember the last time a flavouring was added. Mind you, it always surprises me to hear people say they don't like the taste of water.

<comment><USER21> It always surprises me to hear that people enjoy carbonated water. Different strokes. The only way I can stand carbonation is with some flavor. Tap water is just fine to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm serious surprised that Sodastream is valued at $3.2B. Keurig Dr Pepper Inc (NYSE: KDP) is only at marketvalued around 4B (though the acquisition and merger are skewing the numbers a bit).

<comment><USER23> The value is in the margins. SodaSteam I'd imagine has lower costs. CO2 is not very expensive, but those cartridges are $20-$30 to refill. That is almost pure profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Question: can SodaStream carbonate arbitrary liquids like orange juice, or just pure water? If it can only carbonate water, which you then mix with flavoring, what's the advantage over bottled seltzer from the store?

<comment><USER25> The problem is that when you release pressure on anything but water, as the CO2 starts to come out of solution it bubbles up and tends to spill out of the bottle.

I'm sure there is science on this but my naive guess is that this is partly because theres more nucleation sites to bubble more, and then the non-water fluid will "soap" up a bit for lack of a better description (form bubles) causing it to then spill up and out.

You can get around this by releasing the pressure slowly. Some models of SodaStream (e.g. the Source) let you do this and others do not (e.g. the electric model).

As a secondary concern if the fluids do spill up out of the top into the valve area, it gets stuff on the seals etc and it doesn't seal as well later. Lower pressure = less carboned. And it's very easy to do this even releasing the pressure slowly.

So; yes.. but.. no. If you want to do that regularly, you're better off making some other kind of solution I think. It's pretty easy to make your own rudimentary sodastream. (and as others stated, they specifically tell you not to do this)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For those who care, google "DIY sodastream", you can build your own refill canister attachment apparatus and be free from their razor blades/razor or ink tank/inkjet business model.

<comment><USER27> I've thought the same. But the soda stream co2 refills are way easier to pickup. And with the 20% off bed bath and beyond coupon it's not that much more expensive

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This seems like a very smart purchase, as soda bottle sales are flat or declining in many parts of the world.

<comment> cool-RR Yes, and the flat soda bottles don't sell well at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So does this mean the future of soda drinks is making them at home ? If not, why? What's missing ?

<comment><USER30> Nothing is missing, it's just a bit of an upfront cost if you want soda that doesn't taste terrible. All of the consumer products are cheaply made, weak, and ridiculously overpriced even for the terrible quality you get.

If you want something that tastes as good as a restaurant then you pretty much need to buy the same equipment and it'll set you back _at least_ $1k^, a weekend projects worth of installation time, and the cost of a CO2 tank and bulk syrup.

^ You can probably get under $1k if all you want is a soda-gun without the fancy dispenser.

<comment><USER31> Oddly enough I seriously investigated this path when I was drinking 1600oz (47 liters) per week of Diet Dr. Pepper. It was possible, through careful shopping, to buy it between 2 and 3 cents per ounce. Trying to buy it as bulk syrup was something like 4 cents per ounce (of soda) not counting the cost of the CO2 and filter system for the water.

<comment><USER32> Jesus no offense but I also hope you shopped for a good healthcare provider along the way also.

<comment><USER31> No offense taken. In this particular sample of one there have not been any deleterious effects from that level of consumption. The only medical anomaly detected has been a lower than expected cholesterol level given age/weight models. When I decided to give it up in February of this year there was about a 3 day caffeine withdrawal experience followed by dealing with the habituated 'sweet drink' habit (I've replaced my Diet Dr. Pepper consumption with water which doesn't satisfy a drink something sweet habit well). My expectation is that by next February that habit will also stop impinging on me.

<comment><USER32> Take care about drinking too much water also it's very good at flushing micro nutrients from your system including calcium, and that won't show in most blood work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sigh. When can we have new products again, instead of old products with new business models?

</comment><comment><USER34> I would love to see an API to make your own soda flavors at home

<comment><USER35> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open- source_cola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_cola)

Have at it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If this doesn't violate anti-trust I don't know what would.

<comment><USER37> The market disagrees with you as it's trading at $142 at the moment. It's not like Coke is merging with Pepsi.

<comment><USER38> Now that would be a new coke!</comment></comment></comment>


Linux letting go: 32-bit builds on the way out - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/05/linux_letting_go_32bit_builds_on_the_way_out/ <comment><USER2> This is a horrible idea. While I know most machines built in the last 10-15 years are all 64bit, what about all those forgotten PC's and 'appliances' that sit in closets and dutifully work away? Why should those users be forced to buy new hardware just to keep running the same workload? Sure, I know that userbase is small, but the problem is they won't upgrade. We'll just have a bunch of ancient, unpatched, Linux boxes out there waiting to become zombies.</comment>


Cookie tracking: How Facebook could be worth $100 billion? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2007/10/29/cookie-tracking-how-facebook-could-be-worth-100-billion/ <comment><USER2> I working on my own article. How Facebook could be worth 20 Trillion dollars.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the backlash that would ensue. Privacy groups would just love this. As we saw with GMail, people hate their personal information used for targeted advertising. Weather or not it would be rational is irrelevant.

In fact, I think targeted advertising can be win-win if it is done right. GMail does it right, and Facebook is getting better.

And a $100 billion valuation? I don't claim to know much about valuations, but this can't be serious.

<comment><USER4> This is basically what DoubleClick was doing when all of the cookie backlash happened the first time. Maybe Facebook's good image'll help them past the PR nightmare.

<comment><USER5> I don't think Facebook has had a good image recently, e.g. over valuation has made them a mockery; privacy concerns relating to the disclosure of personnel information to third parties; the fact that they don't actually delete your profile when you leave and Facebook personnel willfully looking at peoples profiles for entertainment. I feel a backlash coming on already.

Also, most of my profile is made up anyway. I have put cereals as one of my interests; I can't wait to receive 'contextual' cereal ads!

<comment><USER6> Okay, so I admit the headline was a bit silly. But some people are going around saying that targeted ads and such will make Facebook worth that much and its something worth looking at.

How would you have valued Google before Adsense and Adwords proved themselves?

<comment><USER4> They were still the sickest search engine at a time when search was the biggest money maker on the web. Also, people have a bad memory about Google, but they didn't IPO until they were _making_ a billion dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, Facebook is not worth $15 billion. Its not even worth $500 million. I want this meme to end now.</comment>


China turns to fortune tellers to divine trade war - <AUTHOR> https://reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1LG0KQ <comment><USER2> Before anyone turns this into a racist or other blanket stereotype of Chinese as superstitious, please consider that we now have to debunk _flat Earth cosmology_ in America. Same goes for routine claims about superstition in Africa, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Buying house in SF Bay Area Now or is this another bubble? - <AUTHOR>

Any advice from current or future bay area home oweners to someone who is considering buying a condo/house in city or peninsula. From the recent data, the housing prices seems to be the highest since the 2008 crash, do you suggest waiting for the market to come down or will it keep going up, up and up? <comment><USER2> Hard to say, timing the market is hard. There are reasons it could continue to go up (if the economy continues to improve, limited housing stock, lots of high income tech workers). There are reasons it could go down / level off (it is a bubble, interest rates rise, fundamentals as to what middle income people can afford).

As someone who is looking to buy in a couple years, my take on it is:

a: housing prices cannot rise exponentially forever, there has to be some relationship between the price and people's ability to pay.

b: if interest rates do go up a lot, then prices should come back down again, especially if it starts raising people's ARMs a lot. This would make the loan have a higher interest rate though, so it favors having a big down payment.

c: Maybe I don't care about timing the market, it seems hard to do anyway. When I find something I can afford, I'll be holding onto it for decades, so how much I could sell the house for later on ought not to be a factor. Price is not the same thing as value.

</comment><comment><USER3> (I learned some of these from trading on the stock markets; not fun)

a) Take a survey. If most people feel it's a bubble, Buy : the bubble is just starting. This is a momentum trade.

b) Take a survey. If people have started feeling that "this is a new paradigm, things will ALWAYS go up, didn't you get the memo", with a particular zombie- like proselytizing look in their eyes, Sell. It must be "obvious" to them. For example, the exact High in Apple was hit when the article about this lady who put all her savings in Apple "because Apple only goes up, right?" was published.

c) Collect transaction data. Learn to identify Euphoria by jointly considering both price and volume patterns. Sell if Euphoric Highs have been hit.

d) The keep-it-simple approach : Buy if you want a home and the mortgage is not much more (or even lower) than the rent you would pay and you believe that you have a good chance of paying it off (no ideas of doing startups without a salary, for example!)

</comment><comment><USER4> Even in my lifetime (bay area native), there have been several collapses in the housing market in this area, about one each decade. There is no question the prices will eventually go down, and I think a lot of the optimism is from people who have recently come from places like india and china where they have not personally experienced a collapse in housing prices, and where they have not been through the roller coaster in this market yet.

My take is to not look at housing as investment, but a utility; don't overstretch yourself, don't buy with the expectation of any price appreciation, and do a serious analysis as to whether, given your circumstances, you should buy or rent. For me, the calculus was biased by the fact that this has been my home all my life, my extended family is here, and my work is here. I know I will be here long term. For others, it's not so cut and dried.

</comment><comment><USER5> What timescale? Over 50 years, I'm almost certain this is a bubble, and houses in the Bay Area of 2070 will be like houses in Detroit now. Over 5 years, who can say? I wouldn't be surprised if the Bay Area's average income (and hence house prices) only keeps on going up over the near-term; a number of companies here are still in the early stages of their growth curves.

</comment><comment><USER6> This has most of the signs for another bubble, including people talking about why this time is different.

However, we aren't yet seeing the massive amount of money-losing IPOs.

So, when in doubt, trust Uncle Steve [http://steveblank.com/2011/06/17/are- you-you-the-fool-at-the...](http://steveblank.com/2011/06/17/are-you-you-the- fool-at-the-table/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would recommend doing more research. Read BogleHeads.Org (it's like HN for financial news). Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER8> Why do you want to buy a house/condo?

</comment><comment><USER9> According to my magic 8 ball...

Reply hazy try again</comment>


Ask HN: Which eBook reader do you use for programming and math pdf? - <AUTHOR> One that supports annotations marking secrions <comment><USER2> I'm on Linux and use Evince document viewer [0] for pdfs. It has annotation and bookmark support.

[0] [https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince)

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Okular[0] on Linux, but it's available for Windows too. It has all sort of annotation tools.

[0] [https://okular.kde.org/](https://okular.kde.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Paper books. If not possible then I suffer with an iPad.

I refuse to use a Kindle for tech books (though its outstanding for novels).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm on kindle DX</comment>


Run Bash on Ubuntu on Windows - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/03/30/run-bash-on-ubuntu-on-windows/ <comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bash%20windows&sort=byDate&dat...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bash%20windows&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> "while you'll be able to run native Bash and many Linux command-line tools on Windows, it's important to note that this is a developer toolset to help you write and build all your code for all your scenarios and platforms.

This is not a server platform upon which you will host websites, run server infrastructure, etc"

<comment><USER4> >This is not a server platform upon which you will host websites, run server infrastructure, etc

Yet they demo'd a website being hosted via the Linux sub-system -_- thanks microsoft!

<comment><USER5> No, they demonstrated developing and testing a Ruby application on Windows via the Linux sub-system, then deploying it to Azure (using ssh, mina and git).

Important distinction - they're building support for developing Linux-based web applications into Windows, not hosting websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if PG will update his "Microsoft is dead" prediction. Nadella seems to have resurrected Microsoft. I can't imagine them doing this under Ballmer or Gates.

<comment><USER7> This is a nice move, but if you think this changes the "Microsoft is dead" statement (not prediction) then you don't appreciate what Microsoft was as compared to what Microsoft is today.

In the 1990s, Microsoft was in many tech markets the default winner, with such powerful monopoly influence that large classes of startup idea would not even make sense to consider because Microsoft was just so well set up to kill any threats to their dominance. And quite willing to do so.

This is a level of dominance and ferocity that has not been attained by other tech companies since. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have pretty strong dominance powered by their lead in product quality, engineering talent, and brand/network effects, but it doesn't strike fear into people the way Microsoft once did. Plus, there is some balance of power among them.

Microsoft now is a participant in this power dynamic. They play in the normal way, by trying to make good products and attract developers and users to their platform. In the 1990s, this would have seemed a pathetic weakness. That Microsoft is still dead.

<comment><USER6> I remember. So, M$FT is dead, long live MSFT?

<comment><USER7> Past the headline, PG never claimed MSFT would actually die (or even cease to make lots of money). [http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Third, note that Bash and Linux tools cannot interact with Windows applications and tools, and vice-versa. So you won't be able to run Notepad from Bash, or run Ruby in Bash from PowerShell."

<comment><USER9> To me, that means that it's less useful than Cygwin currently.

<comment><USER10> In that vein, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Posix on Windows! Yay! Together with the open sourcing of DotNet (that now enjoys an MIT license), this new Microsoft stance is looking more and more compelling. Comparing MS policies that to the rather hostile licensing/litigation policies of Java/Oracle makes me reevaluate.

<comment><USER12> For those that haven't seen it, this isn't the first time (or even the second time) that Microsoft has released a POSIX layer for Windows:

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

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

<comment><USER9> And they all suck (but are better than nothing). I really wish I could get the windows socket() function to return an integer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sure wish they'd discuss a release date...

<comment><USER14> My theory is that it got announced / leaked way too early. Although, the driver files have been in the Preview builds for a while now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems weird to me that conhost.exe handles how console commands are displayed. I've read where some 3rd party attempts to improve the terminal experience on Windows have done so by essentially scraping what conhost outputs and then using the data to display output themselves.

Am I wrong about this? I have never worked on terminals so I very well could be, but my expectation would be that terminals call into shell APIs which return a result that the terminal can then display however it wishes. If so, then I think the next natural step would be for Windows to decouple conhost's responsibilities.

<comment><USER16> This isn't as necessary as it used to be: conhost.exe got a major overhaul in Windows 10 and it sucks a lot less now. There's wrapped selection, copy/paste, and transparency (if you're into that). There's plenty more to go but overall the experience is no longer pull-your-hair-out agony, and Microsoft did say (without providing any specifics) that more improvements were on the way and that they are still soliciting feedback and feature suggestions. You could propose changing the way commands are displayed if you wanted.

<comment><USER15> Those improvements are nice, but ultimately 3rd party terminals should be able to handle display completely by themselves. Is this now possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if this means that Windows will be finally able to use ext3/4 filesystems out-of-box, read and write.

Or Microsoft won't dare to hurt their FAT-LFN & exFAT cash cows and make that "uh-oh developers only" feature? ;)

<comment><USER10> It's a subsystem for running Linux binaries, unaltered, on top of the Windows NT kernel. There has been no mention of additional Windows NT filesystem drivers, anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> After 30 years using windows this is very good news.

Right now on Windows I use Git Shell which works great but is based on mintty. Will be nice to be something close to native.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this in Insider Preview Build 14295 or is there an estimate on when the next preview will be out?

<comment><USER16> It is not in the current Preview Build; they have said it's coming soon but did not give specifics. Preview builds are pretty fast-paced now (about once a week) so I suspect it won't be long.

<comment><USER20> No, they said very specifically - in the next preview build, which is in two weeks.

<comment><USER16> I must've missed that bit. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone have the download link? I can't seem to find it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does this make msys(git) defunct?

<comment><USER23> Hasn't msys been half dead for years now? I still use it, but it has felt like it is on its last legs for a long time now.

<comment><USER24> MSYS2 is very up-to-date. [https://msys2.github.io](https://msys2.github.io)

It uses pacman from Arch Linux as its package manager and it contains many libs in addition to just the compilers (and the unixy tools)</comment></comment></comment>


Analyse Asia Podcast #3: The Battle Against Apple and Android One - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2014/09/17/episode-3-apples-onslaught-asia/ <comment><AUTHOR> In this episode, we discuss the impact of Apple's announcement of the new iPhones, Apple Pay and Apple Watch and Google's new "Android One" on Asia with Sameer Singh. Of course, we discuss two interesting observations: the bifurcation of Asian companies moving upstream but unable to break into an upstream brand like Apple or Louis Vuitton with Samsung being a victim in the process, and how Xiaomi might be able to break out from that brand problem. We also discuss whether Apple is positioning itself to be the Louis Vuitton of technology or Louis Vuitton "with technology" in Asia and the possibility of a Asian technology OEM buying Cyanogen Mod to combat against Apple and Google.</comment>


Maryland AG says it's OK for police to spy on smartphone users - <AUTHOR> http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2016/02/04/maryland-residents-are-spied-on-by-police-via-smartphone-says-ag/ <comment><USER2> How is this not a violation of the USA's 4th Amendment?

And seriously, don't people like Attorneys General take oaths to defend constitutions and so forth? Why do "law and order" types take such a careless attitude towards the Constitution? I think the Maryland AG should be ashamed.

<comment><USER3> IANAL -- Someone who knows this better then me can chime in, but I think there is less protection for 'business records' that contain information about you. I think the AG is arguing that by using your phone you are sharing info with businesses and it's that info that is not protected. Maybe they are just cutting out the middle man and grabbing the info that would otherwise be available to any other business? The article is vague on the legal principles in play.

<comment><USER2> That's kind of my point. The 4th Amendment is really quite plain and clear. So why do the "shave it until it's transparent" thing that US courts and lawyers always do? Why change the plain meaning of the words into something that only a lawyer can understand, and only a mildly shady law enforcment officer could love? Stick to the plain meaning. If that means the AG and police have to work harder, then so be it. Otherwise, change the words so we can all understand them.

Oh, I guess that wouldn't work, because it would invalidate Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American ('Cause at least I know I'm free)".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reason #53,842 to NOT live in Maryland. "the FREE state" my ass.

<comment><USER5> I just moved from Baltimore to Austin. I've also live in Corpus Christi, Phoenix, and New York City each for at least 5+ years. I already miss Baltimore. I new nothing about it, besides being familiar with the stereotypes, before moving there (spouse got into Hopkins, so Baltimore was part of the package deal), and I fell in love with it. I was sad to move away. Maryland in general was beautiful. But Baltimore, beyond the affordable cost of living, being on the water, and the bonus of living near D.C. and NYC, well, Baltimore is a rad, raucous, beautiful, sad, historic, electric, harsh, real fucking American city. I was there, and participated in, the uprising (as well as the _months_ of _peaceful_ protests leading up to that time that received _zero_ national press), and have never experienced such a beautiful and powerful response to such a horrible challenge in any of the other cities I have lived. Baltimore, I fucking love/miss you.</comment></comment>


Everyone Has the Right to Mouth Off to Cops - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/07/everyone-has-the-right-to-mouth-off-to-cops/399548/ <comment><USER2> I think that whole incident shows that dash cams and other types of cop cams don't necessarily curb police abuse. I think the main reason is that they all feel pretty confident that even if they completely break the law there is likely to be no consequences for the police. Until we start holding the police accountable for breaking the law. The problem is that the only people who are willing to do that type of work (policing) are often people who are attracted to the idea of being able to exert power over other people (sociopathic inclinations in many cases). If we start prosecuting them and holding them accountable then it will be really hard to find people to do the job because there is no advantage to beating and killing people as a police officer if the consequences for doing it are the same as an ordinary citizen. If that were the case, the violent sociopaths might as well just go out and take their chances without the uniform. It is the same reason that pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood, they know that they can victimize people and be protected while doing it. Violent sociopaths are attracted to policing for the same reason, they know that they can exert power over others and be protected.

<comment><USER3> Also, people who are _not_ violent sociopaths may develop such tendencies by doing the job (Stanford prison experiment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't believe that we do have that right. I believe that the law says we do, but practically, cops have near-absolute authority to detain and arrest you, and you'd be hard-pressed to prevail in a civil case of unlawful arrest (and at that point, you've already been dragged down to the station, had your fingerprints uploaded to the Federal database, been strip-searched and spent time in a cell).

I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.

<comment><USER5> > _I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more > success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups > will._

There is overwhelming evidence that women are treated more leniently, not men. Here is one example: [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002)

"...large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted."

<comment><USER6> The fact that there is a bias between male/female does not suggest that there is not also bias between races within the male group.

<comment><USER5> Very true. There's a mountain of evidence for that, too. If you're young _and_ black _and_ male you get the perfect storm of harsh treatment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the cases linked is pretty shocking and absurd: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s)

What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates, turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the absurdity of the case.

Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said about the case:

" _Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident._ "

Except, it wasn't at all isolated:

" _Over the course of his 14-1 /2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person with knowledge of the latest complaint._" [1][2]

And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass?

[1] [http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php](http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer- who-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-berated- taxi-driver-in-youtube-video-placed-on-desk-duty/)

<comment><USER8> > "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. > He really should not be judged by one isolated incident."

Is this how they treat suspects? You have to marvel at the cognitive dissonance.

<comment><USER9> [https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more- than...](https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than-you- citizen/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In NZ, if a police officer arrested someone because they were verbally abusive to that officer, he or she would not remain an officer for long.

Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure if thats the same in the states.

</comment><comment><USER11> In reality, you have the right to mouth off to _everyone_. But, generally not a good choice because if you're mouthing off to everyone, there's a good chance you're just a dickhead. Why not just be civil?

<comment><USER12> > Sometimes people use "respect" to mean "treating someone like a person" and > sometimes they use "respect" to mean "treating someone like an authority"

> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say "if > you won't respect me I won't respect you" and they mean "if you won't treat > me like an authority I won't treat you like a person"

> and they think they're being fair but they aren't, and it's not okay.

[http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes- peo...](http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-people-use- respect-to-mean-treating)

<comment><USER11> _> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say "if you won't respect me I won't respect you" and they mean "if you won't treat me like an authority I won't treat you like a person"_

And sometimes, people who think "I'm not going to treat you like an authority" are in fact not treating that authority like a person. It's a very fine line between not respecting authority and not respecting a person.

If you disagree with a policeman's _authority_ , the correct way to challenge that is to acknowledge that you disagree with them, and respond in a professional manner - formal complaints, courts, whatever. Not by being difficult to them on the side of the road.

If you disagree with their treatment of you (respect like a person), the correct way to deal with that still isn't to argue on the side of the road. If they aren't treating you with respect (as a person), why would you think that getting into a confrontation with them in that environment is going to change their mind? (Have you ever seen a sporting referee change their decision after a player argued with them?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I said in a previous thread that police should make it a point of pride to be able to ignore irritated or verbally abusive people. Just play it straight and robotically to slowly calm people down. I believe a lot of police actually do this already, but is there on-going training to keep the rest on track?

</comment><comment><USER14> If you'd like to see an excellent example of professionalism: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w)

I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have just punched that kid in the face...

<comment><USER15> Wow. If that was in the U.S., the cop would have pulled a weapon on the kid the moment he stepped out of the car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> And the cop has the legal right to not give you the benefit of the doubt when you do. The majority of the time you have a hostile interaction with police is because you broke the law in some minor way.

This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore.

You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty cop could just make something up.

<comment><USER17> > "arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore"

That's _not_ totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal things.

<comment><USER18> But no cop (or few cops) are dumb enough to outright say, "I arrested Mr Foo because he was a mouthy little bastard." Instead, you become just one of the N drivers for whom an expired inspection sticker or failure to stay in marked lanes becomes a citation (and maybe a tow) instead of a warning. Good luck proving a causality between your specific attitude or choice to exercise your rights and the outcome of the traffic stop.

For the wide variety of cases where there is discretion afforded the officer in the field, you can antagonize someone who has a great deal of discretion in how the rest of your day will unfold, or you can be polite and civil.

I choose polite and civil and have had overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive outcomes from my encounters with police. And I'm talking getting stopped for passing people across an intersection, 25 over on a highway, expired registration/inspection, open exhaust, a suspended license, and once even being caught smoking the tires and doing donuts in a public parking lot. (I often drove like a jackass a decade ago.)

You can exercise your rights to their fullest extent and take what you get, or you can "hack" the system to your advantage by being quiet, civil, and respectful.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, it's really hard to successfully prosecute a charge like this. But if you at least _try_ , then a cop like the one in question will probably perjure himself at some point or some other evidence will turn up that can get the bully's badge taken away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Please, please do not "Mouth Off," or whatever people call it, a cop. I understand this is much easier said than done, specially when someone is being disrespectfully and you feel your dignity is at play.

I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete it.

Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you know/want.

In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.

</comment><comment><USER20> At a traffic stop there are a few things to keep in mind before deciding to mouth off.

1\. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer will write the ticket for just under.

Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense.

2\. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended.

3\. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.

<comment><USER21> > _2\. You don 't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the > officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, > and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely his > calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you > intended._

In which case he should be fired.

Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so if he is paid by the taxpayers.

Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales clerk, etc?

<comment><USER20> What do you mean by "give the same courtesy" to those others? #2 was not about giving courtesy to anyone.

The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are angry, and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This is true of almost all people, professional or not.

If you are purposefully trying to antagonize the officer, you presumably have some maximum anger level you want to push him to, because you don't want to push him to the point where he will make mistakes that cause you serious problems.

The point of #2 is that you don't know what the initial anger level is from recent prior stops, and so you need to be very careful here for _your_ protection.

In waiter terms, if I wanted to piss off my waiter for some reason, I'd likely want to piss him off to the point that he has a bad day, and maybe says something rude to me that gets him in trouble with his manager, but not piss him off to the point that he's going to urinate in soup. So yes, I'd apply #2 here--and so be very concerned that he might already be angry from prior rude customers, and so what I expect will just push him to acting verbally against me might push him to urinated in my soup.

And yes, if he urinates in my soup, he should be fired. There is no amount of satisfaction I could get from him being fired, though, that I would consider worth eating urine tainted soup for.

<comment><USER21> > _What do you mean by "give the same courtesy" to those others? #2 was not > about giving courtesy to anyone._

The courtesy I refer to is accepting that a cop is allowed to behave unprofessionaly because he was "angered by someone before". It's not an excuse for ANY professional to take it out on a customer (or a citizen in the case of cop or state employee) whether they had "a bad day" or a "bad previous exchange" or not.

> _The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are > angry, and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This > is true of almost all people, professional or not._

And another fact is that people who "are angry" while serving people (whether customers or citizens) AND let it show, should either be scolded by their superiors, fined or fired.

Then, they'll know next time they want to "express their anger", to think twice about it. Instead of, you know, bashing some guy, thretening and beating a woman, or killing some black kid.

> _The point of #2 is that you don 't know what the initial anger level is > from recent prior stops, and so you need to be very careful here for your > protection._

That's true only in places were citizens expect to be treated like shit and suffer consequences from "angry cops". In most of Western and Nothern Europe, a cop is supposed to behave professionally at all times, and nobody gives a fuck about their previous (or even current) "anger level".

Even if you tell them "fuck you" and push them, they should still behave professionally. Getting "revenge" and "anger mode on" is not professional. And "hey, whatchagonnado, we're all humans" is no excuse from a professional carrying a gun and supposed to enforce the law.

That people are afraid to antagonise cops and feel that can legitimately behave unprofessionally if "antagonized" and depending on their "anger level", is what gives cops card blanche to do the shit they do in the US (or Latin America, Africa, etc).

<comment><USER20> >>The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are angry, and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This is true of almost all people, professional or not.

> And another fact is that people who "are angry" while serving people > (whether customers or citizens) AND let it show, should either be scolded by > their superiors, fined or fired.

Generally there is no way to know that they let it show. That's because in the massively overwhelming majority of the cases, being in a bad mood will shift the behavior from something that is common and legal to something else that is common and legal but less favorable to the person who was stopped. Generally, the officer won't even know that his bad mood influenced his decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't think this is a good idea even if it is your right. Sure, stand up for yourself, don't grovel, but rudeness doesn't particularly improve any situation, especially one where you are at a total disadvantage.

</comment><comment><USER23> Cops are people. If you cannot behave like a human you should expect to be treated like a rabid dog. Yes of course there are bad cops, the number of precious little entitled uncivil little snowflakes vastly outnumber those.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was always taught to respect others and respect authority. In a civilized world, you should be civil to everyone. I would no sooner mouth off to a cop as I would mouth off anyone else. It's disrespectful and speaks volumes about the person spouting off and nothing about who he's going off on.

Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing otherwise is beyond right thinking.

<comment><USER25> And yet, that doesn't make it legal for a cop to arrest you for being uncivil.

There's a big big difference between what's polite and what's legal.

<comment><USER24> My point is, every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen is unconcerned about the need for any article such as this.

<comment><USER26> Every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen should be outraged that the people responsible for safeguarding us and upholding the law are violating it on a regular basis.

<comment><USER25> This, right here, is exactly the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> And every cop has the right to punish you for it. Not a real legal right of course, but one forged through generations of corruption, insecurity, and abuse of power!

<comment><USER28> Insulting a cop is actually a crime in Germany. But ironically, you're probably in less danger for doing it than you would be in the US, where it's technically your right, but effectively not.

In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.

<comment><USER29> This is a common myth. There is no such thing as a "Beamtenbeleidigung" ("Insulting a civil Servant") in German law. Insulting a cop is handled by the same laws as insulting everyone else. It's just that public prosecutors will be more likely to actually criminally prosecute, instead of deferring the insulted party to a civil suit on the matter.

<comment><USER30> That's not a very great explanation of it. In the base of it, insulting someone breaks StGB §185 and a lawsuit over it can be initated by a civilian as per StPO §374. Civil servants are different because their superiors have the ability to sue in their stead as per StGB §77a.

[http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html) \- [http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html) \- [http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So what? We probably also have a legal right to walk up to random people in the mall and tell them to go fuck themselves. But why would we?

There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in any way to improve the situation?

Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to be forgotten about in the modern world.

<comment><USER32> _> Cut them a break and treat them with civility._

Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a _bug_ , and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the exact opposite.

I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because, systematically, _they do exactly that_. That makes more than the barest of civility a very big ask.

<comment><USER31> Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting bad cop behavior should be "cut a break". I'm just saying cops are humans... just like you and I. For this alone they are worth a certain measure of respect.

Also, they have job that requires them to interface with human trash for much of their working day. Although in a perfect world it shouldn't, this might tend to make someone a little grumpy and hostile toward others.

I'm not excusing the fact that the job probably attracts more than it's share of psychopathic bullies. Nor any of the misdeeds. But in order to improve the situation we should take a realistic and humane look at what cops are seeing. And we should demand the type of cops that take exactly the same approach towards their "clients".

<comment><USER32> Only your last sentence rings at all true to me; lots of people deal with very _bad_ individuals every day, but somehow only the ones whose sworn duty is to serve and protect are the ones killing people over it. I'll consider more than the barest of civility appropriate when they as a culture stop killing people for the temerity to exist while being black.

This isn't a "well, if we're nicer to them, they'll stop hurting people" sort of thing. Expecting the disempowered to be _humane_ towards those with power is at best unrealistic and at worst damaging. Should cops--the people in power --start acting in aggregate like reasonable human beings, then the people without power--everyone else, but especially minorities and the poor--won't have a reason to think that cops are likely to be dangerous to them. The change literally-literally must start with the people with guns and badges, and frankly calls to the contrary feel like useful idiocy.

<comment><USER31> Probably some cops say (or at least secretly think) exactly the same kinds of things you are saying about _black people_. "If they would just act right... until then, fuck em. They don't deserve respect."

What exactly does acting rudely or disrespectfully in either case achieve?

<comment><USER32> The cops have guns and the power to imprison or kill you without even the pretense of a committed crime. The power imbalance literally-literally leaves it in their hands. But being nice to them won't keep your head from intercepting a Maglite should you be of the wrong skin color. So why should the powerless listen to you at all? Why should I not recognize the pervasive damage that is being caused and provide support (in the form of social approval) to them?

Every action that any person ever takes is inherently political in the social context. What you advocate hurts the people least able to afford that hurt, and that's really troubling. Calling for niceties and "respect" to the members of a culture that can't stop killing fellow Americans, while sounding very nice, is tantamount to calling for better servile behaviour. And maybe that doesn't trouble you, but it does trouble me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Have Fun Programming - <AUTHOR> http://rdegges.com/how-to-have-fun-programming

<comment><USER2> I feel like I just got duped into looking at some crappy anime drawings. Couldn't close that tab fast enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> What does this have to do with the content?

<comment><USER3> There are a few sentences every screen, and then scroll scroll scroll. It's like having a page full of banner ads…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why the hell are there Bleach drawings all over the page?

Are trying to draw a comparison between enjoying programming, and the way Zaraki Kenpachi enjoys battle?

</comment><comment><USER5> Ickk... Bleach.</comment>


Liked the Stripe CTF? The World's Largest Student-Run CTF is this Weekend - <AUTHOR> https://csawctf.poly.edu/

<comment><AUTHOR> There are 700+ teams currently registered. The competition is open to anyone, but only students are eligible for the over $200,000 in prizes and travel scholarships to attend the final round in NYC.</comment>


David Silver from Google DeepMind: Deep Reinforcement Learning [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX1CIVVkWdE <comment><AUTHOR> I found this talk a very good summary of Deep Reinforcement Learning and key concepts. Even without seeing the slides, David's presentation was able to convey the key ideas clearly. Well spent 30-40 mins.</comment>