Sorting algorithms visualizer - <AUTHOR> http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/ <comment><USER2> One of my favorite sites that i usually share with my students is:

[http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~galles/visualization/Algorithms.htm...](http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~galles/visualization/Algorithms.html)

Many algorithms and nice visualizations.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. When I was in college (many decades ago) I just though insertion sorting was it. Then bubble sorts. I did not expect the mental flip I did when we starting researching quick sorts. That changed my perspective on obvious but incorrect assumptions forever.

These visualizers I think can get you there even faster. I just love this stuff.

<comment><USER4> I found out that my usual way of sorting cards as a kid was a variant of quicksort.

This is to sort the cards first into black v. red, then the black cards into spades v. clubs, then the spades into high v. low, then finally sort the low ones by inspection (a kind of insertion sort I guess), sort the high ones by inspection, sort the clubs similarly, etc.

Like most quicksorts, this definitely uses O(log(n)) space as you have a deck of reds, a deck of clubs, and a deck of high spades while you're handling the low spades...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just for fun: my friend and I 3D printed a model of SelectionSort: [https://gfycat.com/HospitableTenderDiamondbackrattlesnake](https://gfycat.com/HospitableTenderDiamondbackrattlesnake). Each successive layer behind the front one is one iteration of the algorithm. We also made mergesort and quicksort versions, and I'm working on a model of Dijkstra's right now.

To be honest the 3D model doesn't really confer a greater understanding of the algorithm as hoped, but it's nice to play with.

<comment><USER6> Interesting approach. If this was part of a series and perhaps in a different material + color-mapped (think Shapeways full color sandstone for instance), I could see someone very passionate about algorithms wanting to buy/own/print them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The ideal sorting algorithm would have the following properties:

\- Stable: Equal keys aren't reordered.

\- Operates in place, requiring O(1) extra space.

\- Worst-case O(n·lg(n)) key comparisons.

\- Worst-case O(n) swaps.

\- Adaptive: Speeds up to O(n) when data is nearly sorted or when there are few unique keys.

There is no algorithm that has all of these properties, and so the choice of sorting algorithm depends on the application."

Is there any formal proof that such an algorithm doesn't exist? Are some of those criterion mutually exclusive?

<comment><USER8> I went through the list of algorithms in Wikipedia [0] and a reader pointed out that block sort [1] is an interesting case. It has all the best properties listed, except the worst case swaps, which I can't find in Wikipedia.

[0]: [https://phunehehe.net/best-sorting- algorithm/](https://phunehehe.net/best-sorting-algorithm/) [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_sort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_sort)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shameless-self-plug:

I once wrote a generic algorithm visualizer where you write your own algorithm, and a view function. Then the framework records the state of the algorithm as it changes and passes it to the view function. Then you can play the states like you play a video, go back and forth etc. Here is an example with bubble-sort: [http://awal.js.org/alpg/?gist=8b5c6679edc3b85106fb](http://awal.js.org/alpg/?gist=8b5c6679edc3b85106fb) (hit run, then play/rewind/etc.)

The source is available at [https://github.com/awalGarg/alpg](https://github.com/awalGarg/alpg) if anyone feels like dabbling in.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a really nice page!

It would be even nicer if there was some way to find out who made it and/or how to contact the author(s); and/or how and whether one can add more algorithms (e.g. I'd love to see timsort and introsort).

As it is, this site seems to be completly anonymous. Which is of course a valid choice by the author(s), but IMHO quite sad :-(.

<comment><USER11> Not _completely_ anonymous.

[http://who.is/whois/http://www.sorting- algorithms.com](http://who.is/whois/http://www.sorting-algorithms.com)

<comment><USER12> [https://github.com/ericdolson](https://github.com/ericdolson)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's another

[http://greggman.github.io/doodles/sort.html](http://greggman.github.io/doodles/sort.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> It would be great if sound was added: [http://panthema.net/2013/sound-of- sorting/](http://panthema.net/2013/sound-of-sorting/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is interesting, I'd never thought about considering the number of swaps that an algorithm does. It seems like low swapping algos should be better in multithreaded environments due to less locking.

<comment><USER16> There can be a lot more to consider than just the number of comparisons (which a lot of sort algorithm texts concentrate on if they fixate on one thing) which can have an effect on which sort is better for a given circumstance.

If an exchange is very expensive then you might prefer an order of magnitude more comparisons in order to reduce the number of exchanges needed. The structure of your data makes a difference too especially if you are trying to sort in-place with little or no extra memory: an exchange by insertion is very efficient with a linked list (just rearrange the links) but can be very expensive with a fixed array (shifting the last element to the front involves moving every other element up one).

Sometimes the comparison might be rather expensive at times: if you are trying to sort data stored over many distributed nodes then you need to be careful to pick an algorithm that can constrain itself as much as possible to the local data on each node.

Concurrency can be a big issue even if not running on distributed data: some algorithms are much more "lock heavy" than others.

And even for a single threaded local only sort on modern CPUs cache use can make a big difference: an algorithm that you intuit should run quickly because it can move objects very far at each step might not be all that good because it much more rarely sees cache hits when looking at data than one that works on smaller local chunks in its inner loop.

No one method fits every use: sometimes you want an exchange class sort, sometimes insertion class, sometimes , ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope you have seen the folk dance shorting visuals...?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZQPjUT5B4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZQPjUT5B4)

</comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't have the best sorting algorithm of all:

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

</comment><comment><USER19> This interactive visualiser works alongside the code it's executing: [http://www.bluffton.edu/~nesterd/java/SortingDemo.html](http://www.bluffton.edu/~nesterd/java/SortingDemo.html)

Heres a similar one that was posted to HN recently: [http://jasonpark.me/AlgorithmVisualizer/](http://jasonpark.me/AlgorithmVisualizer/)

<comment><USER9> Not sure how I feel about this, but the second link you posted is _remarkably_ similar to my alpg[1] project. UI buttons, rendering, usage of Github gist for sharing, url format of shared links, etc. I wrote alpg 3 months back, and the that one has first commit 13 days ago... :| A bit weirded out by this but I am biased ofcourse. Should I care?

[1]: [http://github.com/awalGarg/alpg](http://github.com/awalGarg/alpg)

<comment><USER19> To clarify I'm not the author of either of the links I simply shared what I found. If you did decide to care you'd have to take it up with the repo owner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty cool.

I've always found selection sort to be the most intuitive. When I was in school, a professor mentioned that bubble sort is sort of the "easy" sort that people would discover on their own, but I always thought it seemed complicated compared to selection sort.

Selection sort is basically "Find the next smallest item in the remaining unsorted list, and use it as the next value."

<comment><USER21> I think you are both right :)

Both seem to me like strategies that you'd intuitively hit upon. I think bubble-sort is a bit more mathsy but a certain type of mind would hit upon it. Because bubble-sort is "Go through the list swapping adjacent items depending on value, Keep doing that until you get no swaps." which is pretty trivial as well.

I remember heap-sort kind of blowing my mind when shown to me. When this kind of topic comes up I am always reminded of D. J. Bernstein's Crit-bit Trees: [https://cr.yp.to/critbit.html](https://cr.yp.to/critbit.html)

</comment></comment><comment> chris-laffra For visualizations of numerous other algorithms, check out [http://pyalgoviz.appspot.com](http://pyalgoviz.appspot.com), where both the algorithms and the visualizations are editable. You can replay both the execution and the visualization step by step.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a quite unique take on sorting visualizations:

A folk dance group made sorting algo visualizations via Hungarian / Romanian folk dances :)

[https://www.youtube.com/user/AlgoRythmics/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/AlgoRythmics/videos)

</comment><comment><USER16> It misses out sleep sort...

([https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Sleep_sort](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithms/Sleep_sort))

</comment><comment><USER23> There is also Visual Algo [1]. Visual Algo is not only sorting but also data structures algorithms visualizer.

[1]: [http://visualgo.net/](http://visualgo.net/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Quick sort with D3.js

[https://www.google.com/search?q=bl.ocks.org+quick+sort](https://www.google.com/search?q=bl.ocks.org+quick+sort)

</comment><comment><USER25> This page just goes to show how illuminating a visualizer can be to understanding something we all (programmers) do every day, either on our own or using a tool.

</comment><comment><USER26> When comparing the sort algorithms, how is one defined as stable vs not- stable?

<comment><USER27> Whether items with same sorting key will remain in the same order or not [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm#Stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm#Stability)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a way to control the speed ?

</comment><comment> Ono-Sendai Kind of useless if you aren't going to have radix sort IMO.

<comment><USER29> Ya good point. Radix sort is not a comparison-based sort so maybe it's in a different niche. I've always had a soft spot for it :)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So damn cool</comment>


Ask HN: How to find someone to post your product on Product Hunt? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone, We have launched a platform few month back and are ready to launch it on product hunt. As I recently joined PH, I don't have access and followers. How can we find someone to submit it for us? <comment><USER2> What makes you think PH will be a worthwhile platform for launching if you don't even use it? Everything you get from that launch ends the same day of your launch. The hard problem you must solve - finding an audience for your product - will be harder for pursuing their audience instead.

There must by now be many products that went through that mincer and came out dead cause they couldn't find a profit that way and couldn't think past "can a business model really be as simple as submitting my link to some sites".

<comment><AUTHOR> We do have few hundreds users which we got through reddit and medium. We are just thinking of putting it out there in front more people and get feedback and PH feedback tends to be great. We do think PH users will like it. Also I have been using PH for quite some time now but never signed up. Thanks for the reply.

<comment><USER2> The risk with PH users is that they're only using the site for a _stream_ of new products. No product matters because later there will be more new products to look at. Even the products they like will only be liked that day.

Do you know of any companies that actually launched and _flourished_ because of PH?

<comment><USER3> "Do you know of any companies that actually launched and flourished because of PH?"

^ It's too soon to judge any product/startup by its PH launch at this moment. But then, a lot of huge companies launch their products there.

<comment><USER2> It's been 3.5 years and that's surely a lot of attempts...

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/product- hunt#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/product-hunt#/entity)

Do you mean companies that were already huge launched new products there? That's proof they have traction, not that they hand it out.

<comment><USER3> What I was saying was that you can't put everything on PH for success of a company. PH is not about companies. If you have a really nice product and you need people who can give valuable feedback, you put it there. A lot of people think about PH first for their initial traffic, which makes sense.

As you said, people just scroll through products. While scrolling, if they find your product attractive (or thumbnail / tagline) then it's a win-win for you.

As a user, I go to PH to check out new things. And I have stuck to most of the apps which I liked on PH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Our free CMS [1] was featured on Product Hunt 1.5 years ago, after being posted to Designer News by someone, and got #1.

We were not actively involved in the posting, but it had a fantastic effect on our user base, we went from 1600 GitHub stars to 3k+ thanks to it (now we're close to 6k), plus it allowed a snowball effect on Twitter and other websites, that lasted for weeks.

The whole "happening" was described in [https://getgrav.org/blog/grav- reaches-3000-github-stars](https://getgrav.org/blog/grav-reaches-3000-github- stars)

I wouldn't know how to post it on PH myself and get a similar effect. The product was discovered and featured by a prominent hunter that found it interesting / worth featuring, and had success thanks to that.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Make a list of PH users.

2\. Find them on Twitter.

3\. Talk to them and introduce the product.

4\. Work out a deal so they post your product.

Yes, you might have to pay them because some users will carry a lot of weight in the community and influence the result of the post. The more influence they have the more money you will have to pay.

Note:

I dont know if this violates the terms of PH. Check before doing it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Our product was recently submitted to PH by someone unrelated by us and upvoted quite well but it didn't have any measurable impact. I don't feel like its worth putting much effort into getting your product featured there.</comment>


Samsung spotlights eHealth, VR and the smarthome at its developer conference - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2847408/opensource-subnet/samsung-developer-conference-wearables-virtual-reality-and-the-smart-home.html

<comment><AUTHOR> All told, Samsung's approach to these potentially disruptive markets — IoT, VR and wearables — is more like Google's. The company is completely comfortable delivering early products, innovating with its developer community as hardware and software improve with iteration. One can't imagine Apple introducing something like the Simband, telling the audience that it's not sure exactly what it will be used for, and then giving away all the intellectual property to innovators.</comment>


Capser (mattress) – All Birds (shoes) any other 1-product startups? (uni paper) - <AUTHOR> It's for a college paper. I'd really love to find one-product startups that are lesser known but growing. <comment><USER2> To the contrary, I'm having trouble thinking of startups that launch with multiple products.</comment>


[Feature Request] Display absolute time along with the relative time - <AUTHOR>

Can we get the absolute time an article was submitted instead of relative time?
I keep HN (Both the new and the top headlines page) open in tabs in my browser. When I return to the tabs after a while, all stories are 5, 7, 8, 10 minutes old but from when?
Can the absolute time a post was submitted be displayed as well so that we do not lose track of where we were in the list?
Thanks <comment><USER2> There's a feature request link at the bottom of this page. Use it.</comment>


Things I Have Learned In 45 Years of Life, by Loren Feldman - <AUTHOR> http://www.lorenfeldman.com/things-i-have-learned/

<comment><USER2> > The smartest woman is way smarter than the smartest man.

> Coke is in fact better than Pepsi.

No no no.</comment>


What to make of chatroulette? - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/02/what-to-make-of-chatroulette.html <comment><USER2> Its essentially omegle 2.0

Its definitely a fun site in the way many sites are 'fun' - However, like 4chan- Turning it into a business is not going to be straight forward as due to the extreme content your only real option is to sell direct ads to the likes of fleshlight and livejasmin.

Im sure there is some options they can explore via filtering ie- " I am a xxx looking to meet with a yyyy near location zzzzz "

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah -- I imagine you'd have to be REAL careful about that, though. Many of the types of people you refer to would LOVE to claim to be looking for [non- sexual activity] just for a chance to flash something offensive.

<comment><USER3> Well, if you spend five minutes on chatroulette you've already seen so much offensive stuff that the next offensive thing you see doesn't really bother you all that much. You just click "next".

Being able to not freak out over someone doing something gross is an absolute necessity to spend any time on chatroulette. And I think this is a good thing, because if nobody gets freaked out anymore, then its no longer fun to freak people out, and — finally — that stuff becomes marginalized.

<comment><USER4> > Well, if you spend five minutes on chatroulette you've already seen so much > offensive stuff that the next offensive thing you see doesn't really bother > you all that much. You just click "next".

It might if you specifically clicked "please show me only people interested in chatting and not showing me their dicks."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 12 spins, 5 cocks. That's a dangerously high percentage of dicks.

<comment><USER6> What, no boobs? Or is that, like, a premium feature?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those who missed it on reddit

<http://i.imgur.com/wN9Sl.jpg>

<comment><USER8> I don't dare click this at work :/

<comment><USER9> It's safe, and hilarious. Unless your office really has something against Nazis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's something you do in the dorm to pass the time while you're high or horny. I imagine pairing it up with pizza delivery ads would propel it to a multimillion dollar business (you can't monetize the horniness because horny students don't pay for stuff).

</comment><comment><USER11> Does nobody remember CU-SeeMe and VocalTec iPhone c. 1995?

<comment><USER4> No, but I remember FU-FMe.

Much more excited about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obligatory: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euTu04297sI>

(NSFW)

<comment><USER13> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0>

(SFW)

[Sorry, could not resist.]

<comment><USER6> damn you... What a fool I was to click your link.

<comment><USER13> I don't like links to Youtube videos here. At least not without a description of what awaits me. (I should probably have added irony-tags or something to my post above. I wanted to make fun of the videos, not encourage them.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To hell with anonymity, I'd like to see a version with a "smarter roulette" so I could be paired with someone who I might be interested in talking to.

</comment><comment><USER15> heres my take: we have millions of people connected to the net. id like to meet new people of similar interests. we should be able to connect them instantly, pushing new people to them. ie- id like to meet new entrepreneurs. introduce me to one new entrepreneur a day.

<comment><USER11> That was exactly the value of twitter, before it started to get co-opted by big media, celebrities, and social media consultants.

<comment><USER16> I've been on Twitter awhile and I haven't had to read anything from big media, celebrities, and social media consultants. Either Ashton Kutcher just doesn't like me, or those problems aren't problems if you're selective about who you follow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _"But my son's assertion that chatroulette is porn doesn't seem exactly right to me."_

In my first 5 screens, 2 guys had their junk out (one guy was servicing himself) and a 3rd held a sign that read "Show Your Tits" ...

I guess it's not porn in the traditional sense, but still ... it's obvious what people are using it for.

BTW, wouldn't it be easy for Skype to add a feature like this?

<comment><USER18> Skype is too serious business for something like this, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This site puts a face to all the commenters on Digg and YouTube. Which is a portrait to the carnal side of humanity; not our best side!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Jason Kottke had a fun time:

<http://kottke.org/10/02/chatroulette>

</comment><comment><USER20> What always has interested me is that whoever is running it has some sizeable investment. It can't be cheap.

<comment><USER21> If they capture every video stream that goes through their servers they must have a TON of raw footage, I'm sure some of it could be spliced together/sold/subscribed to/whatever.

Not a pretty business model (at least, I'm assuming there's a low pretty-to- ugly ratio on Chatroulette :-) but probably a functional one.

<comment><USER9> That poses a rather large privacy problem. If word gets out that every stream on the site is being recorded, people will feel much less secure in their anonymity on the site and will probably stop doing interesting things with it. This will be even worse if Chatroulette starts publishing streams.

<comment><USER21> Good points indeed. From their (very short) TOS;

"Everything supplied by the user you are connected with is not property of Chatroulette, and therefore Chatroulette is not responsible for what you will find."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _"how did it take 15 years for the Internet to deliver this experience?"_

It's simple: nobody did it before because it obviously doesn't work, AND there's a related model that does work and pays.

Go to chatroulette. There are about 20 blokes for every woman. Most of these guys are looking to talk and have (some kind of) sex with women. The rest are probably trying to talk and have sex with other guys.

The way to fix that is to charge the guys and pay the girls, and needless to say that's a successful business model though perhaps a bit saturated by now.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just found out about it tonight, but it reminds me of all the problems and all the benefits of Craigslist (and really connecting with other people for example). Unlike the broadcast, asynchronous mediums of YouTube, etc. , this site seems directly made so we can connect with a a real person and be entertained (in the broadest sense). The anonymity allows people to do things that they wouldn't normally do when connected to their identity (allows cool performance art too).

You'll notice that a lot of folks like to visit chartroulette together with friends because it's like going out. Being able to tell somebody... "crazy night, we saw... and...."

The internet is supposed to be our window into another world right? I guess this is the first real start of that. And... maybe, just maybe, we'll be entertained by someone like us (or shocked by a fat guy in a bra).

</comment><comment><USER24> This is what Facebook would be if instead of having friends, every day you were thrown in with a group of 100 strangers and there was a video feed. Some people (especially men) act strange when they are in front of a bunch of strangers for a short period of time, with little chance of meeting them later.

<comment><USER25> > Some people (especially men) act strange when they are in front of a bunch > of strangers for a short period of time, with little chance of meeting them > later.

I would turn that around—some animals act strange when they know they'll have to deal with the same strangers later. This strange behavior is called "society"; it is a tenuous and fragile phenomenon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So the real question is if someone can build something like this that connects perfect strangers via video/audio so easily through their browsers on any operating system that supports flash/webcam/mic, why can't I pull up a page, enter someone's email address, and drop into a chat just like chatroulette with the person I'm looking for without having to install anything extra?

I know gmail has audio/video support (and has for a while), but it uses a special plugin and doesn't support linux, which I guess is fine (although annoying), but why should I have to install your special plugin if I've got flash installed and Chatroulette can do it?

Mark

<comment><USER2> <http://tinychat.com> / tokbox.com / stickam.com / etc.

<comment><USER21> You are my new best friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a great idea.

I remember as soon as P2P chat came out on the net, I was using the random chat function. It's just a fun thing to do every now and then. You meet all sorts of people.

I think this app has a lot of potential.

</comment><comment><USER27> How about an endless source of new memes?</comment>


RSS is dead, that's why Google killed Reader - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/113974084460235989118/posts/8kAgGWWtzeo <comment><USER2> I think that RSS solves a different problem (namely, syndication) than del.icio.us, and, more recently, FB, Twitter, Reddit, etc. (namely, content discovery).

I do agree that the end-user usefulness of something like RSS may have been overstated, but RSS remains a useful tool in some contexts. For example, most (all?) Android/iOS news widgets make use of RSS. Google News also makes use of RSS. I'm sure there are many such examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> you describe some use cases of RSS that are machine to machine, and that may be true, but i was focusing on the end user that Reader targets, namely people.

<comment><USER3> No one reads RSS directly, in XML. So it's actually doesn't matter that it's m-m protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use RSS, Google Reader, and Reeder on my iPad/iPhone. Still I think it's fair to say that RSS is dead because the general public does not use it. Of course that's also a good reason to kill off G+. Google is killing Reader because they no longer see the benefit of providing the service or they get a benefit by not providing the service.

I would've been happy to pay for Google Reader. Truth is I'll move to another RSS service and be happy to pay. I'm not sure what it costs Goole to run Reader so this is all conjecture.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like I didn't read this article, linked from an RSS feed.

<comment><USER6> Ditto - would be interesting to see what pct. Of people viewed this from that dead system...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is a shame it is dead. Hey wait I just read this in Reeder in my iPhone via RSS. I must be dead too?</comment>


Chrome: Closing the capability gap between the web and native - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/updates/capabilities <comment><USER2> It kinda surprises me that Google is the one to jump on this rather than Mozilla given that Mozilla has already implemented version of a lot of these APIs (at least the mobile-related ones) as part of FirefoxOS. I guess maybe not having that skin in the game anymore prevented those APIs from becoming standardized?

But these are also very useful for desktop applications. Anyways, this is a great initiative, it's about time a real effort was made to close that gap.

<comment><USER3> _Anyways, this is a great initiative, it 's about time a real effort was made to close that gap._

That's actually debatable. Arguably moving more of this stuff into the browser is just digging us deeper and deeper into the "browser as a poor man's operating system" hole, and creating more of a "we have an OS running on top of an OS" scenario. It might well make more sense for the browser to just _browse_ and then hand content which needs these capabilities off to native code that implements them.

<comment><USER4> There's a decent argument that _current desktop OSes_ are a poor man's OS. The permissive-by-default approach of traditional OSes is deeply problematic and attempts at reigning that in (Mac App store sandbox, capabilities work on *nix) have largely failed to gain any traction.

It's certainly not elegant that we build a proper security model from within a browser rather than an OS, but it might be the only practical approach (short of some large-scale migration to iOS/Android/Fuschia etc, which seems...unlikely.)

<comment><USER5> > There's a decent argument that current desktop OSes are a poor man's OS. The > permissive-by-default approach of traditional OSes is deeply problematic and > attempts at reigning that in (Mac App store sandbox, capabilities work on > *nix) have largely failed to gain any traction.

What if they've failed because they're a poor idea that damage the reason why computers have become an ubiquitous tool and drivers of innovation? In Apples little golden garden, Linux, Chrome and hundreds of other things you've come to understand as required features of an OS would not exist. If Microsoft would ban competitive browsers like Apple did, we'd never dig out of the cesspool of IE6 internet.

And to build such innovative and updated software, you NEED the ability to modify parts of the system, not a sandbox.

(Disclaimer: This does not mean the security approach does not need to be updated. Sandboxes aren't a general solution though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this the electron killer?

<comment><USER7> More of Electron Enhancer, really.</comment></comment>


GM crop ruling shows why the EU's laws are wholly inadequate - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/gm-crop-ruling-shows-why-the-eus-laws-are-wholly-inadequate-100675 <comment><USER2> In my view the ruling of the court is consistent with the law and the court's decision is therefore correct.

I think it is a matter of culture where most Americans tend to like "allow until proven harmful" and most Europeans tend to like "forbid until proven harmless" and hence most Americans are frustrated by the consistent ruling.</comment>


People and jobs? Or wealth? The government has to decide which to prioritise - <AUTHOR> https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/05/05/people-and-jobs-or-wealth-the-government-has-to-decide-which-to-prioritise-and-there-is-only-one-right-answer/ <comment><USER2> This debate is harder than usual because nobody knows what is happening right now, therefore nobody can claim to know why. How many people are suffering, and what of? What is the supply chain about to do? What are the long term effects? Nobody knows. We're in uncharted territory. Problems can't be solved if nobody knows what they are and why they are happening.

The policies that are implemented in this environment will not be thought out. Until this crisis ends it will be an ugly free-for-all to find out who has political power at the moment and can implement all their long-standing agendas with no special regard for current circumstances apart from some extraordinarily big handouts.

<comment><USER3> Policies aren't being "thought out" in the eyes of the status quo of the old system. There's potentially a great deal of thinking to be done, towards something new. Ugly free-for-all or not, was what was beautiful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The UK has triple lock pensions. Knew it was time to quit the UK when that happened. Took a while but I managed it.

Pensioners everywhere are powerful. You'll never sacrifice them. They'll eat the young whenever they get a chance. Your only hope is to get in as close to the ground floor and then eat as many young yourself.

<comment><USER5> If the govt pays pensions (or social security here in the us), they can just print money in the event of an emergency like now. That makes sense. The problem in the us is that we stubbornly refuse to set aside enough money (I mean warring political parties find it advantageous to put off taxing and blaming the other side till later).

<comment><USER6> US social security is fine as a pension program. It's disability payments that became a problem. Because high income earners don't pay for SS, it's politically very tempting to use that money to pay for vaguely related social programs which then grew over time.

<comment><USER7> Social security is also being used to subsidize government borrowing (by increasing apparent demand for low interest rate bonds), which makes those vaguely related social programs appear cheaper.

<comment><USER8> What should be done with social security funds instead? I've never heard anyone provide a better option.

<comment><USER7> Social security could be run more like the large sovereign wealth funds, CalPERS, or as (possibly restricted) private savings accounts. The account statements make Social Security appear to be a private account system, even though it's not true.

I doubt any of these alternatives are politically viable, and I am not sure they are all necessarily better, just suggesting that there are alternatives.

<comment><USER9> Funds like CalPERS typically have a good chunk of their money invested in real estate. They are the landlords this article is calling for us to sacrifice, along with endowments for charities and universities and probably a whole bunch of other pensions (maybe including personal pensions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a reason why it used to be that only landowners could vote. The powerful typically owned land and they knew if non-landowners could vote, they would outvote the landowners.

When the right to vote became available to everyone/most people, the landowners shifted to using their wealth in order to influence government/politics in their favor. This has worked out well for them, since as a general rule people either are too naive or politically apathetic to come together to outvote the landowners. Despite being grounded into dust by them, the common person still feel that they have much to lose by going against them. This reminds me of a fictional gambling game from an anime I've watched called E Card.

"The game is starts with each player holding five cards, four of which are Citizens and the last being either a Slave or an Emperor. Who holds which card is decided beforehand, and is played like that for three turns before switching. The game lasts for a total of twelve turns, meaning each side gets to play Emperor twice. The players choose one card from their hand (Emperor side lays first) and place them face-down on the table. They are then flipped over to reveal the winner of the match.

The three card types are Citizen, Emperor and Slave.

The Citizen card represents the common man, and cannot defeat the Emperor who sits at the top. It can, however, defeat the Slave, who resides at the very bottom of the system. Two citizen against each other results in a tie.

The Emperor represents the one at the top of society. This card can defeat the citizen, but will lose to the Slave.

The Slave is presented as the one at the very bottom of society. Seeing as how it has nothing to lose, it can overthrow the Emperor in one last attempt at revenge. This card will lose to a Citizen, but will win against the Emperor card."

My thought is that we have a large population of people who have been fooled into thinking they are the Citizen, when they are little more than Slaves. They believe that they are different, more than Slaves. So they have something to lose. Thus they can never go against the Emperor, and in fact, play their role as the Citizen in keeping down the actual Slaves who could do something about that Emperor if they actually got together.

Now do I think people will wake up and realize they are the Slave? Probably not, but there's a non-zero chance, depending on how the government decides to act during this crisis. Most likely though, the Citizens are going to be given some scraps, just enough that they have something to lose and keeps them under the illusion that they are more than a Slave.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am in the USA, but similar situation.

I believe that if, big if!!, the public would cooperate, that a plan like Hong Kong's makes a lot of sense. Sure businesses are less profitable and some will not survive, but it would get things restarted quickly.

Trouble in the USA is a lack of patriotism: people are into their own selfish thing and they feel put upon and don't do what is right for both public health and starting up the economy again.

It seems to be mostly young people in my town who act irresponsibly and will thus likely ruin the economy for a long time.

A long term failed economy is full-stop the fault of people unwilling to be decent human beings and do what needs to be done, and, of course, the fault of our federal government leadership which has so far been poor.

We are just getting started with changing health practices and public interactions and we are just getting started understanding what the long term economic consequences will be. There is no quick fix here.

But for sure, we need less selfish and entitled behavior, and protect people who need extra protection, and be willing to pay a little more to businesses and totally cooperate with more distancing in public places and businesses and of course apply maximum social shaming pressure on people who are so incredibly selfish as to not wear masks when appropriate. It is like some people have no sense of shame.

<comment><USER12> People in America don't exactly lack patriotism. They're quite capable of making sacrifices in the name of their country or their community if need be. It's just that many were led to believe that they were being forced into something for no reason. This was an active effort. There wasn't just a lack of leadership, there was leadership in the direction of sabotaging a coordinated response.

<comment><USER11> You may not agree with my comments, but I agree with yours: federal leadership was so bad that I have to wonder if it were on purpose.

But, that doesn't exempt people from blame if they don't do their part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since the late 70s consumption growth has outpaced productivity growth. The gap was plugged with debt. You cannot roll that debt over forever, even if you are Jerome Powell.

The older people who hector young graduates about paying back their student loans are precisely the people who voted for deficits _with no intention of ever paying off the debt_.

<comment><USER14> > Since the late 70s consumption growth has outpaced productivity growth.

Really? It seems more like companies been capturing more of the productivity gains since the 70s, and paying it to shareholders...

<comment><USER13> Total US debt to GDP was stable at around 150% until 1980 when it began to rise, topping out at 400% in 2009 and settling around 360% since then. This debt increase partially masked both slowing GDP growth due to demographics at the national level, and slowing productivity growth at the individual level.

Regardless of the internal cause of slowing productivity growth, it did slow and maintaining the same debt to GDP ratio as before 1980 would have required accepting a standard of living that rose more slowly than it did. (GDP growth slowdown due to demographics washes out on a per capita basis.)

It seems the most likely cause for the 1970s productivity slowdown was the oil shocks and the most likely cause for the 2000s productivity slowdown is the falling marginal return on research expenditures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a such an epic situation that I'm sure we'll be talking about for the rest of our lives.

Pick two or three groups to save: workers, landlords, bankers, or businesses? Not everyone can be saved, and the political positioning of these classes makes this battle all the more impactful. This author chooses to sacrifice the banks and the landlords, and makes a pretty good case for why.

The wrong answer could spell the end of capitalism, at least as we understand it today. Maybe "wrong" isn't the correct word here, I don't know. I've never seen such huge decisions laid bare like this before.

<comment><USER16> > This is a such an epic situation that I'm sure we'll be talking about for > the rest of our lives.

The word "epic" is overused a lot - but not here. It's chilling to think about how historically significant each passing day is going to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are a lot of empty hotels, and it seems like prices will need to go down. Who is going to live there?

</comment><comment><USER18> What is this guy smoking? He presents a false dichotomy of saving "labor" vs "assets". Look, if assets depreciate, it affects balance sheets of everyone, including corporates, and induce a balance sheet recession which reduces reinvestment into the economy. Everyone's fked then, too. It's all connected.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Submission statement:

 _" Richard Murphy lays out the case for whose interests need to be sacrificed for the economy to have any hope of surviving under the conditions being imposed on businesses to keep workers and customers safe. Unfortunately, his well-reasoned recommendation, that landlords, banks, and pensioners need to take hits to save jobs and businesses, is not likely to find support in official circles. But Murphy's argument, in essence, is that these groups are toast under any scenario, and they can't be allowed to weigh down the productive sectors of the economy."_

(summary courtesy [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/people-and-jobs- or-w...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/people-and-jobs-or-wealth- the-government-has-to-decide-which-to-prioritise-and-there-is-only-one-right- answer.html))

</comment><comment><USER19> The idea that landlords should be bailed out in any fashion seems folly to the extreme and I'm glad to see it argued against here. Collecting rents from people without the capital to own housing, in addition to increases in land value, is about as textbook an example of parasitism as one could imagine. Let them all take a bath and keep people housed.

<comment><USER20> You do realize that many property owners would be rendered homeless if we did as you're suggesting, right? Why should the owners lose everything they have so that their renters don't (at least in the short term, until the property gets foreclosed on and everyone is homeless)?

<comment><USER19> It's a pretty simple calculus. The damage caused by kicking everyone out of their homes far exceeds the landlords losing out, from both an individual and public health perspective.

<comment><USER13> > The _political_ damage caused

Renters outnumber landlords. Easy peasy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: What I think Elon Musk means by 'reasoning from first principles' - <AUTHOR> https://link.medium.com/NqoAewqtT8
I wrote a (relatively lengthy) case study about Musk and his 'physics-driven' approach to problem-solving (my own research and interpretations).
Feedback is very much appreciated - especially if you think it's kind of useless as a framework (and why). Thanks! <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/z69K8](http://archive.is/z69K8)</comment>


Keep Your iOS App Running in Background Forever - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dkaminsky.info/2013/01/27/keep-your-ios-app-running-in-background-forever/

<comment><USER2> plugged-in chargers don't really use a significant amount of electricity.</comment>


MySQL Local/Remote Account Password Cracking - <AUTHOR> http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2012-December/089076.html

<comment><AUTHOR> previously by kingcope:

<http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Dec/2>

<http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Dec/4>

<http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Dec/5>

<http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Dec/6>

<http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Dec/8>

5 other exploits/weaknesses. i am curious what will come in the next few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Off the top of my head, I can't think of a case where a user script absolutely needs change_user to return quickly. Sounds like change_user should be modified to return only after a delay, say 1 second.

<comment><USER3> It's sometimes used to clear the connection state with persistent connections to the database (say for example in a high-traffic web app). Changing to the same user clears any state and local settings from the previous use of the connection and cancels the current transaction (I believe).

<comment><USER4> Easy enough to make it return instantly when switching to the current user. This would still allow for someone to crack their own password (a problem if someone has access to the database without having the password, say by an SQL injection), but would mitigate most of the problem without breaking things for almost anyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This post (and previous) make for good reading, kudos king cope!

</comment><comment><USER6> Ha, can't crack mine it's ''</comment>


Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2016/06/06/man-sued-30k-over-40-printer-he-sold-craigslist/85478168/ <comment><USER2> Under a sensible legal system, this is a crime. It's called "barratry": filing baseless lawsuits in order to harass or to extract a settlement. In most US jurisdictions, however, it's not legally recognized as a crime, and so it's widespread. From a defendant's point of view, however, it's basically equivalent to getting mugged.

<comment><USER3> Which "sensible legal system[s]" are these, and which ones punish plaintiffs for it rather than lawyers?

Edit: I originally said "punish _defendants_ ", but meant plaintiffs.

<comment><USER4> Or judges? I would want to sue the judge that awarded $30,000 for an allegedly broken printer.

Edit: Found this article from Sep. 2014. [0]

"The [Indiana] state high court, in an order issued Tuesday, called Zavodnik 'a prolific, abusive litigant' and put him on notice. In the unanimous ruling, the five justices warned the Ukraine-born U.S. citizen that he 'can expect any further abusive litigation practices ... to be met with appropriate sanctions and restrictions.'"

0: [http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/10/01/enoughs- enough...](http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/10/01/enoughs-enough- indiana-supreme-court-tells-prolific-filer-lawsuits/16529893/)

<comment><USER5> The problem is that it seems that the judge made the legally correct determination, and that the majority of judges understand that this type of suit is ridiculous, but they have no tools to stop it.

<comment><USER6> > The problem is that it seems that the judge made the legally correct > determination,

Judges are supposed to use some digression. I doubt _very_ much that the litigants losses for a $40 printer are $30K. Especially since he conveniently lost the printer.

I just don't believe that there are _any_ laws which require the judge to (a) decide in the litigants favor with zero supporting evidence, and (b) allow $30K in damages for a $40 printer.

FTA, the court of appeals pretty much stated the above _The $30,000 in damages "had no basis in reality," Chief Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote._

I'm left wondering why _anyone_ supports a position which the judges describe as having no basis in reality.

<comment><USER7> As quoted, "Edens acknowledged the amount is "seemingly high" and the judgment "may seem extreme for the breach of contract for the purchase of a printer." But he wrote that he's constrained by how the Supreme Court had previously interpreted a state trial rule, called Rule 36, which sets the 30-day deadline for responding to requests for admissions."

<comment><USER8> Arent such notices supposed to be handed in person via a process server? How could the person be held liable for a default judgement without being personally handed court documents?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two thoughts:

1\. The plaintiff exploited a loophole in the Indiana small claims rule regarding "res judicata," which normally acts to prevent a party from re- litigating a decided matter.

[The rule states]([http://www.in.gov/judiciary/rules/small_claims/](http://www.in.gov/judiciary/rules/small_claims/)), "A judgment shall be res judicata only as to the amount involved in the particular action and shall not be considered an adjudication of any fact at issue in any other action or court.

So the plaintiff lost a $6,000 claim in small claims, but somehow he was not barred from bringing claims in superior court on the same set of facts for a larger amount of money. I think the judge should have seen through this...

2\. Requests for admission are the most abused discovery tools in modern litigation. There is no limit on the number of requests for admission. They are designed to streamline and focus areas of dispute, but hyperactive litigants are always trying to sneak case-killer facts into them to get "admitted" either by accident or failure to respond, the latter of which happened here.

<comment><USER10> My guess, and i'm honestly a bit lazy to find the filings, is that he changed the claims slightly.

<comment><USER11> I think the article says he added additional claims to the second lawsuit, but they all flow from the same set of facts/transaction, it should be Res Judicata. Odds are Defendant can Vacate the Judgment on:

1\. Improper Service of Process; and/or 2\. Defenses on the Merits, including, Res Judicata.

Assuming the Defendant can establish Plaintiff knowingly obtained default based on improper service, and show Plaintiff knew or should have known the claims weren't supported by fact or law the Defense should recoup their fees on the Motion to Vacate Default Judgment through sanctions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >The printer's buyer was Gersh Zavodnik, a 54-year-old Indianapolis man known to many in the legal community as a frequent lawsuit filer who also represents himself in court. The Indiana Supreme Court said the "prolific, abusive litigant" has brought dozens of lawsuits against individuals and businesses, often asking for astronomical damages...Zavodnik, a native of Ukraine who moved to the United States in 1987 under a grant of political asylum, sued Costello, accusing him of falsely advertising a malfunctioning printer with missing parts, and pocketing Zavodnik's money

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Is anyone familiar with the legal system enough to know how we can help out his current victim or (legally) bring an end to this smug conman's thievery? Could public opinion or data that tells a compelling story help?

'Special Judge J. Jeffrey Edens' is damage in the legal process that I'm sure can be routed around and this story is ripe for the media.

<comment><USER11> Not that it will help this particular individual at this time, unfortunately, but check out this Ask HN I posted yesterday about crowdfunding lawsuits, still on Ask front page: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842051)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I'm reading correctly, the key bit is:

\-----

Because Costello did not respond to all three requests for admissions within 30 days of receiving them, and did not ask for an extension of time, as required by Indiana trial rules, Costello admitted to the liabilities and damages by default. He also did not appear at a July 2013 hearing, according to court records.

Costello said he never received the requests for admissions and was not notified of the hearing.

\-----

If Costello just ignored these requests for some reason, maybe thinking they'd go away or whatever, that this is kind of on him.

If, though, Zavodnik has figured out a way to serve people requests without them actually knowing about it... Well, that seems like a much larger legal loophole that needs closing.

But without digging into this, the whole article falls apart. If someone sues you and you don't respond, you risk a default judgment against you.

<comment><USER14> That's assuming Zavodnik sent the requests via certified, registered mail. Zavodnik could have easily scribbled the address in unreadable gibberish and slapped a simple 1st class stamp on, in which case they would never have actually been delivered. Costello claims he never received anything.

<comment><USER15> Wouldn't the onus be on Zavodnik to prove he sent the documents by registered mail?

<comment><USER16> That is if he wanted those delivered. I think the idea was he didn't because he wanted to get the default judgement.

<comment><USER17> Whether he wanted them delivered or not, the legal system should require proof on behalf of the server that the person being served was served correctly. Basic first class mail should never suffice.

<comment><USER16> It should but it doesn't obviously. Perhaps a video recording of delivery and asking for a signature should be required. Obviously some defendants could just start running away and refuse to sign, thus delaying the lawsuit forever. But also throwing the packet of paper in a mail with a stamp or dropping it on the front porch while yelling "you've been served" is also not quite cutting it. Something in the middle is needed.

<comment><USER18> You do realize that rules around this already exist, right? For example, in california: [https://www.serve-now.com/resources/process-serving- laws/cal...](https://www.serve-now.com/resources/process-serving- laws/california)

<comment><USER19> and here in california, my anecdote entails me learning via first class mail that there's about to be a judgement entered against me because I failed to respond to papers I never received, because the plaintiff had apparently served them to an old address of mine (probably intentionally by this shady lawyer filing the small claims suit against me).

<comment><USER20> Parties cannot be represented by attorneys in small claims court in California[1]. Unless the person suing you was the "shady lawyer" you're talking about, your anecdote doesn't make any sense.

[1] California Code of Civil Procedure §116.530 [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=ccp&gr...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=ccp&group=00001-01000&file=116.510-116.570)

<comment><USER19> Yes, the person suing me in small claims court was the shady lawyer himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Stupid question: if the printer was worth $40 ($75 with shipping) how come the damages are worth $30k ? Even if Costello was right I cannot see how "damages" suffered could exceed those 75 dollars by such a huge margin. In Europe even if he had won the case he would have been awarded $75 in damages, and probably another $50 in legal costs, that's all. Not possible to win $30k out of thin air. But the difference is that in Europe "damages" mean "money lost", not "feelings hurt".

<comment><USER10> "Stupid question: if the printer was worth $40 ($75 with shipping) how come the damages are worth $30k"

That part is about the admissions, where the plaintiff requested the defendant admit damages were 30k (or whatever), and anything not responded to is considered admitted.

<comment><USER22> What legitimate use does that request serve?

<comment><USER10> It was originally meant to allow undisputed facts to enter the record, etc.

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

You can look at the history of the FRCP to see the changes over the years in how harsh/not harsh this rule has been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> On a unrelated note: every time I read an article on USA Today's website it magically disappears and then it takes me a minute to realize that the entire thing was in a modal and clicking in the blank space on the right or left makes the modal go away.

What an atrocious user experience.

<comment><USER24> Happens to me 9 times out of 10 when reading an article on that site!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This article has persuaded me to never sell anything on Craigslist. Okay, the odds of running into a troll are tiny, but for a few bucks, it's just not worth the risk. Maybe Craigslist and similar sites need to start offering some kind of free insurance policy against trolls.

<comment><USER26> You should also never walk on a sidewalk, for fear of bumping into someone who trips and falls and sues you for personal negligence. You may be safe if you insure for this, though. Ask your Attorney.

<comment><USER27> wonder if a general liability policy would cover this sort of thing although they would probably just settle. of course they might show up with an army of lawyers.

<comment><USER28> An umbrella policy for general liability seems like it could be really useful. They typically cover rather large sums of money, in excess of one million dollars, and they aren't terribly expensive.

I can imagine someone suing over a misunderstanding because of an X/Y problem. Person A asks a really obtuse programming question, Person B answers it literally, and then Person A goes on to use Person B's answer to build a nuclear reactor controlled by a raspi. Person B then gets sued by Person A when it melts down.

Obviously that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it isn't hard to imagine a point in the future where programmers will be held to the same standards as certified professionals such as lawyers, doctors, and engineers. While it's really unlikely any particular programmer will be sued over advice they gave online, it would really horrible to be the person that someone chose to make an example of.

<comment><USER29> Navigating into off-topic waters: Where would one go about obtaining such an "umbrella" policy? Just call up the same company that you buy your car insurance from? How do they price this? Do they probe your life to see how risky you are ("ooh, you have a tile floor which is easier to slip and fall on, that'll be $X extra per month!)

<comment> ryan-c Most insurance companies offer them. You will have to raise the liability limits on your car insurance to the maximums if you have a car. I don't think they do any sort of risk assessment specifically for the umbrella policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash He threw away the printer, so any judge should throw away his case.

<comment><USER30> i totally laughed out loud when i read that line, how would he have any evidence for further cases? i guess he did though...

<comment><USER31> Nope, he had no further evidence in the subsequent cases.

The problem is that, legally, Doug Costello (the victim who sold the printer) admitted that he owed the money. The system is set up so that if one party doesn't even show up, they are assumed to have agreed with everything the other party says. They HAVE to have some kind of a rule like this or people would just not show up and then be immune lawsuits. The law DOES say that you must notify them personally so they know about the lawsuit and the court date -- that is normally done by personally handing them the papers, but sometimes it can be done other ways like mailing them. In this case Gersh Zavodnik (the asshole who bought the printer) swears he mailed it (although Doug claims he never received it) so that counts.

The problem here is that the judge believed he didn't have the authority to exercise judgement and rule that this was an abuse of the system. Fortunately, the appeals court DID think the law allowed judges to exercise that judgement, and they did so.

<comment><USER32> _They HAVE to have some kind of a rule like this or people would just not show up and then be immune lawsuits._

Not really. That's the _easy_ way to do it, but the compromise would be that if the defendant doesn't show up, the plaintiff gets to present their evidence and argue their case, and the judge decides based on that.

Under these rules, in this case, if Zavodnik had shown up, and Costello hadn't, Zavodnik would present the zero evidence he had, and the judge should have thrown it out.

<comment><USER31> That is just how the rules ACTUALLY work.

If the other party does not show up then you get a "default judgement". This does NOT mean an automatic win. But it DOES mean (roughly) that the judge has to believe every claim you make (all uncontested claims, and no one is contesting it). Usually that means you win the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Special Judge J. Jeffrey Edens issued a ruling. He awarded Zavodnik a > judgment of $30,044.07 for breach of contract.

Holy cow. This guy needs to be fired immediately. That is beyond gross negligence.

<comment><USER34> Depends: _are_ judges supposed to spot-check claims for whether they're reasonable? Or do they leave that entirely as "the defense's job"? Remember, these were default judgments.

<comment><USER35> Yup, sounds like a $40 default judgement to me. I always thought it would be great to be a judge, but I'm far from jumping through all those hoops. If I were one, I'd grant exact, verifiable damages in cases like this. It would have to be a civil case over child molestation, assault, murder or rape to get me to award funny money. In those relatively extreme cases involving heinous crimes, I'd be sure to ruin the life of the perp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Florida has a "vexatious litigant" law that allows a defendant to require a plaintiff to post a deposit with the court under certain circumstances (ostensibly to pay defendants court costs should the defendant prevail). I would bet this guy would qualify

</comment><comment><USER37> Would be nice to have a 'loser pays' court system for civil trials. These kinds of trolls would go away quickly.

<comment><USER38> 'loser pays' has a couple disadvantages:

* It encourages people to pick the best, most expensive lawyer in town for every case no matter the expense, because your opponent will be picking up the tab.

* It discourages people from using the courts to resolve their disputes, which means people without resources tend not to get any justice. If, say, your landlord steals your $1500 security deposit for no good reason, are you really willing to risk $5000 in lawyer's fees over $1500? Of course not, you'll let it slide and some little injustice will remain unresolved.

* It makes the courts a weapon of last resort rather than the standard dispute-resolution mechanism. You used to see people dueling in the streets to resolve their problems.

The disadvantage of course is that people can raise disputes with you, and you have to answer them much the same way you can't ignore filing your taxes.

<comment><USER39> A lot of those points are simply not true in a loser pays system, such as the UK or Australia.

> _It encourages people to pick the best, most expensive lawyer in town for > every case no matter the expense, because your opponent will be picking up > the tab._

The court determines whether fees being claimed by the winner are reasonable. Bar associations (or the local equivalent) publish fee scales, and the courts will often require winners to cover a portion of their expenses if they determine them to be excessive.

If a litigant was found to be deliberately using the most expensive legal representation in an attempt to bankrupt the other party they'd almost certainly be sanctioned.

> _If, say, your landlord steals your $1500 security deposit for no good > reason, are you really willing to risk $5000 in lawyer 's fees over $1500?_

Most loser pays systems offer similar small claims courts, which don't require lawyer. So your $1,500 dispute would go there, rather than to a trial court.

> _It makes the courts a weapon of last resort rather than the standard > dispute-resolution mechanism_

You have misunderstood what the courts are. They _are_ a measure of last resort. Ask any judge or lawyer: courts expect parties in a trial to attempt to settle. That includes going to non-binding arbitration and making reasonable settlement offers. Courts take a very dim view of parties that don't attempt to settle.

In fact, if the loser made a pre-trial offer that was higher than the amount eventually awarded, the courts will often make the winner pay some or all of their own costs. This is on the basis the winner has wasted the court's time: they had a better offer, and they refused to take it.

<comment><USER40> One clarification regarding "the loser pays" system (here in Canada), is that the loser paying isn't the default. The default is each party pays their own costs. Then later the judge can decide to punish the loser if it was frivolous.

I've been through the small claims process twice recently. In one, the judge had power to make a binding decision and he put an end to the case against me after 10 minutes. In the other, it was a non-binding settlement meeting where he told the other party that they had no chance in court.

My point is that if you give the judge more power, good luck trying to game him and the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Had this been me, at some point I'd have driven to the bar, and asked the biggest guys I could find if they'd take $500 to show up at the guy's house and scare the living crap out of him. Escalate accordingly. There aren't that many situations left in this country that call for intimidation / violence, but malicious litigation is one of them.

<comment><USER35> I've actually done similar things to that, many times. I come from "salt of the Earth" folks like you describe.

I'm a programmer and all around nice guy, I hold doors for folks. I'll walk out of my way to go open the door for you if your hands are full everytime. And just last night a drunk driver ran into a parked car outside, it wasn't one of mine but I went out and took photos of everything for whoevers car it was (including of the perps license plate that fell on the ground). I gave a statement to the police about it today. I always take time out of my day to help a random person. The poor girl whose car it was hugged and hugged me, she said "people don't do that". I just shrugged. I grew up working on a farm, fairly Earth-salty midwest guy. I'm not a self proclaimed tough guy, I'm actually pretty soft but probably hard by today's standards. My brother is far more rough and tumble than I am.

I do have a lot of stories, but I've done just what you describe. I had a TV stolen when I was in college, I generally knew who did it. I got my band of merry men together, knocked on the door and when they let us in, we blasted in turning it upside down searching the apartment for the TV. One of the occupants pulled a gun out on us, we took it from his hands and beat him to the ground with it. Then we tossed it outside into the snow and continued to pound on the guys.

The TV didn't end up being there, but they knew who took it. They were at their house the night it disappeared. They called who stole it and allegedly said, "I think these guys mean business". That was correct. We were going to hunt them down like animals at their next bonfire/party they had planned and it was going to be very bad for them. And we weren't going to stop there.

Needless to say, I had a brand new TV in the box on my doorstep at 9:30PM that night! Problem solved and I shook on it with one of the guys who stole it. They were drunk and broke in to steal it, I just wanted my TV back.

I've protected many men who have done me harm, financially and physically from being harmed by calling off my goons who wanted to come after people in different situations. They simply hadn't earned what was coming their way so I prevented it.

All that said, this guy if he had done this little racket to my family he would be in very serious trouble. I normally do absolutely zero questionable behavior, I'm absolutely by the book day to day. At work, I'm a non-toxic angel who would never step on anyones toes. I keep my head down, work a hard, honest 8 hours and mind my own business. I'm not even a condescending smartass or funny-guy little punk like most people try to be. I'm live and let live.

But I would haunt this man for the rest of his days. Likely me, my brother and many others who are big, strong midwest giants who are not nice. I've been screwed over in life in many situations, I do not retaliate like this ever or normally.

But stuff like this story is beyond the pale. You're right, people like this need to be handled correctly. This eastern European is one of the people who are not to be dealt with in court. He'd realize we do not live in "new age" where you can say and do what you want to. Something can happen to you. Worse than any stupid Anonymous online hack or geek vengeance. He's laughing at us here in the USA, but I assure you it's not safe for people like him.

This Ukrainian guy simply got very lucky with picking the right victims. If my brother called me in on a situation like this, this Euro trash would be haunted physically, mentally, and materially for the rest of his life.

The immigrant plays with fire that he doesn't fully understand. We do not live in a New Age, where you are safe. Things can happen to you.

<comment><USER42> > we blasted in turning it upside down searching the apartment for the TV.

Wait, so the occupants hadn't taken your TV, but because they didn't snitch, it was OK to enter their house and turn it upside down??

<comment><USER35> I don't know their exact involvement, but they were involved. Did they help carry it out? I don't have the play by play. It wasn't a court case and I didn't care. The guys who drove off with it it were staying at their place that night. I knew it was one of two groups of folks or all of them at the house that evening. So I knew damn well I had the right people who could get the situation resolved in an efficient manner.

You're right they didn't snitch, amazingly. They thought they were tough guys. Maybe even as they were beaten to their knees? For the record, they weren't harmed until they pulled a gun out. But they were going to snitch eventually whether they thought they were going to or not.

<comment><USER42> Sound like you had no idea if these guys had been involved in taking your TV, you just knew they where involved with the group that did. If a bunch of guys broke into your place in similar circumstances, would you be ok with that?

> For the record, they weren't harmed until they pulled a gun out

It seems reasonable to pull a gun on a bunch of strangers invading your home.

<comment><USER35> You sound like you're trying to win some debate. You shouldn't assume things about someone else's story to win one. Creating your own strawman then proceeding to beat it up about how I invaded their home.

When we 'blasted in' we didn't kick the door in. We knocked, started quizzing the guy who answered the door about the TV, one of them said to come on in and look around. Then we blasted in.

The gun could've gotten him killed. He pulled it out but clearly wasn't willing to use it, he waved it around as if we were going to be scared. I wasn't, he got it ripped from his hands then he was beaten to the ground his own gun. This kind of non-macho posturing is typical. Then we got that stupid gun out the door and settled it.

Anyway this wasn't that big of a deal, just a robbery resolved as cordially as you can in an efficient manner. It worked out for both parties. Especially well for them, considering they were involved with breaking, entering and theft. Not to mention whatever charge comes with pulling a gun out threatening to kill people. He did say he'd shoot us. I'd say they got off rather easy, other than bruised egos. They were my neighbors and I assure you, they didn't want anything to do with me again.

You seem touchy about it for some reason like you were on the receiving end of a similar situation. I personally don't like to be taken advantage of or have my home robbed? This was a relatively tame story I was willing to post publicly.

Zavodnik, has no idea what waits for him out there. It's not all fun and games when you play with peoples lives as he does. Wait till he finds someone intelligent, aggressive, willing to go to the edge or slightly over the rule of law and with a strong sense of justice. Street justice, not the courts. I could be that man for sure, but like most people reading this- I would only interrupt my life for someone who affected my family. Possibly a local child rapist or similar heinous criminal could face my wrath. It would take something like that to activate my mob violence gene.

That guy just needs some anonymous midnight beatings by some of the victims and their families and he'll stop. Yeah it's the "wrong answer!" even though our nation-state does much worse. He's just gotten off with zero retaliation so far so he's going to continue to stay within the rules but abuse our judicial system.

<comment><USER42> So wait, you entered, and they just pulled a gun? They weren't trying to get you to leave?

> Especially well for them, considering they were involved with breaking, > entering and theft.

You implied that they _weren 't_ involved, that some other group was, and they had just stayed there.

I've never had my home invaded, do I need to be personally affected to sympathise with it?

You don't know me either, I'm just taking your post at face-value. _it_ suggested you turned someones place upside down, despite having only the suspicion that they associated with the people that took it.

<comment><USER35> Yes it was risky. I thought long and hard before committing that I had the right people. I didn't know specifics on what happened or who exactly was involved, I just knew that they either had it or knew. But I knew it came from there for sure so I went for it. There were many people there. One invited us in, others wanted us out including Billy the Kid.

They definitely made the mistake of inviting us in. We weren't going to break and enter and good chance with a verbal confrontation someone says "come on in!" at some point, which they did. I don't think they knew how serious we were. They weren't expecting us rampaging through. If I was wrong, I was wrong but I either did something or I didn't. I feel like you're asking for perfection when I was just trying to achieve a goal. Bottom line is that I was right and within an hour I had an identical, brand new TV in the box on my front doorstep with an apology. I'm not sure we ever know _anything_ for certain in life right? I had to try.

It is true: I did not have forensic evidence, but I knew it was them. I suppose I could be a bad man but it was a judgement call. I never doubted after that day that I made the right call. It was aggressive but not the worst story I have. Not sure what else to add. I don't remember every detail as time has passed and everything I was told, but I'm pretty sure at least one of those guys helped toss the TV into the pickup truck that carried it away.

They weren't angels right, no one came over to tell me I had been robbed. They were probably going to keep quiet. Maybe bad guys met worse and got an unpleasant surprise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wow,just wow! Here in Scotland, that man's behaviour would be called vexatious.

Vexatious behaviour is not tolerated in the courts here; most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER44> This technique is also used by debt collectors. They sue and most often people ignore a court action. This causes a default judgment against you. This will give them a power to garnish your wages, place lien against your property and even freeze your bank account.

</comment><comment> why-el > Because Costello did not respond to all three requests for admissions within > 30 days of receiving them, and did not ask for an extension of time, as > required by Indiana trial rules, Costello admitted to the liabilities and > damages by default

This is awkwardly similar to the other John Oliver story in today's HN, in which debt buyers exploit this fact to have as many people admitting liabilities as possible.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not that this isn't absurd but CL is for shit you can't ship. eBay is for stuff you can. CL acts purely as a platform to list classified ads and leaves dispute resolution up to the users. That's why this happened. Add this to the other 9000 reasons you only do business via CL face to face and with cash. Move along, nothing to see here folks.

<comment><USER46> Would ebay's contracts or customer support prevent this situation? They have arbitration on-site, but what stops a buyer from going to the legal system?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> California for example [1] has a list of vexatious litigants [2].

1\. [http://www.courts.ca.gov/12272.htm](http://www.courts.ca.gov/12272.htm)

2\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation)

</comment><comment><USER48> Does it help to have a generic boilerplate contract (jurisdiction-wise) signed by both buyer & seller for such transactions, where the buyer would sign that they have inspected the item to their knowledge and assume full responsibility of the purchase, and that they won't hold the seller responsible for blah blah. At the same time, the seller assumes that they have given up ownership of the said item for whatever money they've received in this transaction ?

<comment><USER49> I rarely use Craigslist, as it's a cesspool of fraud. But when I sell used stuff online, I lost the terms as "As is" and don't make representations as to working condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> The problem is a system where pieces of paper are sent by mail (often with addresses mis-spelled), and the supposed recipient is in trouble for not responding.

There needs to be a better system.

<comment><USER51> There is, it's called registered mail. And there's a better solution than that, too- it's called a process server. All of them are vulnerable to corrupt middle-men, but the article doesn't really say what method was used to contact the defendant, so there's really nothing to speculate about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Anyone have any idea why so many judges recused themselves?

</comment><comment><USER53> My civpro prof loved Rule11 and told us many tales of nefarious attorneys being humiliated by judges as punishment for this sort of behavior. It can happen even to the pro se as a party.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11)

</comment><comment><USER54> Is this not a risky precedent to have in a legal system?

If John Q. Public know they will have to jump through legal hoops any time someone makes a claim against them, will this not encourage some folks to take the law into their own hands, thus encouraging actual damages vs. claimed?

</comment><comment><USER55> There's no good reason not to be relatively anonymous when buying or selling on craigslist.

<comment><USER17> When money changes hands, short of using something like cash, how does John Doe remain anonymous?

I assume once the matter is in front of a court it is only a matter of time before your identity is readily available.

Some form of obfuscating one's name and/or address may raise the bar a bit, but I don't see how this is a solution to the problem of malicious litigation for selling something on craig's list.

<comment><USER56> Short of using something like cash...for buying something off Craigslist? What else would you use? Why do you make it sound so difficult to use the most easily accessible form of currency around? Joe Craigslist isn't going to have a debit/credit machine for me to pay on. I'm not writing him a personal cheque. Use a burner email, don't give names, meet in a public place..how would you track somebody down like that?

<comment><USER17> Because buying something online might mean the item has to be shipped? Since buyer and seller may not be able to meet up for some reason? Mailing cash seems like a terrible idea. Do you think we should find a cash escrow service too?

<comment><USER20> Craigslist is for in person deals. Craigslist itself warns against shipping items[1].

[1] [http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams](http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams)

<comment><USER17> So this discussion doesn't apply to other online sites which do ship items?

What stops an ebay buyer from the same malicious litigation?

<comment><USER55> Usually markets like ebay have reputation systems for both sides, and it is easier to enforce disclaimers and arbitration agreements.

<comment><USER17> None of that stops a willful malicious individual like the topic of this post.

And that's just ebay. The comments in this thread were about generic online transactions between strangers, not about any specific site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It doesn't make any mention about the plantiff's ability to actually collect the damages. In Texas at least, it's extremely difficult to actually collect damages, which make small claims court somewhat meaningless.

<comment><USER58> It also means the courts aren't being utilized as much, so there is time to handle the cases for patent trolls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Going to be a bit flippant here, but if I sold somebody a $40 used printer and they mugged me using the courts for $30,000, I would seriously consider murder to be a viable option towards resolution.

Good on this guy for keeping his wits about him through all this. Guy probably needs a long, relaxing vacation.

<comment><USER51> That is a very legitimate and real risk that zavodnik should take into account. If he got a judgment of $600,000 against me, causing me to lose my business and my home... I'd seriously be weighing pros and cons of sacrificing my freedom in order to rid the earth of this scum.

<comment><USER60> I'm sure many people get away with perfect murders every day.

People dying due to a malfunctioning car or some other kind of unlucky event ... I bet there's a lot of clever and quiet murder that goes on in the world with a plausible deniability, alibis and everything else set up.

The murderer carefully covers up evidence of sabotage or malice and the victim succumbs. People think "oh my, what a tragic accident" and regretfully move on in life - never being the wiser.

Probably every day.

<comment><USER61> I find your comment in poor taste, but I'll bite because it's kind of interesting.

I'd recommend watching The Perfect Murder[0] documentary, although what they detail isn't exactly practical. Less than 15% of murder is committed by strangers [1].

I think if you aren't caught directly after the initial act, you don't have any relation to the victim and no DNA is left, your chances of "getting away" is relatively high.

Your comments on a "malfunctioning car" are misguided, given that any fatal automobile accident, provided the reason the driver "crashed" is not apparent, will result in someone looking at the car to see WHY it malfunctioned. A cut brake line or similar would obviously scream foul play.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEBb4LhQdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEBb4LhQdU)

[1] [https://top5ofanything.com/list/8a1bf3d1/Murders-by- Relation...](https://top5ofanything.com/list/8a1bf3d1/Murders-by-Relationship- to-the-Victim-in-the-United-States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This guy should be packed and shipped back if there is any sanity in the legal system here at all. What a loser who ruins other peoples' life for his ridiculous greed.

<comment><USER46> I wonder if he has a (destructive) mental illness.. it just seems too far- fetched for him to believe that Costello was conspiring with the judge against him and develop what seems to be a persecution complex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Where is Peter Theil when you need him! Getting your legal team behind this could ameleorate some bad PR.

</comment><comment><USER64> If Trump was president this guy would never have gotten into this country in the first place.

<comment><USER65> While there are certain things about Trump that are worth admiring, one character flaw of his is that he does seem to routinely file a lot of petty lawsuits himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Send him home.

</comment><comment><USER67> I remember what a lawyer said in a case that I served as juror, "the US justice system is not perfect but it's the best justice system in the world."

<comment><USER68> Reflexively saying "The US has the best everything in the world" is what will bring it down eventually. There are plenty of areas the US is way behind.

<comment><USER69> It's like when I applied for a mortgage back in 2007 and the mortgage people told me incredibly silly things, like, "take a balloon mortgage and get a bigger house, real estate _always_ goes up!". Real estate was considered too big to fail and too certain to go wrong.

I was smart enough to realize how stupid that was. Just not savvy enough to draw the line to seeing that I should short the market...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> It might be easier to state that you are selling your time and not the item, the item is a free gift you are giving to the person that you agree to meet with for your time.

"Oh you like this printer? Well the printer is free, but if you want it, you have to pay me $40 for 1 second of my time."

You meet, say hello. Collect $40. Give the free printer.

<comment><USER51> You might be surprised at how judges react to that sort of sophomoric cleverness. A better solution is to include a simple waiver form such as you've probably signed a thousand times saying "seller is not responsible for any damages blah blah blah". You can find generic versions of those online.

<comment><USER70> >sophomoric cleverness

True but my way works for craigslist sales and my gigolo side business, so I've got that going for me..</comment></comment></comment>


Cosmos Laundromat – First Cycle – Blender Open Movie Project - <AUTHOR> https://gooseberry.blender.org/cosmos-laundromat-first-cycle/

<comment><USER2> Just like YouTube helped create a new generation of movie maker, blender will make creating high end 3d graphics child's play.

Open source really has gone a long way. And can't wait to see part 2.</comment>


Why Aren't There C Conferences? - <AUTHOR> https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/11/21/ <comment><USER2> Yes! Thank you. Perhaps now that all conferences are virtual, costs will be low enough to see this happen...</comment>


Show HN: Cr – Runs your tasks at maximum concurrency - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cirocosta/cr <comment><USER2> That's what make has been doing for the last like 40 years.

<comment><USER3> I wish the make documentation was better though. I've also read oftentimes that people say that turning on make concurrency with `-j` is on your own risk.

<comment><USER4> That's because people write shitty makefiles. Most makefiles I see are full of improperly used double colon rules, phony targets not marked .PHONY and implicit ordering assumptions.

If `-j' was enabled by default, then it would be much harder for writers to develop these issues. But I suspect most of these authors, who are already unwilling to learn make properly would simply give up and use a different tool.

<comment><USER5> > That's because people write shitty makefiles.

Which, coincidentally, is my main complaint with Make: It's way too easy to write shitty Makefiles. There are way too many wrong ways to do things. Arguably this is a community problem and not a tool problem, but it doesn't change the fact that most Makefiles are written badly.

I used Make professionally for 5 years and have since moved to other tech stacks that don't require Make but have tools that are far worse in every other way ( _cough_ Ant _cough_ ). But IMO the reason they win out is they are far less flexible, so there are fewer ways to do things, so they work better in aggregate.

Build tooling is something that most devs look at very rarely, so they never build expertise. Ergo, build tooling shouldn't require expertise.

If my theory holds out, I feel Gradle will become the new Make in a few years or a decade - very powerful but too many wrong ways to do things.

<comment><USER4> Make is more than 40 years old -- 40 fucking years! And we still use it. It's everywhere. It's not going anywhere. Gradle will not replace it.

Why? Because make works. Because it's actually easy to understand if you've read the manual. It's simple. People try to make it do really complicated things, which you are better off putting in a script or another program. At it's core, make works and does its job very, very well.

Here is a very beautiful, readable, portable makefile: [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Makefile](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Makefile)

It's hard to write portable _anything_ without details leaking out. Go is the best implementation I've ever seen here. It works identically everywhere I've tried it. The approach the Go team has taken is extreme. I think that says a lot.

Both these tools are very simple, and limit what you can do. When you try to go outside the box, you hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself.

Tools like Gradle make it real easy to hurt yourself without realizing it.

<comment><USER6> We don't literally use _make_ , exactly as it was forty years ago.

> _Here is a very beautiful, readable, portable > makefile:[https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Makefile](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Makefile) > _

That's a GNU Make Makefile. It's portable to installations where you have GNU Make ported already.

<comment><USER7> Look, this battle has been lost for ages. People only seem to write portable Makefiles by accident and usually just target the implementation of make on the platform they're developing on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everyone is going to compare it to Make, but it's not like Make syntax is ideal or consistent; I can see this being especially useful when using it in part of a pipeline, where maybe the YAML is generated elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> > but it's not like Make syntax is ideal or consistent

It's standardized in POSIX.

"Ideal" is subjective.

<comment><USER8> Fine. But most sane people would agree that Makefile generation is not a fun business. Autotools, anyone?

OTOH, generating YAML documents is easy. I already write code that generates YAML documents.

P.S.: POSIX make doesn't support concurrency. So, it's not fair to compare this purely to POSIX make.

<comment><USER10> > OTOH, generating YAML documents is easy.

On the topic of syntax, I'll say YAML is not the best format for configuration either. At a glance, it looks simple and easy to write, but YAML can bite its user in an unexpected ways due to its implicit typing[1]. For example this YAML:

        on: yes

…will be parsed to:

        {true => true}

…which cannot be serialized to JSON in a lossless way (since JSON spec specify that a key must be a string):

        {"true":true}

…and translating this back to YAML would result in:

        'true': true

This is without considering other features such as anchor, aliases and tags[2], which further make the YAML spec incredibly complex.

[1]: [https://github.com/crdoconnor/strictyaml/blob/master/FAQ.rst...](https://github.com/crdoconnor/strictyaml/blob/master/FAQ.rst#what- is-wrong-with-implicit-typing)

[2]: [http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html](http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html)

<comment><USER11> I agree that the implicit typing is dangerous, but developers shouldn't expect to convert YAML to JSON losslessly. It's a superset, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I miss read this, I thought it was an implementation of workers with a dependency graph.

for similar projects look at:

Bazel [https://bazel.build/](https://bazel.build/)

Tup [http://gittup.org/tup/](http://gittup.org/tup/)

Make [https://www.gnu.org/software/make/](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/)

</comment><comment><USER13> What about Ninja? [https://ninja-build.org/](https://ninja-build.org/)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is awesome. I have been working on something similar, but added a UI to visualize the tasks and the order they ran in.

[https://www.gabrielcsapo.com/build.sh/](https://www.gabrielcsapo.com/build.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER15> So, `make -j`?

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks nice! Will inspire my project as well. Made something recently as well which is based on the same principle. A simple parallel/sequential task runner which has built in retries and allows steps to be continued even if they return errors.

[https://github.com/abelmokadem/scriptz](https://github.com/abelmokadem/scriptz)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm sure somebody has a use for this. But with no scheduler tuning, no prioritization, no dynamic configuration, no multiprocess logic, etc it's effectively just "xargs" with dependency tracking, written in Go. And I'm pretty sure you can do this with Ansible.

<comment><USER18> Indeed it's almost trivial. I wrote a similar tool that is also able to split chunks of work between different machines: [https://github.com/dullgiulio/empa/tree/master/cmd/ep](https://github.com/dullgiulio/empa/tree/master/cmd/ep)

But again, no IPC, just a simplified "GNU Parallel."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A co-worker of mine recently implemented something very similar.

Our major feature over Make was emitting events as newline separated JSON, so that a downstream process can visualize them in a pretty way, track progress, etc.

We use ours run multiple Chef recipes in parallel.

</comment><comment><USER20> I thought it was related to this:

[https://github.com/fungos/cr](https://github.com/fungos/cr)

It was recently over Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER21> The nice clean dependency graph is pretty cool. Not having tabs and spaces as an integral part of syntax, priceless.

</comment><comment><USER22> License?</comment>


Using letsencrypt with HKPK - <AUTHOR> https://hugo.barrera.io/journal/2016/02/07/using-letsencrypt-and-hkpk/ <comment><USER2> There's a minor typo in the "copy and paste" segment, wherein the second hash is not surrounded by quotes. Regardless, this is great advice.

I trust Lets Encrypt. I don't trust many of the dozens of terrible CAs out there. Key pinning is one great step at mitigating that risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad it's of use.

I'll get that typo fixed, though FWIW, it works without the quotes, since it's what validated on my servers. :)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the update!

For the reference, I noted on my system, without the quotes, the SSLLabs test gave me a big error claiming the keys were invalid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks great, I will try it when I switch to letsencrypt.</comment>