Ask HN: What are some great books that are relatively unknown in the US? - <AUTHOR> From novels, to nonfiction, to the art of leisure. <comment><USER2> If by "great" you mean influential, then definitely India's epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata would fit the bill IMO.

Wikipedia has this to say about Mahabharata:

> The Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem known and has been described as > "the longest poem ever written".[7][8] Its longest version consists of over > 100,000 śloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a > couplet), and long prose passages. At about 1.8 million words in total, the > Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey > combined, or about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa.[9][10] W. J. > Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahābhārata in the context of > world civilization to that of the Bible, the works of William Shakespeare, > the works of Homer, Greek drama, or the Quran.[11] Within the Indian > tradition it is sometimes called the Fifth Veda.

<comment><USER3> But if by "great" you mean a lot of fun to read, then I'm skeptical. I grew up with these stories since my mother and grandmother told them as bedtime stories. As I learned to read I picked up the comic book versions (known as Amar Chitra Katha) and later the novels.

As far as the stories themselves go, they're pretty drab. The plot is predictable, dialogue is meh, characters (apart from 2) are more like caricatures than real people, the morals are as subtle as bludgeons, they drag on for no reason. I would not recommend them to anyone.

That's not to say they're not important books. They were and are influential. Today's books might be better but they owe a debt of gratitude to the classics. So in some ways reading the Mahabharata today and complaining it isn't great is similar to complaining that Seinfeld Isn't Funny. Plus I will say, at least half a billion people love these stories and worship the characters as Gods. If that makes you curious, pick them up.

<comment><USER4> You should definitely check out different versions. The story they usually use in tv-series and 'parents' tell is the same version which is as you said boring, and plain good guy vs bad guy plot. But many ancient versions excellent[1][2] and they not dragged like the original!, even better if you are into prosody(kavya)[3].

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

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

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From where I stand, Hispanic and Slavic literature is fairly unknown and underrated on the other side of the pond.

Ramón del Valle Inclán's "Lights of Bohemia": A great portrait of Madrid and the dirty guts of the Spain from 100 years ago, written in a gorgeously precise, dark and multifaceted range of vocabulary.

Ortega y Gasset's "Rebellion of the Masses". It is centered in the individual "I am me and my circumstances" and its evolution since the enlightenment.

Sapkowski's "Witcher". Look for a good translation, lots of Slavic mythology tidbits and wonderfully juicy curse words.

Stanislaw Lem's "The Star Diaries". Nice if you like to fantasize about buying pieces for your spaceship in a shopping centre or think about chair-like aliens with 11 different sexes (in the book).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A hundred years of solitude". The book is all about "realismo fantástico", joining the real and imaginary words in an unforgettable blend.

<comment><USER6> Can you please provide more examples of Slavic literature? I am only aware of Russian authors. Any idea if the english translation of Witcher by Danusia Stok is good? I am very curious about Slavic culture and recently blogged about "Slavs"[1], I would love to add a literature section to my post.

[1] [https://raviramanujam.com/post/blog/slavs.html](https://raviramanujam.com/post/blog/slavs.html)

<comment><USER5> > Any idea if the english translation of Witcher by Danusia Stok is good?

I've just doublechecked that the official English translation is good indeed, I haven't got first hand knowledge though [https://www.quora.com/I-intend-to- read-the-Witcher-books-but...](https://www.quora.com/I-intend-to-read-the- Witcher-books-but-see-a-lot-of-conflicting-opinions-regarding-which-is-better- the-official-or-fan-translation)

My knowledge of Slavic literature limits mostly to the Polish and some Russian authors, despite that I can recommend a Czech satire book that I liked: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk)

Other than that, Czeslaw Milosz for the poetry, Henryk Sienkiewicz has some great novels about the history of Poland (The Trilogy and The Teutonic Knights are damn hooking and intense), Zofia Kossak Szczucka ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zofia_Kossak- Szczucka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zofia_Kossak-Szczucka)) is another solid historical writer. I am aware however that my tastes in literature are somewhat eclectic.

Russian Lit: Nikolai Gogol for the stories, Solzhenitsyn for the Gulag Archipelago, and of course War and Peace (Tolstoy) and Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky). Reserve some weeks for the last two though, heh ;)

Any help you need, just shoot me an email (in the profile), but I'm not an expert by any means :P

<comment><USER6> Thank you! I will definitely check those out :)

<comment><USER5> All pleasure is mine! Also, glad that you like the Life of Boris :D (in the blog post)!

<comment><USER6> Oh man, Boris is awesome, I watch his stuff almost every other day! Are you from Poland?

<comment><USER5> Yep. I was born there (in Silesia) but I'm living in Spain since I was ten.

<comment><USER6> Awesome

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The "Four Great Classic Novels" from 14th-18th century China: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels)

Specifically:

Water Margin

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Journey to the West

Dream of the Red Chamber

They are referenced in everything in asian media and there a bajillion tv/movie adaptations of them but they are relatively unknown in the west.

<comment><USER8> Seconded. They are excellent. I must re-read them.

Water Margin[0] came to UK on TV in the early 80s from Japanese TV. Gained quite a following.

Journey to the West came to the UK as Monkey[1] (again a Japanese adaptation) around the same time. It was the most ridiculous, weird thing on TV. Most people at school were addicted to it. It became a cult classic. Sadly Saiyuki 2 never made it to the UK.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Margin_(1973_TV_seri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Margin_\(1973_TV_series\)) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_\(TV_series\))

<comment><USER9> Damon Alburn (musician from Blur and Gorillaz) also co-created a stage adaptation as Monkey: Journey to the West:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey:_Journey_to_the_West](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey:_Journey_to_the_West)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Russian schools of science fiction, "established" by Ivan Efremov and Strugatskie brothers, produced many great pieces of literature.

One of my favorites is "A billion years before the end of the world" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitely_Maybe_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitely_Maybe_\(novel\)) .

<comment><USER11> Agreed. Monday Begins on Saturday is amazing - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Begins_on_Saturday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Begins_on_Saturday)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure how well these are known in the US..

Mans search for meaning by Victor Frankl.

Anything by Dostoyevsky.

José Saramago's the double. They made a film based on this with jake gyllenhall but not sure how well known the book and saramego is in the US, both book and film are excellent.

A girl is a half formed thing by Elmer mcbride is the best thing I've read in years with a really unique writing style. It's an incredible tragic book though... Check out first chapter online here to see if you like the style.

[http://www.flare.com/celebrity/must-read-the-first- chapter-o...](http://www.flare.com/celebrity/must-read-the-first-chapter-of-a- girl-is-a-half-formed-thing/)

<comment><USER13> > Mans search for meaning by Victor Frankl.

> Anything by Dostoyevsky.

These are extremely well-known in the U.S.

Dostoevsky is considered heavy literature however. It's well known but not often read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some great comics/graphic novels that are relatively unknown in the US

Asterix comics [1]

Tintin comics [2]

Yes, I know Spielberg's Tintin animated movie is well known but I doubt most people in the US have heard of the entire series of Tintin comics.

I couldn't devour these fast enough when I was growing up.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=asterix)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tintin)

<comment><USER15> It's not just those two. Most French/Belgian comics [1] are unknown in the US. There have been tons of talented newcomers since the 1990s, and some cursory Googling suggests me that most are not translated to English yet. (Some are available in German.)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco- Belgian_comics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Belgian_comics)

<comment><USER16> I would say European and south American comics are mostly unknown in the US. L'incal, Corto Maltese, Mafalda, El Eternauta... There is a whole world which is distinctly different from the mainstream American style and manga/manwa, and very interesting.

<comment><USER17> The recently released film Valerian is based on a 70's french comics Valerian & Laureline that is/was totally unknown in the US.

Even more interesting is how much inspiration a certain George Lucas seem to have drawn from them:

[http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/07/30/are-the-valrian- and-l...](http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/07/30/are-the-valrian-and- laureline-comics-really-a-big-unnamed-influence-on-star-wars)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Americans don't have moomins. Moomins are awesome. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins) / [https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/friendship-love-central- messa...](https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/friendship-love-central-message-tove- janssons-work/)

<comment><USER19> I grew up in the UK and watched the (Japanese) cartoon series. Nowadays I find myself living in Finland, and Moomins are __everywhere __(no surprise I guess!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (1889, London).

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/308/308-h/308-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/308/308-h/308-h.htm)

The first half of the opening chapter is the best intro to any work of comic fiction I've read.

At face value it's a simple road trip story (by boat), but the episodes of hypochondria and camaraderie still feel contemporary and fun — it is written and to be read for the pure joy of it, and you need look for no deeper meaning.

<comment><USER21> My mom used to read these to me and my brothers when we were little, we all really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun.

If you like Jerome K. Jerome, you should also check out Saturnin: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1724928.Saturnin](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1724928.Saturnin) It has a great poetic and funny style of classical Czech works. There's a movie too. Just in case someone is interested, a movie with a similar funny and poetic style [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_It_Short](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_It_Short) (Postřižiny) and I'd also recommend checking out [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_and_Her_Week_of_Wonder...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_and_Her_Week_of_Wonders_\(film\)) \- a surrealistic horror film...I love the soundtrack [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyPEraG74c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyPEraG74c) ...and to make it relevant to the original request, there's a book of the same name by Vitezslav Nezval (I haven't read it though)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" [1] is by far the most outstanding novel i have read, as it stretches the limits of what language can express past anything i tought possible. The protagonist is a mathematician whose scientific mind applies allegorical dissections over a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings. The polarity makes it for an extraordinary read.

Hermann Broch "The Death of Virgil". The novel creates out of a dying poet a rich, profound vision both of civilization and of primal concerns of all mankind.

Austrian authors where on another level in the late 30s and 40s of the 20th century.

Finally, Victor Pelevin's "Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet" [3] You gain instruction into the vampire life and by extension the humans which vampires feed and the nature of god and existence itself, with interesting meditations on existence, theology, matter, illusion and withering attacks on fashion, advertising, politics, the Davos elite, literature and particularly the nature of money.

===

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

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

[3] [https://www.amazon.de/Empire-Prince-Hamlet-Victor- Pelevin/dp...](https://www.amazon.de/Empire-Prince-Hamlet-Victor- Pelevin/dp/1473213061)

<comment><USER23> I can vouch for "The Man Without Qualities", the book is really extraordinary. I read it when I was 18 and I still remember not quite knowing why I liked it so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Usually not into fantasy, but La Horde du Contrevent is a French fantasy classic, written by Alain Damasio, which was published in 2004. He went later on to collaborate on a few games that might be more known in the US (Life Is Strange, Remember Me). Damasio has a creative use of the language, but which must then make it hellish to translate into any other language. According to Wikipedia, it has only been translated in Italian.

</comment><comment><USER25> Foreign:

* Life: a users manual by George s Perec.

* Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

* Auto-da-fe by Elias Canetti

Domestic:

These are harder because I feel like they're all pretty well known, but maybe they're not actually read. Like, known bc people have heard the name, but are not read as much anymore.

* Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

* Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

* Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Actually unknown (but super good) domestic:

* Stuff by Larry McMurtry (only famous for lonesome dove)

<comment><USER26> Mason & Dixon by Pynchon is also very, very good.

<comment><USER27> That book is incredible and made me feel uneducated. There are so many references and jokes in that book to historical events, other books, etc. I knew enough to realize how much of that book was going right over my head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How about Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse novels (fiction)? Asking, not saying (whether they are relatively unknown in the US). They are very popular in India, and of course must be so in the UK, since both authors were from there.

A lot of subtle humor (British-style, mainly about the aristocracy's ways, but fun to read) in the Wodehouse books. And Christie has many good novels in the detective genre. I actually don't find many detective novels good in the literal sense of being good stories about detection of crime, I like them more for the descriptions, conversation and atmosphere.

These stats for Christie from Wikipedia are impressive:

[ Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books,[5] behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages.[6] And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. ]

<comment><USER29> Anecdotal, but Agatha Christie popped up in the required reading more than a few times for me from grades 6 through 10 (ages 12 though 16). I went to an average public school in the Midwestern U.S.

Wodehouse is new to me; I appreciate the recommendation.

<comment><USER28> Interesting that you had it as early as grade 6.

You're welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> sima-qian In terms of nonfiction books, Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky has been eye-opening. I would strongly recommend reading the footnotes alongside it, though they double the length of the book.

Even if you don't agree with Chomsky's politics or all of his conclusions, his analysis of American foreign and domestic policy is worth hearing.

</comment><comment><USER30> "Epitaph Of A Small Winner" and "Dom Casmurro" by Machado de Assis. He's written a great many other books besides those, but they're the best of the bunch. In Brazil he's a national hero, but while much of his work is available in English it's astoundingly under-appreciated.

<comment><USER31> I love some foreign authors like Murakami, but I always wonder what I'm losing in the translation and how much is the translator impacting the writing.

<comment><USER32> For what it's worth, I have a friend who is a native speaker of Japanese and a fluent English speaker of 40 years, who loves Murakami and has read a number of his books in both English and Japanese. She says the translations are spot on and extremely well done.

<comment><USER33> Haruki murakami is also fluent in English (he lived in Boston area for years) and is very involved in his books ranslations into English. I have no idea about his translations into other languages.

I've read all his books in English. I'm a big fan of his fiction but not crazy about his non fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Vachana Sahitya[1] is less known outside I guess.

Vachana Sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing in Kannada that evolved in the 11th century CE as a part of the Sharana movement, a revolt against all the social evils of the traditionalistic society that time. Subject varying from their revolutionary ideas regarding human rights, society, democracy, god, and life.

It's not actually a book, more like Haiku maybe.

[1] [http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kLs3AAAAIAAJ&oi...](http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kLs3AAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA72&dq=Vachana&ots=ctHGM6Jt51&sig=cA2uw9vJt9uVHk6F81FBxiwEdk4)

[http://www.manushi- india.org/pdfs_issues/articles/Talking%20...](http://www.manushi- india.org/pdfs_issues/articles/Talking%20to%20God%20in%20Mother%20Tongue.pdf)

[http://vsnanc.org/newsite/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/AllamaP...](http://vsnanc.org/newsite/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/AllamaPrabhu-AshwiniSurpur.pdf)

<comment><USER34> Good choice, but if you don't know Kannada then you have read it in English. And the charm goes away in translation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The Master and Margarita.

<comment><USER36> I loved this book. Everyone has a different opinion on what the best translation is, so it's worth briefly scanning a few different ones to see which you like best. I had a really hard time getting into the Ginsburg translation, but really enjoyed the Pevear/Volokhonsky one.

Also, this site: [http://masterandmargarita.eu/en/](http://masterandmargarita.eu/en/) is a great resource if you're not familiar with 1930s Soviet history and the Gospels (both canonical and apocryphal). Without knowledge of those things you won't get nearly as much out of the book as you could.

<comment><USER35> I like the Burgin and O'Connor translation, personally.

They have a postscript per chapter about "all the references you probably missed", but don't add distracting markup to the text itself to call them out. It's a nice balance, and the language is pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Alamut by Vladimir Bartol

Written in 1030's by a Slovenian, it's a historical fiction novel set in the in 11th century what is now Iran. It tells the story of how a radical leader of an Islamic faction, based in the impenetrable mountain fortress "Alamut", manipulates young men into perfect obedience and turns them against his enemies through the use of drugs and a fake paradise full of women purporting to be heaven.

It is also one of the major inspirations for the Assassin's Creed series of games.

<comment><USER38> I believe it inspired much more than the videogames: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Erskine Childers' "The Riddle of the Sands", an analysis of German naval ambitions pre-WWI masquerading as a tense work of fiction.

Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World". Slocum does that.

George Ade, any of his works: he was the logical successor as a humorist to Mark Twain, yet his work doesn't wear all that well since he was in love with turn-of-the-20th-century slang. With some effort his portrayals of character turn surprisingly deep and sympathetic.

</comment><comment><USER40> Confession by Leo Tolstoy. (About the meaning of life :) [http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions- tolst...](http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolstoy.pdf)

<comment><USER41> What self-respecting literature enthusiast hasn't heard of Tolstoy?

<comment><USER42> I've read some of Tolstoy's stuff, but I'd not heard of this particular work. Wasn't that the question, about works, not authors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Books by P. G. Wodehouse. English author, an outstanding humorist.

<comment><USER13> Yes. Despite having a shared language, many U.K. books are not widely read in the U.S. Authors like P.G. Wodehouse and Georgette Heyer are considered a bit niche in the U.S.

Others:

\- Enid Blyton's children books - Five Find Outers, Secret Seven, Malory Towers etc.

\- C.S. Forester - Horatio Hornblower series

Non-English authors:

\- Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret series (French detective genre)

\- Sigrid Undset - Kristin Lavransdatter (Scandinavian)

Some foreign authors whose popularity is rising in the U.S. at the moment

\- Elena Ferrante (Italian)

\- Karl Ove Knausgaard (Norwegian)

On a related note, Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list of best-selling world authors [1]. Ironically many of top writers in the English language aren't widely read in America.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best- selling_fiction_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best- selling_fiction_authors)

<comment><USER43> The children's books:- Just William series by Richmal Cromption. Fun of boyhood days immortalized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Set in pre WWI Vienna. It's a three volume unfinished novel full of brilliant writing, much of which should appeal to the crowd here.

<comment><USER45> And Heimito von Doderer. His stories, novellas. The Last Adventure.

But, as introduction or a summary of a Fin de siecle Vienna that was a progenitor of XXth century and "proving ground for the destruction of the world", start with Allan Janik, Wittgenstein: Vienna Revisited. Wonderfully succint and comprehensive overview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> "I am a cat" by Natsume Sōseki 1905. like Murakami, but the first Japanese author to write like that (?) All the other novels he wrote are great too.

<comment><USER30> His "Kokoro" is my second-favorite novel of all time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> In 1935-36, two Soviet humorists took a coast-to-coast road trip across the US and gathered their experiences in a book called "Single-Story America" (or "Little Golden America" in English). The translation by Charles Malamuth seems rather wooden compared to the hilarious, witty tone of the original Russian, but I think it's still very much worth reading: an uncanny number of their observations about American life and culture are still completely relevant today.

(Some choice quotes in my Goodreads review: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6708623](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6708623))

<comment><USER48> The same two authors also have a duology of satyrical novels about a conman in the 30s Soviet Russia: The Twelve Chairs [1] and The Little Golden Calf [2]. The novels are incredibly witty and their quotes/references are still part of the common Russian vernacular.

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

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse. It's supposedly about the author himself in 1920s Germany, also about depression, existentialism, and recovery, in a surreal context.

(hence, my user name)

</comment><comment><USER50> The Egyptian[1].

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

<comment><USER19> That was an surprising thing to see listed here. A couple of years ago my Finnish wife gave me a copy, and she later followed up with "The Adventurer", & "The Wanderer" (each in their English translations).

They were fascinating reads, although I was a little disappointed at how hapless the main character was. He bumbles around while stuff keeps happening "nearby", I guess that's kinda the point. It is all about the journey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Tirukkural

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page, "Considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality, chiefly secular ethics, it is known for its universality and non-denominational nature."

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

<comment><USER52> There is a whole lot of excellent regional books that are unknown to Indians of recent generations. They would definitely be unknown in USA imho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell is a novel that was required reading in Canada for generations, but it is almost completely unknown in the United States. I don't know if it is a "great" book (I have not read it myself), but many Canadians consider it a classic of Canadian literature.

</comment><comment><USER54> "De Avonden"/"The Evenings" by Gerard Reve. It is a small masterpiece set in the period after WWII in The Netherlands. It deals with themes like the post- war boredom, but also more general themes like emptiness of personal relations and how life can seem pointless in your early twenties.

I always think of it as the Dutch version of The Catcher in the Rye, which deals with similar themes. But the main character in The Evenings is decidedly less of a prick than Holden Caulfield hahaha.

By some great mistake of the book's editors in its time, this masterpiece did not get translated in Enlish until last year or so. If it would have been translated in the years after it was written, it would surely have been a major hit in the Enlish speaking world like it was over here.

</comment><comment><USER55> Novels and stories by Victor Pelevin. Only a few of his works are available in English but these are also the best ones:

Buddha's Little Finger – [https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Little-Finger-Victor- Pelevin/...](https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Little-Finger-Victor- Pelevin/dp/0141002328)

The Yellow Arrow – [https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Arrow-New-Directions- Paperbook...](https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Arrow-New-Directions-Paperbook- ebook/dp/B016CIOCTS)

Hermit and Sixfinger (free) – [http://pelevin.nov.ru/pov/en- hermit/1.html](http://pelevin.nov.ru/pov/en-hermit/1.html)

</comment><comment><USER56> The Deptford Trilogy, has a bit of a Kurt Vonnegut feel but much darker, start with Fifth Business.

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

</comment><comment><USER57> Candide by Voltairre , really short drama, funny with a really unique point of view of pestilence. Confessions by Rousseau, superb biography of an amazing life. Zeno's conscience, a psycho analysts novel with a different point of view.

</comment><comment><USER58> Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. This short book had the strangest vibe. I guess I would describe the book as if the lovechild of P.K. Dick and Margaret Atwood went to a Nordic country, stayed for 20 years, all the while doing weird stuff with fish and a dictionary.

Despite my colorful synopsis, seriously, the book delved into language, its use, meaning, permanence, delivery, and evolution. Perfect for these crazy days in US politics.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716GNTTG/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716GNTTG/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

</comment><comment><USER59> JG Farrell's _Empire Trilogy_ are my favorite fiction books, but as an American I've rarely ran into them except through foreign media, like the BBC World Service and RTÉ.

They were republished by New York Review Books Classics, and I second this collection in general.

Jean-Claude Izzo's Mediterranean noir fiction, especially his _Marseilles Trilogy_ and _The Lost Sailors_ also qualify. They are published in translation in the US by Europa Editions.

Many of Europa Editions' books would fit (except their few US hits, like Elena Ferrante's works, which are better-known).

</comment><comment><USER28> Some books by George Mikes.

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

[ George Mikes ['mikeʃ] (15 February 1912 – 30 August 1987) was a Hungarian- born British journalist, humourist and writer, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries. ]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_be_an_Alien](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_be_an_Alien) \- his most famous one.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Long John Silver" by Larsson ([https://www.amazon.com/Long-John-Silver-Bjorn- Larsson/dp/186...](https://www.amazon.com/Long-John-Silver-Bjorn- Larsson/dp/1860465390)).

I have read some other books by Larsson, but this is definitely the one I liked more. It is sort of a retelling of "Treasure Island" as narrated by the eponymous character (including how he became a pirate, and what happened to him after the event in the novel).

</comment><comment><USER60> I suggest "The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati". A great book about the meaningless of everyman planning about leaving a successful life. Mr. Paolomar by Italo Calvino is another last century Italian masterpiece with the reflection of a math teacher about the world and life in general.

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

</comment><comment><USER40> If someone asked me to recommend a single XX century novel in Russian, I would certainly point to this one: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1060818.It_s_Me_Eddie](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1060818.It_s_Me_Eddie)

Provokes very strong emotions (both positive and negative :). I cannot vouch for the quality of English translation though.

</comment><comment><USER61> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe)

Also, on the technical side (sorry I couldn't resist), CTM [https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html](https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html) is really underrated.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Il deserto dei tartari_ is one of my favorites!

<comment><USER5> Nassim Taleb swears by this one too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I think it's fair to say that even great books allegedly "known" in the US aren't widely known in the sense of having actually been read.

With that in mind, I would just go through the list of Nobel Prize winners (or Penn or another major award).

If the popular winners are too well known for your tastes (Ishiguro, Morrison) I am sure the less famous ones will be sufficiently unknown (Pamuk, Mahfouz).

</comment><comment><USER63> Francis Spufford is a brilliant English author who should be more widely known.

For the HN crowd I would heartily recommend "Red Plenty" (2010). It's a semi- fictional novel about that brief moment in time around 1959 when the Soviets really thought that the dream of Communism was within reach.

The characters (most of them real people) include mathematicians, biologists, party officials, computer designers... There's probably no other novel that could afford to spend so many pages on discussing linear optimization and centralized economic planning without sacrificing the emotional narrative. I can't recommend it enough.

<comment><USER10> His "Operation Backfire" [https://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n21/francis- spufford/operation-bac...](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n21/francis- spufford/operation-backfire) should be interesting for us on HN, it puts in perspective modern British aerospace works. He has a great way describing past events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Michael Marshall Smith well known in the US?

Intruders was made into a BBC America series, but his earlier works are much more interesting.

Only Forward, One of Us, What You Make It, or Spares from the nineties are all well written, and all beat any of the suspense he's written as Michael Marshall. He simply seems much better writing near future dystopian sci-fi.

</comment><comment><USER64> anything by Jack London.

I had read translations of his works in russian and after immigrating to Canada, was surprised to know that nobody had ever heard of him here.

A real gem if you enjoy the likes of 'of mice and men'.

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

<comment><USER43> His autobiography "John Barleycorn". Even exploring a lifetime drinking alcohol, it ends up as a book to cherish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Some US history books that are relatively unknown in the US:

-Ann Douglas "Terrible Honesty" (Study of artists, Black and nonblack in New York/Manhattan in the 20s)

-James W. Douglass "JFK & the Unspeakable"

-Walter Johnson "River of Dark Dreams"

-Gerald Horne "The Counterrevolution of 1776"

-J. Sakai, Settlers (readsettlers.org)

-Ida Wells "Lynch Law in America"

<comment><USER66> You're close to another good point: historical conversation tends to start around 1776 in the US in a manner not too different from 1776 being the start of time. I read a fuller historical account from a perspective including what's known about America before the Spanish found it, through Spanish colonization, and through to the modern era. I've known my fellow citizens to fall prey to the idea that "our history" refers to a telling solely from the view that started in 1776. But that's inconsistent with the view that the US is the home of people with family from all over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The Knight in the Panther's Skin is a Georgian medieval epic poem, written in the 12th century by Shota Rustaveli:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_in_the_Panther%27s_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_in_the_Panther%27s_Skin)

</comment><comment><USER43> Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil by M. Mukundan (Malayalam. English translation: On the Banks of the Mayyazhi)

</comment><comment><USER68> The Eight Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson. It was popular in the 80's, but I haven't met anyone who has read it or even heard of it.

It is a brilliant account of the discovery of DNA. Simply astounding. It should have been made into a movie, or more appropriately, in a TV series.

</comment><comment><USER69> I've started reading French books again recently, and found some great ones:

Les Choses, Georges Perec

Alcools, Guillaume Appolinaire (poetry)

Francois Mitterrand, l'Abeille et l'Architecte (essay/diary)*

Bernard Henri Levy, La Pureté Dangereuse (essay)*

*AFAIK The last two don't have an English translation.

<comment><USER70> I recommend _Un Homme qui dort_ by Perec. Really interesting use of 2nd person narration.

There's also an interesting film adaptation available on Youtube here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPhaT- zjIFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPhaT-zjIFA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is more a question, in terms of Sci-Fi are people familiar with China Miéville? Perdido Street Station, Embassytown, and The City and the City are classics, Perdido Street Station might be the best fiction I have ever read. Dark stuff

<comment><USER71> _Perdido Street Station_ was one of the best sci-fi novels I've read. I haven't read much - if any - of Miéville's other material, but it's on my list.

FWIW, his work seems to be at least relatively well known in the US. As one example, I'm sitting at a random Barnes & Noble store in Durham NC as I write this, and they have several Miéville titles on the shelf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Because predictions are an important part of all planning: Superforecasters by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardener, accompanied by the good judgement project at goodjudgement.com and gjopen.com.

</comment><comment><USER73> The gods are athirst from Anatole France: [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24010](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24010)

<comment><USER74> Alternate (probably American title) I remember from high school is The Gods Will Have Blood

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen. Superbly written treatise.

</comment><comment><USER49> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peig_Sayers#Peig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peig_Sayers#Peig)

</comment><comment><USER76> The Three Body Problem trilogy of books by Cixin Liu

Although awareness in the west is very quickly rising.

I believe it is also slated to become a movie/TV series on Amazon in the future.

</comment><comment><USER77> The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei (2016). Chinese author and setting (contemporary Beijing).

Following the theme of the solitary male antihero...a la Murakami.

<comment><USER27> I read that and liked it. Plus it's short, so it's a good intro for people to see whether they'd be interested in other contemporary Chinese fiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> The Revolt of the Masses by Ortega Y Gasset

</comment><comment><USER79> Everybody's Right by Paolo Sorrentino. He's better known for directing movies.

</comment><comment><USER45> Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere by Lev Gumilev [http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/English/ebe.htm](http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/English/ebe.htm)

Surprisingly, not only ethnoses have an age, but their growth, development and aging follows a fairly common trajectory.

</comment><comment><USER80> This has been a great list. Now off for a shopping spree on Amazon books

</comment><comment><USER81> Is this thread full of standard literary cannon works because of an engineering bias against non-instruction manuals?

I hope we've moved past the engineering cliche of "I don't read fiction, why would I read something someone just made up?"

</comment><comment><USER82> 19th Century Russian literature is almost unknown to US.

\- Dostoevsky

\- Bulgakov

\- Sorokin

\- Tolstoy

\- Chekhov

<comment><USER83> Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita are all renowned in the US. They pop up in this thread and in pop culture references like in Tron and Seinfeld.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Henry George: Progress and Poverty.

Explains how taxing land instead of labour is the path to a far better world. Versus now where progress means higher land prices which means poverty for those excluded from land.

Once nearly got to be mayor of New York. Sold 6 million copies (at the time only the bible outsold it).

[https://www.aier.org/article/amazing-influence-henry- george-...](https://www.aier.org/article/amazing-influence-henry-george-ec- harwood)

As recommended by Albert Einstein and many others.

</comment><comment><USER85> "The Long Ships" by Frans G. Bengtsson. It's a wonderful, humorous adventure tale about the life of a viking.

I'd also just suggest you browse the New York Review Books collection. They put a lot of effort into reviving this kind of literature in translation, as well as digging up forgotten American gems.

[https://www.nyrb.com/](https://www.nyrb.com/)

<comment><USER30> Upvoted for NYRB. They're like the Criterion Collection of litfic at this point -- they find good stuff that's been out of print for too long, reissue it, bring it back to an audience that deserves to know about it. They recently reissued another long-out-of-print favorite, "Berlin Alexanderplatz", in a new translation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> All men are mortal - Simone de Beauvoir

</comment><comment><USER87> 1984

<comment><USER88> not really unknown.

<comment><USER89> The question was "What are some great books that are relatively unknown in the United States?"

Although certain 1984 memes (like "Big Brother") are well-known, the book itself is not. Most Americans, if they've read any Orwell, have only read Animal Farm; and other concepts from 1984 (the memory hole, two minutes hate) are completely unheard of... again, because the book is not actually well- known.

<comment><USER74> Unfortunately, you could argue that it's well known because it's so easy to believe that it's being used as an instruction manual.

<comment><USER89> I think it's probably best to avoid snarky political commentary. The question under discussion is merely whether the book is well-known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Space Rogues is a fun space adventure story by an indy author, John Wilker.

[https://www.amazon.com/Space-Rogues-Adventure-Adventures- Smu...](https://www.amazon.com/Space-Rogues-Adventure-Adventures-Smuggler- ebook/dp/B0756561CK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1529776077&sr=8-2&keywords=Space+Rogues)</comment>


Getting it wrong over coffee - <AUTHOR> http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2009/11/getting-it-wrong-over-coffee.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BronteCapital+%28Bronte+Capital%29 <comment><USER3> _"... American coffee chains (particularly Starbucks but also some of the donut variety) have tried to break in and mostly failed. Starbucks closed most of its stores last year after multi-million dollar losses. They couldn't cope with the Australian competition... I would love to be corrected – but I think the reason has to do with our wage structure. American low-end wages are very low indeed whereas Australia has minimum wages at quite high levels. ..."_

Could a simpler reason be that these chains make crap coffee

Failure has less to do with cost than understanding what the customer wants. Importing a supermarket/chain concept and then expecting the locals - I'm from Melbourne ~ [http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600195992630...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157600195992630/) \- exposed to multitudes of small well run cafe's with a heritage of coffee since the 1950's means the local population are quite sophisticated in their understanding and taste. Generic coffee chains with their cookie cutter approach can't easily match this. Not even by price.

<comment><USER4> This doesn't really explain why these chains succeed in America, though.

My current theory about this has to do with the relative mobility of the populations. Speaking personally, when I'm at home I never go to Starbucks. There's a dozen other coffeeshops within walking distance and most make better coffee, and I know which are which. When I'm traveling to another city, though, I'm fairly likely to go to Starbucks simply because I know what I'll get there (a slightly overpriced, slightly over-bitter, but adequate, latte), while experience has shown that picking an unknown local coffeeshop leads to, on average, a worse cup of coffee, with high variation.

<comment><USER3> _"... This doesn't really explain why these chains succeed in America, though. ..."_

How about _"acceptance of a lower standard of coffee?"_ , different culture (Melbourne historically more influenced by Europe than America) and the relative youth of _"business franchises"_ in Australia?

 _"... I'm fairly likely to go to Starbucks simply because I know what I'll get there (a slightly overpriced, slightly over-bitter, but adequate, latte), while experience has shown that picking an unknown local coffeeshop leads to, on average, a worse cup of coffee, with high variation. ..."_

That's a good explanation - take the safe, reliable option even if it's not quite the real thing.

I'd offer another, theory. Starbucks also happens to choose their locations near known coffee locations to offer customers an alternative customers with the hope of putting them out of business. This is what happened in Melbourne and it backfired. The competition was too great ~ [http://www.melbournecoffeereview.com/2008/07/celebrate- good-...](http://www.melbournecoffeereview.com/2008/07/celebrate-good- times.html)

The problem of _"finding a good coffee"_ might be solvable in the US by Starbucks. But in a city where Italian migrants created the _"Cafe` lifestyle"_ through respect of produce, technology and setting, Starbucks efforts are a poor imitation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article highlights something for me, I've recently started working in a large financial entity in London and. . . I have no idea what they actually do here, I have very basic understanding of trades and options/exotics etc, can anyone point me to a book or something that would give me a decent understanding?

<comment><USER6> Study the advice of Charlie Munger: <http://tinyurl.com/ycmpo9v>

<comment><USER7> Why the downvotes? I don't know Munger, but the book sounds reasonable?

<comment><USER6> I think people think I didn't answer the question which pertained narrowly to learning how financial firms operated.

The thing is - Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Philip Carret, and a few others DON'T operate like normal financial firms and have done spectacularly better. To understand financial firms you need to know what works better - <USER2> Berkshire Hathaway works a whole lot better. And Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's sounding board.

Read Charlie Munger's advice and compare it to what you read elsewhere about financial firms knowing that Charlie is right.

In fact, the OP reasons in much the way of Buffett (I read several of his eariler articles), except that his noodling around with shorts is a departure from what I take to be Buffett's strategy of buying good management and good companies at good prices, and waiting as long as it takes to get good prices.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gamification – what is it and why is it important? - <AUTHOR> So to be clear, gamification isn't games, it's applying game based thinking to your brand, business or organisation. Game play itself stimulates the human brain (releasing dopamine) and now proven mechanics from gaming can be brought into marketing and especially mobile marketing. Games are about pleasure, and that pleasure is the new marketing, one dimension that he argues is extremely powerful. - Gabe Zicherman <comment><USER2> I build at least some kind of point system into anything where users can post content. IMHO not doing that is just lazy because it works.</comment>


Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/ <comment><USER3> ... I'm not one of the "OMFG LOOK AT THE NUCLEAR ANGEL OF DEATH" people, but can we wait for this crisis to reach some resolution before we make loud proclamations either way?

The main information that concerns me right now is that there appears to be a consistent radiation leak of 400 mSv/h at the plant. While not Chernobyl by any measure, this is quite a bit of radiation, considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total.

This seems to contradict the extremely optimisitc reports that all is well, under control, and that no significant radiation leak has occurred.

[edit] One thing that optimistic reports consistently fail to address is the situation with the spent fuel pools. While not capable of melting down, from what I've read the pools are rapidly boiling dry and plant workers are struggling to maintain cooling on them. Left to its own devices the fuel will boil out the pool, light on fire, and then you have burning nuclear waste drifting directly into the atmosphere (after all, the buildings no longer have roofs). There is some speculation that the current radiation spike at the plant is _not_ from any reactor but rather its spent fuel containment.

<comment><USER4> "considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total."

In Ramsar, Iran the background radition is around 200 mSv/Y (compared to a worldwide average of 2.4 mSv/Y) and _according to wikipedia_ this "high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area".

Call me confused.

Is the 1 mSv/Y total one of those made-up safety guidelines?

<comment><USER3> 1 mSv is estimated to increase your odds of serious medical complications by 1/1,000,000. Not a significant amount, but one's _regularly_ allowable dose should not be expected to cause health problems in the first place. Also, these limits are very conservatively set for various reasons - most of which I agree with (used to work in a nuclear facility).

So no, if you got blasted with 10 mSv all at once you shouldn't expect to vomit blood or fall over dead, but it's still a sizable amount of radiation.

Also, 400 mSv/h is 3,504,000 mSv/Y (aka 3504 Sv/Y, aka 17,000 times the radiation output in Ramsar, Iran). Of course, one doesn't expect this radiation leak to last for a whole year, but the dose rate _does_ matter. Sucking in 400 mSv over an hour is many, many times worse than getting it over a matter of years or decades.

<comment><USER5> A typical CT scan will expose you to 10-15mSv. A dose of 100mSv infers a 1% lifetime cancer risk. The effects of doses as small as 1mSv are not known and are inferred by models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Enough articles "everything is fine" for my tastes circulating onto Hacker News, while instead the facts created more and more concerns. I think it's better to just wait, and hope, instead of blabling about things that even the top experts of the world are having an hard time to figure. There will be a time, in a few weeks, and hopefully after a disaster was avoided, to speculate about the real security of nuke power.

<comment><USER7> Sadly within a few weeks, armies of anti-nuclear campainers, writers, and politicians will have jumped on this and pumped it so through the roof that, even if everything in this article is correct most people won't listen. Look at Chernobyl or Three Mile Island (study after study found no major exposure by anyone).

The hysteria over this is caused by the anti-nuclear people and groups trying to use this as a case against nuclear power, blowing everything out of proportion before any facts are known.

I think a few articles calling for calm balances the shrieking cries of "meltdown imminent".

<comment><USER8> Just a quick point of order: study after study on _Chernobyl_ found major exposure by just about _everyone_. It was serious business. This is where, without any containment vessel at all, the fuel caught fire and the radioactive ash spread all over the place.

But you are right about Three-Mile Island.

<comment><USER7> Yes there was exposure, certainly those 4000 children recieved high enough levels. However this is a far cry of hundreds of thousands of dangerous exposures, massive increases of cancer rates and birth defects that are still happening that most people think of.

I myself thought just that until recently after investigating it.

<comment><USER9> I was studying in Russia when Chernobyl occurred, and I dated a woman from northern Ukraine who was a teenager at the time of the accident. I saw the results of the accident firsthand - basically everyone under the age of 10 was affected - hair loss, skin rashes and nausea in the immediate years after, cancer and early death later. But even so it isn't fair to judge the safety of nuclear power by Chernobyl. Chernobyl happened because the Soviet system had become incredibly incompetent, and technical decisions were being made by thugs.

<comment><USER10> The capitalist system quite often _also_ becomes incredibly incompetent and has its technical decisions made by thugs. Tepco, the company that runs the Fukushima plant, has a long history of corruption, faked security reports and blatant incompetence.

What makes nuclear power unsafe is human error more than technical failure. That's the aspect the naive technocrats (like the guy who wrote this article) always ignore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _At Chernobyl, this actually happened inside the containment vessel and the resulting explosion ruptured the vessel, leading to a serious release of core radioactives – though this has had basically zero effect on the world in general nor even much impact on the area around Chernobyl._

Even just as a matter of rhetoric and persuasion, I think trying to argue that Chernobyl wasn't all _that_ bad isn't the route you want to go in reassuring people.

<comment><USER12> I watched a documentary about Chernobyl yesterday (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiCXb1Nhd1o>) an although it's obviously a little sensationalist/emotional I have a really hard time having any respect for people claiming it didn't have that much impact.

Fukushima is very different but I agree with others that we should wait at least a couple of weeks till we make any conclusions

Speaking of jumping to conclusions: Germany just started to shut down 7 nuclear power plants because of Fukushima...

<comment><USER13> > Speaking of jumping to conclusions: Germany just started to shut down 7 > nuclear power plants because of Fukushima...

100% pure green hysteria. ~10.000 died because of the tsunami. Who died because of Fukushima? None so far.

<comment><USER14> Well there is cheap living space available around Fukushima right now. Would you care to move there?

<comment><USER15> The place has been just hit by an _8.9_ earthquake and a tsunami. If I had to list reasons why not to go over there, my concern over likelihood of natural disasters is _much_ higher than concern of nuclear accidents.

All else being equal, I wouldn't mind moving close to a nuclear plant. The thing is, power plants (in general) are built in less hospitable places. So it's never "equal" to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pretty jaw-dropping journalism, even by Register standards. Anyone trying to suggest that the situation at Fukushima is "under control" and is somehow a nuclear industry safety success story hasn't been paying close enough attention.

<comment><USER17> I guess you are right, but it's just as dishonest to present the situation as completely out of control and use Fukushima as an excuse to paint nuclear power as completely unsafe and dangerous. Which is what mainstream media has been mostly doing.

<comment><USER18> > an excuse to paint nuclear power as completely unsafe and dangerous

50 people sacrificing their lives so that anything even shittier would not happen "is safe and not dangerous"? I fail to imagine what you really find "unsafe and dangerous".

<comment><USER19> Pretty much every other energy source is more dangerous than nuclear. [http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all- ener...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy- sources.html)

<comment><USER18> Then I guess people are stupid, aren't they, because of all the friends I know none of them would prefer having his/her house close to a nuclear plant, compared to having it close to a coal plant. And what do you know? These stupid people (including me) do have the power to vote, and I sure as hell would vote for nuclear power plants to be closed down were I given the chance to do so.

<comment><USER18> In responding to jbri's comment bellow, as the "Reply" link doesn't show up for me on that one:

> Are you suggesting that because ignorant people think something is unsafe, > that means that it actually is unsafe?

Yeah, this is what I'm saying, but isn't this what web 2.0 people were calling "wisdom of the crowds"? I guess back then it sounded cool, now it's just "return to technocracy" once more.

<comment><USER20> You can click the "link" button next to the comment header to get a reply box regardless.

Regarding this "wisdom of the crowds" crap, does the presence of a lynch mob indicate that someone was actually guilty? If masses of people swear by a medical treatment, does that magically mean it's not a placebo?

Crowds are _dumb_. The only time you want to follow the "wisdom of the crowd" is when the crowd _is_ your marketable commodity.

<comment><USER18> > Crowds are dumb. The only time you want to follow the "wisdom of the crowd" > is when the crowd is your marketable commodity.

We're settled, then, because this is where we disagree :) I believe in the power of the people of taking decisions for themselves (even if the decisions are dumb), while you suggest than an informed elite should have the upper hand (if I read you correctly). I could go on and on about why I believe in what I said above (maybe the fact that I grew up under an authoritarian regime), but that doesn't belong in here, and I'm pretty sure you have your good reasons for believing in what you said.

I guess history will decide.

<comment><USER21> If you're saying that mob rule has the power to irrationally stop nuclear power production, I agree with you.

If you're saying this is the way things ought to be, I'm not sure if I agree but I think you have a valid point about the democratic form of government.

If you're saying a dumb herd of people's panicky reactions to a scary situation actually mean nuclear power is more dangerous than other forms, you're dead wrong.

I don't think other people here understand which of these arguments you're making, either.

<comment><USER18> Yeap, you're right on the first 2 points I was trying to make.

Reguarding this

> If you're saying a dumb herd of people's panicky reactions to a scary > situation actually mean nuclear power is more dangerous than other forms, > you're dead wrong.

I didn't say that people's reaction to nuclear power changes it into something "dangerous", I was only saying that if people decide not to fund nuclear development anymore (say, by not allowing their Governments to subsidize said industry) then its voice should be listened to, even if to some it may sound "dumb" or "panicky". This is why I said that if the voice of the majority isn't listened to we're back to Technocracy, i.e. a small group of informed elite taking vital decisions for the rest of us.

<comment><USER22> Actually, it's a plutocracy. People don't listen to technocrats unless they have a good idea for generating wealth/power.

The reason you don't leave any serious decisions in the hands of the masses is because it leads to instability, which is the worst thing that can happen to a government.

In every form of government, you have a minority bloc which makes the most important decisions unilaterally. The remaining decisions are, depending on the visible form of government, passed on to various degrees to the public so that they may feel they are participating in the running of their country's affairs.

There is, of course, some give-and-take when a special interest group gains too much power, but those can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looking in awe at the fact that the plants are still standing after an earthquake "five times stronger than the older Fukushima plants had been designed to cope with" isn't the right way to look at this situation. Why were these plants built in a massively earthquake prone zone and not designed to avoid what is happening right now? If an earthquake this powerful was possible, the most sensitive pieces of infrastructure should have been designed to handle it. They clearly were not.

I'm no nuclear opponent... I believe that nuclear could very well be the only safe and scalable answer to the world's energy needs - but if we can't make the economics of building safer plants work, then nuclear is a nonstarter.

Proclamations like this that everything is and will be fine are really reckless at this point. Every day it seems like we are finding out that things are much worse than we had previously been told they are, and it looks as though they are still in the process of losing - not gaining - control at Fukushima.

<comment><USER24> How can you say they "clearly were not"? I think the opposite is quite clear - the main components survived the earthquake just fine.

The problem right now is the lack of power. The pumps are run on electric power, and as soon as the earthquake came the power plant itself shut down. So now you need external power to run the pumps. The power infrastructure failed and no other power plants could power these pumps. So they switched to backup generators, which were then wiped out by a tsunami. Then they switched to batteries (which worked fine, until they ran out). Then they brought in backup generators, which failed. Now we're onto pumping seawater in.

If sea wall had been 50' high instead of 30' high (estimates), the generators would have survived and we wouldn't be hearing about this. If the batteries were more than 8 hours we probably wouldn't be hearing about this. If the external generators worked, we wouldn't be hearing about this. Those are the only mistakes.

Compare that to Gen 4 reactors being designed today - no pumps required to circulate fluid. If anything we should be building new plants because if this had happened to a Gen 4 the fluid would be cooling the reactor even without power and none of this would have been a problem.

<comment><USER23> I suppose we can all have differing opinions on what an acceptable level of risk is, but leaking radiation, fuel storage ponds on fire, and a situation volatile enough to warrant a 30km exclusion zone says to me that the plant _clearly was not_ designed to handle this kind of situation.

If the problem is the lack of power, then so be it - even more of a preventable problem that wasn't properly assured against.

I'm hopeful for the Gen 4 reactors (don't know much about them, but what I've read gives me the impression that they are a significant leap in the right direction in terms of safety.) But I don't think that this particular article is right in holding Fukushima up as some shining example of nuclear safety, especially so early.

<comment><USER25> Is dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico an acceptable level of risk for you? I don't see you saying we should stop drilling for oil.

<comment><USER26> You can't fault him for not saying we should stop drilling for oil - <USER2> discussion is not about oil.

But since you brought it up, we _should_ stop drilling for oil, particularly sea bed drilling, while operating with lax regulatory bodies and marginal penalties for non-compliance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I got as far as the second paragraph before I knew that this was article was of dubious accuracy:

 _"As the hot cores ceased to be cooled by the water which is used to extract power from them, control rods would have remained withdrawn and a runaway chain reaction could have ensued"_

This is rubbish. The control rods in every nuclear reactor, going right back to the Chicago Pile, are fail-safe: if the power fails, they drop into the core, stopping fission. (In the case of a BWR like the Fukushima reactors, stored hydraulic pressure forces the control rods upward into the core).

Even without fission occuring though, the fuel rods continue to produce a great deal of heat through beta decay of the fission products (immediately after shutdown, heat is produced at around 7% of the operating power). This is why a meltdown can still occur, if this prodigious quantity of heat cannot be removed quickly enough.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope the pro-nuclear power people are right when they claim everything went according to plan. But forgive me if I am not used to "everything is under control" looking like this on TV (explosions, people in protection suits and gas masks, mass exodus).

</comment><comment><USER28> The article dates back from yesterday, 1pm GMT. More evidence that there should be no conclusion drawn (one way or another for that matter) on nuclear energy safety or lack thereof before this whole catastrophe has fully unfolded.

Though the more recent developments would seem to point out that _Quake + tsunami >> 1 minor radiation dose_.

</comment><comment><USER29> Regardless of whether or not the situation is under control, I think the triumph is more for the Japanese. I'm sure that if the plant were in Greece the fallout would have been much greater because everyone would have cut corners and not followed the safety procedures.

</comment><comment><USER30> Think the article is slightly old, with new events happening to the reactors every hour. I get my updates from here

<http://mitnse.com/>

Lets just hope it does not get any worse.

</comment><comment><USER31> This article dramatically misses the point! Uranium is peaking. Oil has already peaked. If we intend to use reprocessing to conserve uranium, then we need to come up with new reactor designs that require less fossil fuel energy and less money to build.

The problem isn't that reactors are inherently unsafe, but that building new reactors without dramatically improving the underlying designs is inherently inefficient. This means that nuclear energy, when all insurance and other costs are included, does not present ANY savings over any other form of newly- built power plant.

The main cost argument in favor of nuclear power is that existing thirty-year old plants cost so little per year. This is an obvious diversionary trick. We paid off the bonds ages ago. My house is also the cheapest on the street if you don't include the mortgage.

The main argument in favor of nuclear power is that it provides reliable baseload energy, which must only be shut down once every fourteen months or so for refueling. This disaster is the proof that nuclear baseload energy is only as reliable as its safety investments and contigency planning. Fukushima is not the first plant to go silent forever.

The Fukushima disaster reminds me of what really happened to our I-35W bridge locally. Over thirty years ago, someone built bridge with gussets too thin. Over a decade ago, our state replaced its government bridge inspectors with a for-profit firm that promised it would "save money" through efficiency savings on labor. Seven years before the disaster, HNTB Corp. of Kansas City performed a bridge analysis to try to win the contract from URS. They found the under- sized gussets and demonstrated how the Minnesota Department of Transportation could use "supplemental plates" and a new "oversize gusset" to strengthen the bridge. HNTB never got the contract and improvements were never made. Later, URS had the option to either re-inspect the bridge or to brace the bridge as HNTB had suggested. They chose to re-inspect.

During court filings in the victims lawsuit, a URS bridge contractor stated in an internal e-mail that they chose not to determine the stresses on all the components in the bridge because "it was too much work."

The moral of the story is that saving money on engineering does not always save money. I could cite numerous similar examples, like the infamous Boeing 787 project that I was involved in as a Cray Inc. contractor.

</comment><comment><USER31> First of all, recent studies show Chernobyl killed nearly one million people. Don't trivialize Chernobyl!

<http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html>

Secondly, the real tragedies here are the high human health costs in cancer and birth defects, the economic cost of losing twenty percent of Japan's power indefinitely, and the outrageous modern day cost of building new reactors. Given those high costs and the ten year construction times, it is unlikely that these plants will be replaced by nuclear reactors even if we wiped Japan's collective memory.

Many geeks are easily swayed by scientific talk that ignores social variables and whole cost accounting. Remember Google's early motto, "Don't be evil!"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants)

</comment><comment><USER32> To those who insist that the Chernobyl accident was not a big deal, please feel free to go build a home in Pripyat, live there for a few years, and let us know how that works out for you.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think it might be time for those who don't have a clue to stop talking about this. People are and will be diing because of what is happening now. Calling this "ok" and "safe" is borderline obscene.

Plus, as told in other comments, this article dates back to yesterday and recent news are less and less reassuring (e.g. the containment vessel is now broken in one reactor).

Thank you.

<comment><USER34> 'People' have not died because of the reactor problems - there has been one reported fatality due to a crane accident. And do you have a source for "the containment vessel is now broken in one reactor"? A site linked elsewhere in these comments (<http://mitnse.com/>) reports that the suppression chamber in one reactor may be damaged but that's not 'the containment vessel'.

I agree with your desire to stop the FUD, but be careful you don't spread it yourself.

<comment><USER35> There was a reported death in another prefecture, when someone taped all their windows shut after hearing about it on the news. He forgot to turn off the gas and suffocated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The central problem is still ignorance, unfamiliarity, and fear. People are more afraid of death and injury related to radiation exposure because it's not something they're familiar with. That causes people to incorrectly weigh the risks and tradeoffs involved.

</comment><comment><USER14> If it is all designed for that, and they had to give up the reactors anyway, why don't they just wait and let the cores melt? Something doesn't add up in this optimistic scenario, it seems to me.

<comment><USER37> Cleaning up a molten core is quite a bit more complicated than dismantling a functional reactor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The worst case scenario of a nuclear reactor going wrong is much worse than any other alternative, however slim the chances of that happening may be. This fact is enough to be concerned about the safety of nuclear reactors.

<comment><USER39> Cars are the probabilistically one of the most risky form of transport. I doubt that you are concerned about that fact when you get in to one.

<comment><USER40> Risk of death isn't the only issue. In a car accident you don't have to worry about cesium-137 rendering the area near the accident unusable by humans for 100 years or more.

<comment><USER41> Driving a car doesn't produce large, economical quantities of electricity either, it's about managed risk and cost-benefit considerations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> While the mainstream media is busy selling the global nuclear angel of death scare to people, the techies are just as busy to convince everyone of the other extreme: absolutely everything is fine!!!

While there are certainly quite a few engineering victories to be claimed here, I would not call several explosions at a nuclear plant "nothing happened". Also, the earthquake did damage at least reactor 4, there are two approx. 8m² holes.

<comment><USER24> Differentiate between the building around the nuclear reactor, and the nucleaer reactor.

It's the difference between your house being blow away in a tornado while you are in a tornado shelter, and your tornado shelter being blown away in a tornado while you are in it. The first is bad news, but not a catastrophy. The latter is a catstrophy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I transfer colleges? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I'm a undergrad who just finished my freshman year at a large state school (ranked in the 80s according to US News) with a solid CS department. My major is CS with minors in math and econ. I chose my school because it was the most affordable option. Academically, I am doing well (3.9/4.0 GPA). In my spare time I try to code as much; I'm learning R at the moment, but know Python (along with some Django), Java, Matlab, some C/C++, HTML5, and Javascript. I also started working in a Professor's lab doing scientific computing in R/Matlab (and some Python). I would like to work in a startup one day or start my own. I'm particularly interested in machine learning/AI and its applications for robotics (i.e. computer vision) and computational biosciences/bioinformatics. Luckily, money is not an issue as it used to be. I've had thoughts of transferring since earlier in the year. I don't mean to sound pretentious, but I personally feel that I can do 'better', and go to a more rigorous school. I'm interested in transferring to Rice, Brown, Cornell, Michigan, and the University of Virginia. Beyond the school's network and rigour, is there any other benefit a more well known school provides? Does going to a school with exceptional peers really make a difference? I figure the only way to get better is to play a smarter opponent? There isn't really a great startup scene at my school, but I know the schools I've listed have had more measures taken towards encouraging entrepreneurship, so perhaps there's a greater chance of finding other founders. Does the name really matter? I sometimes feel I have to compensate for the lack of brand name value my school provides, such as when applying for internships. There's not really a lot of on campus recruiting, so it's more hustle from my side. I notice that my friends who go to brand name schools have fantastic alumni networks. <comment><USER2> I attended a less prestigious school for undergrad, a more prestigious school for grad school, and now I work at a well-regarded software company.

I think undergrads in a more prestigious and better-funded department likely have more scheduling choices for upper-division courses. They can follow their passions more easily and delve more deeply into rigorous material as a result.

A prestigious institution will also tend to have more fellow students are able and motivated. I am not very entrepreneurial but I guess this would make startup launches more likely and more likely to be successful.

It is certainly true that students in elite CS programs are more likely to get great internships. I believe this is due to a combination of their merit and their connections via peers, alumni, and faculty.

My impression is that especially if you're interested in the startup world, credentials aren't very important.

But especially because you are not surrounded by people with connections to Silicon Valley and top tech companies, if you stay where you are, you will have to find in yourself tremendous motivation to hone your knowledge & skills, apply for internships at places where the best people work, and really shine in every interview.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your comment on it being easier to get intern ships, and have access to a bigger network.

Regardless of where I end up at school, I'll always focus on honing my skills, and on making the best of what my school has to offer.

I guess my main question is about peers. I went to competitive HS where everyone pushed themselves and each other to do better. I think with a lack of motivation and ability, people automatically draw barriers/limits on themselves, i.e. I can't do XYZ, it's too difficult, only a genius could do that, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just don't try to do group projects with your classmates, they'll probably not be that motivated/smart.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that something I can avoid... and it's not that bad. I think I should've reworded my original post- my current school isn't bad, it's just not the college experience I'm looking for.</comment></comment>


Nobody expects ENTITY sections in XML, either - <AUTHOR> http://mikeknoop.com/lxml-xxe-exploit <comment><USER2> Most XML libraries have an option to disable external entity loading. But this is not enough. Libraries should be secure by default, not by toggling an obscure option. (On a related note, why do we still have so many templating engines that don't block XSS by default?)

Recent versions of libxml (2.9.0+) disable external entity loading by default, so any implementation based on libxml (such as PHP's SimpleXML) should be secure as long as the defaults are left untouched. But if you use an XML parser implemented natively in another language, or one that links to an older version of libxml, you should look really carefully at the default settings.

<comment><USER3> minor correction - 2.9.2+. (2.9.0, 2.9.1 had buggy attempts to disable entity expansion, and were still exploitable) - [http://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2014-3660/](http://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2014-3660/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In case anyone missed dalke's comment below:

If you use Python, use defusedxml:

[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/defusedxml](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/defusedxml)

It's a drop-in replacement for the stdlib XML parsers and lxml which makes it trivial to import an instance with secure defaults – to quote the docs:

        Instead of:

        >>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import parse
        >>> et = parse(xmlfile)

        alter code to:

        >>> from defusedxml.ElementTree import parse
        >>> et = parse(xmlfile)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: I submitted this last night to HN but it didn't get picked up. I thought it worthwhile to re-post given that the visibility of a similar HN thread was what clued me into this security problem in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER5> I realize this is nothing new, but these vulnerabilities are so incredibly _simple_ (eg. Shellshock, this) and are because of obscure features no one touches (eg. Shellshock, this). Maybe that's too much to take from the 2 things I'm thinking of at the moment—any other examples?

<comment><USER6> It does make me feel like my decision to "parse" RSS feeds using ~5 lines of Perl regex, which seemed dumb at the time, is maybe still sorta-dumb, but at least not worse than using a default XML parsing library. All I really need out of an RSS feed is to find the author, URL, date, and body, which I was just too lazy to do "properly", so used some regexes as a quick hack. But seeing what stuff "proper" XML parsers have buried in them, I think I might stick with the Perl script...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article states GitHub gists add the correct content-type header based on file extension which is untrue.

      curl -i https://gist.githubusercontent.com/mikeknoop/e7b3c526738b66950eb4/raw/1d46d432ed380abc986cf15028221318b836395b/text.xml
      // other headers...
      Content-Type: text/plain
      // headers and body...

There is a great service call rawgit[1] that does actually add the correct headers.

[1] [https://rawgit.com/](https://rawgit.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch, looks like maybe Github removed this feature (I know for sure it used to work with `.json` extensions.

Updating the post, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good description, but a pretty well-known problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I can tell, it is very well known in security circles.

Even so, we as a team of 8 didn't catch the problem for some time because we weren't aware of it. That's part of my rational for giving an easy-to-test- yourself POC.

<comment><USER9> While I have little experience with it, I know the goal of the defusedxml package (see [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/defusedxml](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/defusedxml) ) is to make it so that teams like yours can worry less about these details.

It has a module which "acts as an example how you could protect code that uses lxml.etree. It implements a custom Element class that filters out Entity instances, a custom parser factory and a thread local storage for parser instances. It also has a check_docinfo() function which inspects a tree for internal or external DTDs and entity declarations."

It sounds like it would have defused your example of lxml, and perhaps a few others you haven't considered.

<comment><USER10> But how do you know to use defusedxml instead of the regular one? I've never even heard of it.

<comment><USER9> The base problem is that XML is not secure by default.

Every solution requires either figuring out the problems yourself (which is impossible, given the number of problems that exist), or learning about it from elsewhere. No matter what, there will be people asking the same question you did.

I found out about defusedxml because I read planet.python.org where [http://blog.python.org/2013/02/announcing-defusedxml- fixes-f...](http://blog.python.org/2013/02/announcing-defusedxml-fixes-for- xml.html) came up, and because I had enough general understanding of the security problems with XML to recognize why it was created.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So uh, has this been patched in LXML?

Seems like parsers should at least disable file-based external entity URIs by default.</comment>


Puyo puyo like Android game - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.puyo.magic <comment><AUTHOR> Any comments for this game will be welcome

<comment><USER2> great game! I have been playing it for a while. It helps me practicsing my puyo skill a lot.</comment></comment>


Searching For One-Sided Tradeoffs - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/01/searching-for-one-sided-tradeoffs/

<comment><USER2> I think many hn readers would relate to the SAT example via the hiring process. You can get amazing engineers, even if you can't pay them as much as Google, by offering them a chance to work on more interesting projects or in program languages they find more interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Python paradox!</comment></comment>


Exploiting WPA2 in a City Wide Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-awareness/exploiting-wpa2-in-a-city-wide-wi-fi/ <comment><USER2> Article is completely wrong about not being able to decrypt other clients traffic when the PSK is known to the malicious actor and the authentication handshake is able to be observed.

This is well known and even documented in wiresharks guides. see Gotchas -> "WPA and WPA2 use keys derived from an EAPOL handshake,..." [https://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToDecrypt802.11](https://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToDecrypt802.11)

<comment><USER3> I agree, handing out the same static "secret" key to millions of New Yorkers would make no sense at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I spent a long time in the past couple of years trying to work out how to deploy secure WiFi and failed to come up with anything great. The biggest challenge is that client support for anything beyond wpa2 psk is virtually nonexistent. The Hotspot 2.0 spec is supposed to make all this easier but it's not widely supported and heavily influenced by carriers whose goals don't always align with everyone else in the space.

<comment><USER5> Care to elaborate on the client support? AFAIK, all major operating systems support WPA Enterprise (I've used it with Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android).

<comment><USER6> Unlike WPA PSK, all of the real-world-usable EAP methods used in IEEE 802.1X EAPOL ("WPA Enterprise") _require_ client authentication, which must be provisioned out-of-band. Thus, effectively, they cannot be used for such deployments being discussed.

For example, EAP-TLS, unlike the TLS used in HTTPS, requires a client to provide a X.509 certificate signed by an AP-side trusted authority. This is because people like Jouni Malinen (hostapd/wpa_supplicant), in all their wisdom, decided to spurn RFC 5216 ("While the EAP server SHOULD require peer authentication, this is not mandatory, since there are circumstances...") and completely disallow any and all configuration to disable the client-cert requirement, regardless of any circumstances (such as those behind HTTPS). NYC DoITT is no more equipped to provision X.509 certs for free wifi users than the NYS DMV is to provision X.509 certs for $80 DL/ID card holders (so people can securely prove their identity everywhere).

As trollian stated, Wi-Fi Alliance's "Passpoint" (Hotspot 2.0) does allow for such setups, _technically_. E.g., the vendor-specific WFA-UNAUTH-TLS version of EAP-TLS does not do client-side authentication at the WPA-level, as per RFC 5216. But WFA-UNAUTH-TLS, even among Passpoint-aware devices, is likely not widely supported.

<comment><USER7> > Unlike WPA PSK, all of the real-world-usable EAP methods used in IEEE 802.1X > EAPOL ("WPA Enterprise") require client authentication, which must be > provisioned out-of-band. Thus, effectively, they cannot be used for such > deployments being discussed.

I'm not convinced that is really true. Sure, some sort of client authentication is technically required, but I think you can configure the authentication server to accept any authentication without compromising the link security. Or you could auto-provision users on first login or something like that depending on what sort of access you want to give.

<comment><USER6> > Sure, some sort of client authentication is technically required, but I > think you can configure the authentication server to accept any > authentication without compromising the link security.

It this supported _anywhere_? Hence the mention of HS2.0 and my jab at Jouni. (In Jouni's defense, hostapd has made really good progress on this.)

> Or you could auto-provision users on first login or something like that > depending on what sort of access you want to give.

This may be supported by Hotspot 2.0 Release 2 (IEEE 802.11u) Online Sign Up (OSU) Server-Only Authenticated L2 Encryption Network (OSEN). I would like to know if OSEN is usable for this scenario.

<comment><USER8> >> configure the authentication server to accept any authentication

> It this supported anywhere?

Yes. FreeRADIUS can do it. The clients don't notice. I've seen it work. The configuration is a bit tricky though. Not sure about hostapds radius server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is no way they're going to get millions of random clients and tourists to use 802.1x auth on their phones.

<comment><USER10> It works just fine for universities. The experience is perfectly fine on iOS, Android, OSX, and Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand why one would care about this. What is the difference between the provider snooping your traffic and a 'hacker'? Do people really believe there is any kind of privacy on these networks?

The internet is not trustworthy. It doesn't matter how you connect to it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone here know much about Hotspot 2.0 Release 2 (IEEE 802.11u) Online Sign Up (OSU) Server-Only Authenticated L2 Encryption Network (OSEN)? OSEN seems like it would be perfect for a setup like LinkNYC.

<comment><USER6> So yes it looks like the "LinkNYC Private" network is indeed using full-blown WPA2-Enterprise IEEE 802.1X EAP-TLS w/ client certs.

It looks to be using Wi-Fi Passpoint "online sign up" (OSU) setup for client cert provisioning. Unfortunately, it does NOT look like it uses OSEN (WFA- UNAUTH-TLS type EAP-TLS) for the OSU WLAN, but instead chooses the option for an open OSU WLAN (using the same SSID as the non-private network) with a HTTPS captive portal. I would assume that this is the mechanism behind the reports of certificate downloads on iPhones.

LinkNYC and Hotspot 2.0:

[https://medium.com/@LinkNYC/secure-browsing-on-linknyc-s- wi-...](https://medium.com/@LinkNYC/secure-browsing-on-linknyc-s-wi-fi- networks-4b5d25329b5a)

[https://www.globalreachtech.com/deployments/link- nyc/](https://www.globalreachtech.com/deployments/link-nyc/)

Wi-Fi Passpoint aka Hotspot 2.0:

[https://www.wi-fi.org/downloads- public/Passpoint_R2_Deployme...](https://www.wi-fi.org/downloads- public/Passpoint_R2_Deployment_Guidelines-v1%2B0.pdf/13481)

[http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-2...](http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-2/config- guide/b_cg82/b_cg82_chapter_01101000.html)

Reports of cert provisioning:

[http://blog.alexflor.es/post/137705262900/linknyc-secure- gig...](http://blog.alexflor.es/post/137705262900/linknyc-secure-gigabit- hotspot)

[http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/19/linknyc-gigabit-wifi- hand...](http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/19/linknyc-gigabit-wifi-hands-on/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr WPA2-PSK doesn't do AP authentication.

<comment><USER12> It authenticates by checking that AP knows shared password. If that password is known by attackers, i.e. the network contains at least one malicious node, then that procedure is useless.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Create Your Own Million Dollar Homepage on Ethereum Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://themillionetherhomepage.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. This is a personal advertising platform. Whenever I write a post on the web, I put a link to this page. This way my advertisers get traffic, and I receive funding for my future projects (and charity).

I would like anybody to be able to do the same. Or maybe invent other use cases. Here is the source code: [https://github.com/porobov/million-ether- homepage-2-contract...](https://github.com/porobov/million-ether- homepage-2-contract/). It is well documented and can be used for education (smart contract upgradeability, oracles, ERC-721 token, web3).

The project is called The Million Ether Homepage. It is like the well-known Million Dollar Homepage but with some blockchain-powered cool features: \- buy pixels and own them for life (or for as long as Ethereum is available) \- sell or rent pixels out with no commission \- put ads to the pixels you own and replace it anytime \- trade pixels through 3rd party decentralized exchanges (ERC721 token standard implemented). \- the price for a 10x10 pixels block starts with $1 and doubles every 10% sold.

The first version was launched back in 2016. It collected $11k for charity. This version also sends 80% of income to charity.

It is at Minimal Viable Product stage and a bit clumsy. You'll need Metamask extension for your browser and some ether.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER2> Your 20 percent tax on charity collections seems steep, was this made clear to the people who made donations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the price is $1 for 10x10 pixels block. It is very clear for users. They need to query the price in ETH. They pay only $1. It is me who gets only 20 cents out of it.

<comment><USER2> My question was whether it was made clear that you took 20 percent of the donations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never asked for donations. I sell pixels and then forward part of my income to charity. I think I described it quite clearly. Is there a place in the docs or at the page which you think may be understood in a wrong way?

<comment><USER2> Thank you kindly for the excellent reply, it is certainly sufficient for my understanding.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your interest!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Facebook should buy Instagram - <AUTHOR>

I know a lot of you are not going to agree with this one, but as I'm increasingly becoming an Instagram addict, it's annoying that it's not more integrated into Facebook. <comment><USER2> So what are you asking HN? There is no question here.</comment>


Idea for web-based startup, but no programming skills. - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I have an idea I've put a lot of thought behind for a web-based startup. I have ten years of experience in sales and management, but no experience in programming or coding.
What is the best way for someone who does not know how to program to build a complex website?
Thank you <comment><USER2> Sounds like you need to find yourself a technical co-founder. Be sure to put together exactly what it is that you'll be bringing to the table, because coders don't like to hear "I have the idea, you do the work".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your response. Where would you recommend I begin looking for someone? I've given a lot of thought to the UI and UX, and I would be driving the sales. I would need someone to build the website and help figure out logistics and payments.

<comment><USER3> Check out your local startup community on events going around and you can also ask various tech influencers in your area for introductions to possible cofounders

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The more detail-oriented you are and the more you know exactly how you want the website to function the more you might be able to write a spec yourself and outsource development. The wisdom of this strategy would be contingent on your financial constraints and your desire to dive into the low-level details of product development.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you, and many others will surely disagree, is that I wouldn't sweat the lack of programming knowledge. If you can specify what you want and diligently hire someone to construct one you get to effectively the same end.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is it a web application or just an ecommerce website. If you don't know the difference head over to google.

If it's a web app, find a technical co-founder.. if you can't find one and are dedicated to making something happen, start learning python/django or ruby/rails.

If it's just a website selling things online, you may be fine with a CMS system, look into Magento, Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress etc..

<comment><USER6> He/She could also use Shopify, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if this is good or not, but I spill my ideas all over the place. You could call it fertilizer.</comment>


Active Expressions: Basic Building Blocks for Reactive Programming (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://programming-journal.org/2017/1/12/ <comment><USER2> Active Expressions seem to essentially be a more seamless and implicit form of Reactive Streams, such as those from the ReactiveX family of libraries [1]. For instance, the first example given by the paper is:

        var a = 5, b = 6;
        signal c = a + b; // c = 11

        a = 10; // c = 16

We can express the same with reactive streams, although it's more clumsy because of the explicit stream objects and subscriptions. Here is an example using RxJava:

        var a = BehaviorSubject.createDefault(5);
        var b = BehaviorSubject.createDefault(6);
        var c = Observable.combineLatest(a, b, (x, y) -> x + y);

        // Read the last value emitted by stream `c`
        System.out.println(c.blockingFirst()); // 11

        // Save and emit 10 from stream `a`
        a.onNext(10);

        System.out.println(c.blockingFirst()); // 16

This is, of course, way more verbose than the signal concept displayed in the paper, so I welcome the approach to make this reactive power more accessible. However, note that reactive streams offer a lot of control over value propagation - such as delaying, throttling or filtering changes - that will probably be hard to replicate with a system like the one presented here.

Also, when combined with shared-state concurrency, it might be hard to define and reason about which active expression runs in which thread. Reactive stream implementations have already tackled this issue with concepts such as schedulers [2].

[1]: [http://reactivex.io](http://reactivex.io) [2]: [http://reactivex.io/RxJava/2.x/javadoc/](http://reactivex.io/RxJava/2.x/javadoc/)

<comment><AUTHOR> > However, note that reactive streams offer a lot of control over value > propagation

If I read the paper correctly, active expressions explicitly don't deal with propagation, only with detection. The idea is that you can use AEs to handle the detection part and then plug in your propagation mechanism.</comment></comment>