UK ruling makes Internet browsing a copyright risk - <AUTHOR> http://blog.meltwater.com/uk-ruling-makes-internet-browsing-a-copyright-risk-rendering-innocent-acts-of-millions-illegal <comment><USER3> The west is learning fast from the east (meaning east europe) :)

The communist countries were setup in such way that everybody living a normal life was definitely breaking some law. Hey even using a fax machine was illegal (but companies needed to have it to operate a business).

So, to get you, the government (and some random state company) needed just to put you on the list and you are arrested.

<comment><USER4> I always think of John Adams' quote:

 _"It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever."_

If you are damned if you do and damned if you don't, what's the incentive to be in the "don't* category?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The ruling not only causes absurdity/doesn't work, it's wrong in law to boot. I hope this goes to the UK Supreme Court. It's very dangerous: it effectively means that if I look at a picture on the floor I'm not breaking copyright (because I'm not making a copy), but if I view in on a public server I can be held to be in breach of copyright. Just because there are technological steps involved in delivering the picture to my eyes, copyright law suddenly applies, and hard. Copyright is not meant to limit the reading of works, merely their reproduction where such reproduction is marketable/commercially relevant. Browsing a webpage must be viewed as the sort of merely transient "copying" that is not a restricted act. There is no permanence in the act and the viewer doesn't take possession of a copy with which he can then compete in the marketplace which the rightsholder is supposed to have a state-granted monopoly over.

Wrong in law: The Ecommerce Directive (2001/29) says that, subject to certain conditions, copies made during transmission by a third party or in your ram, cache, etc, are not reproductions covered by copyright law. The leading case on this is called Infopaq, which summarises: \- the act is temporary; \- it is transient or incidental; \- it is an integral and essential part of a technological process; \- the sole purpose of that process is to enable lawful consumption of the work or a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary of a lawful use of a work or protected subject-matter; and \- the act has no independent economic significance.

The recital (explanatory notes) to this exemption is this: "The exclusive right of reproduction should be subject to an exception to allow certain acts of temporary reproduction, which are transient or incidental reproductions, forming an integral and essential part of a technological process and carried out for the sole purpose of enabling (...) lawful use of a work or other subject-matter to be made. To the extent that they meet these conditions, this exception should include acts which enable _browsing_ as well as acts of _caching_ to take place, including (...)"

The court in Meltwater says that the copies made by the users (which, it says, are unlicensed and thus infringing copies) are not exempt. Its reasoning hinges mostly on the fourth point. It uses circular logic despite accusing the defence of using the same: "A person making a copy of a webpage on his computer screen will not have a defence under s. 28A CDPA simply because he has been browsing. He must first show that it was lawful for him to have made the copy. The copy is not part of the technological process; it is generated by his own volition. The whole point of the receipt and copying of Meltwater News is to enable the End User to receive and read it. Making the copy is not an essential and integral part of a technological process but the end which the process is designed to achieve. Storage of the copy and the duration of that storage are matters within the End User's control. It begs the question for decision whether making the copy is to enable a lawful use of the work.

This judgement presupposes that a copy is being deliberately made by the user; therefore it 'begs the question' whether the steps leading to that are excepted or not (because this is not lawful consumption). This is of course very flawed: when viewing a .jpg or Meltwater news from a remote server, we are not creating a meaningful copy of it, any more than receiving a broadcast on your TV set. That only happens once you hit Ctrl+S. Because you're just viewing (consuming, not copying) what's placed in plain sight, any RAM/cache/whatnot is in fact incidental to lawful consumption. The court thinks that you cannot consume digital work without meaningfully copying it - because it exists once on the server and they think it can exist simultaneously on many, many different users' terminals. But that is no more 'copying' (in the copyright sense) than happens on TVs in broadcasting (since you ignore all incidental technologically necessary 'copies' that lead up to the display of the work), and is precisely the opposite of what the law (Art 5(1) Ecommerce Directive) says.

They consider Infopaq, but all too superficially. From Infopaq: "23. According to the Højesteret, it is not disputed in this case that consent from the rightholders is not required to engage in press monitoring activity" - <USER2> the websites so they can be read (and summarised by hand, or whatever else you want to do that doesn't store a copy of the words). Infopaq objects to the OCR and printing. I don't know if/why this was not flagged up in Meltwater. Infopaq seems poorly considered in that case.

Absurd: \- If the mere display of a .JPG were a copy, each re-rendering of the page (scrolling, zooming, AJAX refresh, etc) would be a separate potential infringement, wouldn't it? In fact, each refresh (60 times a second) would be creating an infringing copy. \- everyone (even rightsholders) clearly think there is no infringement possible by mere browsing, otherwise if the traffic lights system goes ahead anyone clicking on a redlighted link is immediately an infringer (because they will be making infringing copies of unlicensed content). It would then be absurd for google to even list the site. In fact Google wouldn't even be able to re-spider it from the instant it is redlighted. Infringement detection agents couldn't safely visit it. Nobody could. That is clearly not what the PRS is suggesting with their traffic light scheme, unless I'm vastly mistaken (or that is in fact their cunning plan). \- if the publisher of a work doesn't want her copy of the work to be available to the public, she can simply stop making it available to the public. If nobody has actually made a copy which they can go on using or serving to the public themselves (which I don't deny would be a restricted act), the work stops being available to the public. If I circumvent the way she sets up her property to reflect her wishes, just to be able to cast eyes upon the work, she at the very least has the Computer Misuse Act to remedy the trespass onto her server. She does _not_ require copyright infringement remedies for that. Horses for courses thus combine to ensure total respect for the publisher without necessitating an expansion of copyright law that were it isn't required - viewing files on a server (nor, for reasons stated in my preceding emails, is it welcome there either). \- the picture on floor vs. picture on webpage dichotomy mentioned in my first paragraph: if it's can lawfully be retrieved and displayed (by looking at the picture on the floor, or requesting it, quite legitimately, from a server) then copyright shouldn't apply, but in Meltwater, it applies to the latter.

Any reading of the law that extends the law to where it serves no purpose at all, cannot befit the purpose of the law being read (and it sure ain't necessary in a democratic society, ney'ver). Even if this were not the plain meaning of the law (which I showed above that it is), _if_ for any reason a judge were to seek a purposive reading of the law (I have, for example, heard of Art 8 - right to private and family life - being applied in more surprising ways that protecting your right to browse the web without courts having the ability to find you in breach of the law for every page you visit - Branduse v Romania was about smelly prisons, ffs, not being able to forward your music, or deeplinks and headlines to your daughter - this allows the judge to use the Human Rights Act as authority for a strained, non-obvious interpretation of the law in order to respect european human rights law), I also think it be possible to read the text appropriately.

<comment><USER6> Just to follow up your note on the E-commerce Directive, is that the same point of European law that England accidentally/conveniently forgot to enact in its local interpretation?

I've heard what I suspect is the same issue raised before, in the context of End User Licence Agreements. The question of how EULAs can have any legal standing if you don't buy the software directly from the copyright holder was raised: if a contract necessarily involves consideration in both directions, and you get nothing of value from the copyright holder in return for "agreeing" to their often onerous EULA after you've completed the purchase of your software from a third party, what right do they have to impose any conditions on you at all? The answer being debated was that by merely running the software in the normal manner for which it was purchased, you are inevitably making copies (in RAM etc.) and thus copyright law applies and you require a licence. Ah, but making transient copies in the course of normal use is excluded from copyright by the point of law we're discussing, right? Except that unless something changes since I last read about this, that point of law hasn't actually been legislated in England, and thus this shady argument for EULAs having some sort of legal weight isn't completely DoA.

Apologies for not citing the source of this argument. It was a rather interesting and well written paper, by a law student IIRC, but I regret that I didn't bookmark it at the time and have never been able to find it again since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So you can't find out if you've infringed copyright by making a cached copy (and if your browser is creating a re-usable, loadable at another time, HTML format backup of the page for cache purposes, it is a copy) until after loading the page and reading the copyright notice?

If only there were a way to transmit data ahead of the page body itself to indicate whether you should be permitted to store a cached copy of the page or not...

<comment><USER8> You could use a HTTP header, for example:

        X-Cache-Permission: Allow

<comment><USER9> Or the one provided by the spec:

Cache-Control: no-store

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder whether protocol and technical aspects provide a defense to this. If I request a page from your web site and I get back 200 OK, is that not some kind of permission? If then I receive an instruction to cache the page (or elements thereof), is that not some kind of encouragement to keep a copy? If the page has a permissive robots.txt, or even by choice no robots.txt, does it not indicate that visitors are welcome to come and store the copy for indexing purposes?

<comment><AUTHOR> You would think so, but technical arguments seem to get ignored in these matters. For example, so-called "deep linking". Controlling direct access to Web resources is a solved technical problem, and if someone has a URL that responds to a basic GET then, hey, it must be intended for that; that's how it works. Yet it still ends up as fodder for endless legal manuevers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> More detailed information about the case is here:

<http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2011/890.html>

<comment><USER12> Much more useful.

The key issues upheld are:

(1) The headlines to the various articles reproduced in Meltwater News are capable of being literary works independently of the article to which they relate. (2) The extracts from the articles reproduced in Meltwater News with or without the headline to that article are capable of being a substantial part of the literary work consisting of the article as a whole. (3) Accordingly the copies made by the end-user's computer of (a) Meltwater News (i) on receipt of the email from Meltwater, (ii) opening that email, (iii) accessing the Meltwater website by clicking on the link to the article and (b) of the article itself when (iv) clicking on the link indicated by Meltwater News are and each of them is, prima facie, an infringement of the Publishers' copyright. (4) No such copies are permitted (a) by s.28A CDPA dealing with temporary copies, or (b) as fair dealing within s.30 CDPA, or (c) by the Database Regulations. (5) Accordingly, the end-user requires a licence from NLA or the Publishers, whether or not in the form of the WEUL in order lawfully to receive and use the Meltwater News Service.

Which is not about the user copying but Meltwater's summaries and distribution of them being illegal. Google should note this and immediately stop crawling the internet in the UK as this behaviour is clearly illegal as headlines are creative works.

Stupid...

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Google had numerous discreet licencing agreements with UK copyright trolls in place already

A key difference between Meltwater and Google News is that Meltwater is charging the end user for the excerpts they scraped (I'm not going to contact their account managers to try to understand their pricing structure, but I strongly suspect that it includes a component related to level of usage and or quantity of targeted content served). Meltwater's service is more analogous to Factiva and LexisNexis, whose licencing structure is almost certainly more favourable to the publishers.

It ought to be of some concern to other providers of SaaS feed readers, media analytics and the like though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is how law works in Britain.

Things are done to give the police the tools to fight whatever social ill currently obsesses the political class, however clumsily drawn.

They'll arrest protesters at an event and let them go 48 hours later with no intention of ever charging them. Politicians really want indefinite internment of terrorists. Because they're probably right that nobody will abuse it.

No privacy for drivers.

The age of consent of 16 DOESN'T exist to stop 13/14/15 year olds having sex. It is set at 16 to make (Victorian) child prostitution dead easy to convict. Covertly having sex with any age of teenager who is discreet would be easy. Pimping them would get me in real trouble though.

It is assumed that all these powers will never be abused, because there is so much undetected and unprosecuted crime that the police don't have the time or inclination to abuse them. But they are there when they need them. The British police would never be so ungentlemanly, like those nuclear sub crews who protect their launch enablers with bicycle locks. ([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/UltimateDe...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/UltimateDefenceOfTheRealm)) When you have a social contract, you don't need enforcement, just the enablement of enforcement against badness.

<comment><USER15> > nuclear sub crews who protect their launch enablers with bicycle locks.

I can't see anything about bicycle locks on that website. Do you have another link? (Very interesting, by the way.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would an effective way to forestall this be to set up a website and start suing anyone who visits it from the UK for copyright infringment? I would expect that such lawsuits would be laughed out of court, or strongly ruled in favor of the defendant, especially if you started out by suing fairly powerful or influential people.

(Also, is it legal to read books in the UK? The brain and eyes make a temporary copy of any inputs, and memory could be considered to be a derivative work.)

<comment><USER17> There is already lots of precedent that viewing a web page is making a copy. The law on child pornography is that it's only an offense to produce an image - since it's assumed that the person making the image is the one harming the child and banning reading/viewing something would have freedom of speech implications.

There have been many convictions of people viewing images where the prosecution made the case that the browser had created an image (albeit a copy)

<comment><USER18> > _"The law on child pornography is that it's only an offense to produce an > image"_

In the UK, "simple possession of indecent photographs of children" is a criminal offense [0]. US law is fairly similar [1].

[0] <http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/sexonnet.html#UKlaw> \-- see Criminal Justice Act of 1988 [1] [http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?L...](http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=1476) \-- part (b) of the first cited law

<comment><USER4> But the difference between possession and creation is very large.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surely that would have implications for search engine spiders.

<comment><USER20> It would mean all UK websites would no longer be indexed. Great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

<comment><USER21> Ya know... maybe that's the way to resolve this. Google should simply "drop" all their .uk data. The _immense_ public outrage should get something done pretty quickly.

<comment><USER7> Honestly I think the only way to deal with the BS that we're being handed at the moment is complete and total compliance. Turn off browser caching for uk websites, deindex all uk sites from search engines, and drop Set-Cookie headers for everyone in Europe. One hour of the internet like that and everyone will realise how stupid these laws they're bringing in are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there a more neutral source for information on the impact of this? Intuitively I'm thinking that the precedent set is more complex than is made out here.

<comment><USER23> They give an OutLaw link in the article, they're pretty highly regarded but I've not checked the background to verify that their article is independent of the OP's link or the companies involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I seriously think that most of the copyright folks dont get what is information law and policy. Especially, in Europe. People still think "bits" as "atoms". I guess it will take at least a decade to bring significant change in the way they think as old guard will be leaving the post.

</comment><comment><USER25> Nothing that outlaws so many people is ever actively dealt with, the whole world learnt that lesson from the Prohibition of the 20s.</comment>


Map Guru (Google Maps Based Game) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jharohit/map-guru

<comment><AUTHOR> drawback: fair bit of static maps are coming up as oceans/seas - will be fixing that</comment>


Mono's Git Migration - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Jul-20-1.html <comment><USER2> GitHub's really nice about hosting your stuff for free if you're an open source project. I run two mirrors there with their permission: <http://github.com/openstreetmap> & <http://github.com/mediawiki>

Both are over the space limit for free accounts.

</comment><comment><USER3> link to Mono's organization page on GH: <http://github.com/mono>

</comment><comment><USER4> Where was it hosted before?

<comment><AUTHOR> Self-hosted SVN</comment></comment>


Progress – A Tool to Monitor Progress for Commands in Linux (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.tecmint.com/progress-monitor-check-progress-of-linux-commands/ <comment><USER2> I know what I am about to say is an absolutely ugly hack, but...

If you cannot install non-standard software (example: customer owner, company operated RHEL boxes) you can get an idea of the current progress of cp/tar and similar programs by inspecting file-descriptor files in /proc.

Assuming that you have a process (like cp) with pid 1234, then in /proc/1234/fd you will find files with a number (corresponding to the file descriptor number in the context of the process) that are either symbolic links to the actual file or to socket connection (or other data structures). Let's assume that source file has fd 3 (you get this information via ls -l /proc/1234/fd )

Then, after you can cat /proc/1234/fdinfo/3 and look at the pos value: that's the position of the cursor in the file.

It's ugly and unpractical, but it should work on every Linux systems featuring basic tools.

<comment> progress-code

      #!/bin/sh

      for pid in $@; do
      	cd /proc/"$pid"/fd || continue

      	for fd in *; do
      		file=$(readlink "$fd");
      		if [ ! -z "$file" ]; then
      			size=$( (du -b "$file" 2>/dev/null || echo 0) | awk '{print $1}')
      			if [ "$size" = "0" ]; then
      				continue
      			fi

      			pos=$(< ../fdinfo/"$fd" grep -F 'pos:' | grep -oP '\d+')

      			percent=$(echo "100*${pos}/${size}" | bc -l | xargs printf "%2.2f")
      			echo "${file}: ${percent}% (${pos}/${size})"
      		fi
      	done
      done

<comment><USER3> I ended up writing very similar code to do the same thing: [https://gist.github.com/jhlb/83999422a8d7e8a6e28e](https://gist.github.com/jhlb/83999422a8d7e8a6e28e)

EDIT: as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the pv program has a way to watch a PID as well that makes this program unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On macOS you can monitor the progress of many commands with Ctrl-T. With cp for example:

        $ cp Test Test2
        ^T
        load: 3.42  cmd: cp 86526 running 0.01u 4.36s
        Test -> Test2   6%

<comment><USER5> Yes, but Ctrl T goes back to at least TOPS-20

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Usually I have used pv.

[https://linux.die.net/man/1/pv](https://linux.die.net/man/1/pv)

cp

        pv source > target

tar

        tar czf images.tar.gz image1 image2 image3 | pv > target

gzip

        pv source | gzip > target.gz
        # or
        gzip < source | pv | target.gz

<comment><USER7> you can give it a pid too

               -d PID[:FD], --watchfd PID[:FD]
                  Instead of transferring data, watch file descriptor FD  of  process  PID,
                  and  show  its progress.  The pv process will exit when FD either changes
                  to a different file, changes read/write mode, or is  closed;  other  data
                  transfer  modifiers  -  and  remote  control  - may not be used with this
                  option.

                  If only a PID is specified, then that process will be  watched,  and  all
                  regular  files  and  block devices it opens will be shown with a progress
                  bar.  The pv process will exit when process PID exits.

<comment><USER8> Cool! I love pv and it's one of my favourite utilities but I never knew about this option. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is my super-simple progress indicator, called dots. I wrote it at least 12 years ago when I was on a slow terminal and wanted to know unpacking a tarball was still progressing (the verbose output would have taken too much bandwidth!). Now I copy it onto every new system I use.

It prints one period (.) for every 1000 lines of text piped into it. It just shows that there is still activity, not progress, but often this is enough.

A typical usage is:

      tar xvfz some_huge_tarball.tar.gz | dots

It defaults to one dot per 1000 lines, but the first argument can be a number to specify another interval.

      #!/usr/bin/perl

      $| = 1;
      $i = 0;

      if ($#ARGV < 0) {
        $number = 1000;
      } else {
        $number = shift(@ARGV);
      }

      while (<STDIN>) {
        print '.' unless ($i % $number);
        $i++;
      }

      print "\n";

<comment><USER10> "pv" is a favourite of mine for single command progress indicators

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I didn't know that existed! I might have to cut a corner off my Unix guru card :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> With respect to cp and mv, I've found that rsync is often a good alternative for anything more than trivial moves and copies.

<comment><USER12> rsync's ability to resume is especially handy.

<comment><USER13> It can also avoid IO using hashed blocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had recently written a Python program (called watch.py) somewhat like the GNU watch [1] command (which user kjeetgill mentioned in another comment here).

[1] [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man1/watch.1.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/watch.1.html)

A Python version of the Linux watch command:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.in/2018/05/a-python-version-of- linux...](https://jugad2.blogspot.in/2018/05/a-python-version-of-linux-watch- command.html)

</comment><comment> awinter-py zooming out, progress in the cloud is something that should be easier

plenty of our headless jobs know exactly where they are and how big the job is. There should be a standard dash for getting this.

even things like hadoop & luigi that have dashboards built in aren't great at progress & ETA

we should surface & store stats from any long-running loop. Further benefit that you can use prev runtime to properly schedule the next run (or run more sophisticated feedback & alerting).

</comment><comment><USER14> Peter Krumins has a post about pv (Pipe Viewer, which others here have mentioned) on his blog:

A Unix Utility You Should Know About: Pipe Viewer:

[http://www.catonmat.net/blog/unix-utilities-pipe- viewer/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/unix-utilities-pipe-viewer/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Needs gcc-4.9 to build, which has been deprecated in Ubuntu repositories.

<comment><USER16> Ubuntu itself packages the tool as the `progress` package. Try an `apt install progress`.</comment></comment>


Google to point extremist searches towards anti-radicalisation websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/02/google-pilot-extremist-anti-radicalisation-information <comment><AUTHOR> This is a little bit of a worrying precedent. It essentially makes the search engine into a propaganda (or counter propaganda) arm of the governments it operates in. This year it's anti jihadi messages...next year it's searches about the great firewall of china, the following it's anti corporates.

The quote sheds more light on it

"The other one is to make sure when people put potentially damaging search terms into our search engine.. they also find this counter narrative."

So it's down to potentially damaging. What if it's commercially damaging?

<comment><USER2> I agree. Of course using terrorism as the reason so censor search results is easier to swallow for the average person. I mean who wouldn't agree with that right. If you disagree you must be a terrorist.

But that is how they get people to accept it. Then google or whoever will slightly twist the results in such a way that will benefit either themselves or someone else.

If you agree with that then you should have no problem with someone searching for adoption agencies and being directed to abortion clinics. Not to mention being given news articles that support either opinion. This would work the other way also.

I don't know. It sounds evil to me.</comment></comment>


Who puked in my browser? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.prizzm.com/who-puked-in-my-browser

<comment><USER2> Almost makes you wonder why we still use text-based languages for content, formatting, and scripting. What's wrong with transmitting compiled documents, stylesheets, and scripts? It would make transmission faster, eliminate a lot of parsing difficulties, and get rid of the hilarious idiocy of "minification".</comment>


Americans are getting more nervous about what they say in public - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/28/americans-are-getting-more-nervous-about-what-they-say-in-public <comment><USER2> This is even more annoying if you're a person of color. Mostly because a lot of the "PC Culture" zealots are middle class white people who are virtue signaling and using these far left ideologies to gain social acceptance - They're literally shooting fish in a barrel when they decide what to say vs. what they can say AND get 'credit' for.

Speaking your opinion and being called a racist on Twitter by white people is beyond infuriating when you're a black man who has actually experienced it. Twitter is a cancer to society, and I really hope this "cancel culture" dies out soon.

Most times when things like this happen, someone could have easily sent the person in question a DM, explained why they thought the tweet might have been badly timed, and that would have been all - No scandal.

But you don't get "credit" for that. You have to pretend to be angry, make a tweet with some ALL CAPS thrown in, and get someone fired. I hope people find another way to feel good about themselves soon, because throwing people under the bus is destroying any hope of free speech in the near future. Sorry about the long rant.

Hopefully I don't catch any heat for this on HN _shrug_

</comment><comment><USER3> I absolutely do not publicly state my beliefs, or even state them in writing anywhere that could conceivably be accessed publicly.

This is for two reasons: one, I doubt anyone cares to hear yet another voice in the cacophony; and two, there is plenty of prior precedent for someone saying something online and a digital mob descending on them and making their lives hell. That doesn't even consider government surveillance, which adds a whole 'nother angle.

So, there's no incentive for me to share, and a strong disincentive.

<comment><USER4> The incentive for you to share your beliefs is that if you will not lead, someone else, invariably less discerning, less principled, and less honest will. This used to be considered a fundamental precept of Western civilization and its legislators, popularly stated as "[t]hose who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who aren't."

The historiography of this period, if humans remain extant, will discover the causal link between the rise of New Atheism and the rise of intellectual cowardice that by necessity emerged shortly after the implicit social norms of Christianity were intentionally jettisoned.

Being willing to sacrifice, not to inflict violence but to actively _suffer_ , for the truth that one witnesses is a fundamental predicate of Western civilization. Even the Christian heretics of the middle ages, willfully executed for their idiosyncratic beliefs, viewed this as a sacrosanct duty as a human being.

If a polity actively consents to the silencing of the individual's ability to testify to their truth for the sake of Mammon, state persecution, the possibility of being stoned by a crowd of True Believers, or any other exercise of temporal power, civilization, that is the ability of a group of diverse individuals to exist for a future commonweal, is impossible to maintain.

The honest and earnest among this and past generations have voluntarily silenced and removed themselves from the possibility of being spiritual and intellectual leaders. The only result that can come of this abdication of responsibility is not their own safety but the endangerment of _everyone_ within that society.

If you will not lead, you _will_ be led by those that aren't so fearful, so future-minded, or scrupulous. If you would pretend to be blind, you _will_ be led by the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

<comment><USER5> This seems like a conflation of Enlightenment values and fundamental humanistic values with Christian values, even if they may overlap in some cases; they may be mutually exclusive in other cases, depending on the sect. I see no throughline between the growth of any kind of atheism and intellectual cowardice, apathy, or rejection of relevant social norms. The rise of atheism, if anything, required considerable moral fortitude and conviction in the face of ostracization and worse, and this is still the case for many in America, even if attitudes are shifting.

The cause is the same force that drove McCarthyism and other forms of tribalistic insanity. Blame humans, not individual human groups or ideologies. I have no problem with religion, but I strongly disagree with the notion that society is, as you suggest, necessarily held together by the social norms of a particular instantiation of organized religion. It's perpetration of the same ostensibly righteous style of judgment that this article seeks to criticize.

<comment><USER4> Your post is, in all effects, a recapitulation of the precise juncture and jettison of which I was speaking. That you strongly disagree with my post, all I can say in response is _e pur si muove_.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your post; just not the theistic spin on it. I think you got the symptoms right but the cause wrong. Not because I'm anti-theistic, but because I just don't think it's the binding fabric holding society together and which society becomes lost without, even if it may have cynically and pragmatically served such a purpose in more chaotic times of the past.

I believe in social norms for the inherent sake of the norms, rather than due to doctrine. I jettison no norms - only doctrine. Philosophical systems are orthogonal to theological ones. If there exist implicit beneficial norms associated with Christianity, as you say, then I posit their implicitness implies they can be disentangled from theistic ideology and the case can (and perhaps should) be made for them outside of such systems.

<comment><USER4> The overwhelming majority of the population is not grey tribe. Yes, abstracting fundamental social functions onto universal, non-ideological bases is a Good Idea in theory, but the reality is the majority of people don't learn Esperanto or participate in the Cult of the Supreme Being. There are very real switching costs that often exceed the supposed advantages sought out and the end result often pales in comparison to the original, both in substance and meaning, and fails accordingly.

If you think another attempt would be successful, that you, or another cadre of well-intentioned reformers, can successfully inoculate a society with an abstracted ethical code that mandates returning evil with good, embracing the martyring of oneself for truth, total pacifism, etc. on a purely logical basis, by all means go ahead and give it your best shot. Until then, I'm going to loudly proclaim that Chesterton's fence should be returned to its field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see if this was done before or after the pandemic lockdowns started. I've got a hypothesis that the Twitter (etc.) mobs are getting worse precisely because of the lockdowns.

Locked down, with very little to do, people are desperate to feel like they're doing something useful. Joining in an online mob feels useful. It makes a person feel like they're doing good in the world. It gives them the rush of accomplishing something. It's an illusion, but there's a lot of feedback (upvotes, faves, retweets, etc.) that makes it feel real to people.

I don't have any great ideas for how to improve it. I've been asking myself "will this actually do any material good?" before engaging, and I significantly cut back on social media. But good luck convincing everyone else to do that, too.

<comment><USER7> > I've got a hypothesis that the Twitter (etc.) mobs are getting worse > precisely because of the lockdowns.

Any of the nonsense going on lately is pretty much a consequence of the lockdowns.

People without jobs and tons of time on their hands, and social networks that amplify _anything_ that crosses the minds of people confined to their house.

It's a recipe for disaster.

And precisely a reason you wouldn't want to embark on a lockdown strategy, ignoring the questionable efficacy.

<comment><USER8> That's absolutely not true, lockdowns have been proven to help protect people and reduce the spread of the virus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think people are finally starting to understand that public speech in the 21st century and public speech in the 20th century are not the same thing at all.

Tweeting your opinion in 2020 is analogous to going on national television and airing your opinion in 1990.

Would you feel comfortable airing a controversial opinion on national television? Would you feel comfortable that you still have your job and your reputation after going in front of the nation and saying "I think interracial marriages should be illegal"? No? Then don't tweet it because that's basically the same thing.

<comment><USER10> Yes, that's what people would like others to believe. As long as you don't tweet obviously racist things, you'll be fine.

Unfortunately the mob is much more capricious. Read the article for an example.

<comment><USER9> You're trying to examine the morality of the mob. Obviously the mob doesn't have a consistent and justifiable moral stance; it's a mob.

My point is that when you post online, you're not publically speaking to your neighbors from the sidewalk. You're broadcasting nationally. Including to an angry mob.

So no, I wouldn't agree with "As long as you don't tweet obviously racist things, you'll be fine."

I would rather say, if you don't post online, don't have any recordings of yourself posted online, and otherwise manage to prevent yourself from having any significant online presence, you'll be fine.

<comment><USER11> You're backpedaling. Now you're acting as if you were giving self-preservation advice in the face of a mob, whereas in your original comment you were supporting said mob. What _is_ your stance?

<comment><USER9> > in your original comment you were supporting said mob

I did no such thing, please re-read my original post

<comment><USER11> I see, I misunderstood what you meant by "Would you feel comfortable that you still have your job". I now see that you probably meant it as "Would you feel _confident_ that you still have your job". I originally thought you meant "Would you feel comfortable with a world in which people would still have their job if ...". My apologies.

<comment><USER9> > you probably meant it as "Would you feel confident

Ah yeah that's exactly right. My bad on the wording

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Politics are heading in dangerous direction.

I take hydroxychloroquine to keep my autoimmune disease under control.

It's not a perfect drug, but it works great.

It's insane watching people being attacked over a 65 year old drug.

There is the doctor video going around talking it, and people are being banned or given warnings for sharing it.

Science is being tossed out the window in favor of hysteria. This is something that is cheap and could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

But because of hatred towards an early supporter, we can't even have a discussion on its effectiveness anymore.

Related survey on people afraid to speak. [https://www.cato.org/publications/survey- reports/poll-62-ame...](https://www.cato.org/publications/survey- reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share)

<comment> 52-6F-62 As far as I understood, the distaste for the support of the drug in the context of Covid-19 was that it hasn't been proven to be the "miracle cure" some people have touted it to be.

Said touting was causing shortages at pharmacies where people like you who require the drug were not able to get access to it suddenly because of hordes of "supporters" buying up entire stocks.

Not because of who pushes it. It's the consequences of uninformed broadcasting like calling it a final cure that have people shook.

<comment><USER12> That's not what is going on. News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous, and we can't talk about it. Social media is banning videos by actual doctors.

A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives.

This drug already saves millions of lives. My life is much better on it then before. It's already reached miracle cure status. Question is, will it do it again.

        Cases and deaths averted. It is estimated that a cumulative 1.2 billion fewer malaria cases and 6.2 million fewer malaria deaths occurred globally between 2001 and 2015

[https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789...](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200018/9789241565158_eng.pdf?sequence=1)

<comment><USER13> > News broadcasters are denouncing it as dangerous

It _is_ dangerous. Proper dosage and monitoring are necessary to guard against risk of QT prolongation and retinopathy. It's possible for it to be true both that it saves millions of lives and that it's dangerous to take unsupervised.

> A drug with a 10-50% success rate will still save a lot of lives.

There is zero evidence that it has anywhere near that level of effectiveness, even when combined with zinc and azithromycin for the most favorable population and conditions. It might have _some_ effect, but touting it as a miracle cure when other treatments are already known with greater effect and lower risk is irresponsible.

<comment><USER14> > dangerous to take unsupervised

That's not what anyone is suggesting, and it seems disingenuous for you to suggest that it is. The drug is well-known, and it's reasonable to attempt its use when there's the potential for a large success rate. The people "hoarding" it are doctors who can get prescriptions for it - and who I imagine know more about the drug than you or I do.

Based on the Ford study [1], the 10-50% success rate might be a confusion with the hazard ratio reduction, which was 66%. The actual in-hospital mortality rates in that study were 20% with hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin vs. 26% with neither. I'd say a 6 percentage point difference in lives saved is enough to warrant further investigation.

[1] [https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/ful...](https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712\(20\)30534-8/fulltext)

<comment><USER13> > That's not what anyone is suggesting

...and yet that's what people are _doing_.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/07/teen-w...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/07/teen- who-died-covid-19-got-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-home/5389870002/)

> The drug is well-known

So are its risks.

> there's the potential for a large success rate

Every treatment has _some_ potential. Funny how there's been a chorus of "eVerY drUg hAS rIsks" to make HCQ seem unexceptional in that regard (even though most drugs don't carry disk of _heart problems and blindness_ ) while clinging to the idea that its potential _is_ exceptional. In the case of HCQ for COVID-19 we don't need to guess about potential, because there have been many studies by now and we have empirical evidence of weak effect. It shouldn't be ignored, but it should be _far_ from the top of anyone's list either. It's only getting attention at all because of who keeps touting it.

You talk about being disingenuous, but I think the disingenuous behavior in this thread is the _extreme_ cherry-picking of favorable results while ignoring less favorable results and risks.

<comment><USER14> > > That's not what anyone is suggesting

> ...and yet that's what people are doing.

> Her mother, a nurse, and a man identified in the report as her father, a > physician assistant, gave the girl azithromycin...The report does not state > if the girl had a prescription for either drug.

You need a better source. There was supervision in that case. Sadly, the girl was apparently part of the ~75-80% that don't survive COVID-19, even with azithromycin & hydroxychloroquine.

> So are its risks.

And that means its risks can be addressed and quantified.

> extreme cherry-picking

Two points. 1. A great example of cherry picking is the single instance of mortality associated with using azithromycin that you gave in your source. 2. The issue of degree of efficacy is secondary to the fact that it's potential for efficacy is being hidden and labeled disinformation, when the drug should be investigated for its potential to save lives.

<comment><USER13> > You need a better source. There was supervision in that case

You're being disingenuous _again_. Read the article. She was given the drugs by her parents, who were not authorized to prescribe them or supervise their use on their own. The outcome is not the point. The point is the _lack of proper supervision_. The outcome could have been different, and it would _still be wrong_ for people to be using HCQ other than in a controlled trial ... but that's exactly what hype like yours leads to.

<comment><USER14> You're deriving way too much from an uninformative article. "Given the drugs by her parents" doesn't mean they were prescribed by her parents. Did the article say whether there was no doctor involved?

Also. The girl had an autoimmune disorder, for which the same drugs are commonly used. Did the article happen to say whether or not she was already on the drugs?

The article also says _nothing_ about whether the drugs had anything to do with her demise. It sure does imply that, though.

This is a cherry picked article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've often wondered about the 'herd immunity' that forms as a result of widespread cancel culture.

Initially I assumed that prolific canceling would lead to a general societal understanding of the unsustainability of the cultural. The idea that in Presidential elections in 2059, every candidate would have so much 'dirt' against them that it might level the field a bit.

But as this article suggests, another alternative might just be a deadly-to- democracy silence.

<comment><USER16> All experiments with ideologically driven cancel-culture we've had in the time since WW2 point to silence being the answer. You might be able to open up in a very private setting, but East Germany showed enough evidence that there will be spies even in your closest circle who will report on you.

If you need to tell somebody how you really feel, write a letter to yourself and then burn it. Otherwise, just smile, repeat the party line, and carry on.

<comment><USER17> Are you actually comparing "cancel culture" to being imprisoned by the Stasi? The most powerful person in the country regularly tweets opinions that cancel culture supposedly makes impossible to say.

There are those who make cancel culture out to be an all-powerful entity. But the evidence suggests it's just a right wing boogie man in all but the most extreme cases. And sometimes not even then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What many are missing is our ability to have a voice has also grown tremendously over the years with social media. Just over a decade ago far fewer people could get to a point where their speech could be censored/sanctioned.

It's not necessarily that you could say more back in the day, but the fact that fewer people would hear it.

</comment><comment><USER19> David Shor probably got fired because they did not have a disclaimer on their account expressing these are just their opinions.

I once had an employer come after me when I posted a Medium article because of this. Medium appends your bio at the bottom which said, "Working at X, top 25 largest bandwidth consumer."

Employer argued that I was representing the company's opinion and had breached a clause in my employer contract.

<comment><USER20> He does have the disclaimer

<comment><USER19> Did he have that disclaimer before and did he have the disclaimer on all places he might have posted or shared the link from?

Easy example would have been Linkedin if it was shared there, his title probably would have said he worked there but not had a disclaimer description on his Linkedin profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The partisan split here is fascinating. This implies that a possible situation we are in is that _most_ Democrats aren't saying what they think.

That bodes badly for them long-term. Speaking practically, that seems like a nasty defect in their ability to communicate an honest vision.

Hopefully the things they can't saying are only on unimportant issues. I suspect that is not the case though.

<comment><USER22> 46% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans said they can't say what they think.

<comment><USER23> That was in 2017. The 2020 numbers are 52% and 77% respectively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm not nervous. I'm saddened by the lack of courage, lack of independent thought and this common belief that it is healthy and worthwhile to try and control how other people perceive you.

<comment><USER25> There's a perceptible slide towards culture telling people they need to worry more and more about extrinsic measures of value (e.g. what others think) in lieu of teaching them how to assess things for their intrinsic values, and weigh those along with external perceptions. It's no wonder we can feel like we have little agency at times: we've used outside sources for validation instead of building resilience.

I used to be big into IRC, or in smaller channels. Eventually I noticed a certain persona was overrepresented on IRC: a sort of cynical, sarcastic type that could probably use a bit less time on IRC, but couldn't muster up the will to change.

I see the same thing with social media, and, worse, we've normalized the addictive behavior, and made it easier to stay connected away from computers.

I don't want to be that person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The US news media (left, right and upside down) is sensationalized trash. Fueling hate (stereotypes), outrage and inducing fear..all for profit!

I've tuned it all out minus some pertinent local news.

</comment><comment><USER27> I just express my option with a few people that I know will criticize me, but at the same time wont attack me.

</comment><comment><USER28> My village's Facebook page offers a counter-example to this article. When it comes to wearing masks or virtual/in-person school, there's no amount of vitriol the most vocal won't say.

</comment><comment><USER29> Principles, such as "free market" and "free speech" in strictest forms, are immaterial below a certain economic threshold. Survival itself, or relief from the drudgery of survival becomes paramount.

A homeless person living on the street already has just about the freest speech you could want in the freest market for ideas possible--his economic situation can't really be altered further by anything he says politically. Does anyone want to live like that?

Principles are going to take a back seat while housing costs and a bunch of other things are the way they are.

<comment><USER30> A homeless person on the street gets the best value for his/her minimal dollars when buying goods produced by a free market.

A homeless person living on the street can rant about whatever government conspiracy he/she chooses without being imprisoned because of free speech.

These rights do matter, even to those with practically nothing.

<comment><USER29> Let's say the homeless person was presented with this deal:

"You can have free housing, but you can't rant about government conspiracies. If you do, you get imprisoned."

I'd say most homeless people would take the deal. It would be interesting to actually conduct a study and find this out, though.

<comment><USER30> Anytime the government wants to void the deal all they have to do is to accuse the person of ranting. It is an ephemeral offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> do the comments on these posts every go anywhere? I might be wrong, but it seems like folks just start from zero every time.

I have my own views on the subject, but am willing to change my mind. The arguments however don't seem to be compelling. It'd be nice if we could stop starting from scratch as if this was the first time the subject was discussed.

<comment><USER32> No. Most of these threads wind up being so similar you could write a bot to fill them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> [https://archive.is/jm0qr](https://archive.is/jm0qr)

</comment><comment><USER34> So there are no barriers to free speech, no laws to be enforced against people saying pretty much anything, but polling indicates people "feel" they "cannot" express their true beliefs.

I'm pretty sure the first amendment has nothing to say about feelings.

<comment><USER35> The issue seems more complicated than just the first amendment, which only proscribes the restrictions of your free speech. In general I think the underlying dynamic is that culture itself has become a hostile battleground and expressing an opinion is likely to get people riled up and breathing down your neck. In short, people are flat-out shitty to each other these days. It sucks. No one wants to speak up in that environment.

But even then I'd challenge your first couple of statements. There are whole lot of consequences for defying the political leadership these days, especially when you bring evidence that they might have committed crimes. It's a nightmare right now.

<comment><USER34> For far too many, people have been "flat out shitty" to them for literally hundreds of years, with treatment vastly worse than losing your Twitter followers. Enslavement, lynchings, enforced segregation, decades of murder at the hands of unaccountable law enforcement, a multi billion dollar industry designed to industrialize their incarceration to the highest level in the world...and as parts of society begin to really try to voice this problem more substantially than ever before, other people who have implicitly benefitted from their system "feel" a little bit awkward that this is all very bewildering to them, and that they in fact are being called out for ignoring a vast system of human rights abuses that's been taking place right under their noses. How on earth can this situation be improved _without_ these people "feeling" a little bit uncomfortable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The most important thing to take away from this is that It's likely all political polls are complete garbage due to this.

</comment><comment> c7________- If you express conservative viewpoints then people will physically assault you. Andy Ngo has been physically assaulted multiple times and recently was brazenly lased in the eyes. Liberal activists have taken to lasing the eyes of their political opponents as well as federal officers standing in front of a federal courthouse. These lasers will cause eye damage simply by looking at their spot on a wall. The fact that people in general are not upset by this baffles me.

Personally, after the lasing started, I totally lost any desire to publicly convey any kind of even positive sentiment for conservative or even moderate ideas. That's how toxic it has become: moderates are now villainized by at least a large chunk of the left.

<comment><USER37> Good! Andy Ngo is human scum; so are the agents in Portland and so are all conservatives in the broadest sense. I'm excited by where this is going.

<comment> c7________- What did he do? Oh and congratulations, you won. You literally terrorized people into silence.

<comment><USER38> His whole shtick is to drum up violence against people on the left. Turnabout is fair play. And thank you, it is unironically really satisfying.

<comment> c7________- I'm not going to rebut. But my point could not have been proven any more thoroughly... I even wonder if you are a conservative pretending to be a liberal just to try and help my comment...

<comment><USER39> No, and I'm not a liberal either. I'm more anti-conservative than anything else. Violence is all they understand, so let them have it. More broadly I can see that the divide in this country won't be healed by anything but violence. It's not at all clear who wins, but what is clear is we cannot come together until we get this out of our system.

Your point was some set of facts. My rebuttal is: so what?

<comment><USER40> We've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to do ideological flamewar on HN. It's against the site rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> And it's a damn shame. Dangerous as well.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's almost as if Americans have realized that speech, like all other actions, has consequences.

<comment><USER43> I'm not sure what side you're on, but the US wouldn't be what it is but for founders who manipulated public opinion by publishing under a pseudonym about their vision of an ideal government. While owning slaves.

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

<comment><USER42> I'm an arsonist, not a partisan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's pretty obvious America is heading towards some sort of filthy low level civil war like 1973-1976 in Argentina[0]. For those of you unfamiliar with this period of time: this was the three years preceding Operation Condor and the Junta throwing people out of helicopters. A shitty period of chaos where opposing political groupings kidnapped, assassinated and otherwise destroyed each other in the streets.

Cancel culture is just one aspect of it. Riots, mass shootings (hey, anyone remember Stephen Paddock shooting 500 people in Vegas? kinda reminds me of the mass murder[1] of the Montoneros at the Peron rally[2] except worse, and with a media blackout), tent cities, complete distrust of the mass media, political polarization over .... covid treatment and mitigation, clownish conspiracy theories touted on the mass media, actual conspiracies (dude totally didn't kill himself) in plain sight, people baying for blood on social media, and threatening to murder their political enemies. The classical liberal ideal of a marketplace of ideas and of coexistance with political rivals is dead and gone, and the virtues needed to sustain it basically don't exist in the population under the age of 40; aka the people who fight in violent civil wars.

At some point, someone's going to go apeshit and go after the leader of the mob that canceled him. I'd say the main thing preventing it now is companies actually pay out decent settlements for firing people for political statements -leftovers from when labor unions had juice; remember labor protections, alleged lefties?

The whole thing is idiotic and sad, and America will end up the totalitarian shit hole it seems to want to be. Junta Argentina without the nice climate and good looking people.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Per%C3%B3n#Third_term_(19...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Per%C3%B3n#Third_term_\(1973%E2%80%931974\))

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

[2][https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montonero](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Montonero)

<comment><USER16> > At some point, someone's going to go apeshit and go after the leader of the > mob that canceled him.

I believe it's a testament for how anti-violence everyone in our societies are. People being publicly hunted down in witch trials rather kill themselves than turn on those who seek to destroy them.

I'm similarly surprised that all those pyramid scheme people live peacefully after their schemes blow up and thousands or millions are left holding the bag, while they made off with millions and might possibly face a year or three in a luxurious prison.

When you consider how many people wish them death online and nothing happens, death threats to random Twitter users can probably be ignored in general: if people aren't going after those that defrauded them and took their life savings, they're not going to come after you because you disagree on politics.</comment></comment>


Wi-Fi Direct Products Connect Without A Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/infrastructure/remote_access/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227900741&subSection=News <comment><USER2> Ars Technica story on the same topic: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/10/no-base- station-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/10/no-base-station- required-peer-to-peer-wifi-direct-is-go.ars)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of adhoc wifi gaming with Nintendo DS Lites in 2005.</comment>


A Guide to Porting C/C++ to Rust - <AUTHOR> https://locka99.gitbooks.io/a-guide-to-porting-c-to-rust/content/ <comment><USER2> I just started porting an application using corrode on a C library at work. This was more of a POC, to show the team. Based on that, I think this book is missing a section on incremental conversion.

You don't want to convert entire applications at once, you want to do it a source file or module at a time. This means incorporating the Rust toolchain into the build of the C/C++ project Makefile, or etc., system.

It is not difficult, and will increase confidence in the final product. This can even be used to test incremental conversions in production, rather than having any doubt about the entire conversion.

This is an awesome start for a great manual on the area. I'm very inspired by the experience I had in doing this, and hope that we do more.

<comment><USER3> > I just started porting an application using corrode on a C library at work.

Can you tell us a bit about your experience with Corrode? The Readme itself states that it's not expected to work on "real" code, and there are open issues like this: [https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/issues/52](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/issues/52) titled "Arrays are broken!" in which Corrode's developer wrote half a year ago: "The current hack gets arrays translated correctly in function arguments, but gets them wrong everywhere else."

In your experience, does it work better than this makes it seem?

(To be somewhat fair, the issue does have detailed discussion, and partial fixes seem to have been merged, but it's still open.)

<comment><USER2> I didn't run into the Arrays issue. This issue I filed, has a list of all the things I hit:

[https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/issues/109](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode/issues/109)

Most of the issues I ran into were not exactly with the corrode tool, but with compiler options, i.e. passing the DARWIN_C_LEVEL flag for macOS (my main dev machine). Actually, the library I hacked on was only built for Linux, I spent a lot of my time converting the C to multi-platform, not because it was necessary, but because I didn't feel like running a VM.

What I found is that corrode produces _mostly_ compilable code. I had played around a bit with FFI from C to Rust before, so the task of integrating a Rust library into a C codebase was already familiar to me. I would love to see a guide for doing that in corrode though, like an example project, for others. If I have time I might do that. One really cool thing, is that the Rust compiler detected some undefined behavior in our C code, which I filed a bug for to our team (it was an uninitialized stack variable, passed as a pointer to a function; in practice it would never actually rely on the undefined behavior since all the fields of the struct were set in that function, but it's still poor form).

There are some things which you will need to massage, but I found in general that it wasn't much. I had a problem with null function pointer creation that I need to go back and look at.

I think my biggest issue, is that every conversion produces _unsafe_ code in Rust. It's left up to the developer to figure out how to convert it to safe code. I think this is ok, but _unsafe_ is still dark arts for me in Rust (meaning that I don't completely grok the best practices right now). I need to go back and reread the Rustonomicon: [https://doc.rust- lang.org/nightly/nomicon/](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nomicon/) , as there may be more details there than the last time I checked it out. I would love it if corrode could try and produce more safe blocks of code, but I also understand why it's this way.

Anyway, I think it's an awesome tool, works 95% of the time, and you can probably easily come up with some standard techniques for going back to fix up the commonly incorrect cases.

I'll reiterate this: integrate the Rust code into your C build right at the beginning (I used Cargo + staticlib), I even made this optional in my setup, so that you can flip between the two implementations easily for testing. I set up a make recipe which converts the C src to Rust with corrode (to capture all the CFLAGS needed), and that will only run as long as the .rs file doesn't exist. I found this to be very powerful for verification. I'd highly recommend corrode at this point, but don't be misled to believe that you won't need to make changes to the produced code.

Edit: I should mention that to get all this setup, with all the C library fixes in macOS included and the Makefile integration, it took me 6 hours to get setup, with about 10-15 minutes spent actually making the produced .rs file compile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The guide really isn't written yet. After the introductory material, it's mostly a list of 'todo' items. [1]

The "corrode" translator apparently just compiles C to unmaintainable, unsafe Rust. Raw pointers in C become unsafe raw pointers in Rust. That's probably not too useful. See [2]. Now you have heavy technical debt. Also, losing all the comments during translation is cruel to later maintenance programmers.

Good inter-language translation for programming languages is very hard. Usually, you lose the idioms of both the source language and the target language. There are few, if any, good systems for this.

To do this well, you need verification-like analysis of the source program. You need to know if a pointer can ever be null. You need to know how big a passed array is. You need to know if something has single ownership. If an analyzer could look at a C program and answer "yes", "no", or "don't know" to those questions, with a reasonably low percentage of "don't knows", then you could do a translation to proper Rust.

You could brute-force some of this by running the Rust compiler from the translator. Start out with everything being a single-owner reference, and compile. Anything that generates a borrow checker error gets turned into a reference counted item on the next try.

[1] [https://locka99.gitbooks.io/a-guide-to-porting-c-to- rust/con...](https://locka99.gitbooks.io/a-guide-to-porting-c-to- rust/content/porting-code.html)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12056230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12056230)

<comment><USER5> > The "corrode" translator apparently just compiles C to unmaintainable, > unsafe Rust.

The point is for it to be a first step in conversion, with large swathes of code being easy to make safe.

The issue with idioms is a real one.

But still, it gives you a good path for incremental conversion which IMO is pretty valuable.

<comment><USER4> It's too bad there aren't more Corrode examples on line. But from what's available, it just passes C raw pointers through function calls as unsafe Rust raw pointers. The interfaces generated are no better than they were in C. You can't rewrite one side or the other and get safety, because the interface itself is unsafe. That's no good.

This isn't a syntax problem. It's a semantic problem.

<comment><USER2> The interface is FFI, it has to be unsafe, because you can't guarantee anything about the C code.

The rust code though, can be converted to pure Rust. A strategy I use and most other FFI code I've seen, is to have a shim layer, which is unsafe, that calls through to safe code. And vise versa for calling out to C. The function definitions don't need to be unsafe, just the direct calls to C and conversions to C types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find that most of the arguments given against C++ (such as memory leaks or dangling pointers) can be avoided by using Modern C++ features, like never allocating memory with new but using std::make_unique or avoiding null pointers with not_null from GSL or std::optional.

<comment><USER2> Is there a compiler option in C++ to only allow this safe variant of the language to be used? I find this argument to be a false comparison to the features of Rust, especially on dataraces, etc. I've never seen a 100% clean, modern C++ codebase. If you know of one, could you point us to it?

Also, this is just me, given experience writing code in C++ and Rust, I find Rust to be a more ergonomic language (YMMV).

<comment><USER6> You can try to use some extra tools that clang provides, such as the static analyzer ( [https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/](https://clang- analyzer.llvm.org/) ) or tidy ( [http://clang.llvm.org/extra/clang- tidy/](http://clang.llvm.org/extra/clang-tidy/) ) with checks like the cppcoreguidelines.

<comment><USER7> And what do you do when clang isn't an option, due to customer, target hardware, OS or even language extensions?

This is what I mean in another thread about outsourcing safety.

<comment><USER8> > And what do you do when clang isn't an option, due to customer, target > hardware, OS or even language extensions?

Then you cannot use Rust and must settle for lack of safety. (A profoundly silly question -- if modern C++ is not an option for whatever reason, then Rust is doubly so.)

<comment><USER7> Only when people mix languages with implementations.

Just because the only existing Rust compiler uses LLVM, it doesn't mean another implementations will not surface.

So hypothetical the OS not targeted by clang, can still have a Rust compiler on the OS SDK, offering all safety guarantees from Rust.

For example, there are OSes and hardware architectures not supported by clang that have Ada and even Java AOT compilers.

<comment><USER9> You made a bad argument, hide your ego in your pocket and admit it instead of writing such a nonsense. Both clang and Rust compiler are based on LLVM and they both can target only those platforms that LLVM target. If you can't use clang today then you can't use Rust also. We are not talking about "hypothetical" situations or alternative worlds because in those situations i can say whatever I want about clang also...

<comment><USER7> Nonsense only to those that don't understand about compiler design.

If you want an option that works today without nonsense as you put it, then I would pick Ada over C++ for secure critical projects in such scenarios.

Companies like LDRA do exist, because just using clang isn't enough.

[http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test- tools/group/by-...](http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test- tools/group/by-coding-standard)

Also a reason why HIC exists [http://www.codingstandard.com/](http://www.codingstandard.com/)

<comment><USER9> You didn't even reply to what I wrote? We are talking about Rust and Clang compilers and platforms they target and this was the context. It started when you tried to belittle Clang because it shows warnings and then you tried to make argument about hypothetical Rust compiler that can target OS that Clang can't, again trying to show Rust > C++. Even if you can't show superiority of Rust over C++ you are inventing hypothetical compilers that you think will work as your argument. If anyone will read your comments then he can see you are obviously biased and your ego just magnifies that effect. Think about it, objectively, get some air, there is world besides HN also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd really like to see some guides for using rust _incrementally_ in a large C or C++ codebase.

* What are some good ways to deal with a lot of C macros and C/C++ header files in general.

* What is a good build strategy for integrating with a big, say, cmake build system?

* How to choose APIs, other than always using the lowest common denominator (C) for everything? Put another way, how do you choose which parts to write in rust first so that you don't end up with rust code that looks like it's translated from C?

* How to work with other memory allocation strategies, like a region allocator (like postgres memory contexts)?

</comment><comment><USER11> > A language like Java _would have the reliability angle covered_ but is hard > to make performant.

ConcurrentModificationException.

<comment><USER12> That is a runtime check similar to RefCell::borrow() panic if you try to read from it while something else is mutating it.

<comment><USER11> With two important differences:

(0) RefCell can't be used in a multithreaded context. You have to use an actual Mutex.

(1) ConcurrentModificationException isn't reliable. It's thrown on a best- effort basis.

In any case, in a high-level language, just memory-safety is a very cheap guarantee. You also want to protect the internal invariants of your data structures - especially the concurrent ones!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks interesting, though I can't find much info about inheritance and code reuse there, which should be a major topic I suppose? Who is the author of this book?

<comment><USER5> The book is incomplete.

Porting an inheritance model to Rust is ... interesting. You can emulate it with some macros, but usually you should redesign the idioms used based on the exact use.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I'm not talking about porting things 1:1. I'm talking about explaining OOP approach that Rust suggests, and may be examples of how this methodology can be applied to solve issues like code reuse, that C++ at times solves with inheritance and etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The main problem is what to do with tons of opensource/thirdparty C++ libraries.

<comment><USER15> Nothing. Unless you think rust will become the next c++, and the world will move to it en masse, in which case people still won't rewrite most of the old libraries to it.

At best people can hope that somebody comes up with a neat import system of c++ namespaces, a rock solid debugger and a fluid ide.

Rust will be like Go. Both pushed by corporations, and probably follow the fate of cobol, if history is to be asked.

<comment><USER16> Since COBOL is the longest actively used language I wouldn't say that was so bad.

<comment><USER15> If anything it was good for the overall good of our ecosystem. People coded it, used it, built with it. We all are in a better place knowledge and experience wise. New languages generally are good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The book appears to be promising, but it is still far from being complete and doesn't touch the main points of interest, such as inheritance and problems arising from any form of template specialization.

Perhaps the author could get the book up to a presentable point before advertising it.

<comment><USER18> There was a rant earlier this week in the same vain: Instead of presenting something pre-mature check back later once its done.

I think it is still wothwhile to present something you have instead of waiting once its done. Also the understanding "once its done" varies from the use case. This in your opinion unfinished book might be of use to others.

It is also good to have something written and share it with others to get feedback (as you did) at an early stage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> TODO: write the rest of the comment.

<comment><USER20> I bet most people just read the first page of this guide and thought "yeah, I should upvote that, I'm gonna read it later" and don't realize that the article is full of gaping holes and TODOs which really devalues the entire work. I started reading it seriously and as the TODOs came in masses, I was disappointed and put it away.</comment></comment>


Template languages and code maintenance - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jeremylatt.com/2009/10/prototypal-inheritance-contra-template.html

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of ruby's builder (this blog has a simple, quick example: <http://beust.com/weblog/archives/000025.html>

Implementation of the xml builder. <http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/2528>

This is supposedly quicker than <http://builder.rubyforge.org/>

I imagine there is a python equivalient.</comment>


Simulation: What if digital WMDs attack America? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/simulation-what-if-digital-wmds-attack-america-7000002457/

<comment><USER2> IMO it is not a matter of 'what if', but 'when they'. Digital is the new world, the new weapon and the next stage of nearly everything in human evolution. It is simply terrifying to know what could be done if terrorism or warfare was conducted with bytes not bombs. Technologically speaking, we have gone well beyond the know how it would take to destroy the planet without old fashioned weapons of mass destruction. A massive EMP, an intentional spiking of the grid, false data injections... so many possible ways to bring the planet to its knees with the push of a button.... scary</comment>


The 2010 Census: Will your answers stay private? (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0324/The-2010-Census-Will-your-answers-stay-private <comment><USER2> Fascinating, I wonder how much stuff like this was intended to pressure vulnerable populations into not filling it out. The argument is good, and convincing, but I wonder about the intentions.</comment>


How I photograph the Milky Way with medium format film - <AUTHOR> https://petapixel.com/2020/04/25/how-i-photograph-the-milky-way-with-medium-format-film/ <comment><USER2> The unsaid detail is tha the he's using E36 (slide; positive image) stock.

I don't understand why the C41 (negative) process/product became default for consumer grade color photography. I know there's professional negative film that's tuned for the human skin. But as an amateur that happened to snag a lot of really high quality (mostly 135) film in bulk on eBay, I've always felt overall happier with my legible developed film, the highly contrasted and colorful images and the noticeable flavor of different product lines.

<comment><USER3> > I don't understand why the C41 (negative) process/product became default for > consumer grade color photography.

Much better dynamic range, which means you can throw a c41 roll in any camera with an half working meter and you'll get an usable picture. Over or under expose a slide by 1 stop and you're already asking for troubles.

Negatives are also much easier to scan than positives, and possibly easier to print but I'm not very familiar with that.

<comment><USER4> >possibly easier to print but I'm not very familiar with that.

As of now they're pretty much the only way to dark-room print from color film as there is no more paper or chemicals for color-positive prints being made anymore. There used to be Cibachrome/Ilfochrome which was apparently highly regarded, but production of that ended a couple years ago.

Apparently there's a way to reversal process regular RA-4 color paper, but I never tried it. Essentially you expose your paper, then process it in black&white chemistry. After that you wash the paper and expose it again with white light. You then process the paper in RA-4 color chemistry. What's kinda cool about the second processing is that you can do it in the light.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6ycSgT8g8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6ycSgT8g8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNjLzzH438E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNjLzzH438E)

<comment><USER5> Tetenal Colortec has a product for E6. Their C41 chemistry was very smelly at 100F but it worked first time in my kitchen sink. Their E6 kit might be worth a try:

Random link: <$3 a roll...

[https://www.freestylephoto.biz/102036-Tetenal- Colortec-E-6-D...](https://www.freestylephoto.biz/102036-Tetenal- Colortec-E-6-Developing-Kit-2.5-Liters)

<comment><USER4> I was talking about paper chemistry for dark room printing from positive film. There's still plenty of e6 kits available.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, my bad. I was clearly overwhelmed with excitement about E6 and C41 at home to properly read your comment :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My god, it's full of stars!

Beautiful shots, I particularly like the double-exposure self-portrait at the end, knowing it was made in-camera. I used to do B&W star tracks because getting a mechanical tracker to work accurately was so fiddly before. I like the idea of using pole-finding and star-tracking digital cameras and software, I know satellites and some planes use it, but I didn't realize it was available off-the-shelf.

<comment><USER7> This. It just seems really special to be sharing the film with photons that made a journey of many, many light-years to reach it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Amazing. I got into film photography in college with Holga cameras — toys, essentially, which had the wonderful upside of using medium format film, as well as introducing all kinds of "happy accidents". It was not a cheap hobby in terms of developing costs, etc. But film is pretty magical. Waiting to get negatives back was exciting. (This "lomography" — Holgas, etc — inspired apps like Instagram in the beginning.)

Really cool to see artists keeping these formats alive. I do a lot of digital work, and I don't think format alone defines the art — but again, there's some real magic in film.

</comment><comment><USER9> > "a star tracker, a mount that precisely rotates your camera at the same rate > as the Earth"

It's called an equatorial mount! GAH!

Incidentally that setup they post a picture of looks pretty sketchy, looks like the counterweight will bonk the table if you expose for too long and you also have to move the table rather than the mount to point in another azimuth.

<comment><USER10> I don't see any issues with caling this mount a star tracker that precisely rotates your camera. It's Sky Watcher Star Adventurer and it tracks automatically. If you call it just EQ mount you have to add that it does automatic tracking ;)

<comment><USER11> Isn't the actuall star tracker is the little camera on the guide scope though? Or maybe it's the software that reads the camera data...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Admirable dedication! It feels like a crime to go so far with medium format and not show large resolution scans, though. Maybe it's to avoid hurting the sale of prints?

Understandable I guess, but considering the amazing resolution you can get from medium format, this just really leaves me itching to see a large image.

</comment><comment><USER13> Its a good time to recommend Southern Hemisphere for star gazing, the milky way is much more visible its overwhelming.

<comment><USER14> Thanks, adding this as a reason to visit Oceania. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you don't mind shooting in B&W, Fuji Acros has relatively little reciprocity failure. Fuji claims no correction is needed up to two minutes of exposure (I've never tested that myself, I should say!).

<comment><USER16> Can confirm. Here's a 20 minute exposure of Orion + moonlight over the Grand Muveran I shot in the village a couple of years ago: [https://leejo.github.io/images/2018/large_format/36_muveran_...](https://leejo.github.io/images/2018/large_format/36_muveran_1750.jpg) # this is shot on 4x5 film, and unfortunately Fuji don't make Acros in this size anymore ( _fortunately_ I stocked up on it).

<comment><USER17> Oh my god that is a beautiful shot! The rest of these are also gorgeous... how do you develop them? / do you do prints at all?

<comment><USER16> Devleoped in my sink using an SP-445 tank. B&W chemistry is pretty straightforward. I do prints (check my site for contact details). There's a couple more examples of 4x5 work on my Instagram (ha!) haven't got much of it up on my site yet.

I'm not the photographer from the article BTW...

<comment><USER17> Oh I know, but your shots specifically are lovely! I will check it out :) I imagined you did it at home... have wanted to do the same but haven't had space, so use the mail-in services which are not bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wish I lived in a less light-polluted area. Was out in the country a few months ago and the view was amazing.

If you have the opportunity avail yourself of it.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's what I'd call a photographer...

</comment><comment><USER20> I love how these timelapses let you experience the fact that we're all moving in something bigger.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know of a similar guide for digital sensors, since they can do these images with very different exposure times?

<comment><USER22> Most of the guides for digital will concentrate on post-processing, as the actual shot is quite simple, and you can tweak everything as you have instant feedback. If you can see the milky way with the naked eye, you need: tripod + wide lens (24mm on full frame is ok) with wider aperture, manual focus (using the display zoom function for best results) as autofocus on stars doesn't always work, manual exposure for something like ISO 1600-3200, around 20 seconds exposure on f/2.8, 10 second timer exposure, press the shutter and leave the camera to stabilize on the tripod.

The key is to find the places where you can see the milky way and to plan ahead - a moonless and cloudless night is important. There are websites[1] and tools[2] or that.

Some results based on the above, with minimal post processing (as I'm not good at it): [https://miahi.ro/photos/perseide-2017/](https://miahi.ro/photos/perseide-2017/). The first series is at ~1500m altitude and 70km distance of any large city.

[1] [http://darksitefinder.com](http://darksitefinder.com) [2] [https://stellarium.org/](https://stellarium.org/)

<comment><USER23> Adding to that: at least historically, full frame DSLRs took better low-light pictures; smaller sensors had more noise because of the density. Not sure if this is still true.

<comment><USER24> It's definitely still true, but the difference is getting smaller as sensor tech improves. My DSLR is a Nikon D80 from 2006. While it's not full-frame, its sensor is much bigger than the one on my iPhone 8, yet my phone works far better in low-light conditions. The highest non-expanded sensitivity on the D80 is ISO 1600, which is already very grainy. Bump that up to the highest possible ISO 3200 and you're in for a lot of touch-up work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think taking the photograph yourself vs just looking at one makes a big difference in wow factor.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love that to be able to take these images he uses a digital camera + software (the pole tracker)

<comment><USER27> In fact, _two_ digital cameras, a QHYCCD PoleMaster for polar alignment, and an ASI120MC-S with PHD2 software for more precise guiding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> (deleted)

<comment><USER29> You are in the Milky Way Galaxy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find the best idea for making money? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think you could find something with a simple process:

1\. Pick area that you have some familiarity with, 2\. Go out and do a whole bunch of customer development interviews 3\. Analyze the responses to look for common patterns 4\. Iterate till you find something that people will pay for

</comment><comment><USER3> I think with any problem define your problem as specific as you can?</comment>


Grail: Pan-cancer blood screening test for circulating tumor DNA - <AUTHOR> http://www.grailbio.com/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: medicine isn't my background, so the following comment could be partially or entirely groundless.

\---

So I just took a crack at the concept PDF and the rest of the literature on the site, and there's nothing that I can find which mitigates the risk of flagging a slow-growing or self-regressing tumor as something worthy of attention.

I say this because mammogram recommendations were only recently changed due to the potential adverse health risks stemming from treating tumors which might never progress to a severity warranting treatment [1] as well as tumors which might spontaneously regress [2]. If some of the newer oncology theories suggesting high tumor occurrence and anti-cancer immune responses are correct (my google-fu didn't help me here, so someone else might want to help me with the source), then as a result of Grail, you might start having a bunch of people freak out and undergo unnecessarily heavy treatments for tumors which might otherwise never become cancerous.

That said, I could be entirely wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're specifically working on mitigating this risk as one component of making this screen viable.

[1][http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/features/new-mammogram- sc...](http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/features/new-mammogram-screening- guidelines-faq?page=2)

[2][http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=77344...](http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=773446)

<comment><USER3> I guess the difference is that mammograms tell you that there's some sort of tumor, while sequencing the blood can give a better idea of what's wrong with it. If you know what oncogenes it has then hopefully you can figure out how it's going to progress.

<comment><USER4> Mammograms/other imaging also tell you where the tumor is.

Until we have perfect chemotherapy, local treatment with surgery and radiation will remain standard of care. To perform those, you need to know where the tumor is.

I find the utility of this test will be in monitoring for recurrence, perhaps reducing the standard every 3 month restaging examinations; however, once it starts going up, you'll need advanced imaging again to see if it's local or metastatic recurrence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whatever happened to this which as supposed to also detect all cancers for $0.01 per test at > 99% accuracy?

[https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_pancreatic_cancer_from_a_teenager?language=en)

<comment><USER6> Exactly what anyone with some common sense should have expected as soon as the hyped-up news reports and media appearances began[0]:

> George Church of Harvard University, one of the expert judges for the 30 > Under 30 project and one of the fathers of next-generation DNA sequencing, > reviewed the paper and thought that many of the key claims that had been > made of Andraka's sensor – for instance, that it was 168 times faster, > 26,667 times less expensive, and 400 times more sensitive than existing > technologies – may not hold up, or at least require more work to be proven. > I sent the paper to five more top scientists, who reviewed it, for the most > part, anonymously. Most saw holes and said the results did not match the > glowing accounts reported, well everywhere.

0: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/01/08/why- bio...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/01/08/why-biotech-whiz- kid-jack-andraka-is-not-on-the-forbes-30-under-30-list)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> i am surprised that neither in their job opening, or exec board or advisory board there's someone with specialization in gov regulation or legal matters (except an opening for dir. of IP).

</comment><comment><USER8> Lots of scientist prowess except the CEO. Not ideal.

<comment><USER9> From your comment it's not quite clear if you feel it would be ideal to have fewer scientists or for the CEO to be a scientist, but I'm guessing the later.

A couple of years ago while promoting his book in the south bay, Peter Thiel spoke about his experience with scientist-lead biotech companies: "While engineer-lead companies are sometimes poor in terms of business sense, scientist-lead companies tend to be _catastrophic_ ".

<comment><USER10> Not sure I agree with Thiel. Amgen, Genentech, Intel all had scientist-CEO- founders. There is a subset of scientists who tend to be excellent CEOs.</comment></comment></comment>


Cryptocurrency: How  to Profit from a Market Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/cbovaird/2017/09/13/cryptocurrency-5-ways-to-profit-from-a-market-crash/#2ca7bce4494b <comment><USER2> Yes, that about covers it.</comment>


Microsoft (officially) details how iPad app development compares to Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh868262.aspx

<comment><USER2> Even discounting the cruddy resolution of iPad screenshots, I'd say that I much prefer the Metro aesthetics even though I'm a big fan of Apple products in general. I think Metro is really a nice design paradigm since they focus on fonts and pictures, in other words the same elements of great web design and print. There are no gradients or design elements that would look dated 5 years from now. Whereas Apple designs need to be constantly refreshed and refined to keep the polish (it's a hard thing to pull off and for the most part they've succeeded at it).

While Apple seems more refined in many ways and pull off consistency with simple but rich designs, I feel like they've been going overboard with rich textures in the post Jobs era. Applications like Find your Friends on the iPhone, iCal and AddressBook on OSX Lion sacrifice simplicity and east of use to emulate "real world"-ish look and feel with faux leather textures that serve no other purpose than to "look" nice.

The more I see Metro the more I like it.

<comment><USER3> I tend to agree with you overall (although I think Metro has some serious shortcomings right now, but this would take several paragraphs to expound on and is not my goal with this comment), but I do disagree with one statement you make:

 _"There are no gradients or design elements that would look dated 5 years from now."_

Using just pictures and fonts does not make your design timeproof— for example, the classical IBM ad definitely looks antiquated nowadays:

[http://www.designers-books.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/10/3F...](http://www.designers-books.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/10/3F01544-450x590.jpg)

There is no such thing as a design which can always preserve its polish, because design always inscribes itself within a greater cultural trend which is inexorably a product of its era.

<comment><USER2> Touche to that. I suppose I should have said that there are less design elements in Metro that are susceptible to trends as long as we're talking about nice typefaces and clean layout.

The point in question is my uneasy feeling at the increasingly intricate designs dominating the iPhone for both third-party and Apple's default apps that seem to distract from a focus on utility and functionality. Of course, that's not entirely a valid logical position but my subjective opinions so I do concede.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What amazes me is how Microsoft consistently explains design with obviously aliased images using nasty, bandy palettes.

I hope the explanation is that their web publishing framework just sucks and has no oversight, because it would be troubling if the designers/bloggers missed this.</comment>