Noprocrast (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://web.archive.org/web/20100423003857/http://mmcgrana.github.com/2010/03/noprocrast.html <comment><USER2> I've been trying various "noprocrast" approaches over the years, including /etc/hosts and HN's own noprocrast settings. The one that finally worked for me was disabling distractions directly on the router - it covers all my computers, as well as my phone. I set it so that distracting sites are disabled during work hours (Monday-Friday, 08:00 - 18:00).

More details about implementation: [http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2020-05-25-blocking- distraction...](http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2020-05-25-blocking-distractions- with-mikrotik-router.html).

<comment><USER3> You could still change to LTE on your phone. Just sayin...

<comment><USER4> I find some phone use to be fine, the worst productivity breaker is tabbing to Reddit/HN/etc when you were focusing. Switching to your phone is already enough to a break from focusing where it's not a big deal. Plus you could just leave it in another room.

It's like what doctors recommend for bad sleep habits is to keep the bedroom/bed for sleeping only - don't spend hours using screens or eating in bed, then your body will have an easier association with sleeping + the mental habit. Likewise laptop + work hours = worktime. If you want to take a break stand up and check your phone or whatever.

"Perfection is the enemy of good" anyway, you don't need to go all out.

The primary point is using editing /etc/hosts (with `sudo chattr +i /etc/hosts` write locking to go further) is enough of a hassle for most of the time to break a negative loop. No need to make it impossible, the larger goal is self-discipline.

<comment><USER5> +1! Six months ago I added reddit, hacker news, Twitter and two of my favorite news sites to /etc/hosts mapping to localhost. I use those sites exclusively on mobile. I still accidentally open a tab out of habit from time to time, but go back to productive matters quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fwiw, I've found that the inversion approach of fighting procrastination works considerably better for me. So, instead of trying to not do something I try to do something instead. In more detail this means focusing on achieving a certain amount of deep work hours per day. First this means that I have to condition myself to want to do deep work in the first place. Rereading the first few pages of the book from time to time helps with this part.

Also, if the last thing I think about before falling asleep is about what it is that I wanted to do next, then the next day starting to do meaningful work is a lot easier, as I actually feel like I want to try this thing I thought about. Keeping a work logbook is another good method in being able to start up easier, as you can just pick the easiest item in the list and do that. Once the ball starts rolling and you get deeper in the zone, then procrastination is rarely much of a problem.

<comment> caleb-allen I'm with you on this. Doing something is much easier than resisting something.

That said, I also do something like OP to block out some sites, but that really only is important as I "get the ball rolling". I noticed myself habitually tabbing to twitter or something whenever I got to a "hard part"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if the OP is even on Facebook, but I it noteworthy that it's not on their list of sample blocked sites. I don't find FB to be addictive either, unlike a lot of people. Usually when I check it, I find myself a quick skim of notifications and the newsfeed to be sufficient, really just a minute or two a day. It runs counter to the popular narrative of Facebook addiction.

Anyone else feel that way? I wonder if it's because Facebook has no longer become a place for novel content, and there's an aversion to lingering on it. Of course this is my personal opinion, but I do think it's easier to find topical content on Twitter and HN, and so they're more distracting and worth blocking.

<comment><USER8> yes, but it all changes the moment one posts something, no matter how inane. Then narcissism makes it almost impossible to stop checking it.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I've long known that imaginary internet points are the only things that fill the void in my soul. I'm quite embarrassed to say that I go and re-read all my HN comments if I'm feeling low.

<comment><USER8> Shhh, we do not talk about such things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are also the apps, Self Control available for MacOS[1] and Cold Turkey[2], which is an universal app.

[1]: [https://selfcontrolapp.com/](https://selfcontrolapp.com/) [2]: [http://getcoldturkey.com/](http://getcoldturkey.com/)

<comment><USER11> Maker of Cold Turkey here, thanks for sharing it! If anyone has questions about the app, let me know :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Disabling access from /etc/hosts has been very useful for me, though my similar [1] productivity script did not work as well as I wanted it.

For quite some time I had been using hostess [2] to enable/disable specific websites, yet this too had a couple of problems.

1\. Docker Desktop (macOS) keeps appending on my /etc/hosts without asking me when I start it. This requires usage of `hostess fix` to remove duplicate entries.

2\. Changing /etc/hosts requires sudo access, which means I have to keep inputting it when I need to make any changes.

Eventually I just `vim /etc/hosts` instead of `sudo hostess fix && sudo hostess on news.ycombinator.com`

[1] [https://github.com/sirodoht/productivity.sh](https://github.com/sirodoht/productivity.sh)

[2] [https://github.com/cbednarski/hostess](https://github.com/cbednarski/hostess)

<comment><USER13> You can use the NOPASSWD directive in your

         /etc/sudoers

file to allow hostess to run in sudo without auth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> a side note, but a dimple but effective strategy I use for getting of time consuming websites is to just use a password manager for all my accounts on those sites. logging out of those accounts, and having the password only be accessible via another long and complicated password (to access the password vault) is usually enough of a barrier in the moment

<comment><USER15> I did a combination of this strategy and the one in the article. I changed my hosts file, then changed my root password to something with ~20 characters, then I gave the password to my wife (coworker would have also worked) and told them not to let me have it before 6pm. In cases I need to install something I just had to convince them of the necessity.

The human element really worked wonders compared to a poorly technical solution.

<comment><USER16> > coworker would have also worked

I think some consideration of the social aspect here is required. I agree that part of a marriage is agreeing to help one another in these small accountabilities, but, if a random coworker tried to impose this on me, I would not appreciate even the small imposition on my time. It's not, and shouldn't be, my job to help a random coworker stop procrastinating.

… But maybe you meant "a coworker who is also a friend", in which case it's fine; but still then I'd argue that the important point is that you could give it to a _friend_ , not that you give it to a coworker. In fact, even from a selfish point of view, the friendship is important: if a coworker asks this of me who isn't already a friend, then I'm less likely to spend energy in arguing with any password request, and so will simply grant it reflexively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The only no-procrast tool that is absolute and unforgiving enough to actually stop me from procrastinating is Self Control [1] (MacOS only afaik). Anything else which offers an escape hatch will always be useless for professional procrastinators.

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

<comment><USER18> Oh my god, this is hilarious:

Q: How do I disable SelfControl once it has started?

You can't. That's the idea. Just wait.

"But, but but..." you say.

Seriously, chill out. It's not the end of the world.

The timer will run out and the internet will come back again. In the meantime, you may find comfort in curling up in a ball under your desk and rocking back and forth for a while.

\---

The whole FAQ is worth reading, but that one just cracked me up.

[https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/wiki/FAQ](https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/wiki/FAQ)

"Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sites—even if you restart your computer or delete the application."

That's… intense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do you have a script to stop you procrastinating by writing scripts though?

<comment><USER20> [https://imgur.com/a/Xmy7qgW](https://imgur.com/a/Xmy7qgW)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The problem with this approach is HN, reddit are necessary for work. I search HN all the time for technical info to avoid the blogspam and SEO marketing crap on Google. For me, the key to managing procrastination has been accountability - tracking my time and making myself radically accountable to friends I respect.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hacker News also has a noprocrast feature that's designed to keep you away from the site for a while if you've been using the site for too long. It's a little buggy with how it does detection, though, so I have it turned off.

<comment><USER2> I don't think it's buggy, but it's probably _too simple_. From my observation, it just starts the counter on any HTTP request (with appropriate session data in it, of course). This means if you have HN open on a mobile phone and/or you have lots of tabs, there may be spurious reloads happening even when you're not looking at the page - all of which will start the noprocrast timer.

<comment><USER23> Yep. I had mine at like 30m and then 120m block and so if I accidentally loaded it like you said I would be like "oh crap this is my chance!" and load every single story I could into tabs before it would block me. Mobile is a great example but also when Chrome has a tab but it isn't loaded in memory anymore.

It did work, but it had some counter intuitive failures too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24>
        echo `date`

could be expressed as just

        date

</comment><comment><USER25> I have found few things as effective as shutting down my X server and just working in Emacs in the console. Obviously less useful if you're doing web stuff (although NetSurf exists).

<comment><USER22> Do you not have to search for things online usually?

<comment><USER26> M-x eww.

(Then you discover M-x eww [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com), back to square one.)

<comment><USER25> It's painful enough that I don't use it for social stuff, but most programming documentation (and Stack Overflow etc) renders well enough that it's functional when you need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I used to have script that would gradually dim my display unless I typed.

The broader issue for me isn't a particular website. It's brain-dead consumption of feeds. Typing guarantees that you're thinking a little.

Even with email, it made me less likely to overthink things. It gave a bias to action. Keep moving, keep typing.

I had a whitelist of exceptions (IntelliJ, Terminal, etc).

Unfortunately the script broke a few years ago. I keep on meaning to fix it but I've been too busy reading feeds.

<comment><USER28> Operating system on which it ran?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thanks for the catalyst to re-enable my /etc/hosts approach to simplifying my life.

I'm surprised to see that adding:

      127.0.0.1 youtube.com www.youtube.com

to /etc/hosts doesn't seem to block youtube, but every other line I added blocked/routed as expected. Is there something special about youtube and chromium?

<comment><USER30> Yes, some sites are more resilient somehow. I experience the same thing with twitter. You could try flushing your dns cache but IIRC that didn't even work for me.

<comment><USER29> It has now started blocking correctly. Must have needed something to get flushed.

Back to it.

      $ noprocrast.sh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've tried various versions of Noprocrast as a chrome and safari extensions.

I feel like that it falls into the category of that it will be 50/50 that it will work for you or not.

For me I would eventually circumvent the whole thing anyways. You may also want to think about why you are procrastinating? Then figure out how to alleviate that.

</comment><comment><USER32> You can do this with Pihole blacklist, which not only apply this to your current machine, but your whole network.

</comment><comment><USER33> SelfControl is a free hosts file based blocker with some added features that prevent you from undoing your own blocks until the specified time period has elapsed.

[https://selfcontrolapp.com/](https://selfcontrolapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is great. I might start using this.

I really appreciate that HN has a noprocrast tool. I've also used Apple's Screen Time feature to help me break away from distractions. While I feel such tools are crutches for good self-control, _I_ am not yet disciplined enough to not need them some times.

Facebook claims to care about its users. I think that's hogwash. If FB _actually_ cared I think they would have settings to enforce limits on engaging with their platform. But of course they have no incentive to do that because it cuts into their revenue stream. Apple has little problem putting limit tools in place because they get money just when you buy the device—not necessarily every time you use it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I too had my go at this, and it was very effective

Checkout these two files

[https://github.com/Shokodemon/smallhacks/blob/master/sh/depr...](https://github.com/Shokodemon/smallhacks/blob/master/sh/deprocrast.sh)

[https://github.com/Shokodemon/smallhacks/blob/master/sh/proc...](https://github.com/Shokodemon/smallhacks/blob/master/sh/procra_targets.txt)

</comment><comment><USER36> Can someone please help me with how to achieve the same thing on windows that works on any browser ? I tried some DNS blocking programs and can't get anything to work properly.

<comment><USER37> You can install NextDNS and use their blacklist feature to block distracting websites.

<comment><USER38> Seconded. This works really well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I added Reddit and some other sites to my uBlock blacklist because most of the time I would end up there unwillingly.

Control + t (new tab), red (autocomplete to reddit) and enter. Muscular memory.

Now uBlock tells me that the site is locked, I realize what I'm doing and I close the tab. That muscle memory is now gone.

Sometimes duckduckgo returns me some useful reddit links and uBlock gives me the option to allow it temporally which is a few minutes. So even if I start messing around after a while it blocks me again.

<comment><USER40> That method didn't work for me (if I am thinking of the same thing you are describing, not sure). I would soon routinely unblock Reddit, so the block would become useless in achieving its purpose and become just an annoying extra layer.

So what I did then was blocking specific subs (well, one actually, my national sub) in which I felt compelled to correct people all the time. On each browser on each computer I use, I installed an extension like "Silent Block" which allows to blacklist the URL you want with a regex (".* reddit.com/r/yourmostlovedandhatedsub.* "). Unlike /etc/hosts and similar methods, you don't have to block a whole domain, the control is finer.

So I can still freely view technical or whatever subs with which I don't feel engaged, and follow links to Reddit from search engine or other sites.

It's been over 1 year that I set up this system, and I never bypassed it. It's working fine for me.

Or perhaps Ublock blacklist allows this kind of 'fine grain' blocking too?

<comment><USER39> As far as I know you can block certain subreddits, yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Anything requiring sudo or su is not enough: too easy to just take the habit to type the password very fast.

What I've found that works is using the command "lockout" with some weird modification of the sudoers file in order to allow only certain commands with sudo (or other commands with only certain arguments not matching forbidden patterns).

<comment><USER16> It doesn't stop it in the moment, but logging the date to ~/.procrasts does provide at least some after-the-fact accountability. I think a lighterweight initial approach is good, and, if logging reveals that it's abused, then one can move to harder-to-circumvent solutions.

<comment><USER41> Aw nice, I hadn't noticed the log file trick!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Run this on a Raspberry Pi in combination with DNSmasq, and point your routers DNS to Raspberry. Then you have a universal solution for all your devices at home, and that works for Chrome+Firefox. Most routers can have 2x different WiFi SSID with different DNS-settings, so you don't get complains from your loved ones.

</comment><comment><USER43> I messed around with the settings in HN the other day and managed to enable the procrastination settings. Was locked out for a couple hours....

That's what I get for just toggling things. It's been a habit since I was a child, if we visited a house or rented a car I would flip any switch or touch any button or knob I could reach.

</comment><comment><USER44> There's a browser extension called "Leechblock" that I use and is good for this purpose.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have (had!) a similar setup via /etc/hosts blocking HN and other sites. Entering a quick sudo gedit /etc/hosts has been so common, that my plan utterly failed.

I then blocked some sites on the router. Too bad the cell phone has a decent 4G connection... oh well.

</comment><comment><USER46> For a natural & organic form of noprocrast, one can also try cultivating a crippling phone / tablet addiction that reduces any device with a keyboard to "work".

Actually works quite well provided you keep the drugs in another room, it's a shame I'm an iOS developer.

</comment><comment><USER47> Here are some good, maintained lists: [https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists)

</comment><comment><USER48> I've tried this but browsers like Chrome (and perhaps Firefox as well) will ignore the hosts file and use Google's DNS servers to resolve sites that are blocked by hosts.

</comment><comment> Funes- Only a strong sense of purpose and an equally strong will to sacrifice everything we use to evade oursleves from our own lives will keep procrastination at bay. Nothing else creates deeply rooted meaning. Nothing else really works.

Putting hurdles between us and our distractions will, at worst, start a vicious cycle of circumventing them and putting them up again; at best, make us dependent on them so we resort back to our bad habits whenever we can't make use of those mechanisms--back to square one.

</comment><comment><USER49> Why 127.0.0.1? It shows my website.

</comment><comment><USER50> Great tool. i think i can use it for my kids

</comment><comment><USER51> gasmask on mac allows you to swap /etc/host files also.

</comment><comment><USER52> This post was scraped from my old technical blog: [http://web.archive.org/web/20100423003857/http://mmcgrana.gi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20100423003857/http://mmcgrana.github.com/2010/03/noprocrast.html)

Looks like the site has a few other scraped posts as well.

FWIW I no longer use this exact noprocrast(1) approach to avoiding procrastination, but do apply the same basic idea.

<comment><USER53> I'm sorry someone ripped off your post ... I wish there were more consequences for doing so.

FWIW, it's a cool idea that I may implement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Deleted

<comment><USER30> I don't think this is particularly relevant to the post.</comment></comment>


Free Programming Tips are Worth Every Penny. - <AUTHOR> http://www.wilshipley.com/blog/2005/02/free-programming-tips-are-worth-every.html <comment><USER2> Thinking about the problem is a different skill than writing code and is usually best done someplace where the keyboard for your development computer is not within reach.

<comment><USER3> Some people find that by writing essays in English they can increase their own understanding of whatever they're writing about. Coding can help the same way, if you're using a language that's comfortable to think in.</comment></comment>


Please make a donation to airwars.org - <AUTHOR> https://airwars.org/make-a-donation/ <comment><AUTHOR> They're trying record the record of US and friends actions against civilians in Syria and Iraq. And are in trouble ATM, because of massive increase in allegations in the last two months. Up to 1000 civilians were allegedly killed by US and friends just in March, up from hundreds a month previously.

So if you care for some accountability for this, this would help.

[https://airwars.org/civilian-casualty-claims/](https://airwars.org/civilian- casualty-claims/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I see airwars.org already receives funding from the open society foundation and other nerfarious organistions.

Perhaps you should ask billionaire George Soros for a sweaty wad of cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's nefarious about it?</comment></comment>


Compromise needed on smartphone encryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/compromise-needed-on-smartphone-encryption/2014/10/03/96680bf8-4a77-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html

<comment><USER2> >A police "back door" for all smartphones is undesirable — a back door can and will be exploited by bad guys, too. However, with all their wizardry, perhaps Apple and Google could invent a kind of secure golden key they would retain and use only when a court has approved a search warrant.

Has anyone even bother to sanity check that?

<comment><USER3> I won't bother to give them the page view for that, but isn't that post a few months old? I believe by someone called Orr something? He was quite berated by many on Twitter, and I think he backed off on his statements a bit. I think he even posted a follow-up to address that.</comment></comment>


SpaceX rocket nails launch but narrowly misses landing test - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/10/us-space-spacex-idUSKBN0KJ08120150110

<comment><USER2> One of the more realistic news feed titles for this event. Yes sir, SpaceX nailed the launch, it was awesome to watch, more goodies on the way to the ISS - I hope the rest of the mission goes well.</comment>


Tenenbaum Appeal Heard: Is It OK to Make Someone Pay $675K for 30 Songs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110404/22551013777/tenenbaum-appeal-heard-is-it-okay-to-make-someone-pay-675000-downloading-30-songs.shtml

<comment><USER2> It is refreshing to see judges questioning the nature of the charges and exposing the fact that current copyright laws weren't really developed with file-sharing in mind.

 _One of the judges immediately jumps in and says that Congress could have made an exception, but didn't. Harrow points out that perhaps it didn't because the result would naturally be absurd: the idea that someone sitting at home, listening to music, would suddenly be liable for billions of dollars, doesn't make any sense._

Even worse, the RIAA has not (to my knowledge) provided any evidence that Tenenbaum actually distributed the works, only that he made them available by participating in a BitTorrent swarm.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of a classic case in torts. Three hunters went out. They got separated so that you had two on one side of clearing, one on the other. A bird took off between the two groups. The group of two shot at the bird. One got the bird, and one got the third hunter.

The third hunter sued the first two for his medical expenses. The first two each raised the defense that there was no proof that they were the one that shot the third. They each maintained that they were the one that hit the bird.

They were both found liable. One had actually shot the third. The other, by taking a reckless shot in that direction at the same time, had made it so that the identity of the shooter could not be determined, thus creating the situation that made it so blame could not be accurately assigned.

It seems to me that putting a copyrighted work up on P2P without authorization from the copyright owner is similar. You are doing something that can only serve one of two purposes: (1) to directly infringe copyright, or (2) to obscure who is directly infringing copyright.

Arguably, copyright law could be read as covering this. 17 USC 106, the section that lists the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, says the copyright holder has the exclusive rights to do those things and to authorize those things. I wonder if one could argue that when you put a file up on P2P without permission, you are authorizing the distribution of the file, and so violating the exclusive right of the copyright owner to authorize distribution (regardless of whether or not anyone actually grabs the file from you)?

<comment><USER4> And I'm sure the third hunter got his medical expenses reimbursed - not an arbitrary amount of money based on the best case scenario of what he could have done with his time.

The problem here isn't the blame, it's the fact that the maximum possible damage the defendant inflicted (price of song x no of downloads) is still much lower then the prescribed penalty - probably order of magnitudes lower.

<comment><USER5> > The problem here isn't the blame, it's the fact that the maximum possible > damage the defendant inflicted (price of song x no of downloads) is still > much lower then the prescribed penalty - probably order of magnitudes lower.

I'll concede you that point if you'll let me impose mandatory monitoring of all Internet use sufficient that everyone else who subsequently shared the file can also be caught and fairly prosecuted.

Otherwise, the viral nature of infringement _does_ matter, and trying to cap the damage in absolute terms as you have done here is no more realistic than trying to claim the astronomical sums based on a loss of hypothetical sales that Big Media keep arguing.

<comment><USER6> Regardless of the viral nature of any behavior, a mere participant in the network should not be responsible for the behavior of others.

Edit: I think this raises a larger question: in the modern technology-enabled world, where large-scale crimes can be committed in a distributed fashion and in most cases there is no kingpin to take down, what is the law to do, and what are the people to do, since each individual person is causing very little of the total damage? I don't think holding the members of an organization responsible for the crimes of other members of the organization works in this case, since there is no organization.

<comment><USER5> > Regardless of the viral nature of any behavior, a mere participant in the > network should not be responsible for the behavior of others.

I don't think it is fair to dismiss the viral nature so lightly. For example, it is not completely unreasonable to consider in law that the _first_ person to share material _is_ ultimately responsible for everyone who subsequently copies it, since without their action, the other copies would not have been possible. By the same argument, it is not completely unreasonable to hold _each_ person in the network responsible for the future distribution that occurs based on the sharing they did.

Now, that might not be very practical, if you have to demonstrate the number of copies that were ultimately made base on a single original. Moreover, in some cases, it might lead to large damages awards, which we might or might not consider sensible given the relative power of the parties involved and the nature and consequences of the illegal act.

On the flip side, the bottom line is that the copyright holder is the one who is not breaking the law in these cases, and if you don't provide a practically effective way for them to enforce their rights under the law, then the innocent party is losing out. (I am not contending that Big Media are saints or that they should not be held accountable for any legally or ethically dubious practices they might adopt. I just think that is a separate debate.)

> I think this raises a larger question: in the modern technology-enabled > world, where large-scale crimes can be committed in a distributed fashion > and in most cases there is no kingpin to take down, what is the law to do, > and what are the people to do, since each individual person is causing very > little of the total damage?

Exactly. It is a difficult question. I just don't personally buy the theory that the wronged party, who typically has practical access to redress only via civil lawsuits that probably cannot be cost-effectively brought under many western legal systems today, should be the one that loses out.

I think the presumption should be that the network are collectively liable for the actual damage caused, that in the absence of ability to read minds it is reasonable to assume one actual (not hypothetical) copy has a value equivalent to the cheapest legitimate purchase price, and that the proportion of the cost paid by any individual member of the network should be such that a copyright holder can expect to regain their actual losses (but no more than that) through reasonable legal means.

That basically means that if you infringe but it is possible for the copyright holder to trace the consequences with reasonable effort, you will personally only be responsible for the damages that can be proven attributable to your own sharing, which will probably be a significant deterrent but won't be bankrupting most people with the kinds of silly awards we see today. On the other hand, if you actively choose not only to break the law but to do so via an anonymising network that can cause unknown damage with the intent of concealing your own and your accomplices' identities, then if you're the guy they catch, it sucks to be you.

<comment><USER6> I think that the legal system and major corporations will eventually have to follow the lead of some distributed computer systems, and just accept some small losses here and there in pursuit of greater gains elsewhere (I'm thinking of how Netflix embraces nondeterminism in its* distributed systems).

 __I keep wanting to use "their" instead of "its", mixing the US and non-US notions of whether a corporation is a singular or plural noun. _

<comment><USER5> I agree that both the law and the corporations need to adapt to reality today, which is not the same as reality a few decades ago. However, I think the particular analogy you gave there is flawed, for a reason you mentioned yourself before: there is no "kingpin" to take down in a typical P2P network or similar system, so where do the "greater gains" come from?

In my ideal dreamworld, copyright would be updated to reflect the way the world really works today, which I think essentially means a much shorter duration for copyright protection, but with a genuine effort to make it practically enforceable during that period, and toning down some of the blanket laws that mean services that exist primarily to help copyright infringement can effectively hide behind some cheap legal shield to cover their asses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I sometimes count my music library in terms of money saved (in the insane world that a pirated album is a lost sale), it's currently something like £8k because I really have no idea of how many albums I have.

Should I start counting by how much I'd get sued? It's over a third of a trillion going by this court.

<comment><USER8> I've always been suspicious of the ethics of pirated music and I sincerely want to know how people who pirate music justify it. From my perspective, a musician put forth a lot of effort and cost into creating a piece of music. At that point, I consider that the musician owns what they have created and can choose whether to keep their music to themselves or share it with the wider world. From my point of view it is the musician who gets to decide what they want to do with their work: sell it through a record label, sell it independently, give it away for free. As a consumer of the music I don't think it's in my place to make the choice for the musician about what they want to do with their work. Is there something I'm missing? Am I framing it the wrong way? Or am I right in thinking that people who pirate music are unilaterally making the decision for the original musicians on how their work should be distributed?

<comment><USER9> In my case, I believe pretty strongly in property rights, and I believe intellectual property rights (as they are called) are incompatible with real property rights. Therefore, "pirating" anything is at least legally permissible. I don't intend to argue that point; you asked to understand and I'm explaining how I think.

> _From my perspective, a musician put forth a lot of effort and cost into > creating a piece of music._

And, sure, it would be nice if this musician were rewarded for his efforts--if it became a financially viable operation--and if he (or aspiring musicians who know of his example) were encouraged to make more good music. However (according to my view), once he puts his music into digital files and someone puts it on the internet (which is more likely the more popular his music gets), he has no legal way to compel anyone who downloads it to pay him for it. At this point, I'd say, "Yup. So he'll have to be somewhat creative (or get good at performing live or something) if he wants to make much money as a musician."

Yes, it's possible that few people will pay him, and he'll be forced to go out of business (at least partially) as a musician. Sure, that'd be unfortunate (assuming his music was good), but that's the way it is. You may say, "This is unacceptable! There needs to be a legal fix for this situation." I say no; if you looked around and thought for a while, you'd see that situations like this are really not so unusual.

Suppose I'm a student at a school and I'm a member of some club (math club, if it makes a difference), and I come up with a fundraising idea: host a dance on the Friday after exams for the academic quarter are over, provide food, and sell tickets. And it's a success: the math club makes a good profit, and we expect to do even better next time. But, now, when the next quarter rolls around, a different club with more advertising capability sets up their own dance and attracts most of our attendees away. Their dance is an even bigger success, our second dance turns out a loss, and we in the math club have no reason to expect the same thing won't happen again next time, so we discontinue our dances. Now that other club makes a profit and we get nothing; had I realized beforehand that this would have happened, I might not have bothered.

This is _unfortunate_ , isn't it? But I don't think even the most hardcore pro-copyright, pro-patent advocate would claim that I or the math club had the _right_ to a share of the other club's profits, nor that they were infringing on anything that could be called my "intellectual property". Our only recourse would be this: we could go to the other club, say, "Hey, you guys are benefiting a lot from what was our idea, and we're getting nothing; you really should cut us in on some of that," and if they said, "No, fuck you," then we could spread the story and smear them as ungrateful jerks (which they would be). Also, threatening to smear them as such might induce them to pay up. But legal action? No.

Suppose Apple spends a large amount of time and money on research and development, and it concludes that a) PC's are going to be displaced by tablet computers and b) a tablet computer should optimally have a x b x c dimensions. Then other companies simply trust Apple's judgment; they cut their PC R&D budgets, start developing tablets, and make them approximately the same size. Their products are successful, and they suffer little when PC's do eventually decline. Again, no one could claim this is intellectual property violation even under today's laws. But these other companies are benefiting from Apple's hard work, and Apple has no way to demand (and get) compensation.

And suppose I set up a big museum, and it's very successful and brings in a lot of visitors. Many of these visitors buy food at shops next to my museum. I have brought the owners of these shops a lot of customers that they wouldn't otherwise have gotten; they are benefiting from my hard work, and I have no way to make them pay for it. (This can't be intellectual property--it doesn't even have to do with _ideas_.)

So there are cases where someone can do a bunch of work and make something good, and other people benefit a lot and the original person gets very little in return, and yet this person has no legal recourse to make his beneficiaries pay him. These situations _happen_. They'd be less likely to happen as the people in a society become more prosperous, generous, and civilized--which suggests what I consider to be the proper solution.[1] On the other hand, trying to patch over these situations by fucking with the legal system is asking for all kinds of trouble (and we're getting it). I'd hate to see the legal system that resulted when someone patched over every case I listed above.

[1] In the math club example, if the people in the second club were nicer--or if the main body of students had a strong sense of fairness that would be offended by ungrateful jerkishness, and the second club cared about their image--then the problem would be solved.

Now don't take this to mean that my beliefs are utopian and therefore irrelevant. I've said that the default situation--that there are cases where people make great things and benefit many others but get little in return--is _unfortunate_ , but a _fact of life_. Clearly I don't think the world is perfect or humans are perfect; nor do I expect them to become perfect in the near future. I said that things would become _better_ , that unfortunate situations would become less common or less unfortunate, to the extent that civilization advanced and humans became more generous. I consider this an excellent reason to _want_ to improve the human condition, to make everyone more wealthy.

(Oh, and, if someone goes around claiming that people who pirate copyrighted stuff are "criminals", "thieves", "depraved"--or, for that matter, on the same level as actual pirates who board ships, kill people or take hostages, and steal or wreck the stuff on the ship; or if someone goes around attempting (sometimes successfully) to use the legal system to extract or extort huge amounts of money from "pirates"; then I'm most certainly not going to feel like an ungrateful jerk if I fail to compensate them for downloading something they made.)

<comment><USER10> Great post. However, with regard to Apple choosing certain dimensions for a tablet, it is probably patentable. The claim would cover a device with length, width and height within certain numerical ranges. Of course, the invention must be novel and non-obvious. If the ranges are specified too narrowly, the competitor can just make the device bigger or smaller. But if the range is specified too widely, it may include a prior art device, which would invalidate the claim.

Here's an interesting link on numerical ranges in nanotech patents:

<http://www.elkfife.com/view_article.php?id=9>

(Warning: EU != US)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please correct the title. Tanenbaum is the renowned ast of Minix fame; Tenenbaum is the hapless guy being sued by the RIAA.

</comment><comment><USER12> For anyone listening to the oral arguments, I was really impressed by Paul Clement and really unimpressed by the EFF. The law student (Harrow) was fairly convincing as well, although it seemed like he needed a bit more practice.

<comment><USER13> I was listening to the facts of his arguments, not the quality of his elocution. Paul Clement vis a vis Paul Clement's arguments was utterly unimpressive.

<comment><USER12> I disagreed with him in many places, but I still thought he made a good argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not in the article, but the case is being heard by the First Circuit.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's okay if the Justice Department has the back of your entire industry.</comment>


iPhone growing among "lower income" customers - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/30/iphone-growing-among-lower-income-consumers/

<comment><USER2> The iPhone is kinda here to stay. I've been developing with Microsoft tools for a while, and the one thing you learn very quickly is not to switch too fast to a new platform, because it may not survive. I waited till last year to migrate a few apps to Visual Studio 2005, but I'll be jumping on the iPhone bandwagon. It's here to stay.

Other phones are going to migrate towards an iphone-like interface, and there are going to spring up thin emulation layers to allow for app porting. But apple has won this war.

</comment><comment><USER3> The data was not especially useful without a baseline distribution across income levels. While the headline was accurate, the author's assertion that this confirms that the iphone is not just for the wealthy sounds like a leap in logic.</comment>


Why most popular GitHub repos are all web related? - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2473298/application-development/120001-GitHub-s-top-10-rock-star-projects.html#slide1 <comment><USER2> Why? Because the web is by far the largest platform. These are mostly versatile projects that suit a wide variety of needs for many different types of users. This is not a difficult question.

<comment><USER3> I would also like to point out that for a lot of "web projects", the entry and deployment barrier is relatively low, one can mostly try those out on a browser. I think this is another important reason for more popularity of web based projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's obvious to me. GitHub is a web application, catering to web users. Web users, that is, who also are git users – i.e. most likely programmers. Obviously they are going to write (and be involved in) web related projects on GitHub.

<comment><USER5> The subset of "web users" who use git/source code control is almost 100% programmers, true. But the subset of programmers that are programming web apps most certainly isn't. I know a lot of programmers; I don't know a single web programmer.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious, what communities and places do you know most of these developers from? And what sort of platforms do they work with?

<comment><USER7> Most programmers I know professionally and personally are working within variations on the theme of civil engineering, logistics, finance or telecom. Sure some of them occasionally write tools that are accessed via a web browser, but non of them would probably classify themselves as "web developers".

<comment><USER6> I see. This is similar to my experience. Most software is made for people to use at work, usually semi-custom. Most software also doesn't depend on low latency or high graphics throughout, so most applications, especially new ones, are web applications. Most of the developers I know that do similar work would call themselves "web developers" though that may be required to context. Someone might identify themselves as a web developer to me, a developer in an unrelated domain, but not to a non-developer in the domain.

<comment><USER7> I think it depends very much where the emphasis of your effort is spent. Are you writing an analysis tool and then putting up a web front end to show the results, or are you writing web front end to interact with an analysis tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh, why must sites insist on putting all these list items on separate pages.

<comment><USER9> Ad impressions

<comment><USER10> And also a higher total page view count.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's an old article from Sep 19, 2013. 26 popups you have to dodge to get to the slider that you have to click through with another 17 ads. This is the reward:

      1. Bootstrap
      2. Node.js
      3. JQuery
      4. HTML5 Boilerplate
      5. Ruby on Rails
      6. D3
      7. Impress.js
      8. Font Awesome
      9. Backbone.js
      10. Homebrew

</comment><comment><USER12> With web projects there exists the potential to reach many more users than desktop and native projects. I would assume that the percentage of the population with access to a web browser is much much larger than any other segment.

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems that most of the industry, or at least the parts that I frequent, are primarily building websites.

I'm trying to figure out where all the other programming is happening, but I have not had much luck.

<comment><USER14> Industrial control systems and engineering simulation suites are my personal programming experience, so my work is all entirely back-end or desktop based development.

I know very little about web programming or website development to be honest although we are starting to offer some of our applications through web services so my knowledge in that area is due to begin increasing very soon as a necessity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Repos that are not addressing the web can get popular (at least by my terms), just not _as_ popular. I have:

[https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft) \- 724 stars

[https://github.com/KnightOS/KnightOS](https://github.com/KnightOS/KnightOS) \- 513 stars

[https://github.com/SirCmpwn/RedditSharp](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/RedditSharp) \- 195 stars

Some of these have web parts (i.e. a website) but none of them are focused on the web.

<comment><AUTHOR> These stars counts are very low compared to the ones in the link.

<comment><USER16> There are plenty of projects out there with thousands of stars - [https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my- zsh](https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh) hsa 25k, the linux kernel has 25k stars

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can't see any of the slides. Maybe some issue related to uBlock but I won't turn it off. Can I see it all in one page?

</comment><comment><USER18> september 2013

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't see Node.js and Homebrew as "web related".

<comment><USER4> How, exactly, is Node.js _not_ web related? It is Javascript, a language which owes its entire creation and continous existence to its monopoly position in web browsers. True, Node.js is not run in web browser, but instead in… web servers.

Tell me again how Node.js is not web related?

(Homebrew is, quite as you say, not web related.)

<comment><USER20> It happens to be popular for server-side web development, but there's nothing inherent in it that forces you to use it for web.

Nothing web-related in this project, for example: [https://github.com/neandrake/spirc](https://github.com/neandrake/spirc)

<comment><USER4> That (spirc) is a _library_. Are there actual _applications_ of any significance written in Javascript which run in a web server (or browser) and do not use the web?

Even if there are, I still feel that Javascript is too completely dependent on its position in web browsers for Node.js to be entirely disassociated with the web. If a new language would replace Javascript in the browser, Node.js would be instantly abandoned. But I could see your point.

<comment><USER19> What about atom ([https://github.com/atom/atom](https://github.com/atom/atom)), a text editor?

Or npm ([https://github.com/npm/npm](https://github.com/npm/npm)), a package manager?

<comment><USER21> Atom runs as a Web app in Electron (formerly atom-shell), which is basically a stripped-down version of the Chromium browser combined with Node.js and some additions to ease interop between the Web app and the host OS.

Npm uses Web protocols (HTTP, maybe JSON-RPC) to communicate with repository servers.

This is not saying that there aren't any non-web applications using Node.js, just that web-related applications using Node.js are quite numerous and popular.

Personally I know of Node.js applications and libraries targeting robotics, computer vision, language analysis, neural networks and more. Like any powerful platform, much of this relies on the ability of Node.js to interface with external libraries, which it does using wrappers built with node-gyp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> " Hoffman also notes hosting Node.js on GitHub gives people the power to fork it -- there have been many forks but not one that has emerged as a separate project."

Hmm what?</comment>


We need counter capital - DHH - <AUTHOR> https://dhh.dk/2019/we-need-counter-capital.html <comment><USER2> > Why isn't there a market for selling a minority stake of your profitable > tech company to people who'd be happy to be paid back in distributions and > dividends, rather than capital gains?

Off the top of my head, a few reasons:

1) How is an investor supposed to cash out of such a deal in a reasonable amount of time? What's the secondary market for the stake, in other words?

2) There is already a large sector specifically devoted to funding small, profitable businesses: banking. Banks are climbing over each other to give out business loans to companies with solid financials. If you're confident in your business, what's wrong with a loan? I often see this as founders wanting to have their cake and eat it too ("I want money, but not an actual obligation to pay it back").

3) Despite what founders often think, small businesses, despite profitability, are often high risk investments in the medium term. If you're going to gamble on a risky investment, you typically want the potential upside to be correspondingly high (i.e., the VC model).

<comment><USER3> With regards to your second question, I think the preference to selling a minority stake over taking out a loan is that the loan is debt, the minority stake is not.

A lot of what DHH is arguing for here was only possible for 37Signals/Basecamp because of how they structured and ran their business. He basically bought a seat as a (non-controlling) member of their LLC, and that was really it. So he bought a share of their profits. And Bezos had the option to sell the stake back after 7 years.

<comment><USER2> Right, which is exactly why I put the cake comment - small business owners want the benefits of VC capital (no debt repayment or interest) without the downside (up-or-out constant growth pressure). For the investor, it just doesn't make much sense.

Thanks for clarifying how the 37S deal worked, though. Having a structure like a 7 year buyback clause goes a long way toward mitigating my first point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _> So why is that kind of deal not available to more founders? Why isn't there a market for selling a minority stake of your profitable tech company to people who'd be happy to be paid back in distributions and dividends, rather than capital gains? It seems like a glaring gap in the market. [...] There's got to be a way to make this work._

It's not available because no smart investor has found a way to make it work ... yet. I'm not sure we can extrapolate Jeff Bezo's particular motives for investing in Basecamp into a widespread market solution. Back in 2006 when DHH said Bezos made the investment, Bezos was already worth ~4 billion.[0] In other words, being a multi-billionaire allows the luxury of making some investments "for fun" instead of worrying about being fired as a manager of a fund.

In my 2 previous posts[1][2], I attempt to explain the logic of why VCs / hedge funds / private equity ... do what they do and why they care about "growth".

So, one way to make it work is that you (the royal "you" as in the daring contrarian maverick investor) _prove_ to the world that you can take some money and make it earn 8%+ returns by doing what DHH suggests. Nobody prominent has done that so nobody copies them and therefore, the "market solution" looks non-existent.

Does everyone want a new _alternative_ asset class that simply buys minority non-controlling stakes in smaller companies and just takes a slice of the dividends? Let's call it the SmallCoDividendsFund. Ok, show the world how you reliably return 8%+ every year from DHH's strategy and limited partners will be beating down your down door to give you more money! You don't have to write essays evangelizing the alternative investment thesis; instead, just _invest real money_ in SmallCoDividendsFund, get awesome returns, and all the media outlets will provide publicity and encourage copycat investors.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Wealth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Wealth)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728480)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966)

<comment><USER5> > Does everyone want a new alternative asset class that simply buys minority > non-controlling stakes in smaller companies and just takes a slice of the > dividends? Let's call it the SmallCoDividendsFund. Ok, show the world how > you reliably return 8%+ every year from DHH's strategy and limited partners > will be beating down your down door to give you more money! You don't have > to write essays evangelizing the alternative investment thesis; instead, > just invest real money in SmallCoDividendsFund, get awesome returns, and all > the media outlets will provide publicity and encourage copycat investors.

I own startup equity, index funds, real estate, even a stake in someone's poker winnings. I model SaaS company valuations for fun. I would consider myself a sophisticated investor.

If you gave me access to a fund that acted sort of like Berkshire Hathaway, where someone went and picked out (with a careful eye) growth tech companies (that have also been derisked and had reached a point where they were profitable and self sufficient) that might not ever go public but would throw off cash, I would be interested in buying into such a fund, even if the shares were somewhat illiquid. You might even call it something catchy, like a "Continuity" fund. This is similar to how investors get exposure to SpaceX through a Fidelity fund that isn't publicly traded. Private markets are the new public markets, apologies to Matt Levine, without all of the hassle of being public (looking at you Tesla! 420 secured).

A problem that might be encountered is that more money doesn't necessarily generate more growth (depending on the market space constraints), so LPs beating down your door is a hinderance. You want long term investors who are happy to collect their cut while you're busy executing, not obsessing short term over share value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The sentiment in the DHH post really hits the mark as far as describing dynamics of the problem.

But, sadly, I think that any given investor can hardly be bothered to think about these things -- at least as it applies to them.

IOW -- "sounds good (except for when _I_ am trying to make a return on _my_ money)"</comment>


Do Black Holes Echo? - <AUTHOR> https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/01/do-black-holes-echo.html <comment><USER2> The point where she talks about statistics took an already interesting essay, and popped it through the roof. It seems a little too rare that we discover really interesting things without also identifying and taking into account what biases we may have that influence our observations of them.</comment>


Mysterious safety-tampering malware infects a second site - valiant-comma https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/mysterious-safety-tampering-malware-infects-a-2nd-critical-infrastructure-site/ <comment><AUTHOR> In a lot of industrial sites software security is a joke. Embedded systems tend to use very old, well proven technology, which in itself isn't a problem, it fits the market well, but the side effect is that security isn't always properly considered as it wasn't a concern when the software/hardware was developed.

I was involved in a project a few years ago delivering a series of monitoring systems running Windows XP to a brand new 700 million dollar oil rig. This was at the request of the client, they had software they needed that would only run on Windows XP. They had a fit when we had trouble sourcing Windows XP licenses. The expectation is that these systems will have a 20 - 30 year life.

It used to be that keeping every air gapped was enough, but organizations want easier monitoring, so more systems are being networked in an ad-hoc way without a lot of thought about security.

I expect we are going to see more things like this happening in the future until we start taking security in systems / embedded space more seriously. And even then there will be exploits of older systems for years afterwords since the replacement cycle is so long.

I wonder what a secure embedded system even looks like when I think about it. The environment isn't suitable to the kind of continuous patching that is done in the web world, but exploits will be found and dependencies will need to be updated. How do you square keeping things up to date with stringent testing requirements in systems that can kill people. Many of these systems / plants are unique, there is only one plant like it in the world, so testing becomes very hard.

<comment><USER2> Seems like there is a huge opportunity here for a startup that can navigate the industry and manage to solve some of these problems. There are huge players in the space, but from what I've seen they aren't solving these problems very effectively.

<comment><USER3> How are these places insured against industrial accidents?

I wonder if the way to get your foot in the door would be to partner with an insurer who would provide discounts to the client if they installed security technology meeting a certain standard. You could come up with some kind of bump on the wire type Linux device that proxied access to the old insecure system bringing them up to the standard. Then sell it as a return on investment through savings on industrial accident insurance premiums.

<comment><USER4> That is a fantastic idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a Shodan search that will net you 5K+ fuel tank controls.

[https://www.shodan.io/search?query=inventory+port%3A%2210001...](https://www.shodan.io/search?query=inventory+port%3A%2210001%22)

<comment><USER6> Where do you get "control" from that? Looks like a web page with a fuel level status from gas stations.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-15/materials/us-15-Wilhoit-...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-15/materials/us-15-Wilhoit- The-Little-Pump-Gauge-That-Could-Attacks-Against-Gas-Pump-Monitoring-Systems- wp.pdf)

They take commands to change certain values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I once encountered a guy who was setting up systems so that you could control a water treatment plant from your ipad at home. His attitude was, "Modbus on one side, ethernet on the other, what could possibly go wrong?" Lots, I told him. A lot of things could go wrong.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, my municipality of 2,200 users is planning to do this.

Also, all water meters are being replaced so they can be read remotely without a human physically using an electronic meter reader.

<comment><USER9> >Also, all water meters are being replaced so they can be read remotely without a human physically using an electronic meter reader.

Those are extremely widespread already. And they're pretty open. I wouldn't personally be too worried about any potential exploits since they're simply broadcast only systems and the worst that could probably happen is your'd get a jacked up water bill.

<comment><USER10> Dear Human,

You have unpaid WATER BILL of -2147483648 dollars.

Report immediately to INCINERATOR145 for processing.

Please have a kindly day,

ROBOTOVERLORD69420

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the direct link to the report: [https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/04/triton-...](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2019/04/triton-actor-ttp-profile-custom-attack-tools-detections.html)

Article spends too much time FUDing "plant explosions" for my taste

<comment><USER12> >> Article spends too much time FUDing "plant explosions" for my taste

Because hacking systems to cause explosions would be unheard of?

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1455559/CIA- plot-led-to-huge-blast-in-Siberian-gas-pipeline.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> And this is precisely why we can never consider nuclear power to be "safe".

It's just not worth the _risk exposure_. The worst case failure modes must be expected to occur, and they must be economically and ecologically acceptable when they do.

The idea that "this can theoretically happen but we promise it won't" is simply not acceptable. Versus, "this is extremely unlikely to occur because of these numerous counter-measures, _but when it does_ here's what we do and what it will cost us."

If you can do the later analysis on a nuclear plant and come away satisfied, then build baby build.

<comment><USER14> Yeah I used to work at a nuclear plant. They intentionally use all analog systems currently for fear of this. Almost nothing digital in the whole plant

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So do they use any code from Stuxnet? That would be ironic.

<comment><USER16> Haha, great point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Aren't these control systems airgapped ? So does that mean someone had to physically plant the malware?

<comment><USER18> Most control systems are not airgapped, because most people don't think of themselves as targets of that level of attack. Stuxnet was targeting national security infrastructure, which is much more likely to be airgapped, but your local powerplant doesn't (at present) think of themselves as national security infrastructure, so they don't take the same level of precautions.

Note: this only describes cases I'm familiar with, in the US. I bet that some countries with more experience on the receiving end of cyber-warfare (e.g. Ukraine) are better.</comment></comment>


The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding - <AUTHOR> https://www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-color/

<comment><USER2> Those pop-up 'OMG PLEZ LET US EMAIL U COOL TIPZ' interstitials always let me know how much the site owner knows about marketing and branding.

<comment><AUTHOR> The fact that you think they don't work is even more revealing...

<comment><USER2> That depends on your metric of 'work'. By the same metric, buying email lists from spammers also 'works'.

<comment><USER3> How does getting people to voluntarily sign up to receive emails about a topic that interests them compare AT ALL to buying scraped emails?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The popup that overlays the blog post in this site does not disappear when I hit the 'X'.

Fuck me, right?

<comment><USER5> Generally when this happens I just inspect it with Chrome and change/remove the css that is preventing me from reading it.

<comment><USER6> Right-click -> Inspect element -> Delete key -> Done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article pointed out that a red button amidst a green palette converted better in one instance, because the red button contrasted starkly. That's also my current theory on how to make an app icon.

For my App Store apps, I choose loud colors that contrast well with other apps in the category. I look at how the icon stands out in searches on iPhone, iPad, and iTunes. I still want a beautiful icon, but my primary concern is whether it pops.

Unfortunately, it's hard to test the theory.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting, I'm unfamiliar with what sort of data is available for App Store users, I'm assuming there's no way to really test the performance of different icons?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Test after test proves there is consistency to how people respond to color in advertising. As a professional marketer, every time I stray I'm often corrected by later optimization efforts.

</comment><comment><USER9> Optimism, sincerity, creativity, etc are great.

But what about my organization? The colors should inspire or remind the customer of fear, secrecy and power (not their power, our power).

</comment><comment><USER10> Hm, "Women's Favorite Colors"... 0% pink, rose etc. I must say this study IS significantly flawed.

<comment><AUTHOR> You did not read the study I cited, because it clearly states that only 8 options were given to participants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like how "red" means excitement youthful, bold. Reminds me of RED bull.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great primer, if this stuff interests you - particularly with regard to utilizing colors to drive CRO etc please go check out [http://www.colorvoodoo.com/](http://www.colorvoodoo.com/) which is the original book that got me A/B testing >10 years back - great content -

</comment><comment><USER13> PhantomLobe, you are hell-banned.

<comment><USER14> Can we please not do this:

a) as a top-level comment

b) for people with a spotty comment history

c) as a matter of course for everyone who is hellbanned

I don't want to say this guy deserves it, but he does have negative karma, and his comment adds nothing to the discussion. Looking back, he's only made a few, similarly negative, short, non-constructive comments. Maybe you made a different value judgement than me, but I wanted to point out that the convention isn't to tell everyone who is hell-banned about it, only people you think were wrongly hell-banned.

<comment><USER13> Please kindly advise where I should be posting this if I can't reply to [dead] comments.

This guy hasn't said anything that deserves a hell-ban.

<comment><USER14> Honestly, I have no ideas. The site admins have said you can email them to appeal an unfair hellban, but normally that's for the hellban-ee. It would be awesome if they added a feature to upvote people back from hell. Frankly, in this case the user doesn't have any contact info or about me, and he's not that active (and he has negative karma).

My big complaint is that this pattern of habitually telling everyone they're hell-banned seems to contravene the will of the mods, and produces a bunch of low-level noise on the site. It's come up before, and the mods continue to use hell-banning as a punishment so obviously they think it's worth the risk of losing casual commenters.

If you see a case where you very strongly disagree I think it's appropriate to comment, but this doesn't seem to meet that standard.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


More Young People Are Lonely – and They're Using Drink and Drugs to Help - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/pkeqvk/young-people-loneliness-drugs-alcohol <comment><USER2> FTA: "Human beings evolved to live in tribes," he continues. "We are the first humans ever to try to disband our tribes. The figures on loneliness are just shocking."

To wit:

"Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia."

and

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."

-Kurt Vonnegut

</comment><comment><USER3> Workplace stress and cost of living have to be factors. Our generation is stressed out and maxed out in so many ways. Even if you go to a good college, get a good degree and "do everything right" workplaces have no loyalty, they outsource mercilessly, and all the essentials like housing, healthcare, and college cost 10x what our parents generation paid. But hey, we've got cheaper TVs and computers... productivity is way up but none of the gains have benefitted workers or society. We need to start taxing billionaires and redistributed wealth to the workers. Enough of this extreme income/wealth inequality.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps the strict drunk driving laws are now killing more people from loneliness than they preserved from car accidents.</comment>


Mika Mobile on selling Battleheart on iOS and Android - <AUTHOR> http://mikamobile.blogspot.com/2011/06/android.html

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this. As an iOS developer considering moving to Android I found the recount of your Android experience interesting.

<comment><USER3> You should look into Tapjoy. They are offering money for developers porting from Android to iPhone

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most surprising fact was that Android is 80% of iOS revenue - that's a LOT better than I would have expected and had previously thought about the android market.

<comment><USER5> Unless you compare launch months, in which case the Android revenue was 5% of iOS.

<comment><USER6> But then again his third caveat on those numbers is that the iOS version was heavily promoted during and after launch, while the Android version wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find the tone of this article very strange. It starts off as a very positive "Hey, Android's worth doing". But by the end, you feel like he's being driven mad due to the added frustrations. :)

<comment><USER8> I too find it strange. He says it was worth his time porting to Android but never says how long it took. I have this game on iOS and it came out quite a while ago.

What we really need to know is (profit)/(development time). And you'd have to match this on Android (or maybe surpass it given his frustration). Even if this took a reasonable time to port, it might be possible that had he worked on his next iOS game, he would have made even more money for his time.

<comment><USER9> > Actually porting the game only took about a day.

It says how long it took, right there in the article. He says that he had to fight some trouble down the road, but 'porting' was done after a day, due to Unity magic.

<comment><USER8> Ah, totally missed that. So part of the moral is Unity is worth it.

<comment><USER10> Unity for Android is an extra $400 license once you've bought Unity for iPhone Pro. <https://store.unity3d.com/shop/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, this was pretty all over the place and seems more like a stream of consciousness than any sort of proper comparison between the two markets. Sounds like he's been getting annoyed by support requests lately and decided to write a rant ("comparison") about his Android market experience.</comment>


Memory Palaces: Outsider Artists - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/12/05/memory-palaces-outsider-artists/ <comment><USER2> Unpopular (or possibly popular, we shall see) opinion:

"Outsider art" is just a way for art establishment insiders to maintain their power over the arts, by controlling which "outsiders" are deemed worthy of notice.

Of the millions of amateur or small-time artists out there, a tiny number are semi-arbitrarily invited to a special and patronising dancing-bear role in the art establishment. The only qualification seems to be producing art which is technically not all that good so that the great unwashed can continue to be mystified by it.</comment>


Why founders should burn the bridges - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235997

<comment><USER2> There's a problems with this sort of blog post. It's a survivor story. The author severed the links to his old life, put everything in to his startup, and came through it successfully. But that's only one data point. There are _thousands_ of people who have done the exact same thing and failed, and deeply regretted severing those ties. Equally, there are plenty of stories of people who didn't cut their ties to their old lives and gone on to be successful (Mark Zuckerberg being a good example - many of the first hires at FB were his friends). Consequently you can't really learn anything from it. You can't tell ahead of time whether or not cutting ties is a good idea. The implication is "If you don't cut the ties to your old life you will fail!", but that just isn't true. Even if you're more generous and read it as "If you cut the ties to your old life you're more likely to succeed" that (probably) isn't true either - having ties to things outside of your startup doesn't have a big impact compared to some of the other, much more important things (cash, market, product, etc).

It's a great story of how one founder refused to quit and created something amazing, but that's all. As a lesson in how to succeed in your startup it's not really telling you anything at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't label it bad advice, because it certainly did help many and for some other it was a red line. No advice in the world of startups should be absorbed as is. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That is bad advice.

My wife was in 4th month of pregnancy when I founded my startup. I left my old job in good terms, and could probably return to it.

Burning bridges would put me under much more pressure. I do not think I would manage it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing in a entrepreneurs life is objective. Nor can any experience be generalized. We all have to make our of decisions and work with it.</comment></comment>


Hackers and Fighters - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/hackers.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> FTA: "So to answer the post: yes, the street programmer is generally better than the CS graduate - at programming because CS courses are often so woeful. And the professor will beat the street programmer hands-down in the black arts of churning out papers. But in the CS departments which are not empty dojos, the graduates who have absorbed the wisdom of their intellectual fathers, and learnt to apply it under pressure will surpass the street programmer. "</comment>


Waning ranks at law schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/05/law-school-enrollment-fails-rebound-after-recession-local-colleges-make-cuts/fR7dYqwBsrOeXPbS9ibqtN/story.html <comment><USER2> Business school applications are down too: [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044443350...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444433504577651962999932518). It's almost as if yearly tuition hikes in the face of stagnant salaries in professional services are having an impact on enrollment.

</comment><comment><USER3> The legal field is currently suffering from a huge excess of lawyers, and attending a law school outside of the top 10 (arguably top 20 with scholarships) is generally considered a poor investment. It's good for the legal field as a whole to see many of these T-3/T-4 Law Schools slim down and stop churning out so many law students that end up, unfortunately, unemployed (or in a job that doesn't use their JD in a meaningful way).

<comment><USER4> To compound the problem, every South Middle Tennessee State -type school opened a law school during the glut because it was a huge cash cow for the parent university... so other than a complete collapse of admissions, there is no impetus for these T-3/4 schools to close. It's not uncommon for students to come out of these schools with 200+K in student loan debt and no job prospects to speak of.

It's unfortunate, but the Legal Academy was all to happy to get drenched from the firehose of unemployable vague humanities majors that US Higher ed produces - now, at least, some of the students are starting to get a more realistic picture of what that undischargeable debt means for their future - but the damage is done.

<comment><USER5> It's odd that we would both comment (at the same time) regarding TN, would you mind giving me your opinion of my post below? I'm referencing people who did moderately well at a non-top teir but established institution with a cost of 40-60k total and vacant positions (albeit contract type) at $40/hr minimum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two recent Slate articles on why now is actually a great time to apply to law school.

[1] [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/appl...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/apply_to_law_school_now_yes_we_re_serious.html)

[2][http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/why_now_is_a_great_time_to_go_to_law_school_part_2.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Two things happened with the recession.

      1. Legal jobs went away.
      2. There was a temporary, substantial INCREASE in law school attendance.

You can see the large increase in enrolment just after the recession on this graph:

[http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06...](http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1920w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/07/06/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/lawschool_NEW.jpg)

When the economy went south, law school seemed like a "safe bet". This turned out to be a catastrophic mistake, as it came at the peak of the bubble in law school enrolment. There had never been such a gap between the number of students and the number of legal jobs.

Articles starting appearing circa 2010 that described a nightmare of $160,000 debt and no legal job. As students began to realize the world had changed, the decline began.

Parents are a big part of the problem. The boomers largely haven't caught on that a BA and a JD are no longer the good choices they were back in the 1960s and 1970s.

I'm in LSAT prep and I talk to a lot of pre-law applicants. They're now generally far more aware of what's at stake. But I only talk to the ones who are good at planning – I expect there's a decent amount of students who go into law school without realizing it can ruin their life.

Here on HN, we're in a bubble. Recruiters are a constant complaint. "Ugh, I hate all these people trying to offer me well-paying jobs".

Consider what's it's like to be 26 years old, with a BA and now a JD. You have about $160,000 that cannot be removed through bankruptcy. You have no assets and no marketable skills. You can't get a legal job, for structural reasons. And non-legal employers now give you a wide berth because you're overqualified.

Worse, you did everything you were "supposed" to do. Turns out it was cargo cult advice.

That's the situations thousands of young people find themselves in. Even going for one year and quitting can be crippling. You get $40,000 of non- dischargeable debt for your troubles.

If you happen to be giving career advice, here are the circumstances under which you should go to law school:

      1. You have a burning passion to be a lawyer.
      2. Said passion is based on actual knowledge of what lawyers do.
      3. You can get into a T14 school, OR
      4. You can get into a T100 school with a full scholarship, OR
      5. You can get into a school very well regarded in the local area where you want to practice, OR
      6. You have a legal job more or less in the bag upon graduation, through family, OR
      7. You are rich and want to be a lawyer for what prestige it still carries

That's about it. It's a terrible, terrible choice for anyone else.

We need lawyers, and at some point the legal education market will sort itself out I'm sure. Schools will close, people will realize they need to do the math. I expect tuition will drop eventually.

But while the bubble is bursting, potential law students need to exercise extreme caution.

<comment><USER8> Good advice but I'd quibble with a few points.

#2 should be based on actual knowledge of what lawyers, _that work in jobs similar to the one you are likely to end up in_ , do. Your colleague that's sold his last start-up for eight figures has a lawyer spouse that works at a small not-profit for 35 hours a week working on issues of internet freedom. That's not a relevant data point for you unless you too have such a spouse. More explicitly, if you fall into category #3 (outside the HT) you should know what BigLaw is like and want to do that. Because that's where you are going to go if you want to pay off that debt.

Speaking of category #3 T14, which always manages to be 16-17 schools, it is a too broad in my opinion. Yale is in a class by itself and opens doors that are difficult or impossible to open otherwise. Harvard Law has the most generous loan forgiveness program I've ever seen. To be honest I don't know much about Stanford Law, but that's usually included in the Holy Trinity. Beyond that, if you get no money, you really should consider the schools on an individual basis based on where you want to practice and what you want to do. Many should really be put into the #4 (scholarship) or #5 (regional powerhouse) rule.

Regarding #4, a full ride only covers around 2/3rds of the financial cost and none of the opportunity costs. I'd restrict this category quite dramatically (though keeping in mind #5) to maybe 30 or 40 schools including the t-14, and exclude schools that have several higher ranked competitors in the same city (sorry Fordham).

Finally, I'd add one more category -- people with a fair amount of experience in a particular industry that know exactly how a law degree will help them advance in that industry and can easily slot back in. Some people I went to law school with that would qualify along those lines were real estate developers and talent agents.

<comment><USER7> I can't edit the original, but those are good points. That's actually what I meant on #2. I left it out for concision, but I should have specified.

The rest are good points. I normally shy away from admissions advice as my expertise really is the LSAT + I'm Canadian. Things are much less stark up here, though Ontario has a bit of a bubble.

In truth, I really wouldn't recommend anything beyond T3 or T14 full scholarship. I'm very debt averse.

Anyone considering this needs to seek out even more specific advice than mine (like the above) and also recognize that you're probably prone to the common "I'm an exception. I'll work hard and beat the odds!" bias.

Problem is that everyone is thinking it. Mathematically, only a small percentage of applicants are correct. And they mostly got into the T14.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are currently 1,225,452 licensed attorneys in the United States which is a ridiculous considering only 116 million people have a full time job.

<comment><USER10> Why is that number ridiculous? At ~1% of the workforce, this means that the average American laborer needs 2.5 days/year of lawyer time to keep them fully occupied, which honestly doesn't feel like such a stretch to me, given that they need to be involved in hiring/firing, expansion, policy changes, deals closing, etc.

Also - note that not all licensed attorneys are practicing, so it may even be more like 1 lawyer-day/year per worker.

<comment><USER9> The problem is it's not being automated. Does every apartment complex in NY city really need a significantly different lease? I can buy I car without a lawyer why not a house? Do I really need a lawyer before highering a housekeeper?

Something like LegalZoom seems like a reasonable option for 80+% of all deals that currently use a Lawyer.

Edit: As to policy changes, a trade association could reasonably cover all most / all cab companies or even Hospitals.

<comment><USER11> The whole point of hiring a lawyer is to get customized legal advice or documents that pertain to your situation. If you're happy with using general advice/documents that may not actually fit your needs, you're free not to hire a lawyer.

It's basically the same as the choice between using stock Wordpress or hiring a developer to customize it for you (or to make you a custom CMS), except that the consequences are usually more dire.

Also, some of your examples are a bit odd. I don't know anyone who's hired a lawyer to buy a house or hire a housekeeper/nanny/gardener--is that some sort of weird Silicon Valley practice?

<comment><USER12> Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, ask a lawyer acquaintance of yours instead of trusting me if this is any more than idle curiosity.

A lawyer's job when buying a house is mostly dealing with the mortgage. They can explain the mortgage paperwork to you, and find traps like balloon payments or weird escrow structures that a layman might miss. If you pay out of pocket, there's generally a lot less for a lawyer to do.

There are of course exceptions where a lawyer is very important, like reviewing the bylaws of a condominium or homeowners' association, or explaining unusual clauses in the sale contract. Unfortunately it's hard to tell when you've run into one of these without having past experience or hiring a lawyer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's not really a problem. There has long been an oversupply of law school graduates relative to jobs in any sort of legal field.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have a friend who sometimes asks, to stoke conversation: "What's one thing you believe that no one else does?"

One answer? The law school boom isn't over.

I have a J.D. from Stanford (though I spend my time investing and working on my own projects), and though the legal education industry is in many respects quite hidebound and deserving of a downward correction, there is one swift wind filling the sails.

It's what Milovan Djilas[1] called "the new class." Djilas was a Yugoslav Soviet dissident. For a brief instant he was a true believer. But Djilas saw by 1954 that a large government tasked with redistribution was giving rise to a new elite: the redistributors. He wrote articles about "the new class" and was kicked out of the Party.

A friend of mine, a law professor in Knoxville, wrote about this in USA Today yesterday:

"Here in the United States, a lot of programs officially aimed at the poor look suspiciously like subsidies to the New Class, too. Among "means-tested" programs, Food Stamps, now officially called SNAP, cover about 46 million people up to 125% of the poverty line (set at about $16,000 for a single mother and child). Other programs, such as the Earned Income Tax credit, cover people at slightly higher incomes, up to 200% of the poverty line. When federal spending on the dozens of programs are added up and state and local contributions included, the budget for assistance is about $1 trillion.

"If we simply handed those people, perhaps 60 million of them, their share of the cash, that would be more than $16,500 each. A single mom and her baby would get over $33,000, twice as much as a poverty wage. A family of four would land more than $66,000, $15,000 more than the average family income.

"So where's the money going? To people who aren't poor, such as doctors paid through Medicaid or landlords paid through Section 8. And to tens of thousands of members of the New Class, people like social workers, administrators and lawyers who run more than 120 different means tested federal programs."[2]

And law school is the gate to a federal job. That's a powerful _expansionary_ force supporting legal education.

Also, a Maserati dealer has just opened in Arlington, Virginia.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_%C4%90ilas#Dissident)

[2] [http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/regulations- class-wealth-income-inequality-opportunity-reynolds-column/12266651/)

[3] [http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington- now-o...](http://www.arlnow.com/2014/07/07/maserati-of-arlington-now-open/)

<comment><USER15> >Also, a Maserati dealer has just opened in Arlington, Virginia.

I have a hard time imagining the mind of someone who sees this as related to civil servants rather than lobbyists.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget contractors. I would think lobbyists prefer to be across the river

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could this be a hog cycle thing? Just a short while ago, we were reading about all these law school grads who couldn't get jobs, because there were just too many of them. So in the next cycle nobody enrolls.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not very surprising. Our recently hired office manager graduated from Law School in 2011. The previous person in that job was a former secretary.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Lowest since 1977" isn't as exciting as it might otherwise be considering how flat enrollment was until about 2003.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am compelled to point out the potential for Spoonerism in the first two words of this headline.</comment>