Kindle: The Power Reading Device - <AUTHOR> http://nimbupani.com/kindle-the-power-reading-device.html

<comment><USER2> I got a 3G Kindle 3 several weeks ago.

I find that I mostly use it to read fiction. I'll probably eventually find it good for nice linear nonfiction like autobiographies. That's good because I've really gotten away from reading fiction, instead spending my reading time reading short-attention-span junk online. I love getting back to really reading.

I've tried it for a number of technical books, but it's just not that useful for that. It does an ok job displaying an unconverted PDF and a pretty good job working with a Calibre-converted PDF or CHM. I haven't tried an actual Kindle-formatted technical book, which could have better navigation. It's not displaying the page that's a problem. It's that when I'm reading a technical book, I need to flip around a lot. Search helps a bit, but flipping back and forth between sections is really cumbersome. Even with highlights and bookmarks, it's still tremendously slower than sticking a few post-it notes or thumbs in an actual print book. And most of the time that I want to look at a technical book, I'm already in front of at least one computer.

I haven't tried RSS feeds to the Kindle, but Instapaper is awesome for it and will only get better.

I rarely use the wireless at all. I struggled with buying the 3G vs. the wifi- only model. In the end I thought the 3G feature would extend the usefulness enough to make it worthwhile. In a pinch it's a decent email client and Wikipedia renders well. If I didn't have an Android and iPod Touch with me most of the time, I might use the Kindle wireless more.

One really important thing about the Kindle wifi: it won't connect to ad-hoc networks. This would have burned me if I'd bought the wifi-only model because I'd figured I could wifi tether it to my Android phone, but that runs in ad- hoc mode, so no connection.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice Kindle review. I'd like to offer a few additional points, though.

1\. For document conversion and for library management, I haven't found anything that beats Calibre. I recommend it to any Kindle user who isn't intimidated by having lots of options in the UI ;)

2\. Books on Kindle are not really organized into folders. Kindle collections are more like tags than folders. I do agree that we sorely need the ability to bulk update collections and to filter by more than one collection at a time. The "smart collection" idea is also great.

3\. Be careful with the "article mode" and the browser in general. This is still an experimental feature and I've had my Kindle freeze and stop responding on more than one occasion. This is not really such a big deal, as it can be solved using hard reset. There's no loss of data involved at all, but it _will_ scare the living daylights out of you when it first happens :P

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with Kindle.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Due to local restrictions web browsing is not available for all countries" is what I get when I try the web on my Kindle 3G bought a few weeks ago here in the EU.

Outside of getting books off whispernet Wikipedia works and that's it. Not really worth my paying extra for the 3G at all. Read the fine print, I should have. I know dealing with mobile carriers is a complete nightmare but Amazon is very crafty in calling the browser "experimental" and burying the information about browsing deep in their pages (I looked hard for it on purchase but only found it on the page now looking again).

All that said, if the browser is there you will probably get distracted. They could easily add tons of features to it but that would move it away from being a single purpose device. The more features are added to the Kindle the less you will see people raving about it. Kindle will have trouble selling against a colour e-ink device with some kind of android that's been modded for that type of screen at the same price point. I suspect what will happen is that features will stay largely the same but the price of the kindle will dive down amazingly. Thus you will see a kindle 4 and kindle 5 wifi for $80 then $50. Perhaps university editions, branded to particular universities, will gain the colour e-ink, a more advanced browser and more features like email and push the collaborative/community features more as there is compulsion connected to that reading. But for just reading, getting the device as cheap as possible and into as many hands as possible is a better option for them than adding distractions.

<comment><USER5> Huh... which country? Mine works ok in Italy, but I did buy it from the US with my US address...

<comment><USER4> Nimbupani's link contains 9 countries in the EU where it's not available, so it seems it's not so uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use Instapaper and have it configured to send me a digest of my active Instapaper pages. All I have to do is click once the 'I' icon provided by the Instapaper Chrome extension. Then they send my active items to my Kindle email each day (if I have new items). Very Nice!!

<comment><USER7> I wrote the post and I did look into the Instapaper digest. The main drawback for me was it costs money to send it. It is not much now $0.15 cents per delivery but it might rise and if so, I won't remember to stop it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only time I could see myself wanting the 3G feature is if I am traveling and out of books. OTOH, is that worth $50, as a just in case? I don't travel THAT much.

</comment><comment><USER9> He's right that the 3g Kindle is worth it, but not because of web browsing. Using the browser will make you want to stab yourself in the eye. It's because if you're reading somewhere that doesn't have free Wi-Fi it will still sync your last place read, so that if you then pick up the Kindle app on your phone or iPad or wherever it will be synced.

Also on any OS, Rekindle.it is a much easier way to send articles to your device.

</comment><comment><USER10> I absolutely love my Kindle, I used it 1-2 hours each day.

One issue I have with it though: sometimes when I email the kindle address and ebook, or instapaper sends an email, it doesn't get downloaded to the device. When I hit sync it says "No new downloads".

There should be a better way to sync it over the internet besides email.

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree, my kindle allows me to read long form articles that are just too intensive for a tea-break.

I bundle them up using instapaper ( <http://www.instapaper.com/> ) which the article does not mention, but which is excellent.

</comment><comment><USER12> i use my kindle 3 with 3g in china just fine. whispernet works fine, the browser works fine (just tried www.google.com). you have to go to the manage kindle web page and change your region to usa.

then again, i don't really care for the browser, if i wanted browsing, i'd have bought an ipad or used my laptop, web is about color.

the kindle to me is just an excellent reading device, the battery life is excellent, the form factor is excellent. i can't complain about anything really and the thing i like the most is the e-ink display, it's easy on the eyes.

added bonus is all the free classics you can download from amazon such as charles dickens and mark twain, i literally downloaded 100 classics.

</comment><comment><USER13> "You are not authorized to access this page."

<comment><USER14> I got that too. Google cached it though:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:http://nimbupani.com/kindle- the-power-reading-device.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Instapaper + calibre (news) + sony prs-650</comment>


Computation Containers - <AUTHOR> http://container-solutions.com/2014/12/computation-containers/

<comment><USER2> I really loved this blog. At DockerCon the other week I was talking about how hard it is for computational scientists to get other computational scientists to repeat their results. The reason is that small changes in input data, the code and the environment would conspire to effect the results.

Now you can ship everything - P, Q & R - and just run again.</comment>


Ask HN: riak/luwak vs openstack swift for private S3 clone? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, what is the best choice for a private cloud storage between openstack's swift and a riak/luwak solution? The purpose of the storage is long term archiving of files (1MB - 500MB), what would you choose and why? <comment><USER2> I know nothing about Switft so I'll keep my comments strictly related to Luwak.

Luwak preforms really well as a large object store...up to a point. I've personally seen latencies of < 4s when writing/reading a 700+MB CSV across 3 physical nodes (keep in mind, in the case of write, that doesn't mean all the data was strongly consistent yet...it's all async). Luwak has a really cool feature that also acts as a double edged sword -- it's a persistent data structure [1]. When you insert data it's chunked into blocks which are then keyed by their hash, i.e. a Merkle Tree [2]. If 2 (or more) blocks of data are the same only one instance will ever be created which acts as a general form of compression. The flip side of this is that you can't just willy nilly delete a file. You must perform garbage collection (via reference counting). Currently this is not implemented in the main line but I have a branch with a prototype implementation that uses Map-Reduce under the covers [3]. It scaled for me up to about 20+ GB of data and then I started hitting timeouts. I had plans to take this further but went a different direction for my purposes (which wouldn't relate to your problem at all so I'm not going to bother stating them).

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure>

[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_tree>

[3]: <https://github.com/rzezeski/luwak/tree/delete2-1.0>

</comment><comment><USER3> (I'm going to have some bias here as I've done Swift deployments as well.)

One of the advantages of using something like Swift for long-term storage is it's simplicity of how data is stored on disk. Data isn't chunked up and distributed throughout a cluster. Each replica is whole and on disk. And, as notmyname, mentions there are auditors that continuously run to check for bitrot and to ensure replicas are in place. The data is extremely durable in a swift cluster if you deploy and configure everything right.

I've done most of my price modeling for petabyte-scale deployments, but it actually has good scaling-down properties as well. If you're concerned about power, 2.5" drives may be an option. Although I would avoid 'green' drives as Swift tends to keep the drives quite active (replica and integrity checks) and you won't see much benefit.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm going to lean towards swift, but then again, I'm a core dev for swift and I haven't played with riak/luwak.

Swift is ideal for storing static content (backups, web resources, documents). It's designed to be very scalable (both with concurrency and with total storage space). And it's designed to work with commodity hardware (read: cheap), so it handles failures well (ensuring that data is replicated and safe from bit rot). Also, swift has basic S3 compatibility support.

Please let me know if you have other, more specific questions, and I'll try to answer to the best I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you very much for your answer. I have several question : can we mix node with different storage capacities (for example when we add new node later)? Is this kind of storage really cheaper than Nas with RAID on "small" capacity like 40 or 60TB total space? Ok hardware is cheaper, but what about other cost like power consumption or cooling?

<comment><USER4> Power consumption and cooling will, of course, be very dependent on your chosen hardware and hosting (DC).

Yes, swift can handle heterogenous drive sizes. For example, you can start with 2T drives and start adding 3T drives when they become more cost effective. You initial 40-60TB is well within reason for a swift cluster. I know of several running clusters at much larger scale than that (PBs of data, billions of objects).

Cost consideration are also highly dependent on your particular hardware choice. We recommend that you optimize your hardware for price per GB rather than for IOps or RAM or CPU. As you can imagine, there are nuances to all of this, too.

In case you haven't seen it yet, all the auto-generated docs for swift are at <http://swift.openstack.org> and much help can be found in #openstack on freenode IRC.

I'd recommend that you first look at the swift all-in-one docs (<http://swift.openstack.org/development_saio.html>) for running an entire cluster in a single VM. It should give you a good feel of the different parts of the system.</comment></comment></comment>


Neobase: Create a private social network outside the cloud - <AUTHOR> https://neone.com/kickstarter

<comment><USER2> It's actually custom software (based on Django/Angular/Postgres/Yocto Linux) designed from the ground up with an emphasis on privacy and security.

It will be open source, but interoperability with other systems is not currently contemplated as that would negate all the security benefits.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not a word about the software they intend to use? I'd hope it is a nicely repackaged version of pump.io or Diaspora, something that might have a chance of being compatible with others.</comment>


Y Combinator's new COO - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/08/26/meet-y-combinators-new-coo/ <comment><USER2> great to see YC growing, congrats to qasar younis. this quote in particular is interesting: "If anything, we wanted to be more of a distributed version of Google one day and wanted to be able to allow innovation to happen without it being under one particular company."</comment>


Senator To Microsoft: What Was That You Said About Wanting More H-1B Workers?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/senator-to-microsoft-what-was-that-you-said-about-wanting-more-h-1b-workers-msft

<comment><USER2> "Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect these American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times."

That senator, is where you are wrong. America is not a fraternity. Microsoft is not a public works program. Microsoft is a private corporation. Once upon a time, republicans understood the difference.

Conservatism is dead, long live conservatism.

<comment><USER3> "That senator, is where you are wrong." (Okay, calm down Keith Olberman.)

No, the United States is not a fraternity; I think a better metaphor is that it is the biggest baddest street gang there is. It should be no surprise that we are inclined to look after our own first.

I agree that Microsoft has no obligation other than following the rules and paying its protection money.

But America has an obligation to protect American workers ("by the people and for the people" remember?) "by putting them first during these difficult economic times".

So, they should change immigration law. And populist talk like this is often the first step towards that end.

In the end, I don't think it is meaningful to label this idea conservatism or liberalism. It is simply political pragmatism.

<comment><USER4> "But America has an obligation to protect American workers"

Classic make-work fallacy. American interests are best served when corporations (Microsoft in this case) are as efficient as possible. If that means immigrant workers, then so be it. If MS (and other corps) are forced to hire less-qualified or more expensive American workers then the cost of these measures is paid by their customers who are ... Americans and in lost market share which results in a cost to MS' investors who are ... Americans. The difference is that the plight of the unemployed programmers is obvious and easy to see while the plight of the customer and investors is obscured but that does not change the loss that they experience.

<comment><USER5> " American interests are best served when corporations (Microsoft in this case) are as efficient as possible."

That simply doesn't pan out. It is in the capital-owner's best interest when their holdings operate as efficiently as possible. Most americans are not capital-holders.

<comment><USER4> Look again at how your pension fund is invested. Most americans have an interest in the stock market (Exxon, GE, Walmart, and index funds are particularly polular among large pension funds like CALPERS). Furthermore, all Americans are capital holders in the sense that they own (some) US dollars which can be used to buy from the US economy. If the economy becomes more efficient, they can buy more and therefore, are aided by the increased efficiency. That is, until the dollar is devalued even more.

<comment><USER5> Pension fund? Oh, you mean that ponzi scheme of Social Security?

Also, most Americans are in more debt than they have assets. They are not capital holders. Don't conflate holding some currency with controlling the means of production.

<comment><USER5> Why was I down-modded?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Senator may not realise it, but much of the productivity growth in the US has come from technological breakthroughs of first or second generation immigrants. Short-sighted populism is what I would call this.

<comment><USER7> So what?

Why should an American worker give a damn about productivity? We just experienced a decade with robust productivity growth along with steadily declining standards of living. Improvements to productivity have almost exclusively benefited people who are already wealthy over the past 10 years. This may be slightly hyperbolic, but certainly not by much.

There are opinions being expressed here that American workers have a sense of entitlement, wanting to maintain their current standard of living. Well, what about American capital? Why do they feel a sense of entitlement to make their capital even more valuable via access to ever cheaper labor? Why do they feel a sense of entitlement to keep the standard of living their capital gives them, instead of having it taxed and distributed to others?

Ideologies are not ends unto themselves. The American people believe that driving down the cost of labor is not serving their interests now, and are not compelled by arguments that they should sacrifice their interests in homage to pure libertarianism. If those who think that the median citizen will benefit from increased immigration, make that argument in terms that addresses that citizen's self interest. That is how debate in a democracy is supposed to work.

<comment><USER8> > _We just experienced a decade with robust productivity growth along with > steadily declining standards of living._

This sentiment always confuses me. Granted, my experience is limited (memory only serves me for about the last 15 years), but it seems like things are getting better all the time. More people have more televisions, air conditioners, dishwashers, etc than ever before. Life expectancy is steadily increasing, food supply has become more or less a non-issue, etc. In what material dimension are we noteably worse off now than we were 20 years ago? I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm honestly curious. The only thing that remotely comes to mind is the cost of higher education, which has been increasing in cost faster than wages grow.

> _If those who think that the median citizen will benefit from increased > immigration, make that argument in terms that addresses that citizen's self > interest._

Just because incomes have "stagnated" (which also seems to depend on how you slice and dice the numbers), doesn't mean standard of living has gone down. The constantly decreasing prices of material goods plays just as much of a factor. My wages could be cut in half and I could still afford the same amount of TV screen as two years ago. Granted, not everything gets cheaper at the rate consumer electronics do, but cheap immigrant labor has a huge effect on the prices of stuff you buy all the time, which benefits you as well.

<comment><USER7> "In what material dimension are we noteably worse off now than we were 20 years ago?"

My window was 10 years.

"Just because incomes have "stagnated" (which also seems to depend on how you slice and dice the numbers), doesn't mean standard of living has gone down."

No, it just means standard of living has stagnated, too.

"The constantly decreasing prices of material goods plays just as much of a factor."

We've had a lot of inflation, up until the economy cratered.

<comment><USER8> Well my question still stands for 10 years. Of course, if the window gets too small it becomes meaningless. Progress is never constant and moderate, there are always bad times and good, as long as the long term trend is upward.

<comment><USER5> Real wages have stayed pretty flat, but housing costs have skyrocketed, we are working more hours and not getting more vacation, and healthcare remains abysmal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >"Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect these American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times."

One loses track of all the moral obligations of corporations these days. While trying to meet them all, it can be hard to find the time to make a good product and earn money.

<comment><USER10> "it can be hard to find the time to make a good product"

So that explain their last decade!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nobody ever wins votes by championing the cause of immigrants. As usual though, it seems like immigration bashing is high up on the todo list of politicians where hardly any immigrants live, particularly when the economic shit hits the fan.

<comment><USER12> > where hardly any immigrants live

Applies in Germany, too.

<comment><USER12> I.e. the inverse correlation between immigritant population density and dislike for immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> why does this guy care? He is a senator from Iowa...are there any "high tech" jobs in Iowa that would get affected by the H1-B program?

H1-B program is very important to this country. It keeps us ahead of the curve by draining the talent worldwide and adding it to United States brain capital.

<comment><USER14> I say we don't go far enough with the H-1B program. Many people I know are uneasy and unwilling to sign their lives away to a single company, to do with at their whim, for a chance to _maybe_ become a legitimate US resident in a decade.

The problem is that, once you are in the US on a H-1B your life is in the hands of your employer. This is ripe for employee abuse (and one of the major contributors to wage depression in immigrant labor).

What the US really needs is a legitimized skilled labor immigration program. Something whose job is _actually_ to steal talent from abroad and add it to America, instead of this "job shortage" excuse and subverting a different system to accomplish the same ends. If you can bring people into the country and give them employment mobility (the same way my parents came into Canada), the US would be far better off, and wage depression due to immigration would be reduced.

[edit] As a more concrete issue: here in Canada we have significant problems with skilled immigrants coming and not being able to find jobs, and thus being a drain on our social systems. This can easily avoided if certain classes (i.e. anyone not exceptionally talented) would need an employer sponsor to apply for immigration. You would need to secure a job before entering the US, but once you're in you are mobile.

<comment><USER8> While I'm generally all for the change you propose, you have to be realistic and realize this could be abused.

I could set up a company that would, in exchange for buying $3000 of my plastic toys, hire someone and let them resign a month later. I can even let them do the month's work from their new home in the US. Then they can go off and do as they please.

Granted this is just an enforcement issue, and enforcement is part of whatever system we have, but I think you could save a lot of effort by just instituting some kind of entrance exam system to certify them as a 'knowledge worker'. (At which point they can enter and leave freely, with full job mobility.)

As an added bonus, you could administer this exam to citizens as well as a form of professional certification, which would probably be more useful to employers than the existing degree system.

<comment><USER15> _I could set up a company that would, in exchange for buying $3000 of my plastic toys, hire someone and let them resign a month later._

There are ways to prevent that. For example, the government could require that (a) the employer sponsoring a new immigrant has to pay six months of the immigrant's unemployment insurance in advance (perhaps put into an escrow account), and (b) if the immigrant is neither employed nor collecting unemployment insurance for more than, say, two months, then the visa is terminated.

Another possibility I've seen floated is that the government make only a fixed number of work visas available, but auction them off. Then the immigrants let in would be the ones who are likely to add the most value to their employers.

<comment><USER14> Actually that's also how we solve it in Canada for relatives of immigrants. In order to bring kin over into Canada one must sign a commitment to cover their social welfare expenses (if any) for a period of 10 years. This has done wonders to curtail people bringing in elderly relatives who do nothing but sit on welfare checks. This also holds someone accountable without leaving someone behind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act>

Every politician in every country right now is trying to raise barriers, buy at home first, preserve jobs for Americans/Canadians/Chinese/... . It's even more the wrong thing to do now than it was in 1930, because trade is so much more than it was in 1930, and should be resisted over and over and over again.

</comment><comment><USER17> Give every Masters/PHD student a green card with their diploma. Then let them find a job, start a business, whatever. Else it's only a matter of time before they move a a country that gives them this freedom.

</comment><comment><USER18> What I don't understand is why he wouldn't want Microsoft to be able to hire the best people for the job?

<comment><USER14> It's because of the "they're stealing our jerbs!" mentality that I see on a lot of other websites (who shall remain unnamed, the worst of which is named after punctuation)...

"But there's tons of unemployed home-grown talent here!" I hear many people say. I argue otherwise. I have met these vaunted whiners who claim to possess all the skills they need to work at MS and beyond, and I can safely say that the vast majority wouldn't make the cut. Most are mindless script monkeys who couldn't hack their way out of a wet paper bag.

I have yet to see a major US corporation favor immigrants in their hiring. In fact, almost every single American company I've had dealings with pay immigrant labor the _same salary_ as their American counterparts. With all the extra legal hassle and costs this actually makes immigration _more expensive_ for the employer.

The talent shortage in the US tech sector is _real_ , and instead of bemoaning the loss of jobs to immigrants, maybe American colleges should look at why they're producing so many people who don't make the cut. And perhaps these people who feel their jobs have been "stolen" should do some introspection and figure out just how hard these other guys are working compared to themselves.

<comment><USER19> Most of the immigrant workers I work with also got their education in the U.S.

<comment><USER14> You make a good point. I didn't say conclusively that it's the colleges' fault, but it's worth looking into nonetheless.

The way I see it it's not really a lack of education but rather the mentality that hard work isn't worth squat and people will get the world handed to them on a silver platter for just Being Awesome(tm). It's a mentality that many kids in my generation grew up with, what with gold stars and the constant news of Wall Street investors striking gold by making a few lucky bets.

More American talent can be exposed if we can rid ourselves of this false sense of entitlement and convince people that if they want to get rich (or get a decently high paying job) they need to get their ass in gear and start working and learning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> MS are not the ones who f __*ed up the economy or failed to provide the oversight.

</comment><comment><USER21> Globalization will only succeed when wage slavery (in Agriculture, Manufacturing & Services) is prevented in the developing nations.</comment>


Corporate Power, Protests and the Breakdown of a Social Contract - <AUTHOR> https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/corporate-power-protests-and-the <comment><USER2> One thing I haven't seen any discussion of is the role that police use of steroids has had on police violence.</comment>


After all the buzz, is App.net going to make it? - <AUTHOR> http://www.attendly.com/after-all-the-buzz-is-app-net-going-to-make-it/

<comment><USER2> Depends what they mean by make it. Survive as a niche network? Maybe. Break it big? Not likely.</comment>


A proposal to support the <mark> tag with Markdown - <AUTHOR> http://jandecaluwe.com/blog/mark-tag-support.html <comment><USER2> There might be more chance of getting the tag implemented in CommonMark than Markdown for similar reasons to the reasons that CommonMark is called "CommonMark".

CommonMark: [http://commonmark.org/](http://commonmark.org/)

Markdown: [http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)</comment>


Wife of Norwegian billionare kidnapped, €9M crypto ransom - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/09/kidnappers-demand-9m-cryptocurrency-norwegian-billionaires-wife/ <comment><USER2> If I were worth 120 million and my wife were ransomed for 9 mil, I'd pay the 9 ransom to get her back, and then I would put another 9 mil bounty on the heads of the people who kidnapped her.

<comment><USER3> It's not clear that she lived past the day of the kidnapping. TFA indicates there has been no proof of life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > ""Police have so far advised the family not to meet the requirements."

This is good advice from their point of view because it lowers the incentive to commit these types of crimes in the future.

For the individual person, it is most wise to pay the ransom and ignore what law enforcement tells you if you want to see the person back.

<comment><USER5> Yet at the same time, as an individual criminal there is no incentive to actually return the person or even keep them alive once payment has been recieved

<comment><USER6> Of course there's an incentive to not kill them.

Most people don't actually enjoy murdering innocent people, and if the police found the dead body then it's a murder investigation which would be taken more seriously than a kidnapping/ransom.

All they'd need to do is blindfold the victim and drop them at a random location. It'd be much less risk than disposing of a corpse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you develop a tool, you have to consider the pros and the cons. For example, encrypted chat, while it may have bad uses, the vast majority of uses are good or at least benign. With cryptocurrency on the other hand, it seems like the bad uses are the majority: fraud, money laundering, illegal drugs, and extortion. In the past, the money exchange in an extortion scheme was always the weak point. Now, thanks to cryptocurrencies, it is the strong point.

</comment><comment><USER8> Missing since October 31st, this is horrible.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is terrible. I wonder, what is the comment about the ransom note intended to signify? That the kidnappers are not Norwegian? ISTM that extreme confidence would be required to commit a crime of this nature in a foreign country.

<comment><USER9> It signifies that either a foreigner or recent immigrant, or perhaps a dyslectic or anyone who would like it to appear as if a foreigner or recent immigrant or a dyslectic wrote the note.

<comment><USER10> Yes, for native speaker would not happen that they change writing from normal fluency. What gain can be from changing normal grammatics or to use left hand?

Verily the poorly-skilled can never write better, and the better never poorer.

But are there known 'kidnap ransomers' that could be deduced through language? It seems unlikely, I guess, unless Norway has enough local variances that would give a native speaker away through dialect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This happened at Halloween but the police asked the media to not report it and they seemingly complied.

Is this kind of arrangement unique to Norway?

<comment><USER12> No, a lot of media outlets will not report on something that will definitely put someone's life in immediate danger, unless the public interest outweighs the risk. In this case the public interest is well served as long as it's eventually reported, and a scoop at the cost of a life would be pointless and cruel. It doesn't always work out of course, and the smaller a media org is the less likely they are to abide by norms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Norway has public tax records. This is one of the potential flaws of an otherwise, kinda cool openness. You can't be rich and have a 'normal' life. You have money in Norway, you have to have walls, staff, etc. just to have a bit of safety.

<comment><USER14> This seems completely out of touch with the reality in Norway.

In this case police suspect that he was targeted due to a public news story about him making a lot of money on something or other a while back.

The public tax record don't really play much into this. There are plenty of other sources of information about who is wealthy or not. Usually for burglary, you're target based on the area you live in.

And all in all Norway is extremely safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> These kinds of things need to be considered when arguing about privacy: you could argue that having completely private payments with no link possible to the receiver is bad, because it facilitates this type of crime: Before crypto, you had to either demand money to a bank account (traceable) or demand cash on a certain location (which could then be surveiled by police to find the criminals).

I'm not saying there are kidnappings because there is crypto, but maybe some kidnappings are easier when cryptocurrencies exist, and that is definitely a downside to consider vs the already low upsides of crypto.

</comment><comment><USER16> For a billionaire, that is quite a humble home.

<comment><USER17> I am a multimillionaire in Indian Rupees but that doesn't mean much in dollars or euros.

Another poster pointed out they were worth $200 million or as the article said about 147 million pounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How long will it be until people realize cryptocurrency is a problem?

<comment><USER19> Yes, cryptocurrency is clearly to blame for kidnappings. It's not like we ever had kidnappings before Bitcoin.

<comment><USER18> Is that I said though? You think the existence of cryptocurrency plays no part in facilitating ransom demands?

<comment><USER20> Yeah, so does existence of any spoken and/or written language. Without them, you'd actually have to come to the person, and explain the demand with signs like in a game of charades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Forty Minutes with a Fields Medallist - <AUTHOR> http://www.t5eiitm.org/2015/07/forty-minutes-with-a-fields-medallist/

<comment><USER2> I can only infer from the picture of a person on the couch two-thirds of the way through the article that this is about "Prof. Manjul Bhargava": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjul_Bhargava](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjul_Bhargava)

<comment><USER3> I was looking around for his name too. Author: Perhaps a quick intro / context might help at the top of the page.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, it seems like the paragraph:

> After the talk about "Poetry, Drumming and Mathematics", we arrived at the > appointed time at the Bose–Einstein Guest House to find our man, with his > mother, standing transfixed by the deer grazing on the lawns. We managed to > prise him away for a while — here's what followed.

is meant to provide that intro/context; but, like you and the grandparent, I was puzzled about who 'our man' was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That man is so down to Earth, very inspiring.

For those who wonder like I did why the probability of picking a square-free number is 6/Pi^2, it's explained on wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square- free_integer#Distributi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square- free_integer#Distribution)

<comment><USER6> I enjoyed how he could explain his work in elementary terms, without invoking any jargon. This is a sure sign he understands it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Manjul makes it so simple. The odds of two numbers being relatively prime is 6/pi^2 so where's the circle? You can kind of see rotation symmetry if you draw the relatively prime pairs of numbers in the coordinate plane. However that symmetry is far from perfect.

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-786-topics-in- alge...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-786-topics-in-algebraic- number-theory-spring-2010/18-786s10.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but the rotational symmetry doesn't explain why the pi is there. (e.g. why is it squared?)

If you can explain, convincingly and geometrically, why pi is present in this formula then I would be VERY VERY interested to read.

<comment><USER9> Have a look at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_problem) . I'm not a mathematician, and I'm probably wrong, but I think it has to do with infinite series that "circle" around a value, and asymptotically approach a value, only accurately expressed in terms of pi.

"Euler's original derivation of the value π2/6 essentially extended observations about finite polynomials and assumed that these same properties hold true for infinite series."

Sorry, not very convincing or geometric, and I'm sure someone else can provide a better answer, but that's how I visualize it.

<comment><USER8> No apologies necessary, I think that's just the state of mathematics.

The sum of the inverse fourth powers is pi^4/90\. Sixth powers, pi^6/915\. The pattern keeps going for _even_ powers and _not_ for odd.

I don't think there is a geometric proof. But if there were, it would be incredible.

<comment><USER10> A simple explanation I enjoy (not quite visual, but geometric in some sense) is the on the wiki using Fourier series, understanding it requires just a few steps:

1) You accept Parseval's identity: by changing between orthogonal basis, the energy (sum of absolute squared values) remains the same.

2) You find that the energy of the periodic function x mod pi is sum(1/n^2).

3) Evaluating the integral gives pi^2/6!

The square is neatly explained because it involves _energies_. I guess this is why the pattern works only for even powers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, how inspiring! Thanks for the post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely no problem. Great read for the weekend!</comment></comment>


30 New OS X Mountain Lion Features in 2 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/7J2mmHtqw74 <comment><USER2> It's a joke they still haven't fixed the fullscreen feature rendering your second monitor useless. I can't understand why they did it that way and why it hasn't been fixed already.

<comment><USER3> Everyone keeps saying this, but I think it's FUD. They've fixed the main gripe with Lion's full screen: not being able to full screen an app on the monitor of your choice (as opposed to the main monitor only). Why is the second monitor useless? I'm sure you can still drag app windows to it and interact with them.

edit: You can drag child windows of the full-screened app to the second monitor. The whole point of the full-screen mode is to isolate the app and give it exclusive focus. For everything else, there's the zoom button.

<comment><USER2> Well that's the real problem, you can't ... when you fullscreen an app the second monitor just displays a gray fabric background but you can't put apps, widgets, or anything else for that mater on it. It's a fail I wasn't expecting from Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "features" in that video are a joke.

Does anybody know if there are under the hood improvements in this version that would make upgrading worth the money?

<comment><USER5> "Under the hood"? Not really. There are a few nifty new APIs – SceneKit, NSXPCConnection, NSUserNotification, the sharing stuff – and the 64-bit kernel (with kernel ASLR) is now the default. Regarding user-visible features, I think there are a couple nice ones:

\- AirPlay mirroring is slick, especially in meeting situations

\- Document auto-save and versioning are a lot less annoying and more useful

\- Improved sharing support can be quite useful in many situations

\- Calendar and Contacts suck less

\- Gatekeeper is, I honestly believe, a solid step forward in improving system integrity and security

\- iCloud sucks less and is better integrated into some system apps

\- You are now notified of both system _and_ app updates, and update checks happen daily. I think this is huge for app developers

\- Preview has support for entering text in text fields of PDF documents which aren't true PDF forms (this honestly might be my single favorite Mountain Lion feature)

For $20, I think this is a solid "polish" upgrade. There's nothing mind blowing, but there's an incredible amount of polish across the system, with a few truly useful features mixed in. For me? Money well spent.

<comment><USER6> AirPlay mirroring sounds nice. Could it be used to show Photoshop canvas on an iPad when drawing with wacom?

I was thinking of buying an app for this, but if Mountain Lion does that I might hold off till I upgrade.

<comment><USER7> Also keep in mind that AirPlay mirroring requires at least a Sandybridge CPU, so you need a mac released in 2011 or later.

<comment><USER8> Can you cite a source for that? Experience suggests that is not the case.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/> lists the following macs as supporing AirPlay

      * iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
      * Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
      * MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
      * MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)

I remember reading that AirPlay mirroring uses the video encoding capabilities of SandyBridge CPUs, but I can't find a source for that now. Anecdotally, <http://airparrot.com> really taxes my 2010 MacBook's CPU.

<comment><USER8> Strange, because it's working great on my 2008 unibody Macbook Pro with Core 2 Duo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could rebranding OSX to OS10 be in preparation for OS11? OSXI doesn't sound or look as good as OS11 to me. They're also almost out of large cats...

The time for OS11 is rapidly approaching. OSX has evolved substantially since its release, but is still very much the same OS. If Windows 8 is a fundamental leap (that doesn't lead to a face-plant) then OSX might soon be in the same position as OS9 was after Win95 came out. Is there another NeXTSTEP somewhere out there for Apple to buy?

<comment><USER10> I don't think that the rebranding to OS10 is factually accurate [1]. As a matter of pronunciation, OS X has always been pronounced "OS Ten" (as opposed to "OS EX").

1) See branding for Mountain Lion <http://www.apple.com/osx/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I installed the GM build on my MacBook Pro, not sure if it's just psychological but apps definitely feel snappier than in Lion.

Got caught out with one old app that didn't have a developer id (for a 3g dongle) so had to disable the gatekeeper install it then I could reapply gatekeeper.

Otherwise it's been running great for the past few days.

<comment><USER12> It isn't. Snow Leopard was crazy fast, but Lion bogged down a lot. ML DP2 brought huge performance improvements, basically undoing whatever it was that Lion did.

(I'm a dev, benchmark each and every build for our custom software.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, none of those really jumped out at me as killer features. That said, I was happy with my upgrade to Snow Leopard, I think it was, when most of the new features were behind the scenes speed/stability/security fixes.

Also, off topic, but is the narrator John C. Reilly!?

</comment><comment><USER14> The ability to bring 'Save As' back is worth the $20 alone for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hey, Dashboard still exists.

I'm wondering why I never use it anymore. It was fun to play around with and design for, but nowadays I... well, I actually forgot the shortcut to open it.

Am I the only one?

<comment><USER16> Dashboard is actually one of my favorite features; I can't live without it. I use the dictionary/thesaurus widget every time I write (or read) and I take down short, temporary notes on the sticky notes. Besides that, I use the clock (to keep tabs on different time zones), weather and calendar widgets, and iStat Pro.

<comment><USER17>
      > I use the dictionary/thesaurus widget every time I write
      > (or read)

When reading, try this: hover over the word and press ctrl+cmd+d.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks like some solid improvements, especially for the price they are charging. I hope they keep pushing though, I feel it could be a little quicker (especially on my older macs) and I feel compared to Snow Leopard it is noticeably slower (things like airdrop don't work either). Performance and stability improvements would be a good next step. Easier said than done however.

</comment><comment><USER19> Most features don't seem to be core OS features except maybe this one:

"You can use Airplay as a sound output device".

Which, I am looking forward to.

<comment><USER20> I tried this feature and couldn't get it to work. I have a (last-gen) airport express and also a mac htpc running airfoil speakers.

I can play to both through iTunes or Airfoil but no audio comes through when using the airplay audio out device. Hopefully this will be addressed soon.

<comment><USER21> I've used the Airplay audio out a couple of times with a previous generation Airport Express and an AppleTV 2. It works well but does have very noticeable lag, making it useless for anything but playing music. The lag was far greater than that of Airplay mirroring, which I find rather odd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _clutches my copy of Snow Leopard, hissing_

</comment><comment><USER23> i think he missed Gatekeeper.</comment>


Ships Buried Under San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.upout.com/blog/san-francisco-3/map-shows-ships-buried-underneath-san-francisco-2 <comment><USER2> Relevance: The recent discussions[0,1] on the sinking Millennium Tower (and possibly Salesforce East/350 Mission, based on the ESA isometric plots in [1]). The map[2] clearly shows that the corner of Mission & Fremont was once just offshore.

Additionally, as someone who's been lucky enough to live nearby, it's just absolutely cool to be able to 'walk' through history like this in an area that is largely derided as being sterile and faceless.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12206158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12206158)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13036377)

[2]: [http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hpshpb_2014.jpg](http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hpshpb_2014.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Your third link doesn't work unless you come from [http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp5.htm](http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp5.htm)

<comment><USER2> Odd, works on my end in an incog window.

Unrelated: huge fan of your lpeg_patterns & mmdblua work, among others. Many, many thanks - made my life much easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite of these is the ship that the muni metro goes through at the embarcadero portal:

[http://sfist.com/2016/07/22/fun_fact_the_muni_metro_runs_thr...](http://sfist.com/2016/07/22/fun_fact_the_muni_metro_runs_throug.php)

</comment><comment><USER5> There was a recent 99% Invisible about this: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-up-ground

<comment><USER6> Actual clickable link: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-up- ground](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/making-up-ground)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are into this kind of stuff, I recommend the Drag Me Along tour by Lola Montez: [http://www.dragmealongtours.com](http://www.dragmealongtours.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> so, even back then the SF real estate was so hot that sinking the still serviceable ships was profitable. I think i'll see in my life an artificial island 5-10 miles into the ocean connected to SF by a new super-Golden Gate (after all there is only 20-30m depth :)

<comment><USER9> Reality just gets closer and closer to Snow Crash.

<comment><USER10> Isn't there an artificial island in Diamond Age too?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One such ship appears in the recent book "Ajax Penumbra 1969" by Robin Sloan, the prequel to Sloan's "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore". It's a short fun read.

</comment><comment><USER6> The map shown here is originally from this page: [http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp1.htm](http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp1.htm)

(It's in the lower right, click on it to see the full thing)

</comment><comment><USER12> Well, what are we waiting for? This is perfectly good real estate...

</comment><comment><USER13> wiggle is the new blink

<comment><USER14> Came here to comment similarly. Interesting article, completely unreadable to me due to the wiggle of all the garbage all over the page.

<comment><USER15> Care to explain... I am lost on what the two of you mean. I didnt notice a page wiggle?

<comment><USER16> The ads on the page wiggle in place.

"You have free tickets waiting for you! [Click Here]" The [Click Here] button sort of vibrates.

"Win Tix to Unique SF events!" This popup wiggles dead-center on the page like it's hung from a single piece of thread and somebody pushed it.

<comment><USER15> Thanks... running ghostery and ublock so i didnt notice. On second viewing, the popup for winning tix showed and i saw it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Since this is the no-politics week, I'm curious what this has to do with technology?

<comment><USER18> We asked people to flag _political_ stories for a week (just one!) which certainly does not mean "flag all non-technical stories". The non sequitur there ought to be obvious.

There are more things than politics and tech, and those things are important here—important enough that the first paragraph of the site guidelines is explicitly about them:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER19> I fail to understand how buried ships or tidbits about a city's buried ship histories "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"

Should a posting about the Walled City of Lahore [1] make it to the front page? I really don't think it should. Nor should historical facts about how Las Vegas' iconic casinos aren't really in Las Vegas, but in an unincorporated town called Paradise[2].

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

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_Nevada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_Nevada)

<comment><USER18> Obviously different individuals' curiosities are gratified by different things, but that's a different question.

<comment><USER19> How come my posting on the Walled City was immediately flagged?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13119544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13119544)

<comment><USER19> Sighhh, I half an hour later, I can see how the submission was a tantrum and I suppose I understand that flag. I'll admit it, I was wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


One Year - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/one_year

<comment><USER2> Any body else get the feeling that maybe Steve Jobs is just trying to retire, but he can't because he still has too much to do, so he just keeps pushing for change as fast as we can take it?

<comment><USER3> Why would he retire? I am sure that he is having fun doing what he is doing. He makes most of the rules and only gets in trouble when the share prices take a dive.</comment></comment>


House Report, Evidence Redacted, Ties Snowden to Russian Agencies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/politics/snowden-national-security-russia.html <comment><USER2>
      under "no circumstances will any contractor call
      out or point fingers at any government manager
      whether you agree with their handling of an issue
      or not."

Even if it's only anecdotal evidence, it is frightening to read how closed- minded the culture can be in US government.</comment>


Ask HN: Which host should I use for a PHP site? - <AUTHOR>

I have a relatively simple PHP (Codeigniter) website that I am currently running on a shared host while it has been in development.  Needless to say, I haven't been impressed with the performance of the site and would like to move it to a speedy host before we launch.
Right now we don't have much traffic but I'm hoping to get around 1000 visitors/day come launch time (hey a boy can dream right?). Could I kindly ask on your suggestions on start-up friendly hosting options?
Thanks in advance. <comment><AUTHOR> Took a look at Linode since it seems to be so highly recommended.

Looks like it will be a significant learning curve since I will need to install everything myself (LAMP stack, svn, etc). Is there any way to do a 1 click installation?

Thanks again for the help.

<comment><USER2> Capistrano and Deprec can help with this stuff. Should come up in a quick Google search. It does use Ruby, but you can use it with PHP and anything else you want to. Deprec has recipes for setting up the entire LAMP stack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip, I will check them out. Stackscripts look like they can significantly reduce the pain of setting up a box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If your performance is bad on shared hosting while in development, your problem is probably not your host. Look at your code a second time.

<comment><USER4> Shared hosting just isn't reliable. It could be his code, but if the slow performance times aren't constant, it's probably the host. You're sharing a web server, database, email, and etc with at least 50 other people (these days, you're lucky if it's just that) and it's all on the same computer. Each scripting language as many ./configure options enabled as they can, so it will fit the needs of the masses.

I'm not sure if you're attached to the ease of use of shared hosting, but it is advantageous to get a VPS and compile everything with just the options you need. I'm a happy liode customer, and many others here are as well.

<comment><USER5> While I don't disagree with the premise that shared hosting isn't reliable, your assertion that "if the slow performance times aren't constant, it's probably the host" is incorrect.

Further, there are a VERY wide range of shared hosts, from very reliable, to very unreliable, to variable or unreliable depending on which machine/region/network your account is attached to.

<comment><USER4> Oh yeah, I've seen some great shared hosts (medialayer, mediatemple, come to mind). Realistically though, most of them do suck pretty bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Hmm... I been finding it hard to find any hosts, which across the board have raving reviews. I have been finding that a search for any hoster + sucks yields plenty of results.

<comment><USER6> As with any company, personal experiences will vary. You are likely to read many reviews that are both praising and criticizing services. If you have any specific questions about your needs and preferred features from a host, it's best to contact them and ask. As far as (mt) Media Temple goes, you can check out <http://mediatemple.net> for detailed info about our hosting products and services. If you have any questions for us, you can call or Tweet us (@mediatemple) any time. We are here 24/7. Good luck with your hosting search!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use ICDsoft for my site (MapCrunch), and can strongly recommend them.

They are a shared host but I've not experienced any problems, even during traffic spikes (>25k visitors).

Their support is also incredible and responds to queries within minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your recommendation. I'm impressed that a shared host can handle spikes of >25k visitors!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I'd check out the searchyc.com engine for answers, but off the top of my head:

      * SliceHost/Rackspace Cloud
      * Linode
      * EC2 (carefully)
      * Web Faction

<comment><USER8> +1 Web Faction - starts you off with shared hosting with some dedicated memory for your application. You can add more as needed, for a small fee.

+1 Linode - Best bang for your buck for a VPS loaded with features and reliability.

<comment><USER9> Agreed on Linode. Good people, good technology.

One might also consider PHPFog or Orchestra.io, which are "Herokus for PHP"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I will check them out. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Core CPUs: Everything You Need to Know about Coffee Lake and Ice Lake - <AUTHOR> https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/01/24/intel-core-cpu-coffee-lake-price-specs-guide/ <comment><USER2> Reads like an advert</comment>


Is GitHub down or just me? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://status.github.com/messages](https://status.github.com/messages) "We are investigating reports of elevated error rates."

</comment><comment><USER3> Yup getting lots of 500 erorrs</comment>


Why I Support Startup Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://blog.canworksmart.com/2011/08/why-i-support-startup-weekend

<comment><USER2> Startup Weekend is the place to go to meet driven and creative professionals that understand the entrepreneur. It's also a great place to meet co-founders, technical employees, legal professionals, mentors and potential investors. Even if you participate and your team/idea fails, with the connections you make, you end up winning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Startup Weekend has been great for me. I met my CTO and lead enterprise salesperson both at Startup Weekend. It is a great cause to rally your tech, business and creative community around.</comment></comment>


Windows 10 snooping: MS gets more time to tackle 'excessive' data collection - happy-go-lucky http://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-snooping-microsoft-gets-more-time-to-tackle-excessive-data-collection/ <comment><AUTHOR> > For example, Windows 10 transmits user data back to Microsoft by default, > with users of Home and Pro versions only able to reduce data collection to > the "Basic" level. However, users of Enterprise, Education, and IoT core > editions are able to reduce the data collection further, to what Microsoft > calls the "Security" level.

> Given Microsoft says that the data collected at the "Security" level is the > bare minimum necessary to keep Windows machines "protected with the latest > security updates", the collection of any data above and beyond this is not > needed, the CNIL said in its formal notice.

I have professional version of Windows does anyone know a way set it to Security Level, somehow.

I have shared an article here at HN about privacy related group policy editor settings.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042908)

I am also adding what comes under the category of Security level and Basic level data as it isn't given in the article, so people are more aware.

Security level

> The Security level gathers only the telemetry info that is required to keep > Windows devices, Windows Server, and guests protected with the latest > security updates. Data gathered at this level includes the Malicious > Software Removal Tool reports, information that Windows Defender and > Endpoint Protection require to function. This includes anti-malware > signatures, diagnostic information, User Account Control settings, UEFI > settings, and IP address. No user content, such as user files or > communications, is gathered at the Security telemetry level, and we take > steps to avoid gathering any information that directly identifies a company > or user, such as name, email address, or account ID

Basic Level

> The Basic level gathers a limited set of data that's critical for > understanding the device and its configuration. This level also includes the > Security level data. Basic device data such as attributes, Internet Explorer > version, hardware information, operating system information, network > attributes and more are collected at this level. Collected data includes app > usage data, Internet Explorer add-ons, driver data, system data, Windows > Store activity and more on top of that.</comment>


Suddenly lots of spam on HN? - <AUTHOR>

Just noticing this tonight. Are there lots of spam submissions happening or is this normal and I just don't see it?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680248
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680032 <comment><USER2> Looks like those links have been taken down so your post essentially lacks context.

I was curious to see what those submissions were

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to see that. It really wasn't that much but it was no different than you see on most blogs nowadays.

I haven't been on HN that long but I was still shocked to see it.

<comment><USER3> If you turn on "Show Dead" in your profile and look a the Newest page, you'll get an idea of the volume. I try to go through and flag for spam every time I submit something.

I'd estimate that usually about 20 out of the first 100 posts are already dead, and I flag 2 or 3 more. I'm not sure how much of this is automatic and how much other users.

(Glancing now, it seems to be considerably fewer. It varies quite a bit over time, and I might be remembering the highs more than the average)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How can we report? Like "BR" style: "I report U"

<comment><AUTHOR> I _believe_ those with high karma can flag submissions

<comment><USER5> Yep, the threshold is something around 250 points, iirc. I wonder what threshold the downvote ability carries at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I recently saw something mentioning that it was at 100

<comment><USER5> 100? Can't be. I'm at 314 at the moment and cannot downvote, yet I can flag posts...

<comment><USER6> [http://hn-karma-tracker.herokuapp.com/](http://hn-karma- tracker.herokuapp.com/) says the current limit is 500, with about 11% of users having downvote privs.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>