If you applied to startup school, please put the same email in your profile - <AUTHOR>

We've made the startup school application reader import karma scores from News.YC, so we can consider karma as a factor.  (It is a meaningful one, because it shows your contributions are valued by your peers.)  It matches people based on email addresses, so if you have high karma on News.YC and you're applying to startup school, make sure the email addr in your profile is identical with the one you used in applying.<p>We've noticed people using forms like whatever (at) gmail in their profiles.  As well as making it impossible to match user accounts with applications, this isn't necessary, because your email addr isn't displayed to anyone except to you and editors. <comment><USER2> What if we already applied? Should we re-submit the application?

Here is the link for people who wants to apply: <http://www.startupschool.org/>

<comment><USER3> Your karma is 15 points... :)

<comment><USER4> 16 with my help. enjoy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also, if you haven't heard from us with a yes/no by the end of the day on 3/27, please check your spam folder. Especially if you have a yahoo mail account.

</comment><comment><USER6> I kind of forgotten which email I used to apply. Is there a way to figure it out?

<comment><AUTHOR> Now there is: try <http://news.ycombinator.com/testmail>

Here's the source, btw:

      (defop testmail req
        (whitepage
          (aform [pr (if (mem (arg _ "email") (keys (sus-applicants)))
                         "yes"
                         "no")]
            (single-input "email: " "email" 30 "check"))))

<comment><USER7> Is the mem function doing a linear search?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes; this isn't designed for efficiency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since I haven't got an invitation and plane ticket yet - I look forward to the podcasts. Any more info on them?

Edit: I apologize for making a joke that caused confusion. Invitations have not gone out, they don't pay for your flight. I was just implying since I won't be attending I would like to peruse the podcasts at my leisure and the FAQ says more details will follow. I was looking for those details.

<comment><USER9> Speaking of that. Do we have to buy our own plane ticket or will transportation be refunded to a certain amount like with YC startups? I highly doubt it's the latter but that'd be cool.

<comment><USER10> Have you seen the videos of the previous Startup Schools? Hundreds of people show up. I'm impressed that they provide breakfast!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> this kinda annoys. couldn't remember old account passwd, not that my old account had many (any) karma points but whatever.

i feel like startupschool factors heavily on school background anyways more so than pts. just some critique with your morning coffee.

<comment><USER10> I'm certain Startup School does not factor school background very heavily. I went to super crappy schools and never got an interesting degree, and was accepted to both the first Startup School here in the valley, and the next year to Y Combinator. pg and co. are not school snobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is Startup School only for hackers or can others involved and interested in startups apply too?

<comment><AUTHOR> This and other FAQs are answered at <http://startupschool.org/faq.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> awesome. one of my first events in the area. looking forward to it. oh yeah, if i joined with clickpass, im assuming the email associated is the one on my clickpass?

</comment><comment><USER14> I think I used different email last time so I re-applied.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please don't do this. If you think you applied using an email address different from the one in your profile, just change the one in your profile.

Can you send me an email telling me the email addrs on both your applications so I can delete one?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Mercurial vs git - is there an even-handed comparison? - <AUTHOR>

I have a small project with the potential to grow.  We are a disparate team in different time-zones and with different outside commitments, and we're trying to pick a distributed source-code versioning system to use.  To some extent we don't much care, but it would be nice to see an even-handed comparison between our two main contenders - Mercurial and git.<p>References welcome, and thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Both of these are good tools --- you won't go too far wrong no matter which one you choose.

In brief:

The strength of Mercurial is that it has a fairly simple set of basic commands. These commands are easy to use and the documentation for these commands is way less daunting than those for git commands. Using Mercurial out of the box, without enabling extensions, it is harder to screw things up in a way that destroys history. At the same time, it may be harder to manipulate the contents of a Mercurial repository in ways you want. However, there are extensions for Mercurial, some third-party, some that come with the system, that let you do many of the manipulations that git provides.

Git's command set and UI are more complicated than Mercurial's. But, you don't have to learn them all at once, so just getting to a point where you can get basic stuff done isn't difficult. The strength of git is that it has fairly straightforward conceptual underpinnings, and once you start thinking of commands in terms of how they manipulate the underlying structure of your repository (see, for example, <http://www.slideshare.net/chacon/getting-git> for details), it's a very empowering system (or, if you're a pessimist, you've been given enough rope).

A not uncommon pattern is for people to start out with Mercurial, perhaps because the learning curve isn't as steep or because it had clearly better Windows support at one time, and then switch to git as their usage pattern requires more complicated functionality than Mercurial easily provides. An example of this is: [http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2010/8/17/git-and-mercurial- branchin...](http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2010/8/17/git-and-mercurial-branching/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have experience with both, but don't have a clear preference...

Hg, overall, seems a bit more user friendly for doing the run-of-the-mill things such as branching, merging, fetching code, delivering patches, etc. I find it more pleasant to use without knowing much about the internals. This makes it also easier to explain to people that used SVN etc.

Git has a lot of 'magical command line switches', and (at least used to be) documented qutie sparsely. So you'll probably query google on how to get out of seemingly simple situations. On the other hand, Git allows a guru to do a lot of stuff such as re-ordering history to make nicer patches. Once you master how things work, these can be very useful.

IMO, it doesn't really matter that much, you'll get used to both, and Hg and GIT are more or less equivalent feature-wise.

</comment><comment><USER4> With the addition of the git-flow plugin, git has taken over for my personal projects. The branching model works for me and the plugin makes using that branching model extremely easy.

Link to explanation of branching model: <http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful- git-branching-model/>

Link to git-flow plugin: <https://github.com/nvie/gitflow>

Link to video intro for git-flow: <http://vimeo.com/16018419>

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35837/what-is-the- differe...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35837/what-is-the-difference- between-mercurial-and-git)

</comment><comment><USER6> Before git, I never understood version control. svn seemed way too mysterious, and I was supposed to use commands without understanding what's going on, and it just never settled with me.

With git, the system is so simple to understand, and so finally it makes sense. The commands are rather clean and friendly. I don't have anything to complain about.

With hg, it's almost back to svn. I didn't really know how things worked; I never wrapped my head around it, so I never used it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I only have experience with git, so I can't compare the two directly. That said, there are a few pseudo-features I love which aren't part of git itself: 1\. GitHub (bitbucket doesn't seem comparable) 2\. Aptana's built-in support for git

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there even a decent Windows shell extension for git yet? When using Windows and teams not already familiar with git, Mercurial + TortoiseHG was an easy choice.

<comment><USER8> Msysgit is what I use and I really enjoy it. Git also has a Visual studio plugin now you can use if you prefer GUI to CLI. I don't know enough about mercurial to offer a good opinion, does it offer something equivalent to hooks in git for setting up custom behavior?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would take git over mercurial if only for the wonderful ecosystem that has grown around github.</comment>


How to seem smart in meetings without really trying - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/23/how-to-seem-smart-in-meetings-without-really-trying/ <comment><USER2> If the list were 25 long we could make bingo cards for this.

I'm trying to come up with a way to use that Venn diagram. Getting everyone to agree we need to be in that overlap between "what we know" and "what we don't know" would be priceless.

<comment><USER3> I just realized the company I work for has a whole set of PR shit that talks about the "security gap".

Take a guess at what that gap consists of.

<comment><USER2> I would have to guess it's an overlap between "what we don't know" and "what we think we know", which is a bit easier to justify than the diagram in the article.

I also feel like this whole new field of "gap analysis" arose from what this article is poking fun at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or ask somebody to draw three lines on a whiteboard that are mutually perpendicular ([1])

[1] The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch), www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

<comment><USER5> so, and X, Y, and a Z axis.

Done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, yes, great information there. But, does it scale?

<comment><USER5> No. You're all to heavy as it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They'll think I'm the smartest person in the room because I say "I wish I was dead."

Wow.

</comment><comment><USER8> at least half of these occur daily regardless of where i work...</comment>


Show HN: HTML to PDF cloud service - <AUTHOR> https://htmlpdfapi.com/ <comment><USER2> This is the weirdest billing model I have seen.

You pre-pay for credits (which expire) and then conversions consume credits, based on the resulting file size of the PDF.

They state quite clearly that its powered by wkhtmltopdf. The minimum spend is for 100 credits, which costs 4 Euros. For 65cents more, you'd get a complete low-spec VPS for the month, which can convert as many documents as you need.

Honestly, who is using these "I took a simple command line tool, made a flashy website, and cooked up a ridiculous billing scheme" services. There was a "zip files as a service" the other day, and there are always "image converter" services listed.

Are people really not able to work out how to use these tools directly, but able to use a HTTP API?

<comment><AUTHOR> hi, I'm the author of this product and thanks for the comment.

Let me try to explain the logic behind it.

I think it is better to have rollover plans then fixed plans where you are forced to buy a 1000 of X per month and if you use 800 you loose the 200 ones.

As converting of the depends on resources speed (images on slow server) it was only fair to set price per size as it's the only unit that could be standardized.

You could get VPS but then you have to manage it, which means you have to be available 24/7 or pay someone for it. And if you have the need to deliver just 10 PDF documents at the same time you will need bigger VPS or more of them. Then you will need some kind of redundancy if one of the server goes down and one load balancer between them and some outside service to monitor it all and you get the point. When things get bigger everything becomes more and more complicated.

I hope I've managed to explain why we made this decisions.</comment></comment>


Super Easy Sequence Diagrams – PlantUML - <AUTHOR> http://plantuml.com/ <comment><USER2> I love PlantUML! After a coworker introduced me to it at my old company, it quickly became my tool of choice for putting together security diagrams (I'm an AppSec engineer). I found it particularly helpful for this use case because it made diagram re-use, and updating existing diagrams when architecture changes are planned, extremely easy. We also used Confluence, for which there is a PlantUML plugin that allows you to insert your UML markup directly into a doc, which is then rendered by Confluence when someone views the page. I threw together a set of macros and sprites for AWS architecture and deployment diagrams, which I've put on GitHub[0] for anyone who finds it useful. Eventually planning to upload a fork I wrote that generically (and much much more efficiently) generates the templates and sprites for other services and products besides AWS.

[0]: [https://github.com/milo-minderbinder/AWS- PlantUML](https://github.com/milo-minderbinder/AWS-PlantUML)

</comment><comment><USER3> A few weeks ago I monkeyed around with PlantUML in Emacs org-mode using babel. It's a great diagramming tool as an abstraction over Graphviz...it does not have to be used within the context of UML.

I found the PDF version of the PlantUML documentation a useful way to achieve noise reduction, [http://plantuml.com/PlantUML_Language_Reference_Guide.pdf](http://plantuml.com/PlantUML_Language_Reference_Guide.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> My team and i use plantuml exclusively for architectural diagrams and our output beats out that of other teams, it's not just a diagramming tool though, it's a DSL for uml and forces you to think carefully about how you design solutions

</comment><comment><USER5> I second that. I used this few days ago.</comment>


IPCC: Climate scientists consider 'life changing' report - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45653099 <comment> Sol- I guess governments will just skip the prevention step when they realize their own inaction made that impossible and just try to find ways to adapt to the inevitable changes instead. There's pretty much no way, purely for political/human reasons, that keeping the temperatures below 2 or even 3 degrees seems feasible at that point, so humanity will just have to deal with it and adapt over the next century. Shame about the planet and the natural ecosystem, though.

<comment><USER2> Right. We'll claim it's too late to "prevent global warming", keep our lifestyle exactly the same because it's "radical" to suggest otherwise, and shoot for +5 degrees in 50 years instead of stabilizing at +2/+3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The only reason it's controversial is because all prior reports have been retouched by lobbyist and politicians who wanted to play down the effort.

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, but worst increasingly looks like an extinction-level oceanic anoxia event.

</comment><comment><USER4> It always seems odd to me that people still plan their lives as though the world fifty years from now will be basically the same as now. I hope they're right, to be honest. But we're talking 3+c warming (5.4F) and that could be horrific. I guess it's nice if you want a winery in Norway but that's small comfort.

<comment><USER5> I don't like alarmism. Most of it is simply proven wrong in the long term. People are good at adapting most of the time. For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. People in poor countries will probably suffer much more, but they need to tackle their population growth issues anyway. In essence, there are life-changing problems affecting us every day (who would have thought 50 years ago that we'd need barriers againt car attacks at all major public events?), don't obsess over one thing like some sort of religious freak ("the end is nigh...").

<comment><USER6> I think alarmism is a retrospective assessment. We can probably say a lot of our reporting on current Western terrorism is alarmist - numbers wise, it didn't compare to road deaths or regular shootings.

But global warming will be/is unprecedented and will affect the whole world. Immediate action is unlikely to reverse this process either.

Your comment about population growth issues is disgusting.

<comment><USER5> > _We can probably say a lot of our reporting on current Western terrorism is > alarmist - numbers wise, it didn 't compare to road deaths or regular > shootings_

Because we have adapted. But how many are affected by the terror it involves? Terrorism = terrorizing people, not just murdering them.

> _But global warming will be /is unprecedented_

Erm, no.

[https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats- hotte...](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest- earths-ever-been)

<comment><USER7> > Erm, no.

Why do you bother commenting on this if you just flat-out refuse to accept scientific evidence _in the original post?_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nothing is more important than getting our reaction to climate change right. It's so frustrating that so few genuinely helpful companies are emerging out of our ecosystem.

We can and must do better. And quickly.

<comment><USER9> Even in the worst case scenario, global warming will not annihilate the human species. AI, nanotechnology, weaponized bioweapons, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, or alien contact could all potentially wipe out humanity.

<comment><USER10> Probably unlikely that those will wipe out humanity, at least we don't have any concrete evidence or examples of them (e.g. we have't built an AI that can do much yet, we don't have nanotech that will self replicate and kill us all, aliens have yet to show up etc.). Bioweapons seems unlikely to end humanity as someone will win the war, and personally I think MAD prevents widespread use.

The only thing in your list that does make sense is an asteroid impact, which we don't have much say over.

With climate change we know a) it's happening, b) it's going to affect us in some pretty major ways and c) we can do something about it.

None of those hold true for your points.

<comment><USER9> > Bioweapons seems unlikely to end humanity ...

I was more thinking an infectious agent that's modified to be particularly deadly.

I believe that the second law of thermodynamics implies with high probability that humanity will not last forever, so I don't think it's that unlikely that _something_ will wipe us out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Weird quotes from the article:

> In this case, there are 86 lead authors from 39 countries, of which 39% are > female.

> These researchers, who are unpaid, have reviewed the available scientific > literature on the feasibility, impacts and costs of staying under 1.5C.

> "If one can imagine the governments holding the hands of the scientists, > this means you don't know how science works!"

<comment><USER12> What is weird about them?

<comment><USER13> The entire article reads like a blog post. It obviously wasn't written by a news writer or edited by a news editor - there are grammar issues and tonal issues and sourcing issues.

Does the BBC now have something like the Fortune "Contributor's Network" \- a group of random bloggers who get to write under their domain _as if_ they were BBC writers, weakening the brand but bringing in more click revenue? That'd be my guess as to what's happening here.

Regarding just the first sentence example:

> _In this case, there are 86 lead authors from 39 countries, of which 39% are > female_.

The sentence structure suggests it's the _countries_ rather than the _authors_ who are female. The clause is misplaced and "of which" applies to things not people ("of whom" would have been better). Basically the writer wanted to cram in a bit of extra information, couldn't figure out where or how to do so gracefully and grammatically, yet stuck it in anyway.

<comment><USER14> Blame falling standards in UK education, and the fact that bright kids don't go into the media any more. A 2:2 in media studies from an ex-poly and this is what you get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I still frequently encounter people who consider the whole thing either a conspiracy or an outright lie, a way to bring America down, or some sort of left-wing class war in the UK, or all sorts of other bizarre things.

I even encountered one commenter recently who claimed that we fundamentally misunderstand the action of gasses in a a gravity field, and he was going to single-handedly prove it all wrong (and invent a source of free energy at the same time).

With this, and the long-term nature of the problem meaning that the can can always be kicked just a little further down the road, I'm not surprised that little gets achieved.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can we make significant progress in carbon capture technologies within the next 20 years that would not require such dramatic changes to society?

</comment><comment><USER17> According to Wikipedia, Earth atmosphere weights about 5e18 kg. A m^3 of air is alightly above 1,2 kg under normal conditions.

Suppose that on average each person from the most resourceful 1 billion people on Earth installs a device for air cleaning. The machine sucks air in, removes CO2 and releases the clean air. The device works using renewable energy, so by itself it doesn't contribute additional CO2 to the atmosphere. Suppose we want to remove 10% of CO2 from air, or in other words we want to pass 10% of Earth atmosphere through such cleaning devices. The year has about 365 * 24 * 3600 seconds, so to have those 10% in 10 years each device has to process 5e18 / 1e9 / 365 / 24 / 3600 / 10 / 10 = 1.6 m^3 of air per second.

This is not a small number, yet it's not immediately obvious why this isn't possible. For example, energy requirements can be small, because the device effectively doesn't change the bulk of the air. 10 years isn't that much comparing with the speed of raising air temperature. Cost of such a device could be perhaps smaller than a modest car. We still have option to deploy more devices, to separately clean ocean water etc. This is largely technical and not political solution.

What's wrong with this approach?

<comment><USER18> 1\. Cost to produce devices 2\. Assumes perfect processing rate 3\. That seems like quite a lot of air. For reference, a 52 in ceiling fan does 2.8 , and you're talking about pushing air through some type of filter probably

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A key factor contributing to climate change is the number of people weighted by energy consumption.

Should governments in rich countries encourage people to have fewer kids or otherwise constrain their life choices in various other ways? This goes against liberal values. What do most progressives think?

<comment><USER20> That's not a causal relationship.

<comment><USER21> Also most western countries are in negative population growth sans immigration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think I can live with the drastic changes. Can the elite?

</comment><comment><USER22> Yet I doubt even these scientists have engaged in radically rewriting their lifestyles to reduce climate impact. If they had, they would have video conferenced instead of flying to Korea.

Basically no one in the West other than the very poor live a low impact life.

In the US in particular, we are really only very good at telling others how they should change. Case in point was the "March For Science" that took place a while back...in San Jose the parking for the event was full of giant SUVs...yet they all seemed so angry.

<comment><USER23> Carbon pricing is probably the only way to effect a change in behavior.

<comment><USER22> Doubt it, most in the West can afford moderate price spikes, and anything more profound will be viewed as job-killing. Indeed this was the exact response from Jerry Brown when asked about more impactful carbon taxation...he specifically stated that he refused to put "10 million people out of work".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I guess I'll be investing in building houses on Antarctica or something. Oh wait, it will still be dark there the majority of the winter... hmm...

<comment><USER25> Too shortsighted. You also need to invest in housing in the Arctic region, as well as in shuttling between the Arctic region and Antarctica. The inhabitants will likely want to move to their summer home every half year.</comment></comment>


Officer of China's People's Liberation Army Arrested at LAX - <AUTHOR> https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/officer-china-s-people-s-liberation-army-arrested-los-angeles-international-airport <comment><USER2> That's... a very forthcoming spy.

For additional context: this is part of US DoJ Initiative to target Chinese Nationals for economic espionage. Meng / Huawei was extradited under initiative scoped only for Chinese Nationals. Corporations typically pay fines for sanction busting, but Chinese executives are (now) targeted for extradition for similar crime. Related, few months ago, DoJ also lumped RICO charges against Huawei. Typically reserved for individuals not entire corporate entities. Basically US DoJ is using every tool in the box to disproportionately prosecute Chinese actors. Reflected in analysis that individuals swept up under this initiative receive greater sentencing than norm. Good recent talk on the subject:

Margaret Lewis | The U.S. Department of Justice's China Initiative [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9I2TZzcv8g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9I2TZzcv8g)

This guy could be spilling beans for lighter sentencing. But also likely a defection to drum up support for the narrative. His confessions like "level 9 technician" that works for university lab is eerily close to "anecdotes" I've proponents of the initiate echo over the last few years. It almost feels like a manufactured consent soundbite, eerily repeating heads for someone following the subject. My understanding is there's moderate pushing back at how uncomfortably red-scare and racial coldwar 2.0 policies under this admin's China-hawks has been. Ultimately it may be counterproductive... but election coming up, so time to build that hard on China narrative.

<comment><USER3> Are you saying that the two countries are not enemies?

<comment><USER2> Well the spectrum is between enemy and competitor. Hawks are arguing former, doves and moderators the latter. Policies and tolerance towards costs will differ depending on position i.e. there's room for cooperation on some issues if not viewed purely as enemy. Partner is definitely off the table though.

<comment><USER3> There is always some room for cooperation, even in the middle of a cold or s hot war, but it's easier if sn enemy is defined as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If > convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a > fine of $250,000.

So lying on a visa application is worse than immigrating illegally? Doesn't illegal immigration just get you deported?

<comment><USER5> Gaming the system or otherwise exploiting it is more malicious than circumventing it. It's the old school version of laws like CFAA, which make explicitly super-illegal things which are already implicitly or explicitly illegal, with sometimes unforeseen consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he > had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military > university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring > back information on how to replicate it in China.

China's intellectual property theft is really getting out of hand. It's about we take a stand in one way or another.

<comment><USER7> Maybe.

On the other hand, if they think that they'll catch up by replicating things in the united states down to the layout of research labs... then that's kind of hilarious and they've really missed the point. It's like the Soviets copying the space shuttle and concorde. They're copying the wrong things, too late.

<comment><USER8> > Wang similarly told his supervising UCSF professor that he had duplicated > some of the work of that professor at the lab in China. Some of the work of > the UCSF lab was funded by grants from the United States Department of > Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wang also > wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he > arrived at LAX.

They are being thorough.

<comment><USER7> Everyone has OpSec.

And then he told them everything during an interview. Or maybe it's all lies to hide something else. Who knows.

<comment><USER9> He's a "Level 9" PLA officer (apx. Major officer), if he spilled that out easily to CBP, definitely there's something more suspicious than just copy-cat labs design.

<comment><USER10> The official name for that is I believe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout)

But something doesn't add up to him just confessing that quickly all that information

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> @dang can we change the headline to reflect that the summary says that he wasn't a military officer, but a civilian employee at PLA?

<comment><USER12> Do civilians in the military get ranks? I'm having a time squaring what you're saying with what's in the article.

>Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a "Level 9" technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major

<comment><USER11> Civilian technicians at many NATO militaries also have "levels."

A difference in between a civilian worker in the military, and a ranked officers is exactly them being a civilian, and another being a member of military command.

No civilian employee anywhere there commands troops around. A distinction that can not be overlooked, and be more obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No spy plot. No popcorn.

Defendant Charged with Visa Fraud

Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.

<comment><USER14> Excuse me? This is not an accurate summary of the article at all. It's in fact exactly a spy plot: Wang was "instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China".

<comment><USER15> _observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China_

That's the purpose of a J-1 visa, isn't it? The fellow was on a scientific exchange program. It's all very mystifying what the administration is trying to signal.

<comment><USER16> This argument was specifically addressed in the source.

'According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood that he would receive his J1 visa.'

The allegation is that he would not have been on a scientific exchange program had it been clear that it was a scientific exchange with the PLA.

<comment><USER15> The fellow did serve as an officer in the PLA and indicated as much on his visa application. Nothing would be easier for the Chinese military than to approach former officers and encourage them to join a university and apply for a scientific exchange visa in the US. If there was genuine concern the visa would have been sent to administrative processing long ago and then denied.

It doesn't make sense, especially since the researcher will have shared what he did with the intelligence officer at his installation. Any officer of any country would have done that.

Meanwhile the US charge him with nothing worse than visa fraud. They could at least point to the stolen IP. It's all very baffling.

<comment><USER17> He isn't a former officer. He is a _current_ officer. Being charged with espionage is a very real possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Wang is charged with visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). If convicted, he faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000."

The US has ludicrous prison sentences. Lie on an application = 10 years in prison. That is insane. Good luck getting out alive as a 5'5" 130 lbs guy in a federal prison covered in covid19 for 10 years. Federal prison doesn't have good time - so bring some good books.

Instead could we just charge this guy, make him pay huge fines, make him teach classes, make him explain what really happened and move on? Instead! I bet a senator out there is trying to pass a law making it 40 years.

<comment><USER19> >make him explain what really happened

According to the court documents, what really happened was that he was trying to steal intellectual property for China. These long sentences exist because state actors would otherwise just keep sending people until one succeeded with no downside.

<comment><USER18> ? Not following. They just caught a guy doing it _with_ harsh sentences. China _already_ has no downsides. Having this person work with us OUT of prison would hurt China much more.

<comment><USER20> Having spies go to prison for long periods of time tend to decrease the incentives of other people to become spies.

Unlike most criminals, spies are probably moderately rational about risk/reward, as such this is probably actually an effective deterrent.

/end unsupported opinion.

<comment><USER21> I may be totally off base, but I've heard that spies are generally treated well. That they are mostly traded. That way when our spies are caught they aren't mistreated either. Clearly situations matter and the sensitivity of what was stolen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting little data point: I just asked my gf (who is from China mainland) to take a peep at WeChat, and it hasn't blown up with this story (yet?).

</comment><comment><USER3> Very good news that this is finally getting attention

</comment><comment><USER23> Two words: Fuck china.

</comment><comment><USER24> He was caught at LAX but this is typical Silicon Valley BS.

</comment><comment><USER25> This may be a tangent. Can the US govt be charged for typos and mistakes in legal documents or for delays?

I have never seen such attrocious imbalance of power.

No wonder foreigners are wary of coming to the US

<comment><USER26> Is it really surprising? China has been wholesale ripping off American (and other) companies and government for years. Do you expect the government to blindly let this theft continue without a serious response?

<comment><USER25> As posted in the original post, I was posting a tangent about US laws. Specifically the charges listed in the original post are about misrepresentation on some stupid form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't tell if these comments are just people not reading the article or a gross characterization. Can we get @dang in here? All that is being discussed is the MAXIMUM penalty as if it is the standard. In HN we're supposed to respond to the article accurately. So here's some quotes.

>> Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a "Level 9" technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab. CBP officers also obtained information that this roughly corresponded with the level of Major, and that Wang had received compensation from the PLA and the China Scholarship Council—in addition to compensation from UCSF—while in the United States.

>> Also according to court documents, Wang provided information to CBP that he had been instructed by his supervisor, the director of his military university lab in the PRC, to observe the layout of the UCSF lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.

>> Wang also wiped his personal phone of WeChat messaging content earlier the morning he arrived at LAX.

TLDR: Wang was a major in the Chinese Army, being paid by them while going to UCSF and was sending information back to China.

</comment><comment><USER27> >> Wang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on this visa application. Specifically, in his visa application, Wang stated that he had served as an Associate Professor in Medicine.

seriously, that was the fault they found? it was just a mix up with his occupation. so what if he was military?

this isn't going to end well. If we randomly go arresting chinese people trying to return to china, they're just going to do the same back and US citizens are going to get arrested in China for equally BS reasons.

<comment> huy-nguyen > Wang is alleged to have made fraudulent statements on this visa application. > Specifically, in his visa application, Wang stated that he had served as an > Associate Professor in Medicine in the PLA, from September 1, 2002 through > September 1, 2016.

> In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection > (CBP) at LAX on June 7, 2020, Wang provided information that he was, in > fact, still currently a "Level 9" technician in the PLA, employed by a > military university lab.

> According to court documents, Wang was still employed by the PLA while he > was studying in the United States and he made false statements about his > military service in his visa application in order to increase the likelihood > that he would receive his J1 visa.

He stated on his visa application that his employment with the military ended in 2016 when in fact he continued working for them. That's visa fraud right there. You cannot knowingly provide materially false information to obtain US immigration benefits. They were totally right to charge him.

<comment><USER27> Imagine for a second, that you're filling out a visa application and you've stopped working for the army and started working another research job. Now, if you're still being paid, on retainer you could say that you're still working there or not, it could be either way depending on what definition you use. He probably just forgot what he wrote on his visa. How was he supposed to remember every last detail of a visa application from 4 years earlier?

Imagine if they ask you, the next time you go abroad about every last detail on your visa application, do you think you could remember every last date of where/when you were employed?

who knows, maybe his wife filled out the application for him, or his secretary.

jailing people for a simple visa application mistake is a big mistake. Bascially, they're assuming he's a spy. whatever happened to "innocent till proven guilty"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >In reality, when interviewed by officers of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at LAX on June 7, 2020, Wang provided information that he was, in fact, still currently a "Level 9" technician in the PLA, employed by a military university lab.

Are you seriously telling me that the guy who is supposedly sent to "spy" in the US - just tells them at the border , oh hey, no i actually i lied - i work for Chinese military. I dont buy this - there is more to the story. I mean, do they waterboard foreigners at LAX?

Something does not add up here.

<comment><USER29> The application was over a year and a half ago. Wang may simply have forgotten what lies he told on the application.

It also seems to be implied that not all the information that contradicted the visa application came from an interview. Specifically it is implied that CPB knew he was being paid by organizations in China via another source.

<comment><USER30> Wang may not be the one who told the lies. "Here, sign this paper that we filled out for you." "OK."</comment></comment></comment>


Supreme Court Rules That Warrants Are Required to Collect Cellphone Data - <AUTHOR> https://nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court-warrants-cell-phone-privacy.html <comment> huy-nguyen Full text of decision here: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf)</comment>


Extreme Radiation Levels Detected at Fukushima Reactor, Highest Since 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2017/02/03/extreme-radiation-levels-detected-at-fukushima-reactor-highest-since-2011/#7bfcead93381 <comment><USER2> Article glosses over that the higher reading isn't because there's more radiation, they just got a sensor closer to the source.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do so many sites keep breaking their page URLs? - <AUTHOR> Seriously, it's 2017, and 301 redirects are a thing that exist.
So why do so many sites still keep breaking all their page URLs? It's not like its a CMS limitation; most modern CMSs automatically redirect pages to their new URLs. It could be developer incompetence or laziness, but many sites that make this mistake are run by large companies with hundreds of employees, some of which are likely really good at their jobs.
So why do sites do this? Why are 301 redirects seemingly so rare when sites are restructured nowadays?
Because it's really hurting the usability of the internet, and making forums and wikis far harder to use than they need to be. <comment><USER2> I know of one site that got hacked and they dropped everything and adopted a more secure CMS, the new CMS uses a different page scheme so all the old links are bad. Of the ones Ive seen that is usually the case, new platform does not support old page url scheme.

<comment><USER2> And I know your pain, I run a community directory site and can see I need to do a link check scan because the page URL turnover is significant.</comment></comment>


Fixing HPKP with Pin Revocation - <AUTHOR> https://blog.qualys.com/ssllabs/2017/09/05/fixing-hpkp-with-pin-revocation <comment><USER2> I brought something similar up a while ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10183444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10183444)

</comment><comment><USER2> A question I've been meaning to ask for a while is if we could use HPKP to bootstrap a TOFU (trust on first use) model.

i.e. you get your cert signed by both a traditional CA _and_ a CA you set up yourself. the traditional CA would work for the first visit. However after that it gets pinned to your own CA.

You can then sign your own certs at your leisure e.g. offline or with private key on a yubikey.

<comment><USER3> But... What if a new user arrives and doesn't have your pinned CA? Your model would require to always have a trusted CA and if you always have them why trouble oneself with pinning custom one?

<comment><USER2> The idea is that the cert _must_ be signed by my own CA. But may _also_ be signed by another CA. Meaning that after the first visit, a user is protected from a rogue CA issuing a cert for my site.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately X 509 doesn't support multiple signatures. But your model is very similar to HPKP, just the details on what exactly is signed are different.

<comment><USER2> Thanks: that was the piece of the puzzle I was missing. I was confused by how people describe cross-signing as an intermediate cert being signed by two CAs. On further research, it's done via having two intermediate certs.

But effectively: they accomplish cross-signing by having two different roots for the same leaf cert: we should be able to do that with 1 CA root, and 1 site-admin root (specified via some HPKP-like mechanism)

On the other hand, perhaps the limitation of one cert should be removed somehow? e.g. via an extension: old user-agents would just see the first signing cert, but others would see all of them?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cities Seek Deliverance from the E-Commerce Boom - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/cities-seek-deliverance-from-the-e-commerce-boom/523671/ <comment><USER2> I think the best way that the city will be able to fix the issue is, honestly, with some type of delivery infrastructure or an increase in taxes on items that must be delivered.

Ideas -

1\. Tubes that resemble skywalks to deliver packages with self-driving or remote-controlled carts? This will get the deliveries off the street and as close as they can get to their final destination. It should ease a good amount of congestion.

2\. Add a delivery tax to cut-down on online ordering and encourage local shopping.

3\. Get every local business to list their items online to compete with online marketplaces. The majority of local businesses still have no online presence (outside of social media where they seldom post). There is no way for me to know that the copy shop a few blocks over sells cheaper paper unless I actually go into the store. They're basically invisible to me. Local businesses, for some reason, do not feel the need to compete with online companies until it is too late.

4\. Designate two or three days a week for deliveries in the city. Outside of those days, block delivery trucks. It may force delivery companies/businesses to more efficient with their logistics, delivering more to a specific neighborhood at one time than they would have otherwise.

IDK. I'm sure there are so many other (better) ideas. I wish YC Cities had a site like Hacker News specifically for posts focused on cities and urban living.</comment>


How Soviet Kitchens Became Hotbeds Of Dissent And Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/27/314961287/how-soviet-kitchens-became-hotbeds-of-dissent-and-culture <comment><USER2> Except that it's not Khruschev's apartments. The building which interior we see on the photo is obviously not new, and Khruschev was in power for only 8 years, 1956-1964. So it couldn't be in that poor state in 'early 60s', those blocks have been brand new back then, or most of them, not even built yet.

'Khruschevkis' have been built since ca. 1959 through in fact, late 1970s (and very little, mainly in Moscow, were built before Khruschev was ousted), and they actually had thin walls through which you can hear. Most people in Khruschev's era lived in wooden temporary buildings (many of them stand till now, completely uninhabitable) built right after the war, or dormitories, or communal apartments (which were build in Stalin era and were normally very well built, except a family got a single room in 6-8 room apartment). Very few, upper class people could get a whole apartment of that kind. These indeed, had thick walls, high ceilings, were well-designed and still form a highly sought after part of real estate in Russian cities (while not many were built).

And yes, Khruschevkis were a good thing because they, as primitive and oversimplified as they were, were the only way for most families to move to the city from countryside, or to get their private housing for the first time.

<comment><USER3> Turns out there is a wikipedia page for it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >> "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor"

Pretty much every single apartment complex in the US I lived in (MA and CA).

<comment><USER5> Actually my experience growing up in the USSR was completely different- you couldn't hear your neighbors because the walls were so thick (and not just our apartment, but all apartments that I remember), that was one of the surprising things about moving the US- hearing your neighbors through the walls.

<comment><USER6> You have probably been lucky to live in either Stalinkas or buildings built before the revolution. Buildings built before the revolution were mostly constructed for nobility therefore of a very good quality. Building build during the Stalin era(stalinkas) were also of the superior quality(and still are highly valued at Russia's housing market). Stalin's idea was that working class is a new nobility and therefore should live as the nobility. However construction rates were so slow, that by the time Kruschev came to power people were still living in wooden barracks sharing them between multiple families. Kruschevkas were never intended to be permanent housing, but rather temporary solution for the housing problem. It was intended to replace them with better quality housing once all Soviets had roof over their head. Which unfortunately never happened

<comment><USER7> "They were called khrushchevkas — five-story buildings made of prefabricated concrete panels. "They were horribly built; you could hear your neighbor," says Edward Shenderovich, an entrepreneur and Russian poet. The apartments had small toilets, very low ceilings and very small kitchens." <\- from the article.

I grew up in a 5 story prefabricated concrete Krushevka in Moscow. This is my experience:

      [ ] you could hear your neighbor
      [ ] very small toilets
      [ ] very small kitchens
      [X] small toilets
      [X] low ceilings
      [X] small kitchens

Kitchens and bathrooms were small, but not much smaller from what I encounter in some NYC apartments. I feel use of the word "very" was inaccurate in the article.

Krushevkas may have been derided as ugly pox upon the cities, but at rubles to bubliks they got people out of communal apartments. Many families were able to live in their own spaces for the first time.

<comment><USER8> Same here. Lived in both an older 40s and 50s 5 stories building. Small narrow hallways and windows. Build mostly from ridiculous over-sized and thick bricks. But very sturdy. Don't remember hearing neighbors unless they raised an extreme ruckus (usually getting drunk and yelling at each other or kids stumping screaming while playing).

Then lived a newer (built in the early 90s concrete block 9 story building). Much nicer, big windows, larger rooms. Wall not as thick but still very sturdy and don't remember hearing my neighbours same as above. Windows were letting cold air through in the winter and elevator kept breaking often but sound proofing was find and no cracks or structural issues that I remember.

<comment><USER9> Genuine khrushevkas were made exclusively out of prefab concrete _slabs_. Each wall was one slab, the ceiling was one or two slabs per room and the sound isolation issue was less due to the thickness of the slabs and more due to poor fitting of the slabs or bad sealing of the joints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is suprising how little is known about private life before khrushchev era.

I am currently reading a book called the Whisperers[1] which chronicles what really went on "behind the scenes" in Stalin's russia

[http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins- Russia...](http://www.amazon.com/Whisperers-Private-Life-Stalins-Russia- ebook/dp/B009E7GVLW/)

<comment><USER11> Really good book. However, it's perhaps the only book I couldn't finish because I found it so upsetting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love that they turned used xrays into bootleg vinyl recordings. Disrupt! :P

</comment><comment><USER13> > In a country with little or no place to gather for the free expression of > ideas and no place to talk politics without fear of repression

Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression? He should, the government wants to lock him up and throw away the key for revealing this, just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. Actually, NPR spends most of its time bashing Snowden.

They seem gaga for dissidence in some foreign country, in a government that hasn't existed for over two decades though.

<comment><USER14> Without defending the NSA excesses, the difference is in the repression, not the monitoring. There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc.

<comment><USER15> nice blindfolds you have there. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the largest prison population by far among rich countries, institutionalized rape, drone executions without a shred of legal process, militarized police and you're still making excuses for what was not so long ago the beacon of modern civilization and democracy.

<comment><USER16> Now compare things you mentioned with a social climate where the entire country is one big prison, North Korea style.

Can't imagine life like that? Yeah, I thought so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra With not much other public spaces, where else will you go? There were a few counter-culture places in Moscow and Leningrad for the select, and kitchens for everyone else.

Still, it is impressive how viral some culture was. With nothing more than tape recorders and word-of-mouth, some soviet rock bands still had millions of listeners and could easily fill a stadium for a gig (and indeed did a bit later, when it became possible). Same for books and poetry.

This internet-level virability is no longer seen. Today you can't do much on the word-of-mouth - cultural space is too crowded.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of Txoko's, the cooking clubs which were basically the only place Basques could congregate under Franco: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko#History)

</comment><comment><USER18> Nobody else feels that recording music on exposed x-ray film is very cool?

<comment><USER19> I think its totally cool, and I've been trying to work out how to do it myself for the last 10 minutes .. if anyone has any tips about this, I'd love to know. There's a few lung xray's waiting for my industrial tracks in the drawer .. ;)

<comment><USER20> You'll need a recording gramophone like this one: [http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/](http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/164f/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I teach English in a technical college, mainly to construction majors. I'm surprised but happy that I've come across great construction-related articles via Hacker News. the New Bay Bridge, in California (unsafe, late, and over budget); the CitiCorp Center in Manhattan (was in danger of collapsing); and this one.</comment>


"No Comment" on Twitter URL Switch and Yes, They Have a Business Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/bitly-url-shortener-betaworks

<comment><USER2> this is about bit.ly the url shortening service</comment>


Sortd – A new way to manage email and tasks in Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://www.sortd.com

<comment><USER2> Did not see on the site, is this another startup that has access to all of my email content, and a product that has a good chance of going away when the run out of cash, or get acquired and shut down?

Or, is this a local layer / plugin that keeps my data where I want it, and will continue to work as long as Gmail itself does not change drastically?

Questions may sound snarky, but this year more of the startup services I have used have shutdown then are still around.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a real desire to make a dent in the universe around the way email works, so the plan is not for this to be a fly-by-night initiative or to sell out.

There is plenty wrong with email and a lot of opportunity to change it with a completely new email app. However we decided to integrate with Gmail as a matter of practicality, having realised that for the most part people don't want to change to a new email client if they don't have to.

Re the architecture - Sortd is built as a Chrome Extension so it runs on the client, and in all honesty we don't want masses of email data going through our servers, it's just an unnecessary overhead. That said, there is a need for some server side stuff because we need to keep all the data in sync for things like a mobile experience. But we don't store any email - just references to emails so that if you click on an email on one of your priority lists we can tell Gmail to open it.

Integrating with Gmail is risky because they can change things underneath you, so we have built it in a way that it runs in an almost independent workspace. There are one or two Gmail buttons that we place inside Gmail itself, but the real meat runs in an iFrame.

Hope that answers your questions. I'm happy to elaborate if anything is not clear?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm Wayne, one of the co-founders of Sortd. We are aiming to create a new email paradigm with Sortd. Happy to answer any questions...</comment>


Vint Cerf sees his invention reflected on Black Mirror - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2018/02/20/583682937/the-father-of-the-internet-sees-his-invention-reflected-back-through-a-black-mir <comment><USER2> Is it usual for the perspective of NPR articles to be this bizarrely biased?:

> _... in retrospect, some of the decisions his team made seem hopelessly > naive, especially for a bunch of geniuses._

> _They made it possible to surf the Internet anonymously — unlike a > telephone, you don 't have a unique number that announces who you are. We > know how that turned out. People with less lofty ambitions than Cerf used > that loophole for cybercrime, international espionage and online > harassment._

The primary bad actors on the internet are not individuals exploiting anonymity.

<comment><USER3> The reason the Internet has become so successful is in large part due to optional anonymity.

Clearly NPR and myself have very different views on what makes the Internet what it is.

Also, I love me some Vint Cerf - and his contributions have unquestionably been massive - but no one person invented the Internet. Please let's leave the cult of personality for the "unwashed masses" as NPR calls them.

<comment><USER4> I've noticed that American articles cite Vint Cerf as the "father/inventor of the internet", while British press give the same titles to Tim Berners-Lee. Of course both were instrumental, but as you say, many people and teams were involved in the creation of what we know as the Internet today.

<comment><USER3> Being in the UK I don't see a valid claim to TBL's involvement in the creation of the Internet.

I see it more as Vint Cerf being instrumental in the creation of the Internet, and Tim-Berners Lee of the world-wide web.

Now, if any one person _were_ to be credited for the creation of the Internet as a whole, that honour would undoubtedly go to Al Gore.

Exhibit A: [https://goo.gl/X8D3yb](https://goo.gl/X8D3yb)

<comment><USER5> It's such a great piece of political rhetoric that pushed the false idea of Al Gore claiming to have "invented the Internet". If you accept that Vint Cerf was a key person in the creation of the Internet as we know it, you'll probably be interested in his opinion of Al Gore's actual role.

[https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler/misc/funny/gore,net.txt](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler/misc/funny/gore,net.txt)

Here's an excerpt from the first paragraphs:

Al Gore and the Internet

By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf

Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

<comment><USER3> I should maybe mention that I meant this in jest - I think very highly of Al Gore and the joke was intended to allude to Cerf's high opinion of his role in the early days.

I don't think Al Gore claimed to have literally invented the Internet, and believed that was the gag this whole time.

Have people been walking around thinking he actually believed that this whole time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ethics scholars: _" The artists are the ones who recognize the fundamental truth that human nature hasn't changed much since Shakespeare's time, no matter what fancy new tools you give us."_

Tech: _" we can solve all problems with blockchains and an ICO / token sale!"_

</comment><comment><USER7> [OFF TOPIC]

Am I the only one who thinks Black Mirror is not that good?

I've seen around five episodes and the only one I genuinely thought to be good was the very first one.

1 - The technology is extremely vague. There is no way to really gauge it's impact besides what the writer explicitly shows.

2 - The episodes are extremely moralist. They usually take a stance of "Look How Bad This Is", usually using appeals to emotion. They don't show the other side, the good side of that concept.

3 - In my opinion, the story of most of them is uninteresting. The most egregious is the "eye camera" one. The whole episode drops you hints of how that technology affects society, but we are focused on a lovers quarrel.

4 - None of those show anything really new. If you removed the new concept, it would be _really_ easy to replace it with known stuff. In a world with a new disruptive technology they write people acting like they always did!

5 - This is mostly my elitism, but I hate most people's reaction to it. They see the episode, adore it, and just take it at face value. I watch it, think it's crap, and spend the next hour discussing it and thinking about it. Most people don't think beyond what is shown on the episode. I fear that that, coupled with (1) and (2), is making people fear technology [1].

(I have to add that the last minute of the "robot boyfriend" episode are so nuanced, subtle and insidious that I'm amazed the writers managed to slip that through. Especially how dumbed down the whole episode was)

/rant

[1] I think people should be careful with technology. I have a bit of "privacy paranoia". But that should come from reason.

<comment><USER8> Most people find that they like some Black Mirror episodes a lot more than others, it's inherent in the nature of this type of anthology SF format.

The people being people thing is _right_. A good antidote to the sort of beliefs we easily trick ourselves into here is to go read Samuel Pepys personal diary. Read about a year's worth, doesn't matter which bits, start in 1666 if you want to actually connect events to history (that's the year of the Great Fire of London). Pepys is over 350 years different in time from us. Yet he's not really different at all. He worries about money, he suffers illness, he moans about incompetent people, he lusts after pretty people who won't sleep with him (and to be fair, some who do). I say Pepys partly because he wrote this stuff down for his own records, whereas most earlier writers have an audience in mind and so we must assume they self-censor, and partly because he wrote just after English had settled down, his meaning is easy to follow without a modern translator between you adding their own interpretation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I stopped reading when I got to the bit presenting possible anonymity as something bad that is only exploited by criminals and government spies. We should be thankful they allowed that (and it's not a "loophole") as it allows us to avoid countless ways in which giant corporations are attempting to undermine our freedom by tracking our every move on the internet. Luckily thanks to this design feature, it's easy to throw off their trackers, even though they work tirelessly day and night to invent new ways in which to spy on us.

<comment><USER10> Big tech is more concerned in how to make the most out of all the data we give them willingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just to distract you all from the very bad reporting... Have you ever noticed that cerf looks uncannily like ecorp's CEO in Mr Robot (phillip price, played by michael cristopher)?

<comment><USER12> I think it's a common thing in TV/cinema. The villain in Skyfall looked similar to Julian Assange. The villain in Tomorrow Never Dies was pretty much Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER13> Jonathan Pryce looks similar to Steve Jobs? Sorry, I don't buy it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Black Mirror takes Frederik Pohl's advice in directions I've never seen it taken before in a series:

 _A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam._

</comment><comment><USER15> This is an odd title for the piece, which is essentially three puffy descriptions of three unrelated peoples' relationship to the internet's potential.

</comment><comment><USER16> How did all three of these people end up being interviewed for this, and why would so little of what they actually say and think make it in here?

The story about the artist and the scientist, the wise visionary and the foolish tinkerer, is a tired and unrealistic trope being forced onto events that have nothing to do with those themes.

The internet was not "designed without unique identifying numbers", and no lack of such facility is what has led to or what would lead to "all this dark stuff" \-- everything about that construction is wrong. It's nonsense. It's most upsetting to hear that wrongness presented as fact via a nearly-all- context-cut discussion clip with Vint goshdarned Cerf, because if you said it this way right to him he'd be like, "well, whoa, wait hold on".

It's also absurd to imply that the internet was designed in a vacuum, or without thought to its implications, or by just one or a few people, in any short span of time. Beyond that, the things the design of the internet may have been hopelessly naive about are far more complex than and different from "it could allow Bad People to operate anonymously". Some may be directly the opposite!

Gibson did have a remarkable vision in Neuromancer, but that absolutely did not have to do with imagining Russia vs the US at its time of release in _1984_. Warring meganational companies had been featured in many earlier dystopian novels: Bester did it in Tiger, Tiger! (aka The Stars My Destination) in _1956_, Brunner did it repeatedly in Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up from the start of the 70s. These were not the new ideas! In Neuromancer the world was different, the space, the mood, the means, the words. These were cool and unique and new -- the combination of all of this in a pretty package is what made it predictive and powerful and popular.

Why is Black Mirror even involved here? Because it's dark? I love the show, but it has come to have very little to do with taking our nature 10 minutes into the future and a lot more to do with "spooky SciFi", and it's never been a far-out predictive powerhouse. Maybe Gibson's name just wasn't enough for the editor? Black Mirror does add that click juice. Maybe it's thematic. Is the piece going to challenge us to think through consequences of decisions deeply and have higher standards for ourselves and society, the way the show once did?

No, instead, we get a whole 7 minute audio narrative that will play as a timefiller between segments, with the trite payoff that "only artists know human nature never really changes, even with some new toys." mixed in with just a sprinkle of "it takes all stripes".

Did it actually take talking to all of Vint Cerf and William Gibson and Charlie Brooker to get there? Did presumably several minutes (I hope not hours) of their much more interesting words and thoughts get cut so we could hear the journalist's baseless or cliché ideas instead? Just for more woo-woo pessimism? It's like asking Elon Musk to comment on a local science fair rocket and concluding that the next generation holds promise.

Imagine the possibilities we _had_ here: hearing Vint Cerf and William Gibson actually reflect meaningfully on what Black Mirror means to people today in the context of their works, and what it suggests for the futures of literature and technology. Imagine if all three people interviewed had a real discussion together! That could be a real and lasting contribution to the human canon. But we got this instead.

Maybe these guys had nothing better to be doing. Maybe this tech writer and their editors just don't know about IP addresses, or at least think that no one listening does or should, that it's too complicated for regular people and correspondence with reality doesn't even matter. Maybe no one is even listening.

But people _are_ listening. Someone who isn't steeped in the technical world may hear this piece and from its total lack of depth or nuance assume it is obviously-true. They may take away that "the internet's creator didn't even think about its consequences! Tech people are so clueless. Just shows you that Black Mirror is true. The future sounds bad."

Something this banal and stupid presented by NPR, and making direct use of the time of these amazing people for it, is a sign (among so many others) that we're setting the bar far too low on intellectual curiosity, on journalistic character, on technical literacy, on societal introspection, and hell, on basic imagination.

<comment><USER17> I think the article is awful, but I upvoted it anyway because I hoped it would create some fine discussion about the themes.

So let me try to transform this thread into something useful: what do you think about the current state of the internet and its culture vis-a-vis what's being presented in neuromancer and other cyberpunk novels?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The mindset I believe we should have when trying to answer a question like "is anonymity on the internet a good thing for society?" should not just be thinking up situations where it might empower people but also to consider "how well is society equipped to deal with this kind of change?" does humanity have a lot of cultural experience dealing with technology that enables this type of situation? I think the answer in this case is no. There is not a lot of historical or cultural precedent for how we interact with each other anonymously. New systems with new rules enabled by new technologies take time for culture to incorporate in good ways. Therefore it would have been better imo to separate the introduction of being able to communicate digitally from the introduction of being able to communicate anonymously. Conflating the two makes the situation more complicated and harder for us as a society to ensure these technologies are being used in beneficial ways.

</comment><comment><USER19> > First is the man...

Trying to find "second" in the article, nothing found. Is this bad writing?

</comment><comment><USER20> Vague article, clickbait: Vint Cerf, Black Mirror. The article is vague. Avoid if you can.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Black Mirror episode they are talking about certainly exists in various forms. I recently deleted my Reddit account out of similar aggravation.

Ideas aren't more valid due to votes in a millenial's echo chamber. Stupid popular things aren't necessarily less stupid out of popularity by a similarly uninformed collective.

<comment><USER22> > Ideas aren't more valid due to votes in a millenial's echo chamber.

Whenever a new iOS was announced I'd search the docs to find out whether it allowed Pebble to get more interesting functionality on the OS. Usually the result would be that no interesting API's were added. People would downvote my summaries because they didn't want to know the truth...</comment></comment>


Facebook checks in - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/09/facebook-places-check-in/

<comment><USER2> Advance notice of another enabled-by-default option to disable in privacy settings.

Edit: To clarify, I signed up for facebook in 2004 because it offered simple social planning and sharing. Today, I think FB's photo and event apps are very well executed.

Everything else is just fluff. Fluff that, if not disabled, can spread information about you without your knowledge.

<comment><USER3> You mean your 'friends' can spread information about you without your knowledge?

<comment><USER4> _"... your 'friends' can spread information about you without your knowledge? ..."_

Yes, "Dark Stalking on Facebook" ~ <http://pjf.id.au/blog/?position=590> Paul has also commented on the latest changes here ~ <http://pjf.id.au/blog/?position=604>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whereas I might now and then decide to share my location via services like Foursquare, I will NEVER share it on Facebook.

I just can't trust them. They've proven it over and over.

So I have to be extremely selective with what I share there, and outright lie in some cases.

It's a dysfunctional relationship, and it won't last.

They're in for crash.

<comment><USER6> To state what's kind of the refrain of Silicon Valley, you are not their target audience.

<comment><USER5> Silicon Valley needs to get out of its bubble, then. This sort of talk is spreading in places you wouldn't expect. I've seen it in totally non-technical communities all over the internet.

<comment><USER7> Yup, my not very techie friends, and their friend, seem to be the most bothered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> FWIW, the "latitude and longitude, but also your altitude, heading, and speed" is the standard set of GPS data.

Also, some of the relevant Javascript is here: <http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z3RA8/hash/273u6o5s.js>

</comment><comment><USER9> Well everyone knows this is coming, even without the code. It would be news if facebook wasn't pursuing location based features.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not convinced of the value "check-ins" give users, and with Facebook's ever eroding privacy I'm not giving them my coordinates.</comment>


Ask HN: Why HN RSS Feed has no date? - <AUTHOR>

I was parsing HackerNews rss feed and I cannot find anywhere in the feed published or updated dates, timestamps or whatever similar. Does anyone know why? <comment><USER2> The RSS feed is just a mirror of the HN frontpage.

Date is not as relevant as points are. Remember, the vast majority of articles are crappy and never make it to the front page. An RSS feed full of 1 point submissions is not very useful.

<comment><USER3> Exactly that, and in addition, if you're pulling articles from the Hacker News feed, you have to do more than just grab the 'most recent', because you'll get major duplication because articles move up and down the RSS feed all day long.

The (fairly obvious) solution is just to make sure that URLs are stored as uniques, but my 20 minute reader application overlooked that on the first pass.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there any possible way to get only the front page without using scraping tools?

<comment><USER3> Per api.iHackerNews.com, you could do this.

        http://api.ihackernews.com/page or
        http://api.ihackernews.com/page/{nextId}

I just ran a GET request against those endpoints with Postman[1] and got what looks like exactly the right data in JSON format.

[1] - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest- clien...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest- client/fdmmgilgnpjigdojojpjoooidkmcomcm?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :D</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is there a publication bias in behavioral oxytocin research on humans? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/2016-lane.pdf <comment><USER2> Just taking this quick opportunity to post a link to my favorite journal, the Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis: [http://www.jasnh.com/](http://www.jasnh.com/) .

JASNH is designed to accept papers that say "we tested for X effect on Y and found no evidence that X affects Y". Traditionally instead of publishing this kind of research people would keep changing parameters around until they got some kind of positive and presumably career-advancing result.

I am a huge fan of JASNH because of the reminder that "falsifiability" can and should happen.

They seem to be mostly getting behavioral-science style submissions but I am pretty sure based on their charter they would take anything.

<comment><USER3> JASNH is cool, but it's not about falsifiability. JASNH, as it says right in the name, is about _not_ falsifying the null hypothesis. The other journals are full of articles falsifying (null) hypotheses.

<comment><USER4> Not falsifying the null hypothesis, but falsifying _other_ claims.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is super important for science. If we do not know the number of unpublished negative studies - we cannot be certain that the published positive studies actually mean anything and we have the problem illustrated by this xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/882/](https://xkcd.com/882/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think we may have found a situation where the inverse of Betteridge's Law is more appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER7> The title, while accurate, is perhaps unintentionally click-bait-y.

The article includes a less obtuse alternate sub-title: "Is there a publication bias in behavioral intranasal oxytocin research on humans?"

If I'd seen _that_ I probably would not have clicked it to find out what on Earth a "file drawer problem" was.

<comment><USER8> The file drawer problem has been getting discussed quite a bit recently. There was an article that I read from month or so ago that specifically mentioned this being an issue across many fields of research with medical being the largest concern. There's a bit of a movement growing to try and address this throughout the scientific community. The tendency to only publish positive results has a chilling effect that could cause great harm to society.

<comment><USER7> I agree, though I think the "file drawer problem" is still jargon and not quite a catch phrase (yet).

<comment><USER9> Publication bias is a substantially more descriptive and accurate phrase. Even when you do submit studies with negative results for publication, many journals simply will not accept them. Little to do with file drawers and much to do with editors.

That said, power and experimental design -- can we confidently reject the hypothesis that an effect size of at least X is present between groups A and B (or models A and B) at some specified error bound? -- cannot be ignored. Bayesian or frequentist, at some point you have to conclude the experiment or write an interim report, and this involves making a decision in the face of uncertainty.

Being a statistician means never having to say you're certain. It also means never being able to do so (unless you're an irresponsible asshole). You can declare a decision boundary and, based on that, evaluate the evidence. In light of this, it is important that negative studies not have inferior designs or sample sizes to the positive studies, and vice versa.

In humans, it is exceedingly difficult to control for all of the factors you might want to. Nevertheless, the tendency of journals and PR outlets to favor sexy outliers over the weight of evidence is a huge source of this bias, which cannot be solely ascribed to unwillingness of researchers to submit the works for publication. (It is also why preprints are so valuable and their uptake so important.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How To Sell Dirt - <AUTHOR> http://shadyacres.tumblr.com/post/9333453657/how-to-sell-dirt

<comment><USER2> They're buying a story more than they're buying dirt. Even better, they're buying a story that they'll _get to tell_ for years.

This is a distinction I wish engineers would treat as more importantly, because _we sell stories, too_.

P.S.: If he put a wee little translation in Japanese in the box he'd sell one to just about every Japanese tourist who passed his stall. Same dirt, same words (modulo translation), different story.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely - the guy's skill set is not "selling dirt". It's packaging an experience into a story into a product, and getting that package in front of the right people at the right time so they will buy.

<comment><USER4> Second that --- same reason a baseball that Derek Jeter hits passing a league milestone is worth more than the one we buy for a few bucks in the store. It's all in the story.

It's random but likely that I even know who the guy is he's referring to; he's just stands out that much (AA initials?). He's a good storyteller but what makes him even more successful is that he's passionate about what he's selling--- a connection to the holyland--- not dirt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not like the guy grabs a handful of dirt and then sells it to the first passing foreigner with a nice sales pitch. What people pay for is the packaging. There are many people who would like to take back a soil sample from places they've visited (e.g. there's a guy in Saving Private Ryan who does that on each new battlefield), but the logistics of doing that are just too much. (I don't even know where to get a proper vial, if I didn't plan to bring one with me, plus I'd like some nice labeling etc.)

<comment><USER6> I've got a stack of pebbles at home that I've picked up from round the world.

My favourites are some that I picked up walking up a mountain in Torridon - the surrounding sandstone having been eroded away leaving these nice coloured pebbles free after nearly a billion years of being buried.

<http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/289168>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Growing up, my parents had a little display case on the mantel with a piece of the Berlin wall on it."

Two decades later, I'm still kicking myself for not buying a piece when I had the chance.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sell yourself, but be honest, in case someone calls your shit. The dirt selling guy is pretty honest, I don't think he was yelling.

It really does help to have good communication skills for anything, be it speaking to that interviewer, discussing costs with some sales rep, selling your product etc...maybe even being a little bit aggressive, but not in a bad way, you know?

</comment><comment><USER9> Ha that is nothing. There is a turist shop in Berlin which sells, among other things, authentic canned Berlin Air.

Yes that is right, they are selling empty (but closed and captioned) cans.

</comment><comment><USER10> IMHO, Software engineers and sales people have completely orthogonal skill sets. As a group we are poor negotiators, be it salaries or pushing "the right technology" to project owners.

</comment><comment><USER11> I couldn't get past this line: "the ordeal of attempting to convince someone that I have something of value, and that they should pay me to access it, was very new to me".

I'm not trying to be mean but, how old is the author? How much work experience does he have?

When I was 12 years old I went knocking door to door with my snowshovel in the dead of winter, trying to convince people I had something of value to offer. When I was 14 I convinced a local pizza parlor I had something of value to offer and got my first "real" job.

Trying to convince others of your value and economic worth is a daily affair for most people. It's an accurate way to look at the situation. It shouldn't be a hardship.

<comment><USER12> It is cool that you snow-shoveled at 12 and held a "real" job in a pizza parlor at 14. However, this is simply not the experience of the vast majority of non-Americans, especially people from India, China & the like. The OP got an engg PhD and is trying to land a gig that matches up to his narrowly defined skillset, not just any random job. I could very much empathize with what he's going through. I got my very first job at 29, and my wife got her first job at 35, my best friend got his first gig at 42! So what did we all do for 30/40 years ? Well, we just studied our asses off. That handicaps us majorly - I don't know how to shovel snow or bake a pizza or any other random skill that most American kids would automatically know because this country prizes working, selling, marketing, labor, work ethic about all else. However, there are other countries where this is not the case. Most of my close friends and classmates are 30-40 year olds working on their vanilla-PhDs, MD-PhDs, MBA-PhDs and other combinatorial degree seeking parasites putting off work until the very last leg of their lives :) We do that because, well, its just the norm in our peer group. If you look at any immigrant graduate student pool especially in Uni towns, you'll find several 30-40 year old fuddy-duddies who have never held a job in their life and wouldn't want to either, until they've obtained every terminal degree possible and exhausted all other academic options!

<comment><USER11> Thanks for sharing that. I had no idea. My comment exposes how culturally ignorant I am, and for that I apologize.</comment></comment></comment>


China's Next Target: U.S. Microchip Hegemony - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-next-target-u-s-microchip-hegemony-1501168303 <comment><USER2> > Big U.S. players like Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc. find themselves > in a bind—eager to expand in China but wary of losing out to state-sponsored > rivals.

China has done this to many companies, Google, Uber, Facebook, General Electric. Hard to see it doesn't go the same way...

</comment><comment><USER3> WSJ's paywall sucks. [http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/27/chinas- next-t...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/27/chinas-next-target- u-s-microchip-hegemony-2.html)</comment>


Oakland Needs to Start Building More and Build Tall to Ensure Its Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/06/its-time-for-oakland-to-face-its-fears-and-start-building/486803/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticCities+%28CityLab%29 <comment><USER2> I'm still waiting for articles like "Bay Area Needs to Start Building More Roads to Alleviate Traffic Problem and Ensure Its Future" :( .</comment>


Ask HN: How did your first software project go? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> When it started it was just me and another junior programmer trying to build something too complicated for our experience level. Later on we got someone more experienced, unfortunately (for the project) 10 years on he is still the worst developer I've ever worked with, not helped by his arrogance. All of his experience was drag'n'drop VB forms, but he had a CS degree and we didn't, so that made him right every time. He also made us switch from SVN to to VSS, svn wasn't so great back then (no merge tracking) but at least it didn't silently fail every other day like VSS. He didn't believe in using framework features, preferring instead to write his own sorting algorithms that didn't work. His attitude to compile errors was to turn off the strict/explicit options that VB has. He was the living example of a developer with 1 year of experience 10 times over.

Technology wise we went through several iterations, web, descktop, c#, an experimental java one, but thanks to the senior dev we settled on VB.net. Management was more interested in hiring people that would be sitting at their desks at 9AM (I was eventually fired for failing this) than any sort of technical competence. The manager was the type that "understood people" and forced us to put in all sorts of questionable UI features. He was obsessed with how it looked and didn't care if it worked. Every point release involved working through the weekend.

Amazingly the software was quite well received and didn't suffer from too many production bugs. It was delivered only slight late and made the company money.

Then the company got a bunch of funding and things became more hilarious. Management was obsessed with becoming the "google of our industry" and preceded to do the exact opposite of everything google would would do. But those are stories for another time.

</comment><comment><USER3> First major software project was with a startup I worked for. It was a 3 month project that ended up being extended due to lack of concrete requirements, the client would constantly add/remove features during development which contributed to the projects extension. When the project was near completion, the client demanded to the CEO that he lower the quote on the project because it went past the deadline (this was after we explained to the CEO that the extra features added by the client will take more time, so he was fully aware that extra time would be needed). After the CEO told the client that he can't lower the extremely under-quoted budget, the client left. After four months of full time work on this project, the CEO told us he can't pay us anything because he spent the clients deposit on things he refuses to discuss. I am not sure how the startup is currently doing, but almost all of the developers left after that project. Ultimately this was a huge learning experience for me as a developer, as bad as the entire situation was I learned a lot of things that will ultimately benefit me in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> Checklist:

\- [x] Working in a consultancy

\- [x] Government client

\- [x] No direct communication with the users

\- [x] Waterfall project

\- [x] Short timeline

\- [x] Understaffed

\- [ ] Clear requirements

Was definitely delivered on time and on budget...

</comment><comment><USER5> Bad code but good product

</comment><comment><USER6> Poorly</comment>


Be on a plane - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@xyzgra/be-on-a-plane-ca360a2a2f59

<comment><USER2> This seems to a positive function that religion provides for a lot of people. The ability to say "I've done what I can, its in God's hands now", or more colloquially, "pray towards heaven, but row towards shore".</comment>