10 steps to take before you get laid off - <AUTHOR> http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/12/04/10-essential-steps-to-take-before-youre-laid-off/ <comment><USER2> "it's easier to keep a job than find one. We're hearing about companies cutting 25% or 33% of their headcount. That means you need to be in the top 67% or 75% to avoid a pink slip. Other than an entire plant, division or office closure, the decisions about whom to keep and whom to let go are based on performance, salary and redundancy of position."

Unfortunately this is not always true. I have seen two really good developers loosing theirs jobs recently. If you are paid too well, then you are in the x-ross if layoffs come.

While your manager might appreciate your skills, some hire management just views you as a cost, and really Don"T realise that some people are better in order of magnitudes.

When that spreadsheet comes, it is ordered by salary, and the top people are the first to be scrutinized, even though they good performers, and worth the money, they might get the axe.

Unfair, but this is how it is.

<comment><USER3> Layoffs are almost never personal, esp. not in large companies. The decision to lay people off and how many is made at a level well above caring about the performance of any individual. The HR department decides who gets the chop, and they don't care about your performance either; they care about the company not getting sued, basically their only objective is that when the dust settles the company has a plausible gender/race/whatever balance and no-one's claiming unfair dismissal.

If a company starts laying off then you want to get out of there while there's still the cash to pay a decent severance package, because the writing's on the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> #11 - Take advantage of your health and dental insurance. If you haven't gone to the doctor or the dentist in awhile, or if you have an appointment that you should make in the coming months - make it now!

</comment><comment><USER5> #10 is my favorite.

Anyway, I think most of the list is good advice in general, even if you aren't planning on getting laid off. It basically boils down to: keeping your skills up and maintaining your contacts. It's who you know _and_ what you know.

<comment><USER6> Actually, it is better to start a new job than to be worried about being layed off from the one you already have =D

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A modest proposal:

No more top 10 or 10 steps or whatever pithy articles on HN.

P.S.

I am only slightly more serious about this then eatin' babies.

</comment><comment><USER8> #3. I don't "really" have one. But one can feel free to check my HN profile and you'll know what interests me (submissions), what I think of most issues (comments) and also how I react to criticism or when someone offends me (troll). All in there buddy.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually I liked #3 quiet a bit.

"Start a blog that contains at least 50% professional material"

I think atleast in a technical field that really shows what you are passionate about.

<comment><USER10> Does anyone have suggestions for a good place to host if you don't feel like doing it yourself?

<comment><USER11> Do it yourself. Dreamhost + One click WP install == working wordpress. You don't even have to ever log into the terminal. Plus having your own domain name makes you look more professional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title's funnier if you remove the last word.

<comment><USER13> That list wouldn't be nearly as useful for this particular demographic, though.

<comment><USER14> You'd better prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Work out??? Oh no no no no no. If you get hired because you look good, either you are incompetent (work out and do it man) or you should not take the job. ALL jobs I interviewed for dug deep within my brain to get a taste of my problem solving skills and knowledge of programming. Good people skills help, if you can get along with the interviewers (a few laughs to ease the tension) then you have a better shot than someone else, but that's where it ends.

If it is a choice between a weak candidate who looks good, is fun, and has a ton of linked in buddies, or a strong candidate who is worse at all of the above, I doubt the pretty face is going to get the job.

<comment><USER16> You seem defensive. Don't you believe it's better to be physically fit and energetic than not, or do you argue that fitness and health is truly irrelevant to your role as an employee?

You could suppose that there is an unfair cognitive bias at work (see /beauty premium/) which could favor one candidate over the other. But think about how an interviewer would consider the physically fit you versus the physically unfit you. This is the real point, not how you compare to someone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> #11. Make friends _at your current job_ \-- as many as possible, preferably with some being "diagonal-up" (e.g. not your boss, but at a higher level). Bonus points if they are unlikely to be cut. You will need them as references if your boss gives you a bad one (which you should check 3-5 weeks after being laid off, using a professional ref-checking service).

Friends from the old company are not just potential references, but also possible co-founders or recruits at the new job.

#12. Move all your side projects onto off-work computers, and try to make sure that they're deleted from your work machines nightly and automatically. (Of course, this is not the time to do something moronic, so only delete true side projects, e.g. things that the company doesn't know or care about but that you still need to unambiguously own for future purposes.)

#13. This one applies mainly to large companies. In good economic times, you want to make yourself as replaceable and obsolete as possible (write well- documented, easy-to-follow code) so you can move on to more interesting projects and, if laid off, leave on good terms to a better job. In bad economic times, try to make yourself irreplaceable, even if that means making your code difficult to use. If you feel the need to be unethical, you can hide time-delay bugs. At worst, you'll be asked to train someone else in the technology and offered a severance package in order to do it, which is better than being let go cold.

<comment><USER18> _In bad economic times, try to make yourself irreplaceable, even if that means making your code difficult to use. If you feel the need to be unethical, you can hide time-delay bugs._

Wow.

What this sort of thing does to your soul is far worse than being laid off. Anyone who believes that they need a job more than they need integrity or self-respect has some work to do, and some fears to face. And making code obscure on purpose _is_ unethical, and ethics that fluctuate with economic conditions aren't ethics to begin with.

Edit: For a different perspective, I ran this by a couple of guys where I'm working. One of them offered a more succinct response: "Maybe if you did a good job, they'd keep you, [expletive deleted]."

<comment><USER17> I made an error in using the phrase "in bad economic times". Economic conditions are actually fairly irrelevant, because one can be in a positive career situation despite a terrible economy, and vice versa. I meant to say "in a bad career situation" and, specifically, a truly terrible one.

I know people who've been put in the humiliating position of being outsourced, while being expected to train the cheaply-hired replacements. That's the sort of situation in which obfuscation, in the hope of having, at least, the option to come on later as a consultant, may be an appropriate strategy. Why is it unethical? It's not nice, but it's not nice either (though not unethical) for the company to fire all the American staff and replace them with overseas workers at 1/3 of the cost.

So I'll back down from "in bad economic times" because, really, obfuscation only makes sense in rare and outright terrible situations. I've never needed to do it, never done it, and I don't even know how often it works. What I'll say is this: I've known people who've been laid off recently, and one of the warning signs is when they are asked to suddenly place a high priority on clarifying previous work, and it's definitely not in their interest to do so.

<comment><USER18> _I meant to say "in a bad career situation" and, specifically, a truly terrible one_

Well, who put themselves in that situation?

 _I know people who've been put in the humiliating position of being outsourced, while being expected to train the cheaply-hired replacements_

No one is required to remain in such a humiliating position.

 _Why is it unethical?_

Because it's your job, not to mention your duty, to contribute the best code you can. Not to mention not actively destroying it.

 _obfuscation only makes sense in rare and outright terrible situations_

Courage and honesty are what make sense in rare and outright terrible situations. What the person who takes the sneaky, greedy route under duress never gets to learn is how many benefits flow from standing up to what you fear.

 _I've never needed to do it, never done it, and I don't even know how often it works._

Yet you are prepared to offer it as advice to others?

 _I've known people who've been laid off recently, [who were] asked to suddenly place a high priority on clarifying previous work, and it's definitely not in their interest to do so._

There's a big difference between taking responsibility for your own interests and actively screwing the other guy in order to (allegedly) protect yourself. See what allenbrunson said.

 _So I'll back down from "in bad economic times"_

You've missed the point. Ethics that fluctuate with one's career situation aren't ethics to begin with either.

Look... I wouldn't write this if it were just about critiquing your post. Personally, I am far from being a master of appropriate behavior. But I can't emphasize enough how rewarding it is to get to a place within yourself where you just won't do shit like this (and how punishing it is to live with the beliefs that make you think it's ok).

<comment><USER17> _Well, who put themselves in that situation?_

Variable. My first job out of school was at an MDC (medium-sized dumb company) where, 3 months in, there was a management change. The new middle-manager began sabotaging the best people-- taking them off their coding projects and putting them on non-coding office work-- in order to bore them out of the company, thus eliminating the people he saw as threats to his position in the future.

The 3 best new hires were laid off within 6 months of this happening, myself for the "crime" of seeking employment elsewhere, one for refusing a "promotion" into an ethically dubious role, and one for reasons too complicated to get into, and all of this was through no fault of their own. Luckily, this was during a great economy, and all 3 of us got better jobs within a few weeks.

 _No one is required to remain in such a humiliating position._

What if the company says they will give negative references if he doesn't train the replacements? Is this not coercion? This is an unusual case, but it's not entirely uncommon. In the pharmaceutical industry, there've been M&A cases where people kept on at the acquired company were forbidden from giving references for their laid-off colleagues. In BDCs, this sort of political sleaze occurs more often than you'd think. Again, I'm assuming that you're "spoiled" by startups and technology companies, where one's career progress has a high correlation to the quality of one's work, and wherein internal political sleaze is exceedingly rare.

 _You've missed the point. Ethics that fluctuate with one's career situation aren't ethics to begin with either._

I don't know why "situational ethics" get such a negative review, when all ethics are situational, the situation including the consequences of each option. For example, it's unethical to steal, right? On the other hand, some people must steal in order to avoid starvation, and it's arguably much worse, from an ethical standpoint, to submit oneself to pointless and preventable death. Ethics is about pursuing the morally best option among those that are actually available, and which choice is best depends on the consequences (to oneself, and to others) of each, i.e. the situation.

<comment><USER19> I believe that there is a phrase that CEO's and Most Paid People in the company that is used to everyone else to keep the little guys smouthered in the position they sit: "the bottom line." They use this when they realize that if they don't do something unethical or completely brilliant, there will be a bottom line that little guy will have to deal with. He will be fired or they'll cut his hours, or they will give less health insurance and higher premiums and deductables, etc. Somehow the little guy is going to get cut so the irreplaceable CEO can go on a $600,000 necessary cruise that the little guy wasn't even invited to. Look at working in retail. It is a nightmare! There you are so replaceable, they can't keep positions filled for very long because people either "get themselves out of that situation" or they remain humiliated and keep collecting a smaller check. The only way to be truly irreplaceable is to CREATE something. Because once your one-of-a-kind creation exists, you have added something to the world that wasn't there before. So for it to be authentic, it must remain irreplaceable.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. judge throws out cell phone 'stingray' evidence - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-stingray-idUSKCN0ZS2VI <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829).

</comment><comment><USER3> Dupe. Discussion started here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829)

</comment><comment><USER4> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12083829)</comment>


Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110603/00214214533/entertainment-industry-lawyer-public-domain-goes-against-free-market-capitalism.shtml

<comment><USER2> Pure free market capitalism would be if I could buy your book the day it's released, make photocopies, and sell them outside the bookstore for cheaper.

Pure free market capitalism would let me make a fake Rolex. It would let me reverse-engineer an iPod and sell it with the label "iPod."

There are downsides to this, and that's why we have IP laws. But those laws are not free market capitalism; they are restraints on it.

<comment><USER3> I would call the Rolex/iPod examples fraud, wouldn't you? "Free market capitalism" is only rarely conflated with anarchy. (don't get me wrong, I agree that Intellectual Property is the opposite of "free market")

<comment><USER4> More likely it would be trademark violation. After all, who is to decide what "Rolex" means, anyway?

<comment><USER5> Trademark is another form of IP.

<comment><USER6> Trademark is primarily consumer protection.

<comment><USER7> That might have been why it was created, but it's not how it's primarily used today, nor do I think it does that good a job combating "customer confusion". (Remember, even without Ubuntu calling their OS "Windows", Dell customers still sent back Ubuntu laptops complaining they thought they were getting Windows.) Just like copyrights and patents were created to encourage innovators to innovate and share with society--the goal was improving society --that original purpose is lost in the primary uses of IP laws today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The history showed that many works when going into public domain generated a brand new active market. As an example, the work from Freud has been recently put in the public domain (in Europe, it means only that the patrimonial rights are expected but the effect are somehow similar to put the works in the public domain). The first day you could find in all the book-stores many new publications from his works included annotated version or commented version. All the editors knew it was a good opportunity and a brand new market of works based on previous Freud work. Before the work was closed by the right holders and no real economic activities... So I still don't get the point of that lawyer.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, a small typo: s/expected/expired/

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the whole idea of the government taking action against people for marketing goods against free market capitalism?

<comment><USER10> Well, yes, so we can assume that when this guy said "free-market" he meant more like "polite market, where everyone knows their place, and your place is to GIVE ME MONEY".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Er, why would this be a problem?

Free markets are one of the better ways of distributing scarce resources in the majority of situations.

Capitalism is one of the better ways to promote efficient use of scarce resources.

If something _isn't_ scarce, there's no need for either of these.

</comment><comment><USER12> These ideas are reminiscent of the ideas of Andrew Joseph Galambos, who believed that one retained intellectual property rights indefinitely. (Reportedly, he believed that Thomas Paine coined the word "liberty" and put a nickel in a box every time he used the word so that he could pay Paine's descendants for royalties.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Joseph_Galambos>

</comment><comment><USER13> I know it's popular to hate lawyers here but enough is enough=> Entertainment Industry Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

Copyright is not bad. It has gotten out of hand, but the principle is good. Limited (again, it isn't really anymore, but it should be) protection. Just like if you built a car, created a drug, or manufactured any other widget and someone stole it after you expended the time and effort or production (yes, I know this example has flaws; sweat of the brow etc.)

Lawyers also are not universally bad. Though I agree with you there are many I cannot stand. There are dirty cops, crooked politicians, cheating mechanics, lazy doctors and stuck up IT guys and yes, even annoying hackers.

You want to bash copyright, fine. You want to bash lawyers, fine. Just don't make blanket statements. A lot of us are on your side.

Lawyer for the entertainment industry != copyright lawyer.

In my best Han Solo, "sorry about the mess."

<comment><USER10> You may want to re-examine your position that copyright is not bad. There's really not a lot of evidence that any "intellectual property" is good, where "good" is something like pareto efficiency. Any sort of "intellectual property" at all, when enforced by the government, is probably a drag on the economic system.

You could start your re-examination with "Against Intellectual Monopoly", [http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm) especially chapter 6.

Personally, it appears to me that a combination of regulatory capture and legislative capture has enabled a few large corporations to define "intellectual property" in such a way that what used to be accepted as inalienable rights of US citizens are widely suppressed. And that's going way, way too far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/comments/reply/20110224-...](http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/comments/reply/20110224-Ivan- Hoffman.pdf)

This is all I could find from him from the Copyright Office's documents. [1] He does not appear to be talking about things entering the public domain at all. I don't think hearsay of hearsay of one of 84 people talking at a meeting is much to go on.

[1] <http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/>

</comment><comment><USER15> On a lighter note -- somebody's got serious sense of humour there: <http://www.ivanhoffman.com/awards.html>

(that's part of the website of the lawyer in question, as linked to from Techdirt)

</comment><comment><USER16> Is RIAA now trying to outlaw the public domain or something?

</comment><comment><USER17> If you think about the internet in terms of democratizing publishing and making more works available to the public. Add in the increased availability of consumers to monetize the content along with self-serve advertising such as AdSense / AdWords. With these advances in place it makes sense that copyright should be shortened because it allows creators to be compensated more quickly.

If you contrast works like the Dan Brown's 'Davinci Code' compared to Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' it would stand to reason that Dan Brown was able to be remunerated for his efforts much more quickly than Mary Shelly thus the purpose of copyright can be full filled much more quickly and should be shortened in order to make more works available to the public. Which is the stated goal of copyright.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can't argue with that. 'Course, geniuses like this particular copyright lawyer would note that laws prohibiting strip mining Yosemite "go against free market capitalism" too. More limits on "free market capitalism" will thankfully continue to elevate us a bit above what amounts to the brainless economics and political philosophies of cancer cells.

<comment><USER19> Actually, it's just wrong. Copyright is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

Copyright is the opposite of the free market.

<comment><USER20> Property law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

<comment><USER21> Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

<comment><USER22> It's easy. You write some text, then you own a number representing the text (probably a number between 10^2400 and 10^240000) and all encodings of that number (some of which might be as small as 10^120). Now whenever you see anyone else using that number or any encoding of that number without giving you money, you tell them to give you money, and if they don't you get the government to threaten to kidnap them or steal their money if they don't give you money. However, if you pick a number around 7, I don't think you'll be able to pull it off.

<comment><USER20> In the same way, owning a physical object is ridiculous. Quantum mechanically, you can't tell the difference between an electron in your object and an electron somewhere else. So you end up owning an particular _arrangement_ of electrons and protons, not the electrons and protons themselves. We can then apply the same reductio ad absurdum by examining somebody who claims to own a very small object, say a single electron.

The sensible way to define property is defining it by those cases where the state protects your rights to it. One defines intellectual property in exactly the same way.

<comment><USER22> Right. What I'm saying is less like an assertion that you can't own an idea and more like an explanation of how you go about owning ideas (but mostly ideas that are bigger than 7). I suppose my opinion is pretty easy to guess, though...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Thinking About Making An In-House Startup Incubator To Retain Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-thinking-about-making-an-in-house-startup-incubator-to-retain-fleeing-employees-2010-11 <comment><USER2> This reminds me of when cities create centers for safe drug use.

You can't prevent people from doing what they want to do, but you can create an environment to reduce the negative impact, and possibly have some benefits too (reduced diseases and in this case a successful startup).

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like an obvious move. The only question I have is why they didn't do this years ago.</comment>


'Taxi wars' in France as new businesses try to compete [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13320358

<comment><USER3> 'Taxi wars' is also current in Finland. Few young entrepreneurs tried to enter the market with moped-car taxis. Those teens were immediately choked out of existence with heavy handed bureaucracy. We've also had Maxi Taxis (a more serious venture), which entered the streets of Helsinki unannounced. They were trying to exploit a loophole (minivans registered as trucks) in the legislation. Besides heavy lobbying against them, they were constantly harassed and even physically blocked by taxis and their drivers (very radical approach in regards to current Finnish society). Maxi Taxis folded quickly as the legal loophole was closed in record time.

Our taxi licenses are cheap, but supply is artificially restricted. The Ministry of Interior decides how many taxis can operate in each town. Taxi licenses cost about 300 euros; processing expenses. Toughest prerequisite is a short (few weeks, cost less than 1k euros) taxi-entrepreneur course.

The Ministry of Interior resorts to micromanagement. They set the maximum number of licenses for each and every town based on estimated need (which is quite sensitive to lobbying). For example the current maximum number of licenses in Helsinki is 1386 (for a population of 590k). In 2008 100 new Helsinki-licenses were issued, and just as anamax commented above: It was protested with an argument "Cabbies don't make a "living wage" as it is". This number was reduced by 51 in 2010.

There are queues, but they are generally not very long (in Helsinki you might need to wait for 10 years, but many smaller towns have free spots which you can claim without delay). You can drive a taxi as a hired man as the license is vehicle-, not person-specific. Hired man gets paid about 30-40% of the turnover of his rides.

Both the number of licenses and fare rates are national monopolies. A ride of similar length costs the same in Helsinki as it does everywhere else. Rates are set by the Ministry of Interior.

No price competition and artificially restricted entry to market. Friction with modern society: heavy. Taxi monopoly might not be the first to fall, since we still have, e.g. state monopolies on gambling and liquor. Of these, the former could end soon thanks to the EU.

</comment><comment><USER4> In Paris, when the government proposed to allow motorcycle taxis and other modes of transportation (such pickup by taxis not from Paris and privately- owned shuttle buses) as legitimate ways to pick up passengers at the Paris airports (CDG, Orly), Paris taxi license owners organized a taxi-blockade of the airport. It was very effective. After a couple such blockades, I believe the proposed change was stricken from the law.

The whole thing was/is known as "Operation Escargot" -- Operation Snail.

I hope I have to eat my words one day, but I just don't see how any law involving "competition" in the Paris taxi scene could ever pass. Even small increases in the # of licenses will lead to taxi strikes (or the threat thereof), and the government/city back-off very quickly whenever that happens as you can imagine. The only way for it to happen would have to be through an out-of-France process, such as Euro-level (de)regulation or a competition proceeding (antitrust).

I'd love some more background for the video and any suggested liberalization of licensing (perhaps there is only minimal licensing requirements in Avignon in the first place, compared to Paris, e.g.).

edit: added "Paris" at the end of the last parenthetical.

<comment><USER5> " _I hope I have to eat my words one day, but I just don't see how any law involving "competition" in the Paris taxi scene could ever pass._ "

Easy. If taxi drivers illegally obstruct public roads by "blockading", arrest and prosecute them. This is crime, not political speech. It is a broken political system where a minority can force an outcome by intimidating the public with violence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Taxi companies are against this kind of competition because of the licenses they had to pay in order to be authorized to take passengers. These start-up companies operate without such a license. I believe the same charge was brought against UberCab.

Taxi licenses are outrageously expensive. A driver in Paris told me his was 190,000 euros, and it can get even higher in touristic towns on the Mediterranean coast: <http://www.licence-taxi.fr/prix-licence-de-taxi.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> It wasn't explained in the video but I got the impression some sort of 'liberalization' of the licensing laws has occurred to make this possible.

I did some Googling and found some discussions about licensing liberalization in France but no specific mentions of how/when it was implemented (if it ever was).

It wouldn't surprise me if it were, though, since here in the UK getting a license isn't particularly tough (added: with some notable exceptions, see reply posts).. so maybe there's some EU harmonization going on in this regard.

<comment><USER7> "UK getting a license isn't particularly tough"

What about "The Knowledge" required for London black cab drivers - <USER2> apparently takes between two and four years of study and exam attempts to pass:

[http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehir...](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehire/1412.aspx)

[Edit: I sometimes wish they had something like this in Edinburgh - I've had to tell taxi drivers here where to go a few times and the taxis here are _very_ expensive compared to Glasgow and London].

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. It's night and day between different areas. It's hard work to become a 'black cab' driver in central London, as you say. But just a few miles away in a different borough of London you can get a license with barely more than a criminal check and some other commonsense precautions (these are often called "minicabs" in London and can't call themselves "taxis" for a number of legal reasons). I used to do a lot of work for several south London cab firms and becoming a driver for them seemed pretty easy - you just had to do a certain amount of "account" work for free and you then got the lion's share of the remaining take. No "medallions" or crazy expenses beyond insurance and car maintenance.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure minicabs can't pick up passengers on the street, only black cabs can do that. Don't minicabs have to rely on bookings through a central office?

<comment><USER8> That's correct (or was when I lived in London).

Of course, this law is widely ignored -- which is just as well if you want to get home at 3 am.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here in San Francisco, some of the "old money" people control a large chunk of the medallions. The whole process is very opaque. Drivers usually rent the taxis from these owners; typically, it's $100 for an 8-hour shift, double that for weekends.

Sometimes I think about what would be a fairer scheme than locking away a medallion for life? One possibility would be to have 5-year Dutch auctions of medallions. This way the City keeps getting value out of the medallions, and can increase the supply as the population grows.

<comment><USER5> " _One possibility would be to have 5-year Dutch auctions of medallions._ "

Or you could stop pretending the government can legitimately criminalize a harmless business activity at the behest of a rent-seeking cartel. Money is not obscene. Driving a customer from A to B in exchange for payment is not a crime.

<comment><USER10> _Or you could stop pretending the government can legitimately criminalize a harmless business activity at the behest of a rent-seeking cartel._

I agree with you, to some extent. However, some level of regulation is necessary, otherwise "harmless" can quickly become "harmful". The case of South Africa is instructive.

In South Africa, the Apartheid government entirely deregulated the minibus taxi industry in the late 1980's. It was to be a cheap source of transport for the black population, since public transport links, particularly in newly established "white flight" areas were very poor (whites tended to have cars, blacks didn't). Also the idea was that individual taxi owner/drivers would help foster black entrepreneurship.

The best description of what happened next I've read is "the miracle of the 1980's turned into the nightmare of the 1990's". Instead of one-man one taxi, we got one owner, with many taxis. Taxi owners formed cartels, and violence in competition for routes led to murderous street warfare ("taxi wars").

The weakened state (1990-1996) was unable to intervene. Starting with the Mandela administration, attempts were made to re-regulate taxi operations, but were consistently stymied by the taxi organisations. Even as recently as the last 2 years, taxi owners, through road blockades (and a fatal shooting) managed to strong-arm the government into giving them control of a new Johannesburg bus system.

In any town and city in South Africa, overloaded, barely roadworthy taxis blast through intersections disregarding traffic rules, stopping dangerously, their drivers desperate to increase their takings, menacing their own passengers and other motorists with their aggression. Fatalities are not uncommon.

<comment><USER5> It goes without saying that _every_ policy is contingent on a functioning government capable of protecting its residents from violence. You'd hardly expect the United States to have the same problems as violence-ridden South Africa, regardless of policy.

That said, I don't understand your reasoning. You claim that free-enterprise taxis are responsible for violence in SA. But if that government, according to your account, can't even maintain _basic road safety_ , how could they possibly enforce a taxi monopoly? If they tried to set one up, they'd simply create a black market of cabs, which they'd have no control over. If anything that should be worse; "illegal" cabs would evade police and would not undergo whatever licensing/safety checks ordinary cabs get.

(On a tangent, a state-enforced cartel is quite analogous to the dystopia you describe. Instead of private businesses using mob violence to "defend" "their" turf, the police enforces it for them. Same crime, only institutionalized, sanitized, and socially acceptable.)

<comment><USER10> Yes, they lost control of road traffic enforcement as well, but not to the extent that they lost control of the taxi industry. Having some form of regulation would have kept the taxi operators busy evading the state rather than acting with criminal impunity (maybe even behaving better to not arouse suspicion), a better result than what actually happened.

And the state is stronger now than it was in the past, but the legacy of deregulation lives on - getting the genie back into the bottle is harder than letting it out.

 _Same crime, only institutionalized, sanitized, and socially acceptable._ "Sanitized and socially acceptable"...sounds good to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slightly off topic but I liked the word play in the last line (paraphrased): "It's not easy to be a start-up when you're viewed as an up-start."

</comment><comment><USER12> Next time I'm in Avignon I'll take one of those new, fancy cabs. Not so sure about the motorcycle cab.

<comment><USER13> Slightly offtopic, but does anyone have any experience with motorbike taxis (or indeed being a passanger on a non-taxi motorbike).

The firm I use whenever I'm in London offers them, I assume that no experience with motorbikes is needed to be able to sit on the back of one?

<comment><USER14> Are you referring to Addison Lee? I was under the impression that they only used motorbikes for courier service.

<comment><USER13> Indeed I am. <https://www.addisonlee.com/services/taxybikes/>

Edit: Just rang up to find out about rough prices, the journey I most commonly take is £11 in a normal car and £25 on a bike. So only really worth it when there's going to be bad traffic (which admittedly is quite often in London) or if you really like riding on a motorcycle. Can't remember how that compares to their more expensive car services, I rarely use them (99% of the time I'm on my own for work or with friends, exec cars only when with a client for some reason.)

Will probably give it a go next time I'm there just for the hell of it. At least then I won't be tempted to read Add Lib.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Voice to Voice translation in the browser using the Chrome Web Speech API - <AUTHOR> http://www.moreawesomeweb.com/demos/speech_translate.html

<comment><USER2> First couple of tests from English to Spanish worked great. My first thought: the Babelfish from Hitchhiker's Guide is probably only a few years away. Pair this with WordLens on a mobile device and we start breaking down barriers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very nice!

Maybe this is due to my settings but every time I click "listen" I need to allow access to my microphone (chrome). This may be related to it being from HTTP rather than HTTPS. Minor bug, really nice demo :)

</comment><comment><USER4> This voice-to-voice works great.

Is there any particular breakthrough that'd need to happen to make automated translations better? Or is that a problem with no near-perfect solution in mind?

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there any way to prevent it from hearing its own translations and trying to retranslate them? I got in a loop a few times.</comment>


Do you need more than 15 minutes to tell your company's story? If so, you're grossly wasting time. - <AUTHOR> http://www.jslogan.com/content/view/152/ <comment><USER2> Lacking any context I'm not sure I'd know what Abe is working on from that one speech.</comment>


Fog Waves Are the Most Beautiful Thing I Captured After 8 Years of Experimenting - <AUTHOR> https://www.boredpanda.com/fog-waves/ <comment><USER2> These images are beautiful.

They remind me of a few times when I've been able to see the patterns the wind creates, to visualise wind.

First up was strong winds in the desert, whipping sand off the dunes and creating patterns in the air.

Second was in Canada, during light snow fall. A thin layer of snow, dust like, was on the roads. And the cars / winds would whip it up to about 10 cm's off the road. It enabled the visualisation of both the wind and the air being pushed around by cars and trucks. I found it mesmerising.

Usually it's only visible through clouds, and it's mostly static, unless the wind is incredibly strong.

Does anyone have other situations where they've been able to see wind? Or other usually invisible phenomena?

<comment><USER3> I'm in the Seattle area. Every year in late spring, the cottonwood trees start emitting huge quantities of seeds attached to fluffy "cotton". It gathers in drifts on the road. The fluff is light enough to be tossed about by small eddy currents in the air, so you can see how house walls, arbors, fences, small trees affect the air movement. Fascinating, and something I look forward to yearly.

<comment><USER2> Nice. Reminds me I saw something similar in Melbourne once, when the pollen count was through the roof. But the wind was intensely strong, making it an all round horrible experience lol. I was obviously not in the right mindset to appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "This is where I coined the term "Fog Waves""

Nope. Sorry, Nick. Harold Gilliam has been publishing at least since '62 on the topic. "Fog Wave" can be easily found in the most recent scanned edition of his book, __Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region: Second Edition __, from 2002.[0] (no quick search reveals if the term is also in the '62 edition)

[0] [https://books.google.com/books?id=aaYwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=aaYwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=harold+gilliam+%22fog+wave%22#v=onepage&q=harold%20gilliam%20%22fog%20wave%22&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER5> The film Baraka has great shots of moving fog in mountains: [https://youtu.be/r6BJkLWivzY?t=1029](https://youtu.be/r6BJkLWivzY?t=1029)

They are still my favorite nature shots. I'm remembering them when I remind myself that the planet has way more great stuff than what I see daily around me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Stunning. I flew out of SFO yesterday morning and as we flew over the city, a thick white layer of fog covered everything except the very top of Sutro Tower. Very sublime, it looked like a cloud sea with blue skies above.

<comment><USER7> > cloud sea with blue skies above

[https://vimeo.com/22439234](https://vimeo.com/22439234)

When I was a kid and on La Gomera, we rode a bus across the island to get to our ferry very early in the morning, over mountains on very windy roads, and seeing the sun rise _above_ the clouds... well, it's my first memory of being moved in this deep yet light way (sublime is just the word) by something I saw in nature, and I shall never forget it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We play on the sea. When the weather is a bit grim you can see big clumps of misty rain come in on the wind. They look voluminous and heavy. But you get to be inside them. All swirly and wet.

</comment><comment><USER9> Near my house we sometimes get a standing wave where the fog actually curls as it flows SSE over the spine of the peninsula / Sweeney Ridge.

It's pretty amazing. I love the fog for some reason :P

</comment><comment><USER10> That's beautiful. And I thought I was lucky to live in the hills above a river that usually has a trail of thick fog hugging it in the Fall and Spring.

</comment><comment><USER11> At last, I know what Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is trying to capture.

</comment><comment><USER12> >I do this by putting on dark filters known as ND or Neutral Density filters that trick the camera into thinking it's night time forcing a longer shutter speed.

Author is knowledgeable enough about filters but can't figure out manual mode on his camera?

<comment><USER13> They just explained it oddly. ND filters reduces the amount of light so it is possible to do long exposures during the day. If they tried to use manual long exposure without ND, the photo would be fully white from all the light coming in.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the explanation. I immediately assumed he was using a phone or something that similarly forced auto mode.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Tips on starting developing project? - <AUTHOR>

I noticed it many times now - every time I am ready to jump working on next idea (very MVP-ish) I am looking through available libraries to get head start. Like get right folder structure, get right templating library (both server and client sides,) right combination of client libraries, something that already have basic CRUD and API layers working, etc... And every time I waste many hours browsing through GitHub, because each project is slightly not what I want to have.
Any tips on writing very first lines of code? :) Both mental and may be technological (look - I still looking for silver bullet here :))
ps: It is never problem for me to dive deeply into existing project and start feature in existing project from scratch, but totally new project - every time mental struggle. <comment><USER2> Very cliche suggestion, but just start.

Keep adding to it. You're gonna for sure write bad code thats going to be trashed, but keep working at it. The whole project might even be trashed but such is the expense of a creative.

Code, ship, fail(or succeed!), repeat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just go for it straight away, don't plan anything, just start typing. Just keep in the back of your mind that what you're writing is a prototype. After a while of tapping away at the keyboard (minutes, or hours, or days, ...) you will suddenly see the problem in a much clearer way.

At that point don't be afraid to:

1) Rewrite large sections of your prototype where your initial assumptions were wrong

2) Start again

Once you feel you've got a real handle on the problem, (and depending on the size of the project), it could be time to start some formal design based on what you now know.

</comment><comment><USER4> Get framework/library which will do the most of work and run the example from documentation. Then try to make it better suite your needs. (Then fork it or switch to another library).

<comment><AUTHOR> But there is so many of them! :)

<comment><USER4> Sure? What programming language do you use? There are always 2 or 3 of them. If it is something special, like some free AMF streaming video server, WebRTC STUN server, MQTT protocol implementation, MQ broker or whatever, there are very few real alternatives you can change of. I think it's the best driver for growing contributors to such kind of projects.

Of course, if it's not just another wtf blogging/sharing/socializing whatever platform written on Perl or on modern popular web language like PHP _haha_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Give it a try to Meteor.js platform. It's the easiest way to prototype client and server side code with minimum lines of code.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I want Sqlite DB :) (for this particular project)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always been in need for some kind of coding project standards wiki.. Maybe I should just make one!</comment>


Ask HN: Keep Going? - <AUTHOR>

I'm about six months out of graduating college.  No debt and currently living out of my relatives house who have allowed me to work here for free.  I worked for a somewhat well-known startup right out school but decided to quit my job because it wasn't the right fit for me at all.
I applied to some other startups, got offers, but eventually decided to start my own company.  I've been going at it for about 5-6 weeks.  Things are going well: the product is really progressing quickly and investors are getting in touch with me (not the other way around).  But damn, is life ever lonely.
I'm a single founder with 2 advisors.  But I'm the one down in the trenches doing anything.  The site is not completely public yet (we'll be launching full-on soon).  I consider myself to be a pretty social person but not being from the SV originally I don't really have any friends or people I know.  That being said, all I do is program and work on the company...which gets extremely draining with no social interaction.
Any advice?  I feel like I need to give this a shot.  I've got some money saved up and I've been thinking about moving into my own cheap place (just to have my own place for a morale boost).  But, with no solid income its hard to really justify moving out from a free-rent place.  At the same time, I've thought about quitting the entire thing.  Should I just stop complaining?  Advice welcome. <comment><USER2> Sounds like your should stick with your start up. Fix the problem instead of giving up. The problem being, from what I read, you are dissatisfied with your current level of social interaction.

Establish a routine in which you regularly interact with people. Consider taking 5-10 hours of your week (or whatever works for you, and devote it to something unrelated to your startup. A part time job in a social place, like a cafe, or perhaps volunteer for a cause that matters to you. Check out classes in your community that you might enjoy. Maybe a martial art, or other physical activity to get two birds with one stone.

If you want to find more like-mind people, look for entrepreneur's and small business networking events and meets ups. You don't have to be in the valley to find people that are working on making a successful business.

Best of luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Classes are a good idea for me I think. Established routine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Instead of moving into your own place, have you thought about moving into a place with some other people? It would be a good way to be around people daily and also get connected into more social groups.

</comment><comment><USER4> If investors are contacting you, you surely have something worth pursuing. No matter what, tough it out as long as you can.

To cope with the loneliness, get yourself out there. Are you alone in the "I need like-minded folks to talk to" way? Or in a more "I want to hang out and have fun with people" way? Either way, you can do something about it.

For the former: go hang out with people. It is easy enough to cold-email people and invite them to lunch or coffee (where in the bay are you, btw? let's go have lunch!) Go to tech meetups. Join users groups and go to their activities. Coincidentally, this is probably the best way to find co-founders.

The latter is a bit more tricky, but you can approach it the same way. Make use of meetup. Volunteer. Join a book club. Make it a point to talk to 1 stranger every day or every day you go outside the house. Go to bars by yourself and talk to people.

There is probably a large set of people who fit into both categories.

One way or another, keep at it through the hard times. I'm sure it'll be worth it.

<comment><USER5> As a very special case of this advice, climbing is hacker-compatible and it's easy to get to know people this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A cheap temporary band-aid solution is to work in cafes sometimes. Just being around people can help; as does the change in environment.

</comment><comment><USER7>
        Should I just stop complaining?

Just to say, in general, answer to this question is almost always yes.

<comment><USER8> Maybe so but there's nothing wrong with wanting to be told "We've all been there. You will be alright. Just hang in there."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> YES!

Seriously, most people won't get to the point where you with their 'start- ups', so you seem to have a live one. If you ever wondered about stopping before this is the worst time to decide to do so, just another 6 months and you'll know what you've got.

Keep at it and make a go of it, you're very close to launch, why on earth would you give up at this stage. All the sunk costs you've already had, now is the time to push on and make a go of it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Slow down and start talking to people. You don't have monthly costs, investor expectations, or debt forcing you to work at a fast pace. Take it slower, start having more social interaction, and start talking to people again.

<comment><USER11> Seconded. I suggest getting on an even keel before making yourself obligated to others. Having a good routine that keeps the level of social interaction normal and healthy is a very very good thing to have before taking on investors' money. The stress only increases :-)

I recently moved to LA where I know very few people. Building up friendships and contacts has been a pretty high priority. I've tried to make time for meet-ups. Following up with individuals afterwards to get coffee, beer, play sports has been the most successful way for me build a new network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're enjoying the project, and think it can go somewhere, then don't give up. It's the hard times that flush out those who aren't committed.

As for being lonely, try jumping on Twitter. There will be hundreds of people in your local area on it who will most likely be very friendly. I've met at least 50 people in real life who I would never have known were it not for twitter, and have even made a couple of friends overseas. Meetup.com is another great resource for finding like-minded people.

</comment><comment><USER13> in SV proper? head by the Hacker Dojo. You can bring your laptop and work, but there is a whole lot of social interaction going on there, too. It's better, I think, than a coffee shop for social interaction because it's expected that people will start talking to you. It's better than most parties or other social situations, 'cause it's completely acceptable to bring your laptop, and to mumble something about a deadline or needing to work whenever you are tired of talking.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually been told this by multiple people. I think I may check it out.

<comment><USER14> <http://desksnear.me/> \- Would this help you? Keep going!=) You might want to try exercising regularly (running, basketball, swimming..) and hanging out with friends who are not necessarily doing startups. It helps to keep you rooted to the rest of the world who are not interested in startups.. =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some words from the great Churchill might aid: "Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up."

</comment><comment><USER16> Why you are thinking about quitting when you've dedicated so much to your project and are getting investors interested in your product is beyond me. If the problem is loneliness just get out more! What difference will it make to move out anyways? Just work on your company and make a habit of speaking to people all the time. In no time you'll get rid of the 'loneliness'.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm in almost the exact same situation as you. Just graduated this year, worked for a startup, then moved to SF with a relative to work on our own startup. Would love to meet you and chat, let me know.

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/10/startup-team-magic.html>

</comment><comment><USER19> Where in SV are you? I'm about 5 months out of college and working on a startup too, would be down to meet up. Send me an email ambition2188 at gmail

<comment><USER20> I'm in a similar situation as polymath21 as well. Shoot me an email if interested in meeting up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Are you the same <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=throw999>

<comment><AUTHOR> No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> why not try working at Hacker Dojo, you can get the work done and make new friends the same time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you everyone for the advice. It has helped me monumentally.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why do you use throw-away account? If your question was linked to a real person -- you would get more meaningful advice and possibly some other help.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing a few of my would-be investors probably read this site. I'd prefer to remain anonymous.

<comment><USER23> Do you think that if investors read that discussion, probability of investment deal would go down?

If so -- why? I would expect that the chance of investment deal would go up for these reasons:

1) Open public discussion makes you more known, and therefore investment outcome is a little bit more predictable.

2) Public discussion promotes your future business.

3) Open public discussion indicates you are not embarrassed to connect your name to your business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> get a girlfriend

</comment><comment><USER25> One thing you will learn is that it's drive that pays off. If you feel like quiting in the bad times during startup you're going to have a hard time when your company runs into hard times in the future once you've invested more into it. Look at the guys form airbnb, they lived of cereal and were broke but they never lost hope. Like bradly said find some like minded roommates. Also congrats on having investors contact you, thats a good sign. Keep it up.</comment>


LPE and RCE in OpenBSD OpenSMTPD - <AUTHOR> https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/01/28/3 <comment><USER2> I tested this exploit against an unpatched OpenBSD 6.6 machine and it works with the default mbox delivery, but not with maildir delivery (as hinted by the syspatch message). So if you use maildir delivery like me, you weren't exposed to this security hole. This is the sound of the world's quietest sigh of relief. I have some questions:

Is Qualys getting paid for this excellent work, and if so, by who?

Is there a plan to do a serious audit of execle related code in OpenBSD?

As a longtime OpenBSD user, I gotta say that OpenSMTPD is the part of the system I'm least comfortable with from a security standpoint. Too many rewrites, mulligans, CVEs. Very little of the web howtos match the official documentation because there's so much churn, which by itself is a red flag. And even without a logic bug, I'm surprised execle was used at all here. It was unnecessary and naive. I'll be honest, I'm in the middle of transitioning from qmail to OpenSMTPD, and this bug is making me consider notqmail.

This RCE is trivial and super bad.

<comment><USER3> That's for pointing this out.

It is pretty ridiculous just how trivial and severe this is, indeed.

However, given the lower prevalence of OpenBSD, I'd be interested to know whether anyone has any data on whether this is being exploited in the wild.

<comment><USER4> No data, but it only listens on localhost by default.

<comment><USER3> Do you think anyone who changes the default also changes the delivery to Maildir?

(So, at a minimum, it's a local user privilege escalation, of any user to root, in the default install?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OpenBSD errata and binary syspatches are already available for 6.5/6.6.

[https://man.openbsd.org/syspatch](https://man.openbsd.org/syspatch)

[https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html#p018_smtpd_tls](https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html#p018_smtpd_tls)

[https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html#p019_smtpd_exec](https://www.openbsd.org/errata66.html#p019_smtpd_exec)

There is also a new portable release of OpenSMTPd - 6.6.2p1: [https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg04850.htm...](https://www.mail- email@example.com/msg04850.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is such a clean and easy to read write-up on how the control flow led to the bug, and how it's exploited.

Of course, that's partly because it's so damn easy to exploit. Here's what an exploit email actually looks like;

      $ nc 127.0.0.1 25
      220 obsd66.example.org ESMTP OpenSMTPD
      HELO professor.falken
      250 obsd66.example.org Hello professor.falken  [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
      MAIL FROM:<;sleep 66;>
      250 2.0.0 O.k
      ...

That executes "sleep 66" as root.

There simply must be a better way to parameterize calls to the MTA that contain _remote /attacker provided input_ than exec'ing a shell. It should not all come down to being "absolutely sure" the input is escaped properly.

<comment><USER6> I will add, this bug occurred essentially because of the following logic bug;

      01 if (!A || !B) {
      02   if (!B) {
      03     fix(B);
      04     return 1;
      05   }
      06   return 0;
      07 }
      08 return 1;

It's interesting to think about the IF on Line 02.

It could have read "if (A)" and that would have been correct, but IMO even better to write out "if (A && !B)" in case anything changes with the surrounding code later.

The problem of course is that "A" and "B" are expensive functions which you don't want to call twice, and it just is so annoyingly _verbose_ to have to assign booleans and then compare those...

You almost want to be able to write out a truth table based on calling the functions and then handling their return values. A kind of 2D switch statement;

      switch (A, B) {
        case 1,1:
           return 1;
        case 1,0:
           fix(B);
           return 1;
        default:
           return 0;
      }

Does any language support a multi-dimensional switch statement like this?

Hmm, maybe it's not really any better that way either. The case statements are just not explicit enough.

<comment><USER7> Re: the language feature: This is standard in ML-family/typed functional languages (OCaml, Haskell...), and lately has been being adopted by a lot of newer languages, including Rust and Swift.

<comment><USER8> I feel like the "canonical" example of using pattern matching for nested if statements is fizzbuzz

        fn main() {
            for i in 1..102 {
                match (i % 3 == 0, i % 5 == 0) {
                    (true, true) => println!("FizzBuzz"),
                    (true, false) => println!("Fizz"),
                    (false, true) => println!("Buzz"),
                    (false, false) => println!("{}", i)
                }
            }
        }

Not only is it obviously correct, but if you somehow manage to forget a case the compiler will tell you.

<comment><USER9> Couldn't you do this with an anonymous function in languages which have those? Which would look like:

        {
            if A && B return println("FizzBuss");
            if A && !B return println("Fizz");
            if !A && B return println("Buzz");
            if !A && !B return println("{}", i);
        }

<comment><USER10> that just seems to being us back to the problem of not wanting to re-evaluate the functions...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's worth noting that this couldn't have happened to any mail server running on Plan 9, no matter how buggy it was.

Mail servers should run as nobody; mail box files are, in fact, world- writable, and their permissions should reflect that. Go ahead, critique the ergonomics of C's conditional expression syntax. But first, consider that this security model for a room full of terminals in the 1970s, where permission to accept connections on port 25 is also permission to format the hard disk, is totally nuts for a network-connected computer in the 2020s.

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems strange that people are blaming C for this. I see the real problem being that it is a unix pattern to use the shell to pass arguments to programs, even when that input is possibly malicious. Obviously doing this as root takes it from RCE to juggling with plutonium, but a non-confined non-root shell is pretty awful.

The code seems to go out of its way to avoid using the system() call to shell out, but then does exactly what system() would do.

<comment><USER12> Apropos of this, I was listening to the excellent On The Metal podcast, and Jonathan Blow made the point that Unix/shell has no type safety. Can we get a version of bash with strict types and typed arguments? (Does Powershell do anything in this regard?)

[https://oxide.computer/blog/tags/podcast/](https://oxide.computer/blog/tags/podcast/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My main question is why isn't /bin/sh being executed with -r -- restricted mode? It seems weird that a safety-critical piece of code would just call out to /bin/sh without doing that, especially on openBSD?

<comment><USER14> My question is why are they using /bin/sh at all? system() and friends that execute /bin/sh are almost always a source of vulnerabilities.

[https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2014/02/17/pid- preservation-...](https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2014/02/17/pid-preservation- society/)

<comment><USER15> This is a good question. Ideally (given the existing model) they would template an execv argv array, rather than a string to pass to sh(1), and execv() the MDA directly. It does not seem like the full generality of a shell is needed for pointing an smtpd at an MDA.

Of course, the reason they're invoking an external MDA is because this is classically how smptds and local mail delivery is separated. Is there a great reason for that? Not really. The MDA could be embedded in the smtpd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ouch. The root of the issue is that they do a validity check for the local and domain part of the recipient email address. If _either_ one (or both) is invalid, they then check to see if the domain part is empty. If it is, they replace the empty domain with the default domain, and then say it's all valid, ignoring the fact that the local part might _also_ be invalid.

<comment><USER17> The root of the issue is relying on ad-hoc string escaping for security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love the copious references to the 80s film WarGames in the examples :)

<comment><USER19> It's interesting to see how these hacking-themed Hollywood movies have better reputations after two decades. When they were just released, responses from the hacking community were almost entirely "Hollywood is clueless". But after two decades, it becomes something different and gained additional historical values.

<comment><USER18> I dunno, I'm not convinced that's the case. It may be that there is some undercurrent of that, but I recall being super into WarGames in the 80s and very-very into it in the 90s. When I ran a dialup ISP, my mail servers were called wopr and norad... :P

Also, I think nerds just sometimes hate admitting they like a thing that is a caricature of themselves. I hate to admit it, but I really liked Hackers, and thought it had a lot of relevant nerd stuff going on it, ditto on The Matrix :)

<comment><USER20> I'm with you on Hackers. It's a guilty pleasure of mine and I still watch it from time to time. I remember watching it for the first time, scoffing at everything and thinking it wasnt even close to reality. But, it was fun. Also absolutely loved the soundtrack. I still listen to some of the artists to this day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the PoC can be optimized: after way too much googling, I finally found a way to consume an arbitrary number of non-empty lines without using any special characters. ironically, it uses perl.

        perl -00 -ne exit

unfortunately, the first line afterwards is also eaten. this is easily remedied by inserting one junk line though instead of a slide.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone provide some insight into possible motivations for why the authors may have chosen to use a shell here? I'm struggling to understand what value it adds over representing mda_command as an array of strings and execving that.

I don't mean this sarcastically; I'm genuinely curious about the motivations. The only thing I can come up with is that it's slightly more annoying to free an array of strings than it is to free a single string in C. Is that plausibly the only motivation to involve a shell here?

</comment><comment><USER22> Theo says Web facing things applications is a good place to start using rust, he proved himself right.

</comment><comment><USER23> Dude this rhymes... Could this be the lyrics for next Openbsd release song?

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, Openwall has been really at it when it comes to OpenBSD related vulns.

First with the user authentication vulns [0], now this.

For those running OpenBSD boxes: the patch is available through syspatch, but you may need to change /etc/updateurl to an official OpenBSD CDN, since the patch is still fresh and not yet distributed to all mirrors.

[0] [https://www.openbsd.org/errata65.html](https://www.openbsd.org/errata65.html)

<comment><USER5> The oss-security@ mailing list is hosted by openwall. This advisory was posted by Qualys Security.

<comment><USER24> Darn, you are right! I need sleep... But first let me patch my boxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really wish the OpenBSD team would consider rewriting some of these internet facing services in Go. It would be much safer than C.

<comment><USER26> This isn't memory corruption, and you could easily end up with the same bug in Go (or Rust) code; the problem is that it's shelling out to subcommands to perform mail delivery and not screening addresses for metacharacters due to a logic bug.

<comment><USER27> In a better language than C, you could encode valid addresses in a proper type whose constructor would fail. But yes, you can treat everything as a string in any language.

<comment><USER28> You can also use type safety to enforce input validation in C. Just return an error code from the initializer, and annotate it must check. (Or, if you want to couple memory allocation with the checks, write a factory that returns null on input validation errors).

Various parts of the stdlib do this, though often without the compiler annotation. They often hide the struct members inside a compilation unit to prevent callers from bypassing the check (as much as is possible in a language with unsafe primitives).

<comment><USER27> It's not idiomatic C, and is pretty rare in practice. And the ergonomics are vastly better in other languages, starting with C++.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/01/551018759/are-hunter-gatherers-the-happiest-humans-to-inhabit-earth <comment><USER2> I somehow think this is an idea popular mainly among people who never had to live that way for real (and no, going for a weekend in woods for fun is not comparable). Yes, they don't have our types of stress, but it's just not true that this is stress free living. Their every single moment is fighting to survive, to collect enough water, to hunt enough meat, not to get hurt, not to get sick or injured. And they're used to that life, so superficially they might look like doing much better than us, but life is still hard for them. Walking for hours to collect water and then bringing it back every single day is not something that people who had to do it remember fondly. Looking for food can be fun when there is enough of it, but sometimes there isn't, and they know very well that if they fail their family will be literally be left hungry, their children might even die. I honestly doubt it's much less stressful than worrying about mortgage. And all of that is in the normal situations, until a drought or disease strikes, or until their best hunter gets killed or injured, or neighboring tribe attacks and steals their women. In such extreme times civilization is the safety net that saves your life, and that's why we come up with it, in the first place. To make our life easier. And it is. And if it's too stressful for you, is it really because of the civilization, or because of your own choices and ambitions?

<comment><USER3> We don't have civilization today. We have a consumption machine that has gone of the rails trapping everyone from CEOs, Generals, Judges, Politicians to Janitors in mindless superficial activity. We have more in common with an ant colony than whatever civilization ideal anyone ever imagined.

<comment><USER4> This is an interesting point.

I was born in East Europe "behind the iron curtain", but lived in the west for a long time. And then East Asia for even longer. There are huge differences in how people perceive "civilization" and how "trapped" they feel vs actually are.

The west with its rigorous rules, both explicit and implicit. Regulation of every facet of your life, to a degree you don't realize (it's so natural! building permissions! driving permissions! marriage permissions! breath the air permissions! otherwise the world collapses!) until you've lived somewhere else.

South East Asia with its reckless freedom, or downright anarchy (Thailand). The social pressure is applied more on the family level. There are few explicit regulations, and even where they do exist, you're half expected to ignore them.

All of this is changing of course. As Gibson said, "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed". There is no doubt in which direction the civilization is moving. Individual human ingenuity is an outstanding achievement, but isn't evolution always oh-so-squinting toward larger, more integrated, more efficient structures? The game of entropy.

The naive integration attempts in the 20th century didn't work out so well, but the pressure is building again. Maybe this time.

<comment><USER5> Honestly I will be extremely happy when people from south east Asia or from Europe or from everywhere in the world will be banned from driving and self driving cars can do it, wasting so much less lives. I have never been to Thailand, but in the two times that I have been in Philippines I have seen two corpses under a blanket because of two separate road accidents. Much, much, better to limit the so called "freedom" of some people if it helps to save innocent human lives.

<comment> racer-v People who would trade freedom for safety deserve neither.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only time I'm relaxed and feel happy is when I am out in untamed nature - seeing and hearing nature. It doesn't matter if its just a hike or "working" hard on trail maintenance. If this[1] is true, "Every 2.5 minutes, the American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human development."

Walking down the street among human development just doesn't do anything for me, so I quit going outside. It seems like expulsion from the biosphere.

I wonder if other people feel this way, whether consciously or not.

[1] [https://www.disappearingwest.org/](https://www.disappearingwest.org/)

<comment><USER7> I feel the opposite way. In my mind raw nature is chaos and unpredictability. It's hard to relax when I'm not at least in medium sized town.

<comment><USER8> Its a giant gladiator ring with animals killing each other every minute. From our perch at the top of the food chain we can call nature peaceful. I'm not sure a rabbit would feel the same way.

<comment><USER9> Part of the calm relaxing feeling many of us get being out in nature may be the comfort of knowing that we completely dominate the entire environment.

Contrast with the often hyper competitive social/city environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe they are, humans have never been rational. It is much more important to have vaccines and antibiotics than to be happy. People reading this crap who then get the urge to strip down to a loincloth and run into the woods should be aware that these viewpoints always portray the best case scenario. Forget germs, starvation, or exposure (which are enough to make you miserable / kill you by themselves), what about other people? What if someone mugs you and takes your stuff. What if another tribe comes in and says (understandably) "look, food is scarce, we're claiming this herd of gazelle. If you hunt these gazelle, we'll kill you." If you're a woman, what if you get raped? If you're a man, what if your wife gets raped, are you gonna go kill the guy? You? What if you get killed trying to do that, what happens to your wife?

No, living under modern society is much better, happy or not.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure you know enough to compare the two.

Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter- gatherers. Crime was a different issue as well, when tribes knew all the members. And sure, tribes had conflicts, but they were often not as violent as the total wars of the last couple centuries.

I'm surprised so many people who know nothing except modern society are so quick to make sweeping assumptions about a distant and unrecorded past.

<comment><USER12> They are also comparing it to the best outcomes for individuals in modern society. It's not like people don't still get raped, killed over resources, and finished off prematurely by disease and starvation. I'm not sure modern civilization would look the same without a long and continuing history of people sacrificed at the altar of progress.

<comment><USER10> but at least in society in the worst case I have police, medicine, insurance.. __people working for money to help you __

<comment> racer-v It's a common misconception that the job of police is to help people. Their job is to apprehend and arrest people. Whether that actually helps anyone or not is highly situational.

Same logic applies to medicine and insurance.

<comment><USER10> Their job is to apprehend and arrest people who break laws. In a society without them, there's no one to arrest those who assault you, rob from you, rape you, or murder you. And if you don't think that's necessary you are incredibly naive.

<comment> racer-v The point is that they may be ncessary, but they're not sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find articles like this ridiculous. Plenty of things in the modern world is bad for your mental health. Social sites like Facebook, hacker news and so on are constant reminders that you're missing out. You didn't go to a social event last night and you still haven't picked up JavaScript, etc. On top of that research show that people now read comments rather than articles...

It may just be me, but reading comments in general isn't a positive thing in my life. I mean, I enjoy the discussions on HN and often I walk away informed, but the time it takes could've been spent better. I've been here 30 minutes today. That's about how long it takes me to read a scientific article on a subject I'm interested in, and when I do that I typically walk away both informed, inspired and with a few ideas of my own.

Which is the point I want to get to. Not everyone in the west is suffering. There are people who apply their focus to meaningful subjects and have interesting people to discuss them with. There are people who spend their Saturday walking in the forest. There are people who have enough wealth to live healthy lives with large degrees of individual freedom, and lastly there are people who combine all those things and lead truely impactful lives.

I think those people are a lot more happy than hunter gatherers ever were, while also enjoying the fruits of modern technology enabling them to live beyond 35, not seeing half their children die, having easy access to a wealth of knowledge and in generally enjoying unsurpassed freedom.

</comment><comment><USER14> Look I hate Facebook, Google, the news, prefer physical books, like to exercise, whatever but I always hate seeing this stuff.

In Western society there are always two lies operating at once. The first lie is that technology will save us and fix everything and is the ultimate path, the second lie is that throwing away all of our technology, being as close to nature as possible, blah blah will also save us and fix everything.

One thing happier people do in fact have is a sense of historical perspective and also future sacrifice. Knowing the sacrifice that 500 mothers and fathers made before you to move the human race hopefully a little forward, and knowing that you can help pass along their sacrifice, knowledge, and your own hard work to your children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations.

<comment><USER12> One of the things that was pointed out last time this topic came up (only a few weeks ago) is that most all of us who benefit from modern civilization enough so to be commenting about it on HN are enabled by massive amounts of cheap, wage-slave labor from the poorer half of the world.

So while the average 9-to-5 job, smartphone-browsing lifestyle is probably preferable to the brutality of being a hunter-gatherer, if I were a garment factory worker making 100$/month under terrible conditions and long hours, then things might change -- I'd personally take my chances out in the wilderness.

<comment><USER15> Exactly my thoughts, when people say they have a great work life balance at their enterprise IT company, it's at the cost of some cheap labour outsourced somewhere.

When you buy cheap cloths at Walmart or even at the brands, just have a look at the tag. Your luxury is at the cost of cheap wage slave labour or a child labour in a third world country.

The new trend is 100% US based customer support. These are the very companies which cheaply outsourced customer support to start with.

<comment><USER16> That cheap labor is exactly what has brought countless people out of extreme poverty in many countries that over the years have had the competitive advantage of cheap labor. This is how Japan and south Korea started. You can see it in process with China and many others.

I'm not sure how taking away what little industry they have by refusing to buy their products helps these countries.

While I find it said that children are working in many countries today, I'm also not glib enough to think that is those jobs are taken away, their parents will just send them to school instead and they'll go on to live a happy life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Of course they are. They're living closer to what our species evolved for. Civilizational people are constantly having to check their preferred behavior for the greater good. Sure there are perks to having a civilization but there are costs, too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Of course, farming didn't overtake hunter-gathering because farmers are _happier_. It overtook because farming can feed massive armies capable of conquering hunter-gatherer land by force.

Although I guess, in the end, not being conquered/enslaved/killed _might_ make people happier.

<comment><USER19> Is it true or just extrapolated hint ?

I like to criticize "modern" societies, but some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious goal for any human being.

<comment><USER20> > some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious > goal for any human being.

I don't have the citation, but IIRC, monkeys get higher dopamine spikes when success at a task is probable but not guaranteed. Having something that is unpredictable but likely to yield a reward is what motivates effort. Having a predictable supply of food is less stressful, but possibly, not as motivating. Maybe not as satisfying as successfully hunting an animal.

Sidenote: it's also been theorized that browsing social media is addictive because of the unpredictable aspect. You can keep scrolling, there is always new content, and there is some chance that you might find something interesting, but it's not guaranteed.

<comment><USER19> Sure, I believe so too. We like randomness but not too much.

About social media my pov is that it's also a very non expensive provider of whatever hormone spike we crave. You move a finger, you get a bit of bias reinforcement, repeat. Try to read a physics book, and enjoy the unpredictability of the content.. yet less than 1% is addicted to libraries.

Maybe, maybe in the end monkeys ended up preferring teaming up (less randomness), to do random-filled activities like war. Reminds me of the article about war veteran not able to live in society after war, they craved the tension and the simplicity. War "is good".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm going to write a new book that argues people who don't read this kind of BS are happier than those that do. Could back that with stats too (just ignore the correlation/causation thing...)

Watching your children die due to diseases that are totally trivial in our non-hunter-gatherer society makes you happy. oooookaaaay... FFS

<comment><USER22> > _Watching your children die due to diseases that are totally trivial in our > non-hunter-gatherer society makes you happy. oooookaaaay... FFS_

In fairness, people not packed into cities don't have exactly the same issues with childhood diseases.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, by the way. I just don't think it's directly comparable that way.

It's also worth noting that many societies are not hunter gatherer and have high child mortality rates. The road from "tribal" to "modern" is full of dysentery.

<comment><USER23> Regardless of how you look at the statistics, modern humans are healthier and live longer on average by every measure

<comment><USER24> The 1st world at least

<comment><USER25> no, even in the second (the ex-communist block) and the third (south america, africa, and non aligned countries in general).

Just check one of the Hans Rosling videos on TED[0]: almost everywhere life expectancy has increased, child mortality has dropped, education has risen.

[0] [https://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling](https://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is interesting to me that this topic provokes angry responses. I find the tenor of debate on this subject similar to what you'd find in reply to an article about early retirement through discipline in savings.

</comment><comment><USER27> I guess it depends on your definition of happy for the dead and never born. Hunter-Gathers couldn't specialize, and that has made all of the difference in our lives. Without specialization a lot of the joyful activities that we participate in would not be available and most of us wouldn't be here.

Yes, I get it. Some find joy in the primitive, the promise of stripping way the complications of modern life, and feeling the raw world again. That's fine for a weekend or a week, but understand what you give up.

Me, well, I like indoor plumbing, heat, and refrigeration.

</comment><comment><USER25> Jared Diamond's "The World Before Yesterday" touches on this wrt to the people of Papua New Guinea.

These are people who basically lived in hunter-gatherer style until very recently, and have recently started to adopt the "modern" lifestyle. According to him, they do not regret it.

Also, the "happy savage" meme has been around for literally centuries, and it's generally been propagated by rich, educated non-savages.

<comment><USER28> They will regret it some generations later as they swing to the other extreme.

The core point here is too much of anything leads to stress. Living totally like a savage is indeed stressful. Also living a life totally immersed in urban dystopia is equally stressful. A happy medium works, but so few can get and remain there. Our economic systems encourage falling into extremes. They don't encourage stability and moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Of course they are. Hunting for food has to be better than slaving away at a corporate office. Which they can choose to do only when hungry. They were likely more fit too.

So I buy that you can be happier like that. Until you or people around you start dying of (nowadays) preventable diseases. Or because you ran into some other group and they wanted your stuff - however little that is.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why are we trying to optimize ourselves to maximize happiness? Of course the hunter gatherers were happier, they evolved their happiness enducing brains slowly in the span of hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast we are living in a fast changing world. I think happiness can no longer keep up as being the proper reward function for success.

<comment><USER31> What should we optimize for then? Shareholder value?

<comment><USER30> I think it would be different for each person. Personally I try to optimize for contributing to the collective human knowledge and enabling others to do so

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For those not familiar, Ishmael is a philosophical take on the topic:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_\(novel\))

(It's been mentioned on HN a few times which is how I think I became aware of it.)

<comment><USER33> Ishmael also deals with other issues. Important issues.

Right now I don't think any truly civilized society would actually generate any garbage. When we solve that issue, we will look at the past (our present) in shame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I find this idea horific. Rape and war are a normality in Hunter and Gather societies.

I acknowledge they are fun and make us happy, in current society we farm these out to other activities like sport and computer simulations but in pre societies they are not so fun for the losers. It seems like survivor bias.

If they are talking getting the best of both worlds then perhaps it's possible to move in that direction but the Earth won't support it in anything close to the way the tribes currently live so it seems like a bad way to be looking at it.

<comment><USER24> > Rape and war are a normality in Hunter and Gather societies.

no

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The kid is wearing factory made shoes.

<comment><USER36> Hunting and gathering with modern tools might be not that bad of a lifestyle for idle humans in a world where robots can do everything better.

<comment><USER35> I do my hunting and gathering at the local supermarket. There I find my favorite prey - the elusive coffee bean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The main point of the article seems to be that living the present is better than worrying about the future. For me it's just the opposite: I love to think about the future, being better at some sports, learning new things, working on more interesting things. I find the described "cyclical time" perception in the article quite depressing, some kind of never-ending groundhog day.

<comment><USER38> What you describe as not liking is not living in the present. It's intellectualizing the present.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Surely wealth or living in the "West" has no correlation to happiness, if happiness is considered _freedom from worry_ , and freedom from a never satiated desire for more things, experiences and status.

</comment><comment><USER40> I guess when you're acclimated to extremely high infant mortality rates, nothing else really bothers you too much.

</comment><comment><USER33> Also mentioned in 'Sapiens'.

<comment><USER41> fascinating book! love the follow up too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lots of people are really misinformed about hunter-gatherer life. Why is that?

</comment><comment><USER42> I love looking for things. I think a lot of us do. Web searches, thrift stores, street photography, 3D models, Github projects. Momentary instances of challenge keep it exciting. I do think most of us find comfort in the "hunting and gathering"-like types of activities we indulge in. Our visual senses still celebrate the red colors and glossy surfaces of apples and berries.

</comment><comment><USER43> They may be happier, but they are fewer. What good is mean happiness versus sum happiness in the grand scheme of things?

<comment><USER44> The _Repugnant Conclusion_ may be of interest:

"For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living" (Parfit 1984)

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant- conclusion/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> mercantile capitalism morphing into corporate feudalism; slavers need blinders for human tack. the usual suspects: torah, mahabharata, dhammapada, i ching, the communist manifesto, theosophy, neoplatonism, shamanism, utilitarianism, etc.

no matter how far into primitivism we sink in the 21st and 22nd centuries, civilisation will always reboot with access to: bible (war), euclid's elements (mathematics), iliad (peace) and the right geographic start.

if all knowledge is lost, it will only take a few of hundred years this time not tens or thousands. even completely demolished, cities are hard to hide. the pyramids will still be there, restarting the loop.</comment>


Mozilla Firefox OS - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/os/?utm_source=snippet&utm_medium=snippet&utm_campaign=FirefoxOS_Germany&sample_rate=0.1&snippet_name=4128

<comment><USER2> Here's the link for those not speaking German: [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/os/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thnx jhaaps</comment>