Is technology morally neutral? See No Evil: The Case of Alfred Anaya - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/alfred-anaya/all/

<comment><USER2> That's war on drugs for you. Anything it touches becomes deadly poison and anybody caught in the nets on drugs warriors loses all his rights as a citizen.</comment>


Crypto Museum - <AUTHOR> http://www.cryptomuseum.com/ <comment><USER2> On a related note, there is National Cryptologic Museum at the NSA: <http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope they'll open in real life soon. I already plan to go to Den Haag to visit the M. Escher museum :)

<comment><USER4> Ohh, it is in the Netherlands. That would make it easier for me to visit it. :-)</comment></comment>


Are You A Bank Robber Or An ATM Operator? - An Entrepreneur Litmus Test - <AUTHOR> http://www.infochachkie.com/bank-robber-or-atm-operator/

<comment><USER2> I am totally a bank robber - go in guns blazing and take ALL the cash...</comment>


Ask HN: What are some things that humans can do but computers can't? - <AUTHOR> Other than biological functions. I'm talking more along the lines of making art, playing games, detecting emotion, etc. <comment><USER2> Can't have satori experiences nor achieve enlightenment. Can't love, can't enjoy life.

</comment><comment><USER3> Computers are dictating humans future from now on</comment>


Show HN: Jumprock.co – HTML Forms for Static Sites - <AUTHOR> https://jumprock.co/ <comment><USER2> Seems similar to Formspree[0], which one can self-host[1], but lacks the aliasing feature of your solution. Looks very cool!

[0]: [https://formspree.io](https://formspree.io)

[1]: [https://github.com/formspree/formspree](https://github.com/formspree/formspree)

<comment><USER3> For others looking for a self-hosted alternative like Formspree I wrote something similar that deploys to AWS Lambda [0]. Nothing fancy, just a AWS Lambda endpoint that uses SES to send emails. Instead of aliasing email addresses for privacy like OP I just use the native Node.js crypto module to create a hex string of the address upfront.

[0] [https://github.com/danielireson/formplug- serverless](https://github.com/danielireson/formplug-serverless)

<comment><USER4> I do this for a site I manage and it was remarkably easy to set up. I would recommend this for people who have familiarity with AWS, but not as a first introduction to AWS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey all,

I am the creator of [https://Jumprock.co](https://Jumprock.co). This is a rebrand from an earlier project I did called Formpost.

It includes aliased names to not expose email addresses and custom fields now.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking there might be a piece of javascript to read and write a cookie to a hidden field so you could keep a session variable for multiple page forms.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like that idea. Something to add to the list of new features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool. You should consider using input type="tel" for capturing phone numbers - [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/tel)

On a mobile device, it will automatically pop up the number-pad. Makes life a little easier for people filling in the form.

Similarly, input type="email" will pop up a keyboard with an @ symbol. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/email)

<comment><USER7> very good, and also may provide smarter autofill

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool. Good job.

I use a relatively simple AWS API Gateway -> AWS Lambda -> AWS SES for this. But as trivial as it was to set up it is still way more work than this looks like. Having something more turn-key is nice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Each generation invents their own tools. The cycle has reached FrontPage Server Side Includes. Soon the new PHP will emerge.

<comment><USER10> I mentor and teach a lot of designers and beginning front-end developers. Services like this and FormSpree are a godsend for allowing them to create functioning contact forms on websites without having to go down the server- side rabbit hole.

Also, even though I'm fully capable of building my own form handling back-end, if I'm just building a static site it's nice not to have to deal with all that just for a simple contact form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also you can use Google Apps Mail to send emails from a static site and save the field values to a spreadsheet at once for free: [https://github.com/dwyl/html-form-send-email-via-google- scri...](https://github.com/dwyl/html-form-send-email-via-google-script- without-server)

</comment><comment><USER12> Have you thought about GDPR compliance? I don't understand GDPR very well, but it looks to me like your system would be, as it doesn't store emails sent. If so, GDPR-readiness might be a good feature to advertise on your homepage.

<comment><USER13> There's not really such a thing as being GDPR compliant. It's more about being ready when someone will be coming for a privacy related trial or information removal or when the infrastructure will leak data and the national privacy agents knocks on your door and asks "what did you do to prevent it ?".

Best efforts. Except for the GAFA. And public agencies (best best efforts).

Source: working in a public agency and attending a lot of GDPR intro sessions and watching the consultants walking down the corridor.

<comment><USER14> That's interesting, and echoes my understanding, but what would you do when a client says "we want to be GDPR compliant"? I'm not sure saying "there's no such thing" would really wash. Do you have any resources that might help?

<comment><USER13> It really depends on the kind of business relationship you have with your client and the field you are in. Questions such as "Are you managing data for them ?", "Who does the actual data encoding ?", "What kind of data are we managing", etc., are on the table.

I'd just say what I wrote in the previous post and talk about the DPO, the infosec manager, etc.

What I am hearing and seeing a lot right now is: hire a consulting gig for a few days that will set you up (good practices, business analysis, risks assessment, iso 27000 and 27001 compliance) and then hire a different consulting gig for two days that will be your DPO and make him come back every 6 months or year to show you are doing your best to prevent leaks.

It really does depend on the nature of your field.

The other thing I hear a lot: those UK law firms that sell GDPR consulting certificates ? Don't waste money on that.

I couldn't really recommend any consulting firm, I only know two of them and I am not involved (yet) enough in the process. But basically we (a public agency) went the consulting gig road and share the fee with other agencies.

Oh, and I am not a lawyer of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice! I built something like this a while back, never brought it to market. Might think about processing inputs and generating CSVs, having a simple tablular view in a dashboard, etc. It's a "backend for forms."

<comment><USER16> You might find useful a self-hosted headless cms

[https://github.com/daptin/daptin](https://github.com/daptin/daptin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks real good. but I don't get the catch: is it free service ? is there a guarantee on the time between the user posting the form and me receiving the email ? what if your site is down ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent questions. It is free unless you want to use custom fields. The emails go into a queue which is listened for and processed when items are added. I have 3 that listeners that run simultaneously to handle email sending.

If the site goes down then the emails are lost. I'm still working on a solution of multi region load balancing with high availability to ensure this doesn't happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Love these type of tools especially when using with github pages.

Anyone have any other tool recommendations that work well with github pages and other static sites?

<comment><USER19> I use Formspree [0] for GitHub Pages hosted stuff, and it is dead simple. I've never been spammed, as it requires a human click ("I'm not a robot") for the email to send.

[0] [https://formspree.io](https://formspree.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What goes around, comes around I guess.

Back in the maelstrom that was Web 1.0, where every person and their dog were uploading static html pages to their 'webspace' via FTP, these sort of services were two-a-penny, many ISPs even offered them as part of their 'webservices' packages.

I'm not knocking it, it's just it's not a new idea.

</comment><comment><USER21> Likewise I also have a similar service offering form endpoints. Plus I built a bootstrap-native form builder (generates a bootstrap form and inserts it with JS, not an iframe).

I also have Slack, and webhook notifications.

[https://www.99inbound.com](https://www.99inbound.com)

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice! The alias (or the lack thereof) is one thing that keeps me from using Formspree, as I don't want the email addresses to be exposed.

One suggestion I have is to support aliases in CC and BCC fields as well. You already have the implementation.

Of course, the alias should support multiple email addresses in one.

</comment><comment><USER23> You could use this docker image instead as well [https://github.com/encryption/contact](https://github.com/encryption/contact)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm looking for something similar: A visual form builder that I can self host for a form just a little more complex than a contact form. Does anybody know a solution that offers that?

<comment><USER25> formsite.com

<comment><USER24> Thanks, but that's not self-hosted

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For completeness, there's also Formkeep ([https://formkeep.com/](https://formkeep.com/)) which is similar.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it possible to deliver the messages to the email server in an encrypted way? I would not want my business communication being sent via cleartext/email.

</comment><comment><USER28> Things like this and Formspree are great for setting up a one-off site. If you get to choose the hosting though, Netlify offers form submission handling as part of their free tier, with email/Slack notifications, API access, and data export.

[https://www.netlify.com/docs/form- handling/](https://www.netlify.com/docs/form-handling/)

</comment><comment><USER29> See also: [https://www.sumar.io](https://www.sumar.io)

</comment><comment><USER30> So, I take it they have never heard of simply doing

       <form action="mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com" method="post" enctype="text/plain">

Simpler and does not disclose your data to third parties.

<comment><USER31> Simpler _for you_. Far more confusing for users ("I clicked this and now my e-mail client is open, is that some sort of hack?!?"). This used to be promising, way back when HTML started; as good as dead nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I must say "Honeypot" solutions don't work at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any suggestion?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is there a daily/monthly limit?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a soft limit of 200 emails per hour to prevent spam.

<comment><USER33> That's really cool! Thank you for building it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> literally 1 zappier integration.

</comment><comment><USER35> How does it deal with Spambots?

<comment><USER36> One of the example forms has a honeypot input. Any submission where that field is non-empty is discarded.

<comment><USER37> This will not take a lot of time for spambots to figure out. Would it?

Are there any web-application-firewall level spambot filtering that would ensure that the bot traffic can be continually monitored and the rules to block spambots can be continually updated?

<comment><USER38> In my previous job an honeypot field with a random name in the form of email__($randomString of 3 to 6 chars) was enough to block 100% of the spam.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

<comment><USER39> Agreed. A honeypot worked 100% for me for a long time. I had a bot start to slip through, somehow, so I added an additional layer of protection. I began checking server side for the time between initial request for the page to submit. If less than five seconds, the submission fails. Still a simple idea, but the execution is a little more complex.

<comment><USER40> I'm sure you probably tested this with your particular needs, but just in case you haven't: five seconds is a long time and there are many forms that can be filled out by humans in less than that. I stepped on my own toes once setting what I considered to be reasonable minimums until I tried to use my own site and found myself getting blocked because I was submitting requests too fast.

<comment><USER39> Thank you. Yes. Excellent point. The particular form I needed this for is moderately involved, so I erred on the longer side. I suspect a spambot wouldn't want to intentionally throttle itself, but they may introduce a one- or two-second delay if this becomes common enough. Definitely have to tailor it to the form.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How do you filter spam ?

<comment><USER42> it says: honeypot input</comment></comment>


Napster Founder's Movie Plan Will Fuel Torrent Sites, Theaters Say - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/napster-founders-movie-plan-will-fuel-torrent-sites-theaters-say-160316/ <comment><USER2> Whether or not this service displaces theaters in the mid term is anyone's guess. What's not that ambiguous is the fate of movie theaters as the main venue to receive new movies.

To me the only way they can remain viable is artificially by keeping a monopoly on distribution, otherwise there isn't a compelling reason for leaving the comfort of one's abode to go see a movie in a shared space next to strangers who might behave very annoyingly. Plus there is getting there, the grime on seats, the crowds, etc.

Once screens get big enough, the form factor will cease to be a deciding factor. Sure, they have some years before that happens but they'd better prepare.

On the upside, the theaters could be reused for other community purposes, either as rec centers, hack spaces, etc.

<comment><USER3> Cinema screens at home might actually get bigger than those at your local cinema very soon. How's that even possible I hear you ask? Well anyone who has tried a virtual cinema in VR will know what I'm talking about.

It's pretty clear to me that this is the way a lot of people will want to watch movies in the future once resolution in VR is increased. This will either by higher pixel density or a move to retina projection based technologies. Both of these things are likely to hit the market with the required resolution within the next 2-5 years.

I go to the cinema a lot, but usually only if I can see the film I want on to on Screen 1 - i.e the biggest one.

VR will negate the need for me to do that so often, though I'm still sure I'll go with friends once in a while.

<comment><USER4> Personally, any tech that involves wearing a headset can just go die in a corner. DO NOT WANT.

<comment><USER5> Walkman?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And they are completely correct. Even if people aren't able to bypass the HDMI encryption (which they will), a camera recording at 60fps at the screen will produce a near perfect copy, certainly 'good enough' for most people.

I do still see movies in theatre on occasion if the movie is better experienced in a group. Movie theatres need to start showing live events and offering better concessions, and alcohol. essentially become sports bars but with exceptional viewing quality.

And bars are currently eating their lunch, expanding in to other markets than sport that would be well suited to cinema venues. A number of bars in my area offer nights where they stream pro video games and they are regularly filled completely. Same thing with live streams of plays/operas which repertory theatres in my area have started to do, albeit with projectors that aren't nearly as good as your local cineplex.

<comment><USER7> Everyman Cinemas in UK do this (cozy sofas, drinks, pizzas), it's a nice change from the 'traditional' experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do these theater chains not realize that another company has been doing this for several years?

[http://www.primacinema.com/](http://www.primacinema.com/)

<comment><USER9> Isn't that like $25k to get started? Maybe they figure (correctly or not) that people spending that much aren't pirates. I wouldn't be surprised if the movies are watermarked as well.

<comment><USER10> One thing that has surprised me on HN is that even the wealthy pirate, but perhaps not for financial reasons.

<comment><USER11> Not for financial reasons at all - it's convenience, the ability to get releases earlier, and the lack of DRM-free video on legal sites.

<comment><USER10> I thought Google & Apple both supplied DRM-free movie downloads. I have the entire Star Trek original series (among other series & movies) from iTunes loaded on my Plex server with zero DRM problems.

For me, piracy has never been as convenient as clicking a button on iTunes.

Everyone likes to save money though... :)

<comment><USER12> As far as I understand, _nobody_ has drm free movie downloads. Apple's are most definitely drm protected and I'm near certain that Google's are, too.

<comment><USER10> You seem to be right. I wonder why I am able to play my iTunes videos on non- Apple devices...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They're not wrong. Nobody is going to pay $50 to rent a movie, so all that it's going to do is create a new avenue for instant, high-quality leaks.

<comment><USER14> I thought that too, but then I remembered that for a family of four, a trip to the movies can easily exceed that much, especially for a 3D movie. AMC charges ~$15 for kids and ~$18 for adults. That's $66 before you even get to the snack bar.

<comment><USER13> People aren't perfectly rational beings when it comes to "sticker shock." They won't compare the $50 to the cost of tickets and concessions for the whole family, they'll compare it to the cost of a single ticket. And, somewhat more rationally, they'll compare it to the cost of renting the movie after it's left theaters (maybe $5).

</comment></comment></comment><comment> cat-dev-null Nice try (commercial experience meets PopcornTime), but BitTorrent Live didn't go anywhere and Netflix is nowhere near comprehensive because licensing deals are few and far between. Doubtful this will go anywhere because it's too expensive, competing with nearly free (ease of theft and cheaper-but- fragmented services) and Netflix has far deeper pockets and still has a minuscule catalog. Perhaps some Sean Parker Jedi w00w00 mindtricks can tease out deals where others have failed. Double-ended marketplace and kind of late# a highly-competitive/incumbent-monopolized market... (sincerely) good luck with that.

It's probably a good idea because it seems like a terrible idea, especially if it offers multiple defensible, durable advantages.

# There's both 'last-mover' and 'first-mover' advantage(s) in most categories.

</comment><comment><USER15> It seems movie theatres make most of their money on concessions, so obviously this is a massive problem for them. Nobody's going to buy that product instead of the supermarket's snacks if they're watching at home.

<comment><USER16> Funny thing here in NZ, the main theatre chain Event doesn't even care if we go downstairs to the supermarket and bring in those snacks....

I think it is mostly because they charge $20+ for the movie ticket in the first place, though I get cheep tickets, $11, because of the deal with the major telco Spark

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Many people thing $10 is too expensive for a movie ticket, why would they pay $150?

<comment><USER18> Each movie is $50. The set top box is a one time fee of $150. Tickets at the closest theater to me are $12.10 and that is average for the area. With popcorn, drinks and online ticket fees your total approaches $50 for 2 people. If you have a family with kids the cost is going to blow by $50. Some people like the theater experience and this may not appeal to them but there is definitely a large number of people it will appeal to.

<comment><USER19> > _definitely a large number of people it will appeal to_

How large? Because we can't pretend that piracy isn't a thing.

The theatre is expensive, sure. But it also has an audio visual experience that dominates anything anyone can have in their home, which is part of the premium.

Is it worth $50 for a one-time movie experience in your home? Are people so desperate to see a movie they can't wait for it to reach Netflix or Amazon for "free", or pay $20 to _own_ it on Bluray? I'm skeptical.

<comment><USER20> > _Are people so desperate to see a movie they can 't wait for it to reach > Netflix or Amazon for "free", or pay $20 to own it on Bluray? I'm > skeptical._

Plenty of movies I want to see will never see Amazon or Netflix (Where can I stream The Avengers?), and plenty of people have no interest in cluttering up their house or apartment with BlueRay copies of movies they only want to see once.

<comment><USER21> The Avengers has been on steady rotation on TBS (or maybe it's FX, one of those channels...) for years now. I think I've watched it at least a dozen times, without even trying.

<comment><USER20> But that's TV, not Netflix/Amazon - not on demand. Entirely different thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't keep track, but when was the last time a major film wasn't pirated on release or even before release?

Is additional piracy really a major concern with this?</comment>


Diffbot launches a web page classifier API: analyzes a day of Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://betakit.com/2012/08/16/diffbot-adds-page-classifier-api-to-help-developers-categorize-the-web

<comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to thank the HN community for all your encouragement. I first released the Diffbot API as a "Show HN:" post last year (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310852>). $2M+ and lots of hard work later, we're powering some of the largest destination sites out there like Stumbleupon and the new Digg.

<comment><USER2> The visual analysis method looks very interesting Mike! Will you identify or extract information from pages with product info, events, food recipes or product reviews?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, its on the roadmap. a full photo api is next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Conceptually I like the product, it's something I would consider paying for. But in practice it doesn't seem to perform that well. It misclassify things it should get right (article hosted on posterous; a youtube page; hacker news) and for some queries it just returns results for a completely different webpage.

The page tagging technology looks good though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes, the page classifier still does miss, which is why it's still in beta status and not fully in production as with our other APIs. Would love to hear about your use case.

<comment><USER3> B2B customer segmentation in CRM systems based on customer homepage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really like the vision approach to classifying web pages, I've been thinking google should add this to their algo for a while (if they havent already).

Classifying individual parts of pages (as Diffbot seems to be doing) is difficult, but I suspect google could take screenshots of pages reported as spam or whatever as one class and compare those to screenshots of pages w/high pr to get a pretty interesting classifier they could use as an extra datapoint. Could be an interesting experiment anyway, using data they've got lying around.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see some potential in ad tech.

How does caching works? Is there any focus on security? Multiple geolocations?

I liked the TOS :) \---- Diffbot.com is made available for personal, non- commercial, and commercial purposes. Services are provided as-is, and we do not make any guarantees on the quality or performance.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought this was super-clever when I first came across DiffBot last year. Can't wait to see what they come out with next.

Keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER7> wow, pretty cool. I wonder though is there much use for it outside of aggregate sites like digg? Even for a site like reddit, all the content is already split up into categories by users. While this is really cool, I'm not really seeing much use for it. What are some problems that this will solve?

<comment><AUTHOR> The most pressing problem that the page classifier solves is for the current community of developers using Diffbot. We only offer APIs at the moment for extracting information out of frontpages and article pages (see <http://www.diffbot.com/our-apis/>). While we'll be releasing more soon for the other page types that you see in the infographic chart, this limitation is a problem if, for example, you're passing in a photo page or recipe into the article API--you're not going to get an article back since its not appropriate. Having the technology to visually understand what the types of pages are allow us to route those requests.

Beyond that, it's useful for companies that perform analytics or use the information to do better search or auto-categorization.

<comment><USER8> Are you going to be releasing an events API in the near future? I've had an app idea banging around for a few months that this API would be perfect for.

<comment><AUTHOR> The next API we'll train an API for is likely image/photo pages. Event pages are definitely on our roadmap, but we've still got work to do there. Could definitely use your help with training data and learning more about your use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> what are the different types the page classifier returns?</comment>


Martin Shkreli headed to jail after Hillary Clinton threats - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/13/news/shkreli-bond/index.html <comment><USER2> Why does he want her hair?

I laughed when the title said "Threats" and the details were "a strand of hair".

Yes, I know that if someone tried to grab it, it would probably end up violent - it just sounds funny, that's all.

What's up with this guy? He seems very self destructive.

<comment><USER3> When you keep pushing the limits and don't face any real consequences you can end up in a situation where you can't help yourself.

It's only recently that his rampant jackassery has caught up with him.

<comment><USER4> I think this will happen to President Trump as well.</comment></comment></comment>


TCP Transport Advancements in Windows 10 and Server 2016 (Anniversary Update) - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/networking/2016/07/18/announcing-new-transport-advancements-in-the-anniversary-update-for-windows-10-and-windows-server-2016/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also http/2 for IIS and Packet Direct which are already in the current Win 10 and Server 2016</comment>


Half Of The United States Lives In These Counties - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/half-of-the-united-states-lives-in-these-counties-2013-9

<comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully this helps means that developing an app for the Philadelphia area is decent idea.</comment>


TheFunded reveals blacklisted VCs  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/03/19/thefunded-reveals-blacklisted-vcs/ <comment><USER2> Ok, so this guy posts a list of VCs, some of which are very prominent and credible, and says they may or may not have done one or more of the following things, one of which includes "not investing enough". No proof, no evidence, not even the criteria for inclusion in the list.

Seems like a cowardly way to try and stir up the blogosphere and get traffic and mindshare.

<comment><USER3> Which VC would you like to flame?

<comment><USER4> Those on the list can go on to start theflamed.com.</comment></comment></comment>


Emergency phone and Internet data retention law set to be passed in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28237111

<comment><USER2> BTW, this is why it's being rushed through: [https://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/reports/briefing- to-...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/reports/briefing-to-mps-on- data-retention-legislation)

...it's not that there is some terrorist crisis, but that there's a judicial review in progress that is very likely to declare the current data retention law invalid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure why, but there was a previous submission for this ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8014011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8014011) ), which now seems to be dead.</comment>


Ask news.yc: Taking payments for third parties? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all!
I'm considering an idea that involves taking credit card payments from consumers on behalf of my customers.
I'd need to collect the payments then, after the service had been supplied, send it on to the seller (by cheque or bank transfer probably). I'd be basically acting as an online storefront.
Does anyone have an experience of the problems I'm going to encounter here? I imagine there could be problems with liability when holding other peoples money or issues when refunds need to be made.
I'm based in the UK so I'm mainly interested in how it works with the laws here but I'd presumably want to expand out at some point so any advice about elsewhere would be useful too.
All advice will be much appreciated, thanks!

<comment><USER2> Amazon Payments is set up for this kind of thing, so I would look there for answers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Amazon Payments looks really great and I was excited when it came out but unfortunately it's only open to US companies so it's no use to me right now.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention that it's still only accepting a limited number of companies now. How annoying.

<comment><USER2> I would guess that somewhere on their site you would find information about legal issues that come up when you arrange financial transactions between other parties. It will probably be US-centric, but it would be worth looking.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea, thanks</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Emacs: GIT - <AUTHOR> http://tsgates.cafe24.com/git/git-emacs.html

<comment><USER2> Could someone summarize what this is? My employer blocks this site (and makes you feel criminal for clicking the link in the first place).

<comment><USER3> The page is called "A Guided Tour of emacs-git (by TSKim)" and it appears to be a git mode for emacs. I'll be trying it out shortly, I'm sure.

Your employer thinks _emacs_ is unsafe for work?

<comment><USER2> I'm sure it's the domain 'cafe24.com'; our filter categorizes it as 'chat', which to corporate IT morons is the root of all evil.</comment></comment></comment>


Apollo – A modern CISC CPU design compatible with the Motorola M68K - <AUTHOR> http://www.apollo-core.com/? <comment><USER2> Digging deeper under the Forums, some random tid-bits...

• Releases: [http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=6](http://www.apollo- core.com/knowledge.php?b=6)

◦ FPGA image: [http://www.apollo- core.com/bringup/apollo_mini_2000_83.jic](http://www.apollo- core.com/bringup/apollo_mini_2000_83.jic)

◦ phoenixinit: [http://www.apollo- core.com/bringup/phoenixinit](http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/phoenixinit)

• Some photos: [http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/](http://www.apollo- core.com/bringup/)

• Altera FPGA, etc. [http://www.apollo- core.com/knowledge.php?b=3&note=3120](http://www.apollo- core.com/knowledge.php?b=3&note=3120)

</comment><comment><USER3> Lots of promises, but little details.

<comment><USER4> Looks like you can download a beta:

[http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=6&note=2693](http://www.apollo- core.com/knowledge.php?b=6&note=2693)

I lack the environment to experiment with it, but that's already a wild hell of a lot more than certain other high promise CPU projects provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like a 68060 in FPGA. Sounds like I need to dig out my FPGA boards.</comment>


Python having trouble w/ USB mic via Gst + Pocketsphinx on RaspberryPi - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18087720/python-having-trouble-accessing-usb-microphone-using-gstreamer-to-perform-speech

<comment><AUTHOR> Any thoughts anyone? Working on a home automation project. Thanks in advance.</comment>


Show HN: Launched my startup solo after rejected twice.100 business signup in 1M - <AUTHOR> https://conferfly.com/ <comment><USER2> The photos in the testimonals are stock photos, the companies don't even seem to exist.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, they still stock (will be updated soon), we were busy updating our features and making Conferfly experience seamless. Thanks for checking on that ;)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> just don't give up guys, i got 100 business sign up since i launched Conferfly a month ago. it was hard and i almost gave up after i got rejected twice but i am happy i didn't. finished the project by myself with my humble budget. now i am working with some happy customers *Thanks for all help from HN community</comment>


Mainstream Failure - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2011/03/21/Mad-at-the-Media <comment><USER2> I don't know if I'm alone in this but I actually have a more positive view on nuclear power now than before Fukushima.

I grew up in Sweden not that far from Chernobyl. I have been taught that a nuclear disaster equals instant doom over a massive area.

Now I'm learning that even after having an earthquake equal to 30'000 Hiroshima bombs go off nearby and a 16 meter Tsunami wash over it, a somewhat old nuclear plant still doesn't do any more harm than what can be cleaned up - and it's only local damage.

I also learn that the confirmed deaths in cancer from Chernobyl was far fewer than I had thought.

Not even when the media writes about terrorism have I seen such a wide gap between what's on the front page and what the experts are saying.

At the same time we keep feeding oil money to crazy dictators. This is insane! We need more nuclear power, now! Let's just hope the damage done by mainstream media doesn't stop nuclear expansion.

That would be a true disaster.

<comment><USER3> At least in Germany, everything what the media says about this had a really huge effect. The 7 oldest reactors will be shut down now (temporarily) and the discussion is going on now wether this should be permanently and what should be done with the remaining 9 reactors.

<comment><USER4> Look at how coal is being used in Germany to produce energy. Nobody seems to complain about it. Coal is subsidized, because of fear of losing votes and strikes from coal miners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I get so tired of comments blasting mainstream media. It's easy to do, and just counterproductive. The good stories about the tsunami are out there, you just have to stop watching 24 hour news channels. Read the Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Atlantic.

Please stop complaining that good stories don't fall in your lap for free. Go find them, or build a better way to put important, un-sensationalized stories in front of millions of people while getting effectively compensated for your time.

Here's 10 minutes of checking top news sources:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/aftershocks-keep- japanes...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/aftershocks-keep-japanese-in- fear-as-residents-worry-about-another-big-one/2011/03/21/ABYNwA7_story.html)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-earthquake-and- tsu...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami- caused-up-to-235-billion-in-damages-world-bank- says/2011/03/21/ABtzwn4_story.html)

<http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/>

[http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1104ap_as_japan_earthquake...](http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1104ap_as_japan_earthquake_bank_robbery.html)

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-03-21-japan- earthqua...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-03-21-japan- earthquake_N.htm)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/science/22predict.html?ref...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/science/22predict.html?ref=asia)

[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan- ag...](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan- aging-20110322,0,1303885.story)

 _edit to add links_

<comment><USER6> How is it counterproductive? By what mechanism does complaining about the mainstream media actually make it worse? Complaining about the mainstream media may indeed fail to improve it, but saying nothing will certainly have no effect.

<comment><USER7> > but saying nothing will certainly have no effect.

Of course it will. Don't consume it.

<comment><USER8> Part of our frustration probably stems from the reality that the large media businesses will get by just fine without the readership of the elite clientèle of YC. [eye roll]

However, most of us probably do tend to influence the opinion of a few others. A little complaining (in a constructive way) might be useful, albeit in an indirect way.

I like to think of preaching to the choir (or disagreeing with them) as being a way of polishing one's persuasion prior to the full congregation (or converting the masses).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the things that annoys me slightly is that while our news is loaded with the nuclear accidents, I haven't heard any mainstream media talk about this refinery fire caused by earthquake which had been raging for 10 days, putting who knows how much pollution in the air.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/japan-refinery- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/japan-refinery- idUSL3E7EL0UN20110321)

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/enciclopediapt/5523005370/>

<comment><USER10> Nuclear accidents are scary because people don't understand reactors, they don't understand the actual dangers and there, frankly, haven't been a whole lot of them, so FUD can snowball.

On the other hand, mine collapses, refinery fires, oil spills, explosions -- the causes of the day to day death toll of the fossil fuel supply chain (to say nothing of its use) is familiar, understandable and all too common.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/25-oth...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/25-other- energy-disasters-from-the-last-year/72814/) (25 fossil fuel energy disasters from 2010, claiming 668 lives)

<comment><USER11> I understand nuclear power generation on layman level (3 semesters of university physics), but am opposed to it. Allow me to point out flaws in your narrative:

\- people could have had bad first-hand experience with nuclear accidents. I lived 200km downwind from Chernobyl and had to run for cover when it rained first few months. My brother-in-law had his thyroid gland treated when he was 9. Sanitary food inspections still include contamination spot checks, 25 years later.

\- Oil spills are largely non-argument. Oil is used primarily for gasoline production and has only fringe role in energy production.

\- There is a great, clean fossil fuel in form of natural gas. It is indeed widely used, in some countries in Europe it accounts for 95% of energy production. Coal vs. nuclear is false dichotomy and mostly serves as rhetorical device of proponents of nuclear.

\- Safety record of fossil fuel would be much, much higher if as much was invested for safety per TWh as for nuclear. That said, natural gas is still on par with nuclear w.r.t. safety.

\- With mass adoption of nuclear, which is now mostly concentrated in places with high safety culture, the number and scale of disasters is bound to catch up. Extrapolate the accident trend for growth up to 50% energy share, and it would be more than simply linear.

\- Waste management. Enough said.

\- Overall attitude to opponents from nuclear advocates is off-putting. Just because someone has a different view on energy policy does not mean he is a simpleton, a fear-monger or illiterate.

<comment><USER10> Having a different view is always welcome. Having a different view due concerns not supported by the evidence, inequal standards and emotional arguments is not.

Nuclear is not a silver bullet. Fossil fuel is not all bad.

You seem to be arguing against something other than what I wrote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nowadays I have trouble looking at any mainstream news sites without being incredibly disappointed.

I'd be willing to _give actual money_ to an organization that a) actually understood what they were reporting and b) reported facts rather than PR, hyperbole and human interest angles but I haven't been able to find one.

<comment><USER13> _I'd be willing to give_ actual money _to an organization that a) actually understood what they were reporting and b) reported facts rather than PR, hyperbole and human interest angles_

The New York Times would be happy to take that money off your hands. For all of their failings, I'd argue that they generally meet both of your criteria.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One reassuring datapoint: renowned eco-cheerleader Geroge Monbiot has a piece thats garnering huge attention at the Guardian entitled "Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power"

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro- nucl...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear- japan-fukushima)

He even links the xkcd diagram.

</comment><comment><USER15> Another good resource is the Japan Subculture Research Center by Jake Adelstein (American journalist who spent 12 years in Japan on the crime beat for the Yomiuri Shinbun).

Sample post: the yakuza's role in relief efforts -- [http://www.japansubculture.com/2011/03/the-worst-of-times- ca...](http://www.japansubculture.com/2011/03/the-worst-of-times-can-bring- out-the-best-in-everyone-even-the-yakuza/)

PS. Off-topic, but calling Stross a "pop-sci-fi author" is an injustice! Kevin Anderson and Orson Scott Card are pop-sci-fi authors. Stross writes hard science fiction.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thanks for the link to Randall Munroe's chart, that was very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER17> I agree, nytimes.com has been insanely frantic. I can't figure out if they are rabid anti-nuclear or they simply hate Japan. I recently stopped looking at the site. But where does one go for well-written, in-depth news?

<comment><USER18> <http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html> has decent info on the reactors. Not sure who's doing good reporting on the human side of the disaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I actually disagree with the author's point about the "main story". The main story for me, and I'd wager for some of the other people on this board too, is the story of the engineers who are still working to keep Fukushima under some semblance of control. I really want to hear their story.

The critical piece of info I wanted to know that was missing from the XKCD chart is where do the engineers working on Fukushima fall on his chart, and what will be the impact on their lives.

I'm not a nuclear expert at all, and don't pretend to be - I'm a web developer, but I still want to know if they could already be falling ill due to radiation poisoning. To me, their story is the one that's the most compelling and scary.

<comment> brown9-2 I think he may be referring to "main story" as in what the big story will be when we look at this event years from now: 1) the deaths of ~10,000 people and widespread destruction, or 2) a nuclear reactor incident in which the reaction was bungled at first but ultimately was not a catastrophe for the larger nation or world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tim has it exactly right. Searching some of the mainstream media sites in my area of the world -- Fairfax (smh.com.au) and Fox (news.com.au) -- shows up no results for 'tsunami' in their front page and world news section aside from badly informed reports about the nuclear reactors.

That's a really sad indictment of the state of our media organisations and where their focus lies.

<comment><USER21> Big list of independent Australian media: [http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/dw95o/big_list_of...](http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/dw95o/big_list_of_independent_australian_media/)

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I think the main cause of what Tim describes here is not so much just general media mediocrity (although that is relevant also), but the fact that most people simply do not understand what radiation is, how it works, or even the distinction between "safe" levels, "slightly higher than normal" levels, and "dangerous" levels.

Fear of nuclear accidents and atom bombs has conditioned most people to react negatively to any mention of the word "radioactive" - as if it is an all or none situation. The general population has zero idea that you are exposed to radiation when eating a banana or flying internationally.

This isn't an excuse - the mainstream media could do a lot of educating here - but I have a feeling that those that work in the mainstream media don't even begin to have any clue about the science behind this either.

<comment><USER22> My favorite joke about this is, as a TV broadcaster, it's not in their interest to explain radiation.

CNN could correctly say, "living in California, you are exposed to more radiation watching TV on a CRT than from Japan". Then the viewers say "WTF? My TV is giving me radiation? _click_ ".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Have I missed the point? Seems he's a bit slow on the uptake... I started to realize how hopeless the mainstream media was in 2003, when Juan Cole was talking on his blog about how important Muqtada al-Sadr was going to be in the occupation of Iraq about 6 months before he showed up in mainstream coverage. What cemented it for me was the prescient discussion of the mortgage crisis on Calculated Risk and Roubini's blog, years before the crisis blew up, and in the face of strident mainstream opposition towards the end. These days I don't rely on any mainstream outlet as a regular source of news, though I read their stuff when the blogs I read link to them.

</comment><comment><USER24> The problem is not nuclear disaster or nuclear alarmism. Stop shooting from the hip! For DNDers, that's how you critically miss.

We should debate nuclear power on its merits and contingency planning, not just its risk profile. Do you remember how many people used the argument that deep water offshore drilling was safe because we used space age technology to prevent spills PRIOR TO the great Gulf spill?

We should improve plant designs and reprocessing technology or else we're just wasting money. We must continue improving testing and safety procedures or we're simply trigger happy screwups, not engineers.

</comment><comment><USER25> I suppose this is why more and more people that I know (in the US) are turning to Der Spiegel and Al Jazeera for their news.

<comment><USER26> der spiegel lost a LOT of credibility due to its blatant anti-nuclear messaging right from the beginning of the fukushima reports.

instead of explaining what the hell was happening, they started chernobyl discussions and simply forgot about the actual disaster.

the media in german speaking countries went full retard of fukushima.

<comment><USER27> _the media in german speaking countries went full retard of fukushima_

I can confirm this for Austria. The country has always had a somewhat schizophrenic relationship with nuclear energy[1], and the media (even supposedly reputable papers like Die Presse) have gone into multi-page "OMG second Chernobyl" hysteria mode. I sampled some articles - the amount of factual errors is staggering. I've stopped reading any local news media as a result; I have to assume I'm being fed propaganda the rest of the time, too.

[1] There is one nuclear power plant in the country. It never went into operation: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plant> There is however, an operational research reactor. Anti-nuclear-energy- sentiment is widespread (large majority); the fact that the energy imported from neighbouring countries is largely generated by nuclear plants is conveniently ignored; in fact, there are longstanding campaigns to pressure the neighbouring countries to shut their plants down. I also find it amusing that the IAEA is headquartered here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Tim wins for delightful (and insightful) quote of the day: "There have been many reports about the people fleeing Tokyo. None of these narratives have paused to consider whether the exodus constitutes chickenshit stupidity. I suggest it maybe does."

</comment><comment><USER29> "Don't hate the media, become the media."

</comment><comment><USER30> I for one can't ever trust anything reported by any Western 'news' outlet again, from Fox News to NPR. What's surprised me the most is the very poor quality of the BBC reporting which is apparently worse than most American companies.</comment>


Marcus Whitney writing a book to demystify business-building - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mountain/create-and-orchestrate

<comment><USER2> I know Marcus. Marcus's mission is to help level income equality by bringing entrepreneurship to a broader audience. This first book leverages his experience launching companies and compacts all that experience into one cohesive guide you don't have to have an MBA to understand.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no "guide" for self starting entrepreneurs. Marcus has vast knowledge and a large network. By tapping both, he will offer wide perspective and support for the next great business idea (and the people behind it).</comment>


My Summer Reading List - <AUTHOR> http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Summer-Reading-List-2013 <comment><USER3> This is most likely off most HN readers' radar screens...

Shantaram: A Novel - this was a most unlikely recommendation from a most unlikely person

[http://www.amazon.com/Shantaram-Novel-Gregory-David- Roberts/...](http://www.amazon.com/Shantaram-Novel-Gregory-David- Roberts/dp/0312330537)

<comment><USER4> This book is actually amazing. It's fairly large in scope, and it has a ton of interesting outsider observations about Indian culture. Plus it's thoroughly enjoyable. I'm looking forward to GDR finishing the second book (you know how trilogies go)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend _How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character_ and _Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings_ for people who have kids.

<comment><USER6> Might as well add _How Children Fail_ by John Holt.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Children_Fail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Children_Fail)

<comment><USER5> cool. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm going to repost my collection of Hacker News threads that contain book recommendations: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4185504](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4185504)

\---

Hacker News stories which contains plenty of book recommendations (sorted by points, labeled by topic):

Science Fiction: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2978027](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2978027)

Computer Science: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3595599](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3595599)

General: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752139](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752139)

Design: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276986](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276986)

Computer Science: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1636275](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1636275)

Developing mental models and increasing cognition: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277457](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277457)

Quant finance: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3177815](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3177815)

General: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=663662](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=663662)

General (non software): [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1226736](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1226736)

Math: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=665029](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=665029)

General: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875686](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875686)

Entrepreneur: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2928211](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2928211)

Statistics: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902074](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902074)

Philosophy: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1503137](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1503137)

General: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1865350](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1865350)

Math for beginners: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755043](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755043)

Military strategy: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456275](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456275)

General: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=797070](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=797070)

Investing: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248469](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248469)

"I want to start a web company": [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1567456](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1567456)

<comment><USER8> There's enough material on the web at this point that a list of other peoples lists and personal collections probably has more value on average than a news aggregator.

The strategy this implies is going a further level up, which implies going a further level up, etc etc.

EDIT: I changed my mind, but don't feel like going into detail here. The problem with these lists is that there's a lot of repetition. If everybody would list their books in the same format you could get rid of the repeats and leave only the books that have been recommended by a HN member. Bonus if you can put the descriptions into a structured format as well.

<comment><USER9> I agree that it would be nice to have this nested (meta-)lists on a service that would treat them as sets, merge them together and as a cherry on top would show you the overlaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if I'm alone in trying to read mostly good old literature instead of recent utility works? These days I read Jules Michelet and it is a pleasure for the eyes and the brain.

<comment><USER11> I try to mix it up now and then. I _usually_ go for at least one "classic" a year, although I don't think I finished one last year. I started _Crime and Punishment_ but set it aside and never finished it. Somewhere around here there is also a copy of _Madame Bovary_ that's half read, that I need to revisit at some point.

That said, last year, my big thing - outside of "utility" books, were books on running and bike racing. I read things like _Running Through The Wall_ , _Born To Run_ , _Slaying The Badger_ , _Running on Empty_ , _Racing Through The Dark_ , _Eat & Run_, _The Belgian Hammer_ , _Run!_ , _It 's Not Just About The Bike_ and _The Secret Race_. Fascinating stuff, for anyone who is interested in either running or bicycle racing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like a pretty good list. I saw another reference to _The Box_ somewhere recently (actually, I think it was here on HN) and I kinda want to read that.

FWIW, I'll share a short list of my own, including stuff I've already read, am reading, or plan to read soon:

1\. _How To Create A Mind_ \- Ray Kurzweil. (already read) Not a literal "how to" on creating a mind, but an interesting read from an AI pioneer. Coming at it as an "AI layman", I found it thought provoking and suggestive of other topics to explore and books to read. Which leads to:

2\. _On Intelligence_ \- Jeff Hawkins. (reading now) - I've seen some reviews of the Kurzweil book suggest that his material is very derivative of Hawkins' HTM, and - to be fair - Kurzweil does mention Hawkins' work in HTCAM. Since I'd been planning to read _On Intelligence_ for, like, forever anyway, now seemed like a good time to go ahead and read it, to compare/contrast it and the Kurzweil book. So far I can see that they are going down some similar paths, and between the two of them, I feel like they may be onto something. This is really whetting my appetite for getting more into AI stuff again.

3\. _NOS4A2_ \- Joe Hill (already read) - very fun bit of summer fiction. A neat re-invention of the vampire tale. This was my first Joe Hill novel, and I enjoyed it. The Stephen King influence does show through pretty strongly, but this is still very original in it's own right. Joe Hill may never becomes as prolific or famous as his father (or maybe he will, who knows?) but he's a pretty good writer. Fun book if you're looking for fiction and like "horror" themed stories.

4\. _Summa Technologiae_ \- Stanislaw Lem (reading now) - it's hard to give a good description of this, as I haven't read much of it. How about I just give the Wikipedia link, and you can get the summary from there. I'll just say that I'm enjoying this so far. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Technologiae)

5\. _Who Owns The Future_ \- Jaron Lanier (reading now) - I had already bought this and had it queued up, and then the author came up in a recent HN thread ([http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6067921](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6067921)), which prompted me to move it up the stack a bit. I _think_ I disagree with the author on a number of things, but the thing is, it's probably _good_ to read books by people you disagree with, to help avoid tunnel vision.

6\. _Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think_ \- Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler - (planning to read) - I get the feeling that Lanier would consider his work something of a counterpoint to this one, as he touches on the idea of "Abundance" in what seems to be a dismissive way, early in WOTF. From the description on Amazon.com:

 _We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler._

7\. _Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization_ \- K. Eric Drexler - (planning to read) - I know, there's sort of a theme going on here. A lot about the future and what effect technology will or won't have. This particular title focus specifically on nanotech. From the Amazon description:

 _K. Eric Drexler is the founding father of nanotechnology—the science of engineering on a molecular level. In Radical Abundance, he shows how rapid scientific progress is about to change our world. Thanks to atomically precise manufacturing, we will soon have the power to produce radically more of what people want, and at a lower cost. The result will shake the very foundations of our economy and environment._

8\. _Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War_ \- Byron Reese (planning to read) - <USER2> book on this theme about technology and the future. From amazon:

 _For years we 've been inundated with bleak forecasts about the future. But in this electrifying new book, author Byron Reese debunks the pessimistic outlook as dangerous, and shows instead how technology will soon create a dramatically better world for every person on earth, beyond anything we have dared to imagine. With the art of a storyteller, Reese synthesizes history, technology, and sociology into an exciting, fast-moving narrative that shows how technological change has had dramatic effects on humanity in the past. He then looks forward at the technological changes we know are coming--from genetics, nanotechnology, robotics, and many other fields--and explores how they will vastly increase wealth, prolong our lifespans, redefine human rights, and alter the social fabric of the world.

Reese explains how the Internet, human ingenuity, and technological innovation will help us forever end the five historic plagues of human existence: ignorance, disease, poverty, hunger, and war. With a rational and researched optimism, Reese sees the future not as a world in a downward spiral, but as destined for progress beyond our imaginations._

9\. _Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire_ \- Bruce Nussbaum (planning to read) - This caught my eye at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago, and is queued up waiting to be read. From the amazon.com description:

 _Offering insights from the spheres of anthropology, psychology, education, design, and business, Creative Intelligence by Bruce Nussbaum, a leading thinker, commentator, and curator on the subjects of design, creativity, and innovation, is first book to identify and explore creative intelligence as a new form of cultural literacy and as a powerful method for problem-solving, driving innovation, and sparking start-up capitalism. Nussbaum investigates the ways in which individuals, corporations, and nations are boosting their creative intelligence — CQ—and how that translates into their abilities to make new products and solve new problems. Ultimately, Creative Intelligence shows how to frame problems in new ways and devise solutions that are original and highly social._

10\. _Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett_ (planning to read) - c'mon, it's Daniel Dennett!

11\. _Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking_ \- Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (planning to read) - c'mon, it's Douglas Hofstadter!

<comment><USER12> Interesting list, thanks for sharing. Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books?

<comment><USER13> Not, op, but..:

For something relatively new, and related to hn, I'd recommend Bruce Sterling's latest: "Zenith Angle". Although, that's not quite sci-fi, more just fiction.

All I've read of Stanislaw Lem I'd recommend (for some classic sci-fi), also Roadside Picnic (Strugatsky brothers) is very good.

Keeping with the theme of the other books listed above, I'd recommend Bruce Sterling's "Holy Fire", or maybe "Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delany (although I prefer his youth fantasy novel "Neveyona" which deals with some of the same themes). Also, you can't go wrong with his "The Einstein Intersection".

Finally, if you haven't read anything of Vernor Vinge, I have a look at "A Fire Upon the Deep".

Hm, I guess there are a few too many Nebula Award winners in there for the recommendations to be really useful... here's one more: "Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon.

Perhaps a bit haphazard, but maybe you'll find something you like there :-)

<comment><USER11> Funny that you would mention Vernor Vinge... as well known and highly regarded as he is, I've never read any of his books to date. So I recently picked up _A Fire Upon The Deep_ , _A Deepness In The Sky_ , and _Rainbow 's End_ and plan to read those sometime soon. I've heard so much good stuff about his work that I'm really looking forward to getting into those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I finished reading Jaron Laniers on Who owns the Future and waiting for a copy of Eric Schmits book on the digital future. Jaron makes some very good points about inequalities in internet content economics, which I had not considered before. "Free" is not always free. I heard Eric speak at Denver panel on Tuesday. He travels the world a lot as a google ambassador and has some interesting insights which I hope to read more about in his new book. no, he was not wearing google glasses on July 16.

</comment><comment><USER15> A book I recently read and really enjoyed was _The Sentinels_.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Sentinels-James-J- Layton/dp/147870...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Sentinels-James-J- Layton/dp/1478708123)

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is a list of books I have read so far since I started logging them in 2009 [http://www.manvsgoals.com/books/](http://www.manvsgoals.com/books/). Book recommendations are welcome.

<comment><USER13> If you haven't read "Diamond Age" yet, I highly recommend it. I loved "Snow crash" too, but DA is arguably his best book. Let me know if you ever finish anything he wrote later than that, to be honest I think he is in dire need of a strict editor that cuts his books in at least half.

I see we disagree on "The Unberable Lightness of Being", but that is fine, I guess.

I think Murakami is at his best in "Norwegian Wood" and "South of the Border" \-- in different ways. You might also enjoy "Chrome Yellow" by Huxley.

For something a bit different, try: "American Essays" edited by Shaw ([http://www.amazon.com/American-Essays-Charles-B- Shaw/dp/B000...](http://www.amazon.com/American-Essays-Charles-B- Shaw/dp/B000NPX2PC)).

If you enjoyed the books on Steve Jobs, you might enjoy "The new new thing" by Lewis (on the founder of SGI and Netscape).

I don't know if you've read any William Gibson, if not, at least read "Burning Chrome" (and everything else he's ever written ;-).

Finally, you should read "The Code Book" by Singh.

<comment><USER16> Wow, thanks for taking the time for the recommendation, will definitely check them out.

I am a slow reader and so its a good investment of time for me to read a book, which is why I value book recommendations over randomly picking up books.

Regarding TULOB, I have found that fiction or books of philosophical nature tends to be highly subjective. It also depends on my state of mind during reading. For instance, I tried couple of times to read "The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", and I stopped reading after few chapters. Which is very rare, I usually force myself to complete horrible books, but for some reason I couldn't read it. I will give it another shot this year.

Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I read The Box when it was first released and I highly recommend it; it's fascinating.

<comment><USER18> I just finished it recently, and will add to your recommendation. It's a great read for what seems like would be dull subject matter. A great analysis and history of the often overlooked but just as important other half of globalization: logistics. =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice list; a little stuffy for summer though. May I suggest Infitite Jest?

</comment><comment><USER20> Check out The Last Policeman trilogy- Pretty great.</comment>


Ask HN: Best open source python project for beginners? - <AUTHOR>

Ay good suggestions for a person who wants to learn python? <comment><USER2> It's not an open-source project, but I've been using the following to brush up on Python and teach my daughters some programming:

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/>

<https://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans>

<http://projecteuler.net/>

And, I am getting ready to 'port' some old AppleSoft Basic games from when I was a kid:

<http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!</comment></comment>


How I got a CS degree with pen and paper and why I'm doing it again - <AUTHOR> http://forrestbrazeal.com/2015/09/16/taking-notes-in-class-dont-use-your-laptop/ <comment><USER2> Disappointed. I thought the article was going to focus on why a computer isn't even necessary for a computer science degree. In other words - how a computer science degree is mostly just a degree in mathematics, and a lot of the coding that you do (algorithm work, obviously not a software engineering or programming intensive course) should be done with pencil.

I have been seeing a lot of articles claiming that a barrier to CS curriculum in high school is that they don't have the technological capabilities to support such curriculum. Nonsense. If I ran an AP computer science class we would never touch a computer. Pencil and paper only.

<comment><USER3> Never?

That sounds like a sure way to make sure any students who took that class would be very disengaged.

<comment><USER4> I did my first programming with pencil and paper, and I'm still engaged 30+ years later

<comment><USER3> We're talking about high school here though. Seems to me it would be like running a chemistry class without doing any lab work.

<comment><USER5> Not trying to be argumentative or anything, but that's how chemistry is taught in 3rd world countries. Labs are a luxury :)

<comment><USER3> Eh fair, although RPi Zeros are pretty cheap these days :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting article. I can touch type but I prefer pen and paper for to do lists, mind maps, exploring problems and note taking. It's always seemed more "effective" than using a computer or my phone - even crossing off a task feels better.

I always assumed this was because I engage more areas of the brain. I'm excited to find the real reason so the research is now on my to-read list.

<comment><USER7> > I always assumed this was because I engage more areas of the brain

Or could it be just because it's still hard to draw things and write formulas using a computer.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, in my own notes, formulas are rare. The only thing close to drawing in my notes is a spider diagram and MindNode is probably a lot easier and friendlier than pen and paper for that.

I can probably cover my ground in Photoshop than I can on paper too.

Pen and paper just seems to make things 'sink in'. Feels a bit different to being hindered by the tool of choice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Misleading title - He took class notes using a notebook instead of a laptop.

I dared to hope to find some absurd story about turning in his CS homework in hand-written C++...

<comment><USER9> I'm doing an Electronics A Level, and we have to hand write code in a fictional assembly dialect.

<comment> jon-wood Good to see they haven't updated the curriculum since I did it fifteen years ago!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article just made me feel like i am 70. Thanks. Also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power)

<comment><USER11> Same. Mid 30s, no one used laptops to take notes when I was in college. Somehow we all survived.

<comment><USER12> Also mid 30s, just wrapped up an engineering Ph.D at a major state research university. It wasn't CS, but still quite technical. Never once did I see classmates use laptops for taking notes. Maybe it was just my department, but we were pen and paper all the way. I'm a bit astonished that taking notes on a laptop is even a thing. It seems incredibly distracting and ineffective. How does one draw diagrams or write equations?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty much everyone in my university took notes on paper in CS classes. Most of it was just math which is much easier to note down with pen and paper (I tried tablets with a stylus but still prefer pen+paper).

<comment><USER14> The best version I've seen for image-heavy lectures is the lecturer writing with his pad on half-prepared slides, which have also been given to the students for print-out.

It combines the advantages from pure slides with pure blackboard writing:

\- The student has enough time to think and not just write (has often been a problem when the professor is writing very fast and doing complicated stuff).

\- The student still gets to 'touch' the material and have their own take on it, and writes the critical points and diagrams themselves.

\- There is no fear of missing something in the hand-written notes when as when deciding between writing and thinking/try to figure out which parts to note down.

<comment><USER15> ... and then also record the lecture in case you missed anything else!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Better title: "How I decided that a practice that works better for me is clearly superior to others (and why I'm writing a blog to be smug about it)"

<comment><USER15> That could be the title for almost every blog post ever, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't help but think...I got my CP/CS degree with pencil and paper, and the only computer I used was a timeshared VAX and PDP11 at the university lab, so I'm not really sure what the big deal is here.

Sure I wrote some code on those systems, but 90% of my work was done with pencil, papar, and a HP11c calculator.

</comment><comment><USER18> I took up penmanship as a hobby about a year ago, and now carry fountain pens and write down most everything I would have previously typed.

It's actually a well-known thing in the fountain pen community that writing notes instead of typing them aides in comprehension.

<comment><USER15> That is awesome. I love that there is a fountain pen community!

<comment><USER18> There are thousands of us. Check out /r/fountainpens.

There's even an IRC channel listed in the sidebar. There are 25 of us online right now, and have been as many as 120 or so in the past. Fountain pens are more popular among IRC users than supervisord, based on channel participation :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Misleading title and limited content aside, one sentence stood out to me:

"This wasn't such a big deal when I was actually doing computer programming homework, since people who can code at typing speed are pretty rare."

How does everyone else feel about the "rareness"?

<comment><USER20> Planning your code is part of coding. To truly "code at typing speed", you would have to do no prep-work or research and type your program beginning to end with no bugs (see: [http://www.hackertyper.com/](http://www.hackertyper.com/)). I'd say that's pretty rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are lot of people coming to same conclusion, learning low-tech is probably best way of doing learning. Because Computers themselves have become such a distraction, social media or tech journalism etc. There is a story in the book "Deep Work", where a finance dude Mastered programming (javascript,I would guess), with a textbook and flashcards.

If this does not change any thing, it should give all us a minute to think, the mind-numbing was technology is being pushed with a claim for improving education, but nothing empirical to back it up.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's a great resource for taking handwritten note taking to the next level with doodles/sketchnotes. Sketchnoting is pretty fun and does seem to help with learning.

[http://sachachua.com/blog/book-accelerate-your-learning- with...](http://sachachua.com/blog/book-accelerate-your-learning-with- sketchnotes/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested also to know what people think about taking notes on a tablet with a stylus. I've never done this, and I think it could provide some of the benefits of taking notes on paper, but not all. For example, turning physical pages and visualizing data in concrete locations would still be more helpful for me, since I'm a spatial learner.

<comment><USER23> I've done this for a variety of subjects, and I rather like it... but it depends on having a very good tablet and a very good stylus (e.g. iPad Pro, Surface Pro, or so on).

For me there were two key points: it makes it very easy to drop in photos of slides or diagrams, and it makes it very easy to rearrange page contents after doing a first pass of ad-hoc notes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm in my last year in CS in a North American university and most people take pen and paper notes when they do take notes, and mostly only use their laptops to read previous slides again in presentations/ waste time on random internet bs. This article is making a big deal out of nothing out of the ordinary

</comment><comment><USER25> Hahahaha, this article is funny. This explains why migrants from "the 3rd world" can take away jobs in "developed" countries ... we took notes with a pen... not by choice but because most of us could not afford a computer. How ironic.

</comment><comment><USER26> Taking notes on a computer by itself never really helped me learn. I would always write down on paper everything I typed on a computer during class. Doing this would help solidify the lesson in my mind.</comment>


Eventbrite has removed filming clause from agreement - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/eventbrite/status/988175772031447040 <comment><USER2> @chrisv_au's response [1] also merits concern:

> Maybe @eventbrite should explain why they sent no official communications > about changes to their t&c's - either to add this section, or to remove it.

[1] [https://twitter.com/chrisv_au/status/988195013308772353?s=20](https://twitter.com/chrisv_au/status/988195013308772353?s=20)

<comment><USER3> They did, as Chris himself then points out in the next tweet. It was however cased in that fluffy language that those communications always are.

> Terms of Service: We reorganized our Terms of Service to make them easier to > read. Some changes include: new provisions regarding the recording of > events, modifications to the arbitration provision, additional rules > governing refunds, and incorporation of a Data Processing Addendum for > Organizers.

<comment><USER2> I'm glad to see that update - while describing the addition of a provision as a "reorganization" seems... deceptive, to say the least, it's still better than no notification whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For a non-jerky-you-around-y ticketing option, try [https://lilregie.com](https://lilregie.com) \-- it's a bootstrapped (self- funded) startup from the folks behind the Webstock conference. They built Lil Regie to meet their ticketing needs, offered it to the world, and have been adding features ever since. I have no equity, am just a happy customer.

<comment><USER5> Pretix is FLOSS, has check-in apps (with barcode and offline support) and is cheaper (the hosted option).

[https://pretix.eu/about/en/](https://pretix.eu/about/en/) [https://github.com/pretix](https://github.com/pretix)

<comment><USER6> Pretix is awesome, we used it for 4 conferences and workshops so far and had nothing but good impressions. Highly recommended!

<comment><USER7> Thanks, that's great to hear! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gotta appreciate the promptness of the response here. I think a lot of EULA's are insanely overbroad, and my hope is companies start thinking twice before granting themselves various rights.

<comment><USER9> Ya, for all the faults of social media, and we know there are many, the ability to publicly shame companies doing sketchy things into changing is a plus. Who knows how this falls in the balance between good and evil?

<comment><USER10> How often does that work? It's like a lottery (quite possibly with the odds being just as bad). Some few, very very few times this works. Does that really change anything significantly in the grand scheme of things? Without having any numbers either I suspect overall impact is negligible. It's just enough for feel-good headlines. If it had an impact things should actually improve on a larger scale, I don't see any of that. From problems with government and/or police to corporate behavior, I don't see the positive trend (neither a negative one, it's just that things keep chugging along on a random walk as they always have, and whether you are optimistic or pessimistic depends on what selective information makes it into your brain).

<comment><USER11> I feel like there's a case for a Change.org that is more just "getting a bunch of people to shame companies on social media to change X"

IMO the reason support on Twitter works surprisingly well is because execs are very tuned in to social media sentiment/PR crisis aversion, so there's a lot of eyes on things people post publicly.

<comment><USER10> I have no doubt that the rate at which bad things come out has increased. My question is about the net total - it seems to me that overall everything has pretty much stayed the same.

Questions to myself: Am I right? Due to higher order effects, or due to unrelated orthogonal influences, or both? Examples for concrete questions: Did work conditions improve? Did product longevity improve? Did customer service improve? Do people live better, longer, happier? Is politics more honest? Do we trust politicians, companies (or insert any profession or entity you like) more? Is there more fairness? Freedom (example: "free range kids")? When you complain (and you are right about it), what are the chances that anything changes - and actually for the better, not just a workaround/quick fix without actual long-term net total improvement? Quite a bit room for subjectivity of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For background, see:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16896396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16896396)

</comment><comment><USER13> if the event is in public, and they do the recording, is this clause even necessary? they already have the rights to their recording of you in public (not talking about the bat shit insane part about you being responsible for copyright on the content they are recording, like background music)

<comment><USER14> I'm on staff at an anime convention. We use Eventbrite.

Our event is on private property, but more importantly - one of our traditional features is a couple of rooms in which attendees can simply watch anime with other people. Eventbrite's clause would be in _direct_ violation of our agreements with licensors.

We can't even allow a second of footage of the content. Once I had to ask a guy who was wearing Google Glass to take it off, even though I knew he wasn't going to record anything, because it was a camera directly pointing at the screen. (He was very cool about it, and even let me try it out!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> To be honest this seems like lawyers being lawyers and EventBrite rectifying the situation promptly when they knew, and clarifying it had never happened IRL.

OP still not happy unless they go out of the way to shame themselves rather than generically referring to the issue?

<comment><USER16> lawyers don't write in a bunch of permission clauses.

they turn what their clients asks for into legalese.

<comment><USER17> This might be the case, but I think that maybe the original request ( Hey guys, what if we could film such an event and use it for our promotion ), translated into legalese, had to be that broad otherwise it made no sense ( ie. that Eventbrite would have had to run after everyone to ask for permission to film, or that after filming, the participants would have to veto it ).

<comment><USER15> This is what I mean, hey lawyers we want to film events for promo stuff, and lawyers go through all the risks and make the contract super aggressive.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which desk chair do you recommend? - <AUTHOR> I want to invest a bit of money in a good chair, was wondering what kind of chair HN users liked.<p>Mostly something good for the lowerback. :) <comment><USER2> I've had a couple really nice chairs, but my current chair is an old simple wooden desk chair that I had been using as a painting stool. I slipped a disk in my lower back and this chair helps to keep my posture perfect. Really an old crappy wooden chair that is almost at a 90 degree angle and short enough that my feet sit flat on the floor. Looks something like this [http://www.historichouseparts.com/pdshop/images/VHP042015-01...](http://www.historichouseparts.com/pdshop/images/VHP042015-01.jpg) I also have one of these pads. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UDBWTC](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UDBWTC)

I've been through a couple really fancy chairs but my lower back hurt in every single one. In a couple months I'll give it a go again, but for now I'm sticking with the crappy wood chair.

</comment><comment><USER3> I currently am using the Steelcase Buoy [1]. It's backless and for me is the most practical of the backless office chairs. It costs much less than the Swopper chair [2] which isn't any more comfortable.

I've owned both; they seem to help my back because I don't slouch when using them. It takes about a week to get accustomed to using a seat without a back that rocks around.

[1] [https://store.steelcase.com/seating/lounge/buoy](https://store.steelcase.com/seating/lounge/buoy)

[2] [http://www.thehumansolution.com/swopper.html?gclid=EAIaIQobC...](http://www.thehumansolution.com/swopper.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrp3yxKOZ1QIVR5R-Ch31_w3LEAQYASABEgJuoPD_BwE)

</comment><comment> git-pull High range: Herman Miller Aeron (classic startup chair)

Medium range: IKEA Markus

Clicking: [http://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/performance- wor...](http://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/performance-work- chairs/aeron-chairs.html) / [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00103102/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00103102/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Stokke/Varier Thatsit Balans for several years and practically I have forgotten lower back pain. Also I recommend McKenzie exercises - they will bring you back to a good shape quickly.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like my Herman miller aeron. Buy one used or refurbished.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a Human Scale Freedom and Herman Miller Embody. I prefer the human scale, both are great.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a Haworth Zody and like it alot. It did wonders for my back.</comment>


Apple will argue that the FBI's court order violates its free speech rights - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-apple-legal-argument-free-speech-20160223-story.html <comment><USER2> 1) Assume that code is speech

2) Assume a corporation is a person

3) Compelled speech violates the first amendment

4) Therefore court can't force Apple to write code

Seems airtight to me.</comment>


PSA: Chrome 60 Killed Data URLs - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=751135 <comment><AUTHOR> Just thought I'd mention this. We started getting reports from users today when trying to generate a PDF. We were using window.open with a data URL.

Switched to blobs now.</comment>


What Percentage of Your Worries Come True? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2016/08/percentage-worries-come-true/ <comment><USER2> 99% of the things I predict will not come true, both good and bad.

[Citation needed]

<comment><USER3> No, it's not really needed at all.

First, it's a casual turn of phrase -- he means "most of them". Is the art of the conversation completely lost?

Second, he speaks of his own personal experience, so there are no citations. Unless some team of statisticians studied him, he is the utmost authority on the matter (of his own life), and others can just take his claim or leave it. What they won't get is a citation -- or rather, he just gave you the citation, his own.

A lot of people have forgotten to think independently -- without Cliff's Notes and citations to give them pre-digested knowledge.

Heck, most papers, even in hard sciences, have been found in meta-studies to be worse than 50% right and not reproducible either -- so unless someone plans to reproduce and further study a paper on their own to verify the results, having a citation is almost the same as flipping a coin to decide on the matter, as far as the truth of the subject is concerned.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any demand for CCIEs in startups? - <AUTHOR>

It seems that all those positions requiring CCIE (or CCIE level expertise) are for big companies or consultancy companies working for big companies. I'm a double CCIE working at one of those big companies and my biggest grief with them is that everything is highly bureaucratic which leads to very slow implementations and consequently to boredom. So, is anybody doing something fun which would require CCIE level knowledge? Be it network designs or systems implementation. Yes, this is a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I know there are other people in this situation. <comment><USER2> there are many small companies providing infrastructure; you could even start one yourself. "cloud" is big right now, which means you can set up an ISP and pretty quickly get hype generally reserved for web application companies.

That said, you'd probably get more bites hiring yourself out as a consultant. Many, many of the webapp companies do need some networking knowledge, they just don't usually need that full time.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/index.html> ... presumably?</comment>


Acer reveals Iconia dual-screen laptop/tablet - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/23/acer-rivals-libretto-w105-with-iconia-dual-screen-laptop-table/

<comment><USER2> I wonder how long does the battery last with two 14" screens...</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg is a hypocrite - <AUTHOR> http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2016/11/22/mark-zuckerberg-is-a-hypocrite/ <comment><USER2> The irony of the article title is that Facebook being terrible at this has nothing to do with hypocrisy. At worst, Zuckerberg is _lying_ about Facebook having taken this issue seriously, but there's no hypocrisy anywhere to be seen.

On a tangent, hypocrisy is tricky to nail down and not an accusation that people should lightly spew. The reason is that through the human powers of pattern matching and abstraction you can make anyone appear a hypocrite. If they aren't a hypocrite in their direct statements and deeds, just go up another level of abstraction, at some point you reach "he said he prefers good things, but he clearly does bad things!". Sometimes hypocrisy is blatant, and therefore a fair accusation, but one should think very hard about it every single time before coming to that conclusion.

<comment><USER3> It's also important to note that being hypocritical _doesn 't make you wrong._ Smokers saying "don't smoke, it's bad for you" is a classic example.

That's why it can be legitimate for a politician to say things like "yes, I take lobbyist money - everyone does. The system's broken and should be fixed."

<comment><USER4> Yes, this.

Or, another example, a corporation could legitimately be advocating for more stringent regulation while doing the bare minimum to abide by the law.

If the environment is sufficiently competitive, the corporation or politician that goes the extra ethical mile gets outcompeted and _fails_. So the choice is between being hypocritical or not existing.

To succeed, they have to either convince all other players to cooperate and use the more ethical, less competitive strategy, or change the system so that the less ethical strategy is not an option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Comment in the article gets it pretty spot on.

"Please learn the definition of a word before using it. Something isn't hypocrisy if it takes time to fix due to the pervasive nature of the problem."

<comment><USER3> > hypocrisy: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to > which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

Zuckerberg: "We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves..."

Zuckerberg (paraphrasing): "We'll penalize sites we deem to contain inaccurate information."

To be clear, I think the latter stance is appropriate and reasonable in this case. It's also Facebook's right to police content on its system as it wishes. However, I think that in this and many cases, Zuckerberg is being somewhat disingenuous.

This statement in particular is not a huge example, and the article itself is crying wolf somewhat, but it's a mistake to assume good faith from Facebook at this point.

<comment><USER6> Zuck 3 (paraphrasing): "We're building tools to help states censor things they don't like, independent of the truth of those things."

Consistent with 1, not really with 2. Agree that 2's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of issues with Facebook but yeah, best not to assume good faith lightly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this reminds me of those people who sift through Google search results to try to find some controversial query/result pair. they then go on to reveal their mental model of Google's search model is "humans with an agenda curate each page."

beyond the point about how "hypocracy" is not the right term here, it's also just a hard problem, and an example of a single false positive doesn't provide much evidence about the state of Facebook's filtering algorithms.

also to be fair I can empathize with the hesitancy of Facebook to wade into this. the slippery slope from filtering out "fake erectile dysfunction ads" to "things lots of people disagree with" I think is very real and very scary.

<comment><USER8> And the truth is that "humans with an agenda curate each [linked] page."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The ads beside his posts aren't specific to his page, they are being served just like any other users page.

I also think the issue isn't just simply blocking fox.com.news.magazine from advertising. If FB blocks that site, they just create a new one. The solution is more complicated than search and destroy.

I think we have to keep in mind that it's in FBs best interest to produce relevant ads. If people start to learn that ads are just fronts for viagara sites, they stop clicking on ads. Facebooks ad revenue would drop and that's a big issue. So I'm sure they are working on solutions and for someone to see Mark is lying or being insincere is just incorrect.

</comment><comment><USER10> Comments about the use of the word hypocrisy aside, and assuming the screenshot isn't mocked up and fake itself, this does show how Facebook has a serious issue that it has, until now, wilfully ignored.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think taking Zuckerberg at face value here is incorrect.

I suspect when he's talking about misinformation, he's not really referring to shady erectile disfunction or supplement ads or anything else that's not true that isn't really meaningful in the big picture.

I suspect he's referring to news items that the corporate media will not touch with a 10 foot pole.

The elites don't care if the plebs line some billionaires pockets by clicking on a few fake penis enlargement ads: they do care about the masses getting a little too woke however.

</comment><comment><USER12> How is Mark Zuckerberg a hypocrite? He did not say the problem is solved forever. He says he takes it seriously and is working hard on it. The problem itself is very complex.

</comment><comment><USER13> Click bait. This article in no way demonstrates Zuckerberg's hypocrisy. It simply demonstrates the draw of a sensationalist headline

</comment><comment><USER14> It's unreasonable to hold Mark personally responsible for what ads Facebook's algorithm chose to display next to his post.

What the article shows is not hypocrisy, but ironic juxtaposition.

</comment><comment><USER15> The AIs generating the click-bait ads and pages were just confused by the false feedback metrics they were seeing.

</comment><comment><USER16> "This Title is Link Bait"</comment>