High School Student Proves "No Irish Need Apply" Signs Existed - <AUTHOR> http://www.longislandwins.com/columns/detail/high_school_student_proves_professor_wrong_when_he_denied_no_irish_need_app <comment><USER2> _Jensen attracted a lot of attention because he did not just write that the NINA signs did not exist, he said the Irish were and are delusional, that in order to sustain a sense of victimhood they had manufactured a group-wide lie of discriminatory anti-Irish ads and signs. He said that believing that No Irish Need Apply Signs existed was the Irish equivalent of believing in leprechauns. Here is what Jensen wrote more than a decade ago:_

If this is a remotely accurate characterization, it baffles me that Jensen's work would have found a home in a journal or that he would have felt comfortable expressing those views in public. How profoundly emotional and unscientific (not to mention vile and insulting)

Such a claim is extremely complicated (defying occam's razor) and implies some sort of conspiracy that is at the very least questionable without sound proof. The idea that such claims would have not been aggressively debunked in the past is pretty questionable, as well. The seemingly trivial task of finding evidence to support the existence of these ads makes me wonder if Jensen did any research at all. Was he just grinding his racist axe, and did the scientific community give him a pass on it because they didn't care?

<comment><USER3> It's especially baffling because he accepts that newspaper ads saying "no irish need apply" were common, but that the signs on the buildings did not exist. Even if that's true it's weird to then say that Irish people were delusionally perpetuating their victimhood.

<comment><USER4> It isn't so weird if he delusionally accepted his hypothesis from the get go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really interesting that, at least at that time and in that place, there appeared to be more employment discrimination against Irish than African- Americans. I noticed that several of the job ads would accept "colored" applicants, but not Irish.

Edit: "that" -> "than".

<comment><USER6> At the time, black people were stereotyped as servile and easily pressed to work, while the Irish were stereotyped as pugilistic, unreliable layabouts (and, to some, sinister Papists).

<comment><USER5> I had noticed that several of the ads also specified Protestants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I cannot recall such an elegant and well researched response to such a load of whale shit.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not exactly hard to prove that this used to appear in newspapers all the time. A 10 second search on the LOC website shows a ton of examples of this phrase appearing in papers across America: [http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?stat...](http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=&date1=1836&date2=1922&proxtext=%22no+irish+need+apply%22&x=0&y=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic)

Professor Jensen should be ashamed of himself for failing to conduct even the most trivial searches for this information.

<comment><USER9> You didn't read the search results. Those are not ads, but articles mentioning the phrase, at least on the first page (20 articles).

<comment><USER10> News articles mentioning the phrase were exactly what Jensen claimed would have appeared if the signs existed, and whose absence he claimed proved the non-existence of these signs.

Fried just took the additional initiative of going directly to the newspaper ads, which are primary sources indicating discrimination, rather than the secondary sources of newspaper articles talking about the discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well one had to say the whole premise of 'couldn't find evidence thus fact didn't exist' was fishy even before the article started digging out the evidence that reseaecher somehow missed.

<comment><USER12> > _" the whole premise of 'couldn't find evidence thus fact didn't exist' was > fishy"_

Not really. The one thing he's correct about is that, if NINA was a real and widespread phenomenon, it would show up in certain pieces of documentation of the era -- newspaper want ads, for example (we actually have fairly large archives from the relevant era; it's not like something from thousands of years ago where it's plausible that no documentation would have survived.) His problem was that he didn't look deeply enough, and once he drew the initial wrong conclusion, he invented a totally wrong theory to explain it.

<comment><USER13> > it would show up in certain pieces of documentation of the era

True. I think what he assumed was that it would show in other types of documents (like discrimination lawsuits, news showing revolt of the Irish against this policy, etc)

But I suspect this was very common and accepted, unfortunately.

<comment><USER10> Except that, as Fried, showed, it _did_. Not quite anti-discrimination lawsuits, since those laws didn't exist at the time, but there's an example of some Irish filing a libel lawsuit against a newspaper for printing a NINA advertisement, and of an Irish protest against the posting of a NINA sign at a mill.

<comment><USER14> Actually the mill was a different situation; the mill owner adverstised the jobs and large numbers came to apply, Irish and non Irish. The non Irish came armed (guns and knives) and forced the mill owner to put up a sign saying "No Irish Need Apply". The Irish being unarmed decided to leave the scene.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > I'm the PhD who wrote the original article. I'm delighted a high school > student worked so hard and wrote so well.

He's certainly not doing himself any favors with this condescending appeal to authority. In general, the exchange between Jensen and Fried is a perfect example of how to handle a nasty person with grace.

<comment><USER13> Why am I not surprised?

I wouldn't put it past the fact that the high schooler probably knows how to google better than the "phd"

"Jensen attracted a lot of attention because he did not just write that the NINA signs did not exist, he said the Irish were and are delusional, that in order to sustain a sense of victimhood they had manufactured a group-wide lie of discriminatory anti-Irish ads and signs"

Oh wow, lovely lad

Another edit: "Wanted - A Middle Aged protestant woman... no Irish need apply" I think it would be hard to find an Irish Protestant at that time, no?

<comment><USER16> > I think it would be hard to find an Irish Protestant at that time, no?

Belfast (and the whole of Ulster) was full of them.

<comment><USER13> I know that, I'm more wondering what was the amount that immigrated to the US (in relation to Catholic Irish)

<comment><USER10> Many (including at least two Presidents). They just tended not to identify themselves as plain "Irish".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch- Irish_American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Jensen: _" No other ethnic group complained about being singled out by comparable signs."_

How on Earth did anyone take this man seriously? Is he a visitor from an alternate universe where segregation never happened?

<comment><USER18> It is weird that this exact phrase kept getting used against the Irish and not other discriminated-against groups. Nothing for Poles, Slavs, Italians, Russians... Or at least that's what I'm finding on the LoC search. A few "No Jews Need Apply", but only a few, and those aren't job listings.

Probably not a particularly important mystery, but weird.

<comment><USER19> There are likely some historical reasons. Here's a quote from The Times from 1860:

If this [exodus] goes on, as it is likely to go on…the United States will become very Irish….So an Ireland there will still be, but on a colossal scale, and in a new world. We must gird our loins to encounter the Nemesis of seven centuries' misgovernment. To the end of time a hundred million spread over the largest havitable area in the world, and, confronting us everywhere by sea and land, will remember that their forefathers paid tithe to the Protestant clergy, rent to absentee landlords, and a forced obedience to the laws which these had made. (The Times, quoted in The Nation, May 1860)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's called researchers bias where someone so fervently believes something is true that it influences their research. NINA is a good example of an uncomfortable truth.

<comment><USER21> Same could be said for human caused global warming..

<comment><USER3> Yes. Even though the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that climate change is real and probably has human causes you do still find people in the pay of large fossil fuel companies who will deny the reality, and then a number of otherwise smart people who believe the shills.

It's a fascinating (also frustrating) phenomenom.

<comment><USER22> Well documented in the film "Merchants of Doubt." Many cut their teeth in the tobacco industry and went on to ply their trade in environmental denialism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I read about the "NINA" paper when it came out. This summary of the new historical research amply shows that the original thesis indeed needs "substantial modification".

While it says nothing of the historical accuracy, the exchange between the two historians, quoted in the text, makes me lean much more in favor of the researcher behind the new work.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Let me make one last point and then I promise I will shut up and give you > the last word if you want it. You began this conversation by stating that > the article "did not claim to find a single window sign anywhere in the > USA." I think we now agree at least that this is not correct. Many are > specifically listed.

Ouch. That's a serious burn.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's funny how blind people are to the same thing happening today. Most employers openly refuse people based on their nationality and we are perfectly accepting of that, even enforcing it with the law!

I wonder if people in another 100 years will think it's wrong to discriminate against people because of who their parents were.

<comment><USER22> If this is a veiled reference to affirmative action, at least show the courage to say what you really mean.

<comment><USER25> I mean not allowing foreigners to work, even when they live in the country. Ironically, the public's distrust of the Irish and other foreigners has led to the law disallowing them at the border rather than individual employers at the job application. We don't allow Irish to freely enter the US and work today.

<comment><USER26> Right but that's not because they hate immigrants or think they are inferior or whatever. It's because they don't want them to compete for jobs with Americans. It's an attempt at protectionism of labor and preventing a race to the bottom. Your accusations that it's racist or discrimination is just not correct.

<comment><USER25> Not entirely racism, but still discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of a sign I saw in the Pueblo, Co train depot - [http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/mix97-3.com/files/201...](http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/mix97-3.com/files/2015/03/Pueblo- Depot-Immigrant-sign-e1426613606220.jpg?w=600&h=0&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89)

For attribution purposes, the image is associated with an enlightening write- up, but that particular image isn't in the actual article - [http://mix97-3.com/youre-never-too-old-for-a-spring-break- le...](http://mix97-3.com/youre-never-too-old-for-a-spring-break-learning- experience/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Australian bricklayer employment ad says "No Irish" need apply (2012)

[http://www.irishcentral.com/news/australian-bricklayer- emplo...](http://www.irishcentral.com/news/australian-bricklayer-employment- ad-says-no-irish-need-apply-142442405-237434871.html)

Totally irrelevant to the conversation other than perhaps the myths/realities/realities that become myths/myths that become realities perhaps traverse time.

[http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=irish+need+not+ap...](http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=irish+need+not+apply)

<comment><USER29> Australia's pretty backward about this stuff. E.g. example: someone on HN yesterday was saying Jeremy Clarkson (from the UK) wasn't old enough to remember the racist version of 'eeny meeny miny mo'. I remember it and I was born in Australia in the 80s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I didn't think the existence of such signs was a contested bit of history. I guess you can find apparently qualified people espousing all sorts of nonsense.

<comment><USER31> There are people denying the holocaust. An event for which plenty of historical evidence exists. People will believe what they want to believe.

<comment><USER30> Indeed. That is exactly the example that popped into my head as well. It would not surprise me at all if there were even a few holocaust deniers with PhDs in history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Website has slowed to a crawl. Here's Google's text cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:23zU9KH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:23zU9KHvzmkJ:www.longislandwins.com/columns/detail/high_school_student_proves_professor_wrong_when_he_denied_no_irish_need_app&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER33> _historians have not discovered reports of any in the United States, Canada or Australia._

Oh really? Australia, 1862:

[http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115763711?searchTerm...](http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115763711?searchTerm=No%20irish&searchLimits=l-australian=y)

</comment><comment><USER34> Here's what the signs look like for those interested, most appear to be from London.

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%22no+irish%22+window+...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%22no+irish%22+window+sign&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIlO- ynJeIxwIVQRo-Ch11AAx4&biw=1680&bih=965)

Here's a reddit thread on the issue

[https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3erkxv/nina_no_i...](https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3erkxv/nina_no_irish_need_apply_emeritus_professor/?sort=confidence)

</comment><comment><USER35> I've met a certain subculture of racists who like to point to articles like this and say things like "well since there were never NINA signs, discrimination against blacks couldn't have been as bad as it was". Reading Jensen you can see how he's a kindred spirit of such people. It's apparent he started out with "I think the Irish were lazy, violent and anti-American who need victim-hood to maintain their identity" and set to work to prove it.

</comment><comment><USER36> The myth of bad treatment of returning Vietnam vets is something you see in the movies but apparently didn't really happen much: [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2007/01/newsweek_throws_the_spitter.html)</comment>


Formula 1: The super-fast net driving teams to the podium - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28416855

<comment><USER2> Although this article discusses the actual collection and transmission of data, what I find more interesting is how efficiently the vast amount of data is being used in the decision making process for vehicle setup and race strategy. (I strongly believe that data has no value until it is used for analysis and decision making.)

Data coming from the vehicle sensors and other sources are concurrently being used for analysis (by both hundreds of engineers and a wide range of "algorithms") as well as input to simulation models. The results from the simulations means that even more data is being generated even when the vehicle isn't running.

Within minutes, using the data, the different engineering groups (typically responsible for a sub-system, ie. engine, tires, aerodynamics) arrive at conclusions which then the vehicle's race/performance engineers are using to enhance the setup of the vehicle. The results of changes are then fed back to the engineers, and evaluating if the analysis and predictions are correct is a big part of the post-event work.

I honestly can't think of any other industry that carries out this kind of analysis of highly non-linear systems at this scale and speed. The only other industry that I can think of is finance?

Disclosure: I work in motorsports

<comment><USER3> This is done during flight test of prototype aircraft (and probably spacecraft as well to some extent, I haven't done that) - the data acquisition system on a flight test plane is incredibly advanced, and the data gets beamed down in realtime to a group of (real) engineers on the ground in the flight test station who analyze the data and communicate back and forth to the pilots again in real time. All in real time, the test pilots will decide what/how maneuvers to do based on learnings captured/analyzed, change the configuration of the aircraft systems/surfaces, intentionally induce failure conditions and faults, ... It's a real ballet between the engineers on the ground and the pilots, when the team is working well together. As you said, post-event debriefing, detailed analysis, recommendations/reports, aircraft changes etc are started immediately when the aircraft lands, to prepare for the next flight. It's very intense, but also very rewarding and a lot of fun.

<comment><USER4> _beamed down in realtime to a group of (real) engineers on the ground_

I assume this is in reference to use of the term "race engineer" in F1.

I can assure you that the sport does use _real_ engineers, and very intensely so. Folks like Adrian Newey would qualify as engineers by anyone's definition, and each team has heaps of MechE's, EEs, software engineers, even materials engineers, back at home base.

<comment><USER5> .. not to mention that there's a lot of overlap between aerospace and F1 engineering. Plenty of the engineers (even the trackside ones) started out studying aero engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's astonishing how many people are working to keep the cars running on track. There's perhaps 50 people for each pair of cars, maybe even more, every time the cars are running on track. There's 5 guys on the pit wall, a dozen behind the pit garages and twenty or more at the teams' bases.

They make the tactical and strategic decisions on when to pit during the race as well as guide the car set up and tuning on Friday and Saturday practice.

Here's a few impressive videos from McLaren's mission control, located in their base in Woking, near London.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhl7csZJHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhl7csZJHw) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ple7W6bdxJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ple7W6bdxJc)

<comment><USER7> _" perhaps 50 people for each pair of cars"_

Well, yes. From the article: "the FIA - restricts them to 60 staff members at the trackside, including engineers"

<comment><USER6> > Well, yes. From the article: "the FIA - restricts them to 60 staff members > at the trackside, including engineers"

Does that include the people at the factory in the mission control? I don't think it does. McLaren's Mission Control (in the videos) already has about 20 people working.

I didn't even count the actual pit crew in my estimate of 50. There's around 20 people in the pit crew.

<comment><USER7> > Does that include the people at the factory in the mission control? I don't > think it does.

Right, that was the point of the article... they can only have 60 people trackside, so they need all this bandwidth to send the data back to the factory where even more people can analyze it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Both AT&T and Tata insist their networks are secure, but they are tight- > lipped about precisely how this is done.

This is absolutely terrible. Your network should be secure, even if you tell everyone how it's done, and reluctance to do so makes it very likely it's not secure.

<comment><USER9> I see this line of argument very frequently - that if you are really secure, you should tell everyone how you do it, as some sort of gold standard for security. Kerchoff's principle suggests nothing of the sort - it is something of a thought experiment. When you design a system, you should ask yourself if it would still be secure if you told everyone how it worked. There is no real need to tell anyone, the obscurity adds an extra layer of defense.

Here's Steve Bellovin's thoughts on this:

'The subject of security through obscurity comes up frequently. I think a lot of the debate happens because people misunderstand the issue. It helps, I think, to go back to Kerckhoffs's second principle, translated as "The system must not require secrecy and can be stolen by the enemy without causing trouble," Kerckhoff said neither "publish everything" nor "keep everything secret"; rather, he said that the system should still be secure even if the enemy has a copy.

In other words – design your system assuming that your opponents know it in detail. (A former official at NSA's National Computer Security Center told me that the standard assumption there was that serial number 1 of any new device was delivered to the Kremlin.) After that, though, there's nothing wrong with trying to keep it secret – it's another hurdle factor the enemy has to overcome. (One obstacle the British ran into when attacking the German Enigma system was simple: they didn't know the unkeyed mapping between keyboard keys and the input to the rotor array.) But – don't rely on secrecy.'

<comment><USER10> You are right in this case. The only one who must be informed about how the system works is the client. In this case, the F1 team should know how is this security achieved, not the attackers or the general public.

On the other hand, if it is my information you are securing and if I don't have good reasons to trust you, I want to know how it is being done, even if that means attackers also know. If everyone is your client (for example, if you provide public services), then everyone must know, so they can independently audit the system.

Obscurity can be a layer of security in one system, made ,managed and audited by trusted entities, but, generally speaking, it is a weak layer for a attacker with a great enough motivation.

On the other hand, obscurity is detrimental to a collective of systems made, managed and audited (or not) by a great variety of entities. Sure, on the real world we place trust on companies to handle their security well, but that has ended badly in the past. The knee jerk reaction to security through obscurity we have is beneficial because it is a symptom of security issues in the system.

In conclusion, regarding obscurity, the beneficial effect of an extra security layer is only greater than the potential malefic effect of hiding security problems if the entities behind it, including the auditor, are competent and trustworthy. As a rule of thumb it should be avoided or have its bad side mitigated by independent security audits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There was a related 'In Business' BBC Radio 4 programme on this subject last week - it was an interesting listen. You can download it here (possibly UK only - not sure) "In Business: Fast and Furious 7 Aug 2014" :

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/worldbiz](http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/worldbiz)

<comment><USER12> I'm fairly sure BBC podcasts are available worldwide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to work for a (traditional) engineering company that partners with an F1 team.

Once a year they would come around and give a talk about asset reliability and how they operate.

An interesting story was how the one time they ignored their data (because, due to the reliability of the part involved, they couldn't believe the likelihood of such an event occurring) they had a catastrophic engine failure mid-race.

Thanks to the data collected they were able to run detailed simulations to "debug" the issue - a small change somewhere else causing a part to vibrate at it's natural frequency - i.e shaking itself to bits. This then helped them mitigate the risk of the same thing happening in the future.

From then on they always trust the data.

Test your sensors, trust your sensors, trust your data.

<comment><USER14> Except fuel flow sensors ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This 2.5 minute video gives you the scope and breath of how much support goes behind racing an F1 car.

It's really the engineers making the pre-race setup for the car and making real time adjustments during the race that makes a winning F1 team. It has been argued the F1 drivers merely are "along for the ride" and it's really what goes on behind the scenes that wins a race. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j9r7Ue6XnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j9r7Ue6XnA)

<comment><USER16> "It's really the engineers making the pre-race setup for the car and making real time adjustments during the race"

"8.5.2 Pit to car telemetry is prohibited." source: [http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/tech...](http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/technical_regulations/8701/fia.html)

"F1 drivers merely are "along for the ride"" This is wrong on so many levels. F1 is a very physically demanding sport. Their reflexes have to be as good in lap 40 as they were in lap 4. They need to perform changes to the car in real time, mostly between turns, as they're told. They need to know how to attack, defend, overtake, save tyres, save fuel.

The difference is that 10/15/20 years ago they did all this without not much data, and now they have much more context to each decision.

You clearly do not watch much Formula 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > sometimes amounting to over 100 gigabytes each second.

So that's 800 gigabits per second, nearly a Tbps. Which is a _lot_ of network throughput. Although this is not impossible, it seems surprisingly high, and I wonder if the article should have said "100 gigabits each second", which is still a lot of bandwidth but a little more reasonable.

The article describes the data being transmitted as largely telemetry. Let's say they are sampling each of their metrics every 10 milliseconds (100/second), and they need a 32 bit integer to store each value. So, that's 100 * 32 / 8 = 400 bytes per second per metric. Divided into 100 gigabytes, that would be 250 _million_ metrics. Even if you change these assumptions, clearly this link is used for more than telemetry.

800 Gbps requires a large number of computers to generate and transmit, then another large set of machines at HQ to ingest all that data and then run analytical models against it. Just to handle the network traffic, without any data analysis, if you assume servers have a pair of 10 Gbps network interfaces, that's 40 machines.

If you assume hard drives can write at about 100 megabytes per second, that's 1,000 disks just to handle the write IOPS. But, with those 40 machines, that's an average of 25 disks per machine, so not unreasonable. With SSD's it would be fewer devices.

I do not know if a way to get this much network throughput over a radio link, so I can't imagine it's all coming from the car itself.

It would be interested to know what other data is transmitted over this link during a race other than telemetry.

<comment><USER18> > so I can't imagine it's all coming from the car itself.

There's also high-definition imagery from each car, I guess that some of it is generated in the car and the other imagery is supplied by the TV cameras.

I don't know though if these run on UHD, but given the boatloads of cash behind F1 I'd assume so.

<comment><USER19> To my knowledge, none of the F1 cameras are UHD; FOM (who nowadays produce all the TV coverage in-house, except for Monaco) only moved to HD in 2010, and even then only offered the HD feed from 2011 (in 2010 the feed everyone got was downscaled).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "And a colossal amount of data is being transmitted over the network - sometimes amounting to over 100 gigabytes each second."

What am I missing?

<comment><USER21> It's BBC'tech reporting. The details are intended to impress the lambda non- techy readers. 100GB/s seems a bit over-exagerated, but whatever, it's a funny article to read anyway.

<comment><USER22> Someone downvoted this, but I think s/he's right in that it's exaggerated. I explained why here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177618)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting article, but the 100GB/s does not make sense, i mean that would require a 800Gbit/s - 1Tbit/s connection per Team ? Uhm no. Even if its 100Gbit/s, that would still be 12,5GB/s which seems like a lot for telemetry data and video streams. I wonder how they transfer that anyway as the nearby city would need to support that kind of throughput for all teams at the same time.

Pretty sure the actual number is a lot lower than that. I'd say its probably more like a low latency 1-10Gbit/s connection per team.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is very interesting and intellectually stimulating, but none of this matters in the current season where Mercedes has a vastly superior engine and is winning races by 10s of seconds, not milliseconds.

<comment><USER25> Not in recent races, where there's been real competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _" It's a completely bespoke car for each circuit."_

This may give the wrong impression, so just to be clear there are strict regulations in F1 regarding the reuse of components and static designs.

[http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/spor...](http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/sporting_regulations/8689/)

Mercedes, who sit in #1 and #2 in the driver standings, and of course #1 in the constructors standings, is presumed to have an advantage because of the way they laid out their turbochargers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuBB2F6IutQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuBB2F6IutQ)

By F1 rules, no other team can change their own engine designs until next season.

<comment><USER6> While the engine, gearbox and chassis have strict regulations, the cars undergo major changes from race to race.

Next week at Spa (a very fast track) we will see radically different cars from, say, Monte Carlo (the slowest track). The cars look visually different if you look at them in side by side images.

<comment><USER26> The overwhelming bulk of the changes in the car from track to track are setup changes. These are designs they put an enormous amount of work into over the off-season, and a significant amount of test time, so it seems circumspect that they would radically if even marginally change them mid-season, before even considering the incredible tight restrictions of F1 (which are there for safety and fairness, but also to try to keep it within "reasonable" fiscal bounds).

Teams come out with a season design, and from that they adjust wings, tire pressure, gear ratios or change points, etc, within the tolerances allowed. I've only marginally been following F1 for the past year, but I'm wholly unaware of any substantial construction change from track to track.

Edit: To substantiate this a bit, here's the Ferrari car at Hockenheim (a very high speed track), compared to Monaco (a twisty, "urban" track).

[http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/bGZpJEcephz/F1+Grand+Prix+of+...](http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/bGZpJEcephz/F1+Grand+Prix+of+Germany/Y2745loz6A8/Kimi+Raikkonen)

[http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/5/15851.html](http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/5/15851.html) (click on the Ferrari picture)

<comment><USER27> The competitive teams will field a variety of front and rear wings tailored to different tracks.

<comment><USER28> I believe they used to have different wheel base chassis' for some circuits - not sure if this is now banned.

<comment><USER29> It's not banned, Raikkonen changed his Lotus wheelbase mid-season.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rob-anderson "When the races are held closer to Red Bull's factory, which is based in Milton Keynes in the UK, the delay can drop to a staggering seven milliseconds"

whoopee doo.

<comment><USER30> Important to know–they're almost certainly talking about the race in Silverstone England. That's about a 30 min drive.([https://goo.gl/maps/EdR4q](https://goo.gl/maps/EdR4q)) So fast, but technically not nearly as difficult as connecting to Malaysia.</comment></comment>


Rust Solved Dependency Hell - <AUTHOR> https://stephencoakley.com/2019/04/24/how-rust-solved-dependency-hell <comment><USER2> Java has a very similar solution to the problem using OSGi. It uses class loaders to encapsulate sets of classes to isolate them and also uses the class loader for disambiguation.

Compare the solutions: "It seems there's four basic components incorporated in a mangled symbol name:"

* "The fully qualified name of the symbol." \-- same in Java

* "Generic type parameters." \-- missing in Java because of type erasure

* "The name of the crate containing the symbol." \-- represented by the class loader in Java

* "An arbitrary "disambiguator" string" \-- not present in Java, and I'm not sure why this is needed at all

It even comes with almost the same downsides: "This solution isn't perfect though:"

* "...we can't pass objects around between different versions of a library" \-- similar with OSGi (you can pass objects using the opaque "Object" type), but you might be able to have libraries agree on a common interface, defined by an "API library", which has the same version for both and allows to pass objects.

* "Any static variables or global state will be duplicated" \-- same with OSGi * "Our binary size increases necessarily" \-- same with OSGi

(edit: formatting)

<comment><USER3> Even without OSGi there are plugins allowing so called package names shadowing and, as a consequence, for multiple versions of the same dependency coexist in the same classpath. Rust, though, have this as a part of the language. This is a whole new level of user (or developer in that case) experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (Not a Rustacean yet.)

Are there any circumstances in which this approach can have undesirable behavior, for example if the dependency has to deal with some global state?

This seems like the kind of thing that could create difficult-to-understand problems if Cargo gives you two copies of a dependency only under specific and rare circumstances. (But I'm happy to be proven wrong, and I'm sure the Rust folks have thought this through more carefully than I have.)

<comment><USER5> Nah. The Rust compiler's warnings are wonderful, as ever: [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/blob/master/src/librustc/i...](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/blob/master/src/librustc/infer/error_reporting/mod.rs#L575-L582)

<comment><USER6> That is actually a fairly recent addition. I wasted like 2 days of my time trying to find the bug until someone pointed out it could be differing versions of the crate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought npm did this first.

<comment><USER8> They did. Reduced it from a NP-class problem (IIRC dependencies constraint solving required a SAT solver) to mere tree traversal.

<comment><USER7> I think it's still NP-complete because you can still specify arbitrary dependency constraints. (Of course, just because it's NP-complete doesn't mean it's not tractable in practice for the kinds of instances that come up in real life.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Version strings are sort of a hack, while it does communicate API breakage, etc it doesn't communicate what. Given a language with an effect system and powerful enough type system you could verify for input x result is y and store it as a hashed sym alias, etc

</comment><comment><USER10> I thought you can have different version of the same library for different parts of the project in Java, but didn't know about the non deterministic behavior about which one to use. I wonder how Gradle handles this situation.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author missed another option to resolve the dependency issue — to run the root dependency (and its transitive dependencies) in its own classpath.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hope that also conan.io will support it for C++

</comment><comment><USER13> Hasn't Java also solved it using Modules?

</comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, but rust also created it's own kind of dependency hell.

Need random numbers? Then you need this create. Is it first party or written by some random dude? Hard to tell.

</comment><comment><USER15> Kept trying to find issue with this but the title says it all.

<comment><USER5> Basically. Cargo is so good that the only things I could possibly wish for are specifying binary dependencies and easier use of Cargo as a library (and maybe a more robust `patch` section, but there's always `paths` in .cargo/config).</comment></comment>


I am quitting my job. Is this a good idea? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I am 25 years old and working as a programmer for 2 years now. I have a good amount of money saved up (>75 k cash) and I am planning on quitting my job and trying to figure out what to do next. I don't hate my job I make good money and I get to save a lot. But I don't love it either. I have a couple of ideas for startups and some random apps that could potentially make money and I am planning to quit in the coming months. I wanted to know from other people who have been in the same situation, what are the most common pitfalls? Is having 75k enough of a runway? If I fail how long is the average job search? What are some things I should know about before quitting? What are the most common reasons people fail?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> You probably want 2 years of expenses saved if you want to do a startup. Generally during the first year you are adjusting your idea for market fit and figuring out how to get your product in front of your potential customers. I would also budget an extra 4 months to retrain and find another job in the advent the startup fails.

An option would be to see if your employer is willing to let you work on a side project for money (they might be OK with it provided the side project doesn't relate to what they employ you for). If so, while you are figuring out the startup, you will still have income and can quit if it takes off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately my current employer is fairly unopen to the idea of any kind of commercial development on the side.

<comment><USER3> That's not the only option.

You can create your software on the side, offer it for free and only quit your job and start charging when the software takes off.

The hardest and least predictable thing is finding product/market fit. I don't know how to do it (other than launching a product and waiting to see if it takes off) and while I lurk in startup-related forums like r/startups, most of the ideas I see seem very unrealistic (from the point of view making money).

Second hardest thing is finding users (i.e. marketing and such) even if you have a decent product.

Also, beware procrastination. Many people underestimate how easy it is to not work when you don't have to. You might be an exception (you can test it by doing 8hr of work on your project on Sat/Sun and seeing if you can keep it up for e.g. a month).

<comment><USER4> If you have an anti-side-development employer I am not sure your loophole will help. I would suggest to OP simply not having any public product at all until after you leave your employer, and even then waiting a couple weeks to make it less obvious that it was ready to launch before you left.

Otherwise you are opening yourself to lawsuits from employer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do it! But only if you believe in what you are building. Actually, do it even for the sake of trying :) If you manage your money right >75k is plenty. You are at the best age to take risk, it will only get harder as you get older. Also, I think you are asking the wrong questions, you can't start off with an "if I fail" mentality, be optimistic. Are you European? :) haha jk

The journey is ...Fun, challenging, stressful, extremely stressful, rewarding, requires huge sacrifices, unfair, vicious, a great learning experience, mostly filled with lows but the highs are totally worth it.

I don't know if I have answered your questions but the best way to find answers is to try, you really have nothing to lose but a whole lot to gain. Godspeed!!!

</comment><comment><USER6> I am also 25 and have been working for my current employer for almost 2 years and its like I wrote this post myself. I feel exactly the same way you do only I have a side project that I am passionate about, but not enough runway to pursue it full time. It's hard to walk away from a steady income and easy to say you will work on your projects on the weekend but the real difficulty comes in evaluating how much you are losing by not investing your all in something you believe in. I am still trying to make that decision.

</comment><comment><USER7> Keep your day job . . . keep saving . . .

Explore/validate your startup ideas/apps as side projects.

Minimize any public connection to your side projects, privacy protection for your domains, don't discus them with anyone with a connection to work.

Review your employment contracts for any IP clauses.

Don't log in to, browse to or work on your side projects at work.

Creating a startup is hard and can take a while to ramp up to bringing in decent revenue.

Explore learn and polish your skills on the side as long as you can while working and saving.

Decent jobs are hard to find, enjoy the one you have if you work another two years you could have a 150k runway or more.

If you employer is really against any outside projects and you do have clauses in your contract indicating they own IP rights to anything you do another option is interview and try to find another job that is completely open to side projects.

By the way . . .

"But day to day its very slow and a bit boring." -OP

That's why they call it work.

It sounds like you have the desire to run your own startup. I would prepare and lay the groundwork while you're employed as long as you can saving as much as possible.

Check for any documents you signed when you started your current job or any other binding agreements with them, you could even hire an attorney for a few hours to see if they would have any claim to IP/ideas you start while working there.

If they say they wouldn't have any IP claims I would work on your ideas 'under cover' as long as you can till one gets traction.

Have you listened to StartupsForTheRestOfUs.com? If not check it out.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Grass isn't always greener elsewhere.

2\. You're young and have time to learn from mistakes.

3\. Do what you want and don't overthink things.

4\. Remember that if you make a move and don't like the new job you might want to find a third job that's good rather than going back to the first one, so try to find a job that's at least as good as the current one before you make a move.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why don't you look for another job?

Instead of spending 75K on living expenses while figuring out your "startup idea", why don't you do this:

1\. Take 40K, and spend 4 months traveling some part of the world (Asia, South America). Meanwhile investigate a startup idea and find a co-founder. Work out of internet cafes/hostels etc. Now at least your money was well spent. Start building something (prototype).

2\. Now you have an idea, prototype and cofounder, raise money (YC) and build your startup. If you can not raise seed funding, apply for jobs and get a new job. Do not burn through all your savings please.

<comment><USER10> Just to say that I agree with this but you could do it on way less than $40k in SEA. I spent ~$10k in a year and did not live frugally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 75k really is about 6 months of expenses and costs. Biggest mistake people fail is not having enough runway. If your living in the midwest and your monthly costs are $3-$4k a month (remember you need health insurance) then you'll have 2-4 months additional runway. Best recommendation, take some time away from work, but get serious about having a schedule and having a date/metric about when you must get another job. Another big thing I've seen is lack of execution, the technology is the easy part, running the business consistently is hard. Use freshbooks.

<comment><USER12> Considering people can live on $30k a year...which is what some jobs pay.

>> 75k really is about 6 months of expenses and costs.

What kind of expenses and costs are you talking about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Save more money and start developing some of your ideas on the side. At some point you'll figure out which one scratches the right itch - then pull the trigger.

</comment><comment><USER11> The average job search is about 3 months. Sure if your good you'll get tons of job offers but if you want to get the right one, it takes that much time. Expect multiple rounds and multiply reviews that take 3-6 weeks from first in person to offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll need to factor in a few more months of runway for a potential job search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm doing almost the exact same thing - but I'm moving from San Francisco to South America to learn spanish + work on my projects. 75k is definitely enough runway, but if you can move to a lower cost place it'll go even further

</comment><comment><USER15> I think you should elaborate a bit on why you are quitting your job. Is it because what you are doing now is "just OK" and you think working on a startup would be more fulfilling and exciting?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes definitely. I think my current work is not very fulfilling. Don't get me wrong there have been some technical challenges that have been fun to solve over the past 2 years. But day to day its very slow and a bit boring. Everything kind of speeds up before a release and its fun for a month or two and then everything kind of dies down.</comment></comment>


Australia fast-tracks plan to send solar power to Singapore - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-29/australia-fast-tracks-plan-to-send-solar-power-to-singapore <comment><USER2> Did anyone notice how cheap this is? Ten gigawatts at AUD $16B is roughly the same as 1 GW per USD $1B. Compare that to, say, a nuclear power plant, where a single 1 GW plant might cost five to ten billion after all of the approvals and the interest on the loan.

If the price estimate is correct, Singapore would be crazy _not_ to do it. The only issue I see is the risk of cable cuts and future geopolitical changes.

Unfortunately, within Australia, coal is currently so cheap that even low-cost solar can't really compete.

<comment><USER3> That is a 10GW solar array, at 22% capacity factor, so comparable to 2 VVER-1200 with a $12B contract like Rooppur, also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60.

<comment><USER4> > also the solar panels/batteries will last 20-25 years and the VVER 60

The solar array and battery storage (all of which can be recycled today with existing recycling techniques) will be built on time, begin generating on time, and will generate no nuclear waste nor require fuel (besides sunlight) during its operating lifetime. It takes over 10 years to build a VVER-1200 reactor [1] (any fission reactor, really), if you can even get the reactor to the finish line.

[1] [https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First- VVER-1200-reacto...](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-First- VVER-1200-reactor-enters-commercial-operation-02031701.html)

<comment><USER5> > will generate no nuclear waste

Very important point, especially when we're considering costs.

What are the lifetime costs associated with storing the spent fuel? In practice, the only way to get reactors built, is for the public to 100% subsidize the long term consequences.

<comment><USER6> Or recycle the fuel.

<comment><USER5> Sure, that would be an option. Thus far even the US government is not exploring this option, mostly due to very high costs, but also due to weapons grade byproducts of most existing reprocessing methods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Compare to DESERTEC, a plan to send power from North African solar farms under the Mediterranean to Europe with huge DC cables. They've been at it a while and I haven't seen any signed of progress in a decade.

It's possible AU+SG May have more organizational success. Only two players, both OECD countries. But the technical hurdles remain immense.

[https://www.desertec.org/](https://www.desertec.org/)

<comment><USER8> Problem is the fragile political situation in North Africa and the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.

<comment><USER9> > the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

<comment><USER10> Well, it can't say it's bad, but it may not be realistic. Don't forget the famous war that was supposed to "ensure stability with force", and that's been lasting for almost 20 year. Things are certainly more complicated there, but it's fair to be skeptical that force can bring stability.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of the Vietnam era "Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Power_Link)

10GW plant with a 30GWh battery. The enormous South Australia battery Musk put in is about 125MWh - 0.5% of that size.

<comment><USER13> It would be interesting to see those huge tesla batteries on a large ship,(like a retired oil supertanker) charging at one point, and discharging at the destination. Leave enough to power the ship back home, and just have several of them. Probably not as efficient as power lines, but could go to multiple destinations.

<comment><USER14> Singapore is already supplied with energy from ships (natural gas). So energy density will determine how many ships would be required. Depending on conversion efficiency, we are talking 50-150x as many lipo ships as natural gas ships.

If Singapore only needed one natural gas very large super tanker, we would need to increase the global feet of super tankers by 7-20% just to ship electrical energy to Singapore.

<comment><USER15> Lets do the math:

Cheap LFP batteries get around 160-170wh/kg.

Largest supertankers have net tonnage of around 250000.

250000000 * 170 = 42.5GWH.

Quite respectable. Karadeniz (the biggest floating powerplant operator) has actually floated the idea.

<comment><USER16> Another option for "shipping electricity" is compressed hydrogen. Electricity + water goes in at one end (electrolysis), then converts back to electricity + water at the other (fuel cells).

Hydrogen has significant inefficiencies and conversion losses compared to batteries, but the energy density is much higher (up to 40,000 Wh/kg)

<comment><USER17> There is mention in this thread of solar power prices going negative for suppliers at times. This would make suggestions like this even more favourable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a political project. It's difficult to consider it otherwise in a rational decision making context.

Any engineer would take one look at this and go yep, let's put a nuclear reactor on one or more of Singapore's 64 surrounding islands.

Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't interested in doing that. Since the guys financing it have no qualms about fronting this project obviously Singapore is keen to fund this project as a customer but wants to be seen for some reason as a reluctant buyer.

<comment><USER19> > Singapore could get oodles of solar from Malaysia but they obviously aren't > interested in doing that

To anyone who knows the history of Singapore, it is obvious why (and you quite possibly already know all this, but I'm sure many other people reading this don't). Singapore became independent because the Malaysian government wanted to introduce "affirmative action" laws which discriminated against ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Chinese. Singapore was the only state of Malaysia with an ethnic Chinese majority, and was fundamentally opposed to such laws. The Malaysian federal government's response was to expel Singapore from Malaysia and force it to become an independent country, so that it would be free to impose these laws on the rest of Malaysia without Singapore's opposition. And Singapore has never trusted Malaysia since.

<comment><USER20> And has similarly discriminated against Malays in Singapore to this day! The messy knife of history cuts both ways.

<comment><USER19> Is that really true? Malaysia has official policies to give preference to the ethnic Malay majority in education, government jobs, business licensing, etc. Singapore's formal policies on those matters are, to the best of my knowledge, ethnically and racially neutral. I'm sure ethnic minorities in Singapore suffer from some degree of informal discrimination (as they do in many other countries), but I don't believe they suffer from anything like the active discrimination as an official policy which the Malaysian government imposes.

<comment><USER21> There is some governmental discrimination, notably in the military (Malays are effectively excluded from sensitive positions) and granting residency/citizenship (reportedly virtually impossible for ethnic Malays from Malaysia or Indonesia). Both are officially denied though, and yes, these are nowhere near as wide-ranging as Malaysia's policies.

[https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-ye...](https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/ns50-celebrates-50-years- of-national-service-but-conveniently-forgets-its-past-discrimination-against- malays/)

<comment><USER20> If an ethnic Chinese Singaporean marries a Malaysian Malay, the Singaporean government will cite every rule in the book about income requirements and "suitability".

But if we're talking Malaysian Chinese....

People need to stop worshipping Singapore like they are a fantasy land of perfection. They have specific flaws of their own, plus flaws similar to other countries.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure if that is anti-Malay so much as pro-Chinese.

An older friend told a story of a colleague he worked with in Vietnam who got married and tried to move back to Singapore. Multiple attempts to let his wife come along were rejected until he amended the paperwork to say she was Chinese ethnicity.

Might be a tall tale, but that's how it was told to me. I don't know the exact years in question though, it might have been a decade or more ago.

<comment><USER21> There are no stats published, so this is all anecdotal, but it's generally suspected that they operate on some kind of quota basis. The Chinese quota is large (but no longer infinite, esp for mainland Chinese), the Indian/Other quota is small, and the Malay/Muslim quota is nearly zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This makes no sense, with Atlassian being involved I'd double down on that statement.

But it's actually very cool. Like sending a person to the moon it pushes science forward. It's not another dumb shove more solar panels on houses idea.

It allows Australia a lot of power over Singapore and the region which is good for them.

I guess the question is what's the side ways difference between NT and Singapore? It's a one and half hour time zone difference. How much peak/off peak/day time advantage do they get with the the different sun times.

Why this over Perth? (I'd guess it's a simple power lines in the ocean is cheaper)

<comment><USER24> Interesting point - laying cables along a circle of latitude with a 4 hour time difference would mean the peak solar power at one location would power the other locations peak usage (6pm - 9pm). However, a 4 hour time difference is pretty substantial in terms of length of cables. I wonder if Australia could do this between Perth and the South East (Melbourne, Sydney).

<comment><USER23> This project is further, the distance between Darwin and Singapore is more than Perth and Melbourne. This project wastes distance going north.

Laying cables overland would be an order of magnitude more unless you could do fibre at the same time to make it cheaper or something.

But the route by sea is still shorter between Perth and Melbourne.

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+darwin+singap...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+darwin+singapore)

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=perth+to+melbourne+dis...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=perth+to+melbourne+distance)

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=perth+to+melbourne+dis...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=perth+to+melbourne+distance+by+sea)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if a self sustaining solar plant can be set up in a desert with a factory powered by solar energy manufacturing solar panels with the sand and then being installed piece by piece. The stuff that will be needed to be brought from outside will be water (if a lot is needed), aluminum and concrete for the support structure and other metals in the solar panel. Surely a crazy project converting the hypothetical 100 miles x 100 miles square in Nevada or some other desert might be more feasible. It is okay even if this takes 10 years as long as the process is made sustainable to the extent possible.

<comment><USER26> Why do you need concrete? Can't you just sinter the sand grains together?

<comment><USER27> Like this? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptUj8JRAYu8)

A popular video a few years ago which demonstrate, uhm, a 3D printing of models out of sand.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, exactly. I love that video. I wish someone would combine the wind powered sculptures of Theo Jansen with a solar sinterer. Let them roam the sahara and turn it back into solid ground... or buildings and monuments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone break down some numbers here for me? What kind of voltage do you need to move that distance? Will this create huge magnetic fields along the cable under the ocean? (Yes I know almost nothing about electricity :)

<comment><USER29> They're using HVDC technology.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- voltage_direct_current](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- voltage_direct_current)

<comment><USER30> And Australia already has experience [1] of building that type of link.

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

<comment><USER16> Basslink is a fairly run-of-the-mill HVDC interconnector by world standards at 500 MW and 370 km.

The longest undersea interconnector currently under construction is the North Sea Link between the UK and Norway (700 km, 1400 MW): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link)

At 3700 km, Australia-ASEAN would be far beyond the length of anything that has been built or considered to date!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Measuring the shared RAM usage of a process - <AUTHOR> http://tech.brightbox.com/posts/2012-11-28-measuring-shared-ram-usage/

<comment><USER2> I wrote some code to try and do this a while ago, 'exmap': <https://github.com/jbert/exmap>

The basic idea was a linux kernel module which allowed you to get the underlying page id behind each VMA of any process.

Putting this info together (and hoping it wasn't changing too much as you queried different processes) allowed me to calculate "effective resident" and "effective vm size", where I used the rule that a page shared across N processes contributed pagesize/N to each one.

I could also give those same figures for each ELF section and ELF symbol (via some very fragile code which looked at the process mapping and read the ELF details to work out which bit of memory belonged to each section/symbol).

The code has long since rotted and the architecture sucked (I tied the data gathering code into the UI).

Would anyone be interested in reviving it/helping me revive it? I consider doing so from time to time, but I feel that codebase sucks now so avoid touching it.

<comment><USER3> I was a big user of exmap a few years ago at a previous employer (THALES), where exmap was used to do a lot of things to systems being tested/certified for CENELEC SIL-4 (safety critical) usage. I wrote portions of the online testing systems, and the full system tests for these components used exmap in our test systems to corrupt text segments, copy stuff where it shouldn't be, etc. exmap was essential to testing.

PM me privately your details and we can talk about what you want to do with exmap; at the very least I can explain to you how its being used in an industrial testing context, and there may be people still working there, maintaining exmap code, that would be interested in your situation, who nevertheless do not read n.yc.

<comment><USER2> As far as I know, there isn't a pm facility on HN and I don't see any contact info in your profile.

My email details are in my profile, if you have time to share some details of how exmap was/is used, I'd be grateful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Take a look at smem

"mem is a tool that can give numerous reports on memory usage on Linux systems. Unlike existing tools, smem can report proportional set size (PSS), which is a more meaningful representation of the amount of memory used by libraries and applications in a virtual memory system. Because large portions of physical memory are typically shared among multiple applications, the standard measure of memory usage known as resident set size (RSS) will significantly overestimate memory usage. PSS instead measures each application's "fair share" of each shared area to give a realistic measure.

smem has many features:

        system overview listing
        listings by process, mapping, user
        filtering by process, mapping, or user
        configurable columns from multiple data sources
        configurable output units and percentages
        configurable headers and totals
        reading live data from /proc
        reading data snapshots from directory mirrors or compressed tarballs
        lightweight capture tool for embedded systems
        built-in chart generation"

<http://www.selenic.com/smem/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's a python script to do much the same thing:

<http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/ps_mem.py>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is great. One of the reasons I've always liked Phusion Passenger is because of its toolchain. They use a similar method (inspecting smaps) to report Private Dirty RSS for Apache processes and Passenger processes:

[https://github.com/FooBarWidget/passenger/blob/master/bin/pa...](https://github.com/FooBarWidget/passenger/blob/master/bin/passenger- memory-stats)

The Passenger utility is difficult to extracate from their package though, because it has several separate class dependencies. It's good software writing technique for a library, but it doesn't make it terribly useful for a shell script.

</comment><comment><USER7> KDE's KSysGuard tries to do a detailed calculation much like this if you ask for it (right-click on a process in ksysguard's process list and click "Detailed Memory Status", IIRC). This process list can be pulled directly from KRunner (Alt-F2) as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Dianne Hackborn actually has a pretty good description of process memory usage (particularly about Android, but it applies to Linux in general): [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2298208/how-to- discover-m...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2298208/how-to-discover- memory-usage-of-my-application-in-android)</comment>


7 Quick and Easy VBA Macros & Tips for Excel - <AUTHOR> http://www.setfiremedia.com/blog/7-quick-easy-vba-macros-tips-for-excel

<comment><USER2> "Dim inty1,inty2,inty3 as Integer"

This will define only inty3 as integer. The other 2 variables will be variants.</comment>


Polynesians, Native Americans made contact before European arrival - <AUTHOR> https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/07/polynesians-and-native-americans-made-early-contact.html <comment><AUTHOR> Polynesians, Native Americans made contact before European arrival... genetic study finds

Had to cut off the last few words</comment>


Getting Started with Modern Web Development - <AUTHOR> http://modernweb.com/2014/07/16/getting-started-modern-web-development/

<comment><USER2> It seems like there is a good amount of posts hitting the front page lately that are simply collections of tutorials, libraries, or other references without much substance.

I'd love to read about some in-depth experiences with said tutorials and libraries, why some options might be better than others, or the tradeoffs made amongst them.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site has consisted of straight-forward tutorials to date. That will slowly evolve and change over time.

Thanks for the suggestions!

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't it have been better to not post it until you had more to offer?

<comment><AUTHOR> The site has been up for a year and a half. It used to be called "Flippin' Awesome" so we are just keeping pace with the current editorial pattern.

We'll be re-launching soon and you'll see a more marked change then.

<comment><USER3> is that a yes?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a "no" because it's important to keep up with the current reader base and slowly change it over time, rather then make a massive change at once.

We chose to iterate slowly instead of a "bet the farm" launch. Agile vs. Waterfall.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Is The Chart That Should Have Apple A Little Bit Worried  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.in/This-Is-The-Chart-That-Should-Have-Apple-A-Little-Bit-Worried/articleshow/25844861.cms

<comment><USER2> > _Well, the reason smart phone market share matters is that in technology, > profits tend to accrue over time to the dominant platform. What happens is > one platform becomes the standard, and developers focus their attention on > that platform. As they focus on that platform, they abandon the other > platform, and it becomes a second tier player. When that happens, consumers > become less interested._

How exactly did that work out with Wintel vs Mac profits, 30 years down the line?

Oh, right, Apple makes as much profit from desktop/laptop sales as the 3 biggest Wintel vendors combined...</comment>


NASA creates alien's eye view of solar system - <AUTHOR> http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2010/09/aliens-eye-view-of-solar-system.html

<comment><USER2> Nice video and really like the closed captioning! I was able to get the gist of it with the volume turned all the way down as I usually watch videos when the kids are watching T.V.

</comment><comment><USER3> So if I understand this correctly, it all boils down to how far the aliens are? If they're too far, there is no way to discern that there are planets around here, but if they're close enough they can detect the presence of a large source of gravity that would potentially intrigue them enough to make a closer look?

Or more to the point, it means our chances of discovering inhabitable exoplanets are next to zero despite there being a near infinite number of such, simply because even when we do discover them, what we really discovered is a planet from thousands or even millions of years ago. Useful!

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that was the conclusion at all.

They modeled the dust particles in the solar system at various stages of the solar system's development. They saw that today, Neptune's gravitational pull creates a noticeable footprint in the Kuiper belt (a massive body of dust and rocks forming a ring outside the orbit of Neptune). When looking at other star systems they could potentially see similar footprints, which would imply the presence of Neptune-sized planets.

They also saw that when modelling the young solar system, the result looked very similar to the Fomalhaut system. This system is known to be young and also known to have at least one large planet. So from that the technique could also be used to identify young star systems that may contain planets.</comment></comment>


Can SpaceX really land on Mars? Absolutely, says an engineer who would know - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/spacex-has-already-demonstrated-its-key-mars-landing-tech-with-the-falcon-9/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty amazing, and it is something which I've come to expect from SpaceX, which is to use every flight to provide engineering value to SpaceX in addition to delivering the customer's payload to space.

I'm wondering if they store 2 tons of hydrazine in the Red Dragon's cargo module or if its in the capsule.</comment>


Why pirating music is old school - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuxx-home.at/archives/2009/12/29/T10_37_21/

<comment><USER2> anyone else have a what.cd account?

this is what I see when I search for an album: <http://d.pr/OFXu>

you get pretty much any format/bitrate of any song/album you can imagine, most are almost always well seeded.

<comment><USER3> seems interesting, do you have any invite ?

<comment><USER4> Giving invites to people you don't know is a bad idea, as you're responsible for them.

They have an irc channel for applications; take a look at <http://whatinterviewprep.webs.com/> .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I agree that "legal" music downloads are really cheap these days, most of his criticism is just not true if you actually know what you're doing...

"scene releases" have a fixed quality scheme (encoding, ID3, ...) and the proper torrent community orftp/usenet server will max out your home connection easily.

That being said, if you actually have a regular income, music should not be that big of a problem to buy...

</comment><comment><USER6> 1.open new tab in google chrome

2\. type demonoid hit tab, type the band name followed by discography

3\. hit download button.

everything else happens automatically. torrent file gets automatically added to Transmission, and when done, the music gets moved into the "Automatically add files to iTunes Folder" and iTunes takes it from there.

But don't steal music. Its wrong.

</comment><comment><USER7> This person has obviously not tried the better specialized torrent sites like what.cd. When browsing through the Queen discography at what the other day I realized it is far better then what iTunes offers me. Releases sorted by catalog number, 24/96 lossless FLAC vinyl rips, you name it. Run the files through MP3Tag with the Discogs "plugin" installed and you've got flawless metadata in seconds.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting that after all of the people in the pirate community screaming that the cost of songs are "too high" and the quality isn't "good enough" and music has too many "draconian" protection schemes like DRM that piracy is bigger than ever, even when they can get everything they wanted.

Why can't people just admit that they pirate because they just want free stuff?

<comment><USER7> It might be that some people are screaming that, but I'm not. I'm saying, if you are interested in a multitude of releases for each album to chose from and the technical aspects of digital audio you might be more pleased visiting a private torrent site. They are impressive pieces of collaborative work. I do not judge people buying music from iTunes, nor do I judge people that "pirate" music. Each to his/her own.

<comment><USER8> "They are impressive pieces of collaborative work. I do not judge people buying music from iTunes, nor do I judge people that "pirate" music. Each to his/her own."

I do. Because the people pirating music have pretty much destroyed the music industry. The same is happening to any industry that can be digitized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there is a real opportunity for Apple to identify when people have loaded in pirated music to iTunes and try and sell them the legal equivalent.

</comment><comment><USER10> Who pays you to spend hours cleaning up downloads?

<comment><USER11> _Comparing my usual hourly rates against the price of all 5 albums on the iTunes store, I actually won money by purchasing them there,_

He didn't win (earn) any money. Unless he cancelled a billable hour with a customer, he didn't save any money either. He saved time.

<comment><USER12> In roundabout language he's talking about saving the opportunity cost of doing it manually.

<comment><USER13> I thought that was the original commenter's point - that opportunity cost is a theoretical maximum that is rarely worth anywhere near as much...

<comment><USER14> Depends on what the alternative activity is.

Put it this way: he could waste the time fiddling with audio files, or he could be having sex. Which is a better use of time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> But how can he buy the music for his wife? iTunes music is still DRMed (owner encoded in the files).

Also 2 hours is way overblown.

</comment><comment><USER16> And the moral of the story is... outsource! :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> Spot on. This can't be repeated enough: it's not about saving a few bucks, it's about getting your goods _in spotless quality, instantly, without hassle_. People want ease; instant ease; not a labyrinthal click-fest. Even if you are a seasoned P2Per who does not need many minutes to locate at least one available source of the album in question, it usually takes a while to find a proper AAC or FLAC rip (contra usual MP3 slush), and unless you're into vacuous pop music you're almost always faced with anything but snappy download speeds.

$0.99 for a pristine 256kbps AAC track, with no waiting, is a good deal. The iTunes Store isn't a money-making behemoth for no reason.

<comment><USER18> Unless you live in another country (say a backwater like Sweden).

Then you are told by iTunes: "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish store"

<comment><USER19> You can then turn to Spotify, which was actually founded in Sweden ;)

I don't use iTunes and thus can't compare their respective librairies, but I know first hand that even in more remote corners of the musical world (think obscure recording of a jazz reprise of Bach), Spotify almost always delivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I get my music the old fashioned way, I record it off the radio. (via internet)</comment>


No regrets for Harvard student who lost Facebook internship for exposing flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2015/no-regrets-for-harvard-student-who-lost-facebook-internship-after-exposing-privacy-flaw/

<comment><USER2> A person who acts to the detriment of their employer should have regrets. Good news, you got some momentary fame. Bad news, you've told future employers that your interests aren't aligned with theirs and you don't care if they get hurt.

<comment><USER3> That's a rather unfortunate interpretation to take, from the way I look at things. Although one could disagree about the nature of his disclosure, which would be a fair argument, to bucket that under "acting to the detriment of your employer" as the transgression seems shortsighted. This would place nearly all whistleblowers under this same category, and I'd certainly hope if you have some evidence of malfeasance (or negligence, as it could relate to a vulnerability), you would not hesitate to go public with it after appropriate due diligence exploring more controlled avenues of release.</comment></comment>


Moore's Curse: There is a dark side to the revolution in electronics - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/moores-curse

<comment><USER2> A very good point! "But the doubling time for transistor density is no guide to technical progress generally. " I would claim increased CPU power has been detrimental to technical quality for some existing products. New features could be added without detailed understanding - "it's only a few percent slower than before" \- but with increased processor speeds the code gets worse and worse as performance drops are not a business problem since increasing CPU speeds will take care of them. Until, of course also other problems start to arise due to shoddy work. And then suddenly the free lunch is over, multithreading is required amd at which point the maintainers enter a mutex hell. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". Increased processor speeds can either be combined with better algorithms to create magic... or just hide slapdash hacktastic patchwork.</comment>


Chrome's Built-In Ad Blocker Will Start Blocking Ads on February 15, 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/chromes-built-in-ad-blocker-will-start-blocking-ads-on-february-15-2018/ <comment><USER2> Block all ads, except Google? :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, they plan to certify publishers and adtech companies. "Certified Better Ads" ftfs.</comment></comment>


Delta Debuts World's Largest Jet Engine Test Room - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/delta-air-lines-worlds-largest-jet-engine-test-cell/index.html <comment><USER2> If you're into this kind of thing, do a YouTube search for 'hush house' and enjoy.

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hush+house](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hush+house)

Edit: For an up close and personal view of afterburner tests, as well as a comprehensive view into the inner workings of turbojets, turbofans and industrial turbines, it's hard to top AgentJayZ's channel from the frozen tundra of Fort St. John - [https://www.youtube.com/user/AgentJayZ](https://www.youtube.com/user/AgentJayZ)

<comment><USER3> Agreed 100% on AgentJayZ

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So a question to the more math savvy of readers, how much air is the engines in the video moving? I did not find mention of it but I wonder what temperature and humidity levels they use.

<comment><USER2> You're looking for the 'air mass flow' specification. For the Trent XWB in the article it's just shy of 1500kg/sec.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls- Royce_Trent_XWB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Trent_XWB)

Keep in mind that the bulk of that mass does _not_ go through the turbine engine itself (aka the core), it's moved by the large fan that's visible at the front of the cowling. The ratio of that vs what goes through the core to support combustion is called the bypass ratio...which will vary somewhat widely based on application. Lots of great info in the Wikipedia article.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The only interesting bit to me was the Delta exec specifically mentioning right near the end of the article that they designed the facility with SSTs in mind.

<comment><USER6> If commercial flights are carrying passengers at supersonic speeds in the next two decades, I'll be very surprised.

<comment><USER7> For business/first class routes, I don't see why not.

The Concorde couldn't keep up economically, but it's also a 40 year old design.

BA 001 is a great example of this concept. It's a flight designed entirely to save business travelers from going to Heathrow. London City to JFK with a fuel stop and pre-clearance in Ireland. Business class only.

<comment><USER8> Do you have to de-plane during the fuel stop to do the pre-clearance? Or do they do that right on the tarmac?

<comment><USER7> Judging by the articles I've read on it it seems like they do de-plane briefly, it's just described as a "stopover."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article seems to be describing a regular engine test stand, though one that is big and shiny and new. What's the big deal?

<comment><USER9> Something I think was left unsaid here is that airlines are starting to take over more of their own engine maintenance to reduce costs. The engine makers have secured huge margins with their maintenance contracts for years and the airlines are looking to bring this in-house.

<comment><USER3> This is not the case with Delta. Delta techops is one of the world's largest airplane repair organizations

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I got to watch a jet engine test in a different Delta facility at ATL airport. It was breathtaking. There is a big turbofan with an inlet taller than a person in the adjacent room, and you're separated by just some (I'm sure very strong) glass. You get this visceral feeling of immense power.

</comment><comment><USER11> Blast Basket is a good name for a band.

<comment><USER2> Or my toilet

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow. Standing a dozen feet from a running engine. Only thousands of people do that every hour. Them with only a few mm of aluminum between. Of course they are mostly sitting.

There are plenty of these facilities. Big isnt always better. They are generally kept as small as practical.

<comment><USER13> Yes those people are sitting next to (generally) well-maintained engines that aren't run right up to the point of failure.</comment></comment>


To generalise or specialise? - <AUTHOR> http://plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr08/generalists/index.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting study that leads to a mundane/obvious conclusion. In the final paragraph it says:

       These results go against some long held beliefs [...]
       that societies require specialisation to be productive
       and efficient. However, D'Orazio thinks that, at least
       for biological purposes, the new model will set a
       standard for future work.

In the cookie shop example -- wouldn't you say that an employee who can both make and sell cookies is still very specialized? Two specializations perhaps, but specialized nonetheless. Even if you don't take the second order benefits (that having several specializations leads to better insight/productivity in both tasks) into account any model that claims that specializing in one single thing is the optimal division of labor is clearly wrong.

In math-speak: the commonly held belief is that for any society without division of labor you can get to a better/more productive society by introducing some version of division of labor. The belief was never that for any society you can get a more productive society by increasing the division of labor. (Obviously false because specialization itself bears a cost [education, etc] and the marginal benefit of additional specialization decreases the more specialized somebody is, therefore there must be a point where additional specialization is actually harmful instead of beneficial. This contradicts the claim that specialization is unconditionally good.)

Mathematical model: nice.

New or counter intuitive results: not as far as I can tell.</comment>


Mystery of Antarctica's Blood Falls Is Finally Solved - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/04/28/mystery-of-antarcticas-blood-falls-is-finally-solved/#347c454c2ef8 <comment><USER2> That page delivered so many javaturds that it was impossible to read the content without the javashit.</comment>


Back online after a year without the internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/1/4279674/im-still-here-back-online-after-a-year-without-the-internet

<comment><USER2> This article is severely flawed.

1\. He's confounding "The Internet" with electronics in general. He mentions how most days he spent time listening to an e-book or playing video games. The problem is lack of human connection, emotion, and socializing, the internet is just one piece of that puzzle. Playing video games for 2 hours straight is just as bad as surfing reddit for 2 hours.

2\. He's clearly an introvert, and his natural tendency is to avoid human interaction and involve himself in solitary pursuits. Introverts aren't always happy about their lack of human interaction, but it's their natural state. The internet is just an enabler of his aloneness, much as videogames, or e-books, or even regular books are.

3\. He talks about losing track of friends. He is the only one culpable for that, nobody else. When we have facebook, it enables us to passively keep up with friends, but in a superficial way. To maintain a real friendship, we must still be active, with our without tools like facebook.

4\. He complains that traditional communication is just as time consuming as things like email. However, he's receiving snail mail in excessive quantities because he's a writer, which is not indicative of the average person. Hes not charging his phone, which is his fault. And the fact that he's afraid to call anyone is, again, a symptom of him being an introvert. Email, texting, and commenting ARE excessively time consuming.

The problem is not the internet, the problem is the fact that we all waste ALOT of time spewing content, forming superficial relationships, and encouraging superficial online communication.

The solutions are things like time management. Attitude. Action. The internet, and technology by extension, enables wonderful things, but it also enables the worst of us. It's up to the individual to make the best of it.

<comment><USER3> I think his final conclusion of "the problem isn't the internet, it's myself" is a clear indication that he realizes those things.</comment></comment>


The Uncatchable - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8700/index.html <comment><USER2> 15 comments and no ones bothered to say anything about the content of the article. So let me be the first to say that I love this guy! He's what the public wanted Dillenger and Jesse James to be. He hasn't killed anyone in all these years and literally steals from the rich and gives to the poor. A+

<comment><USER3> Being from Greece, with roots in Kalambaka, which is where Palaiokostas still probably lives, the money he gives to the poor is an insurance policy and makes a nice story, but it is totally immaterial compared to what he stole from the rich. Also, he himself has not killed as far as we know, but his "associates" were quite ruthless, especially Rizai who was convicted for paid executions.

<comment><USER4> Don't forget that he even further destabilizes the economy and costs the people a lot of money through policing, federal insurance of banks (or whatever system Greece uses), etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Websites are coming closer and closer to the parodies from sci-fi movies. They're not the equivalent of a newspaper anymore, they're closer to a through the door leaflet.

Some websites used to have a link to a printable version, can we now have a link to a human readable version, please?

</comment><comment><USER6> I fail to see anything heroic or noble about stealing, no matter what reason and from whom. Anyone who had anything stolen from them will understand that it produces a huge feeling of insecurity in your own home(or about being in your own town), no matter how small or cheap the stolen thing was. Yeah, great that he hasn't harmed anyone while stealing - I still have absolutely no respect for what he was doing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love this design! It pops.

Not sure what folks are having an issue with regarding scrolling. Works fine on Chrome, UBuntu + XMonad

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, again a page that messes with the scrolling experience? What's up with that? Terrible user experience.

<comment><USER9> What enviroment are you on?

<comment><USER10> From my experience, if someone is complaining about scrolling then they're on OSX with inertial scrolling. It really is a pain when websites take control of the scroll positions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's with the negative comments about the scrolling? It works fine either drag-mousewheel scrolling, flicking the mouse wheel, dragging the scroll bar on the right, or using a trackpad.

The main content, the text, scrolls as normal thoughout, using any preferred method.

<comment><USER12> No issues on firefox running on xubuntu.

Firefox V. 26.0

Ubuntu 13.04

It was actually very pleasurable as the pictures on the sides would change and the occasional full screen pictures. It's a shame it's such a pain to develop cross browser cross platform modern websites. This one was done well where it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> presented by the Unscrollable

<comment><USER14> I might be alone in this but I found it easy to navigate. I'm on a laptop but I expect this would be really nice on a tablet.

<comment><USER15> Not sure what people are talking about, really, the scrolling is basically unchanged. The native scroll bar exists and is 100% functional. Page- up/down/space just works, seemingly without involving Javascript or anything, and with no delay.

I could select and copy paste the entire text! How refreshing.

The top navigation bar is unobtrusive, functional, and the links are actual anchors, no javascript involved and ready for sharing. In fact, the whole page renders fine (with very minor feature downgrading) with Javascript disabled.

And it looks fantastic on both a 24" desktop screen (Chrome and Firefox) and on a 4" mobile screen, with a typically less-optimised-for browser (Mobile Firefox) to boot. I'm enjoying the high-res, screen filling photos.

Printing doesn't work well, but I think we've all moved on (and like I said, copy paste does work). I can't say for sure how accessible it is, one would think the BBC has some sensitivity for that issue.

Honestly, I think it's fantastic. On the other hand, it looks so polished I haven't even started reading it.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft 'to close Skype's UK office' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/17/microsoft-to-close-skypes-uk-office <comment><USER2> I read a comment on FT that quoted an employee saying every original Skype manager was eventually replaced "by a Microsoft manager. The original Skype managers either were replaced or left."

I learned from a previous large Microsoft write-down that Microsoft has a highly disciplined work culture. It allows them to execute a task well. They often take that work culture and put it over the acquired company's head. This new form of discipline breaks the acquired company.

Well, once Skype was bought, I expected a write down. But Balmer initially took a more sensitive approach.

But after reading this comment, I am afraid that is not true.

Discipline breaks creativity. And innovation happens from creative cultures. Probably the best approach for a disciplined company to acquire is to bring the technology of the acquired and integrate it into the rest of the organization.

Maybe the same happened here. And the consumer version of the product fizzled.</comment>


Baltimore city government computer network hit by ransomware attack - <AUTHOR> https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-ci-it-outage-20190507-story.html <comment><USER2> I feel like I'm being small-minded, but I legitimately don't understand why ransomware continues to be so damaging. Do these organizations not have backup systems in place? Would would happen if their hard drives failed, as is completely normal?

<comment><USER3> The Baltimore Sun doesn't like Germany, but an Ars Technica article quotes the mayor:

> In his press conference, Baltimore's new mayor, Bernard "Jack" Young, said > it was uncertain how long the city's systems would be offline. "There is a > backup system with the IT department," he said, "but we can't just go and > restore because we don't know how far back the virus goes. So I don't want > people to think that Baltimore doesn't have a backup."

0) [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2019/05/balti...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2019/05/baltimore-city-government-hit-by-robbinhood-ransomware/)

Edit: What I meant:

> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European > countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options > that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We > continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all > readers with our award-winning journalism.

<comment><USER4> Apparently, they use psexec to remotely execute programs: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/downloads/psex...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/downloads/psexec)

"Utilities like Telnet and remote control programs like Symantec's PC Anywhere let you execute programs on remote systems, but they can be a pain to set up and require that you install client software [%] on the remote systems that you wish to access. PsExec is a light-weight telnet-replacement that lets you execute processes on other systems, complete with full interactivity for console applications, without having to manually install client software [%]."

[%] They probably mean server software.

So, where is the server software itself documented? Is it started by default on each system? It seems to be some kind of poor man's version of SSH ...

<comment><USER5> The link you posted leads to a more detailed article by the developer, where he mentions some internals:

> PsExec starts an executable on a remote system and controls the input and > output streams of the executable's process so that you can interact with the > executable from the local system. PsExec does so by extracting from its > executable image an embedded Windows service named Psexesvc and copying it > to the Admin$ share of the remote system. PsExec then uses the Windows > Service Control Manager API, which has a remote interface, to start the > Psexesvc service on the remote system.

> The Psexesvc service creates a named pipe, psexecsvc, to which PsExec > connects and sends commands that tell the service on the remote system which > executable to launch and which options you've specified. If you specify the > -d (don't wait) switch, the service exits after starting the executable; > otherwise, the service waits for the executable to terminate, then sends the > exit code back to PsExec for it to print on the local console.

<comment><USER6> PsExec will also most likely freak out your security operations team if it's not part of your expected workflow (well, and if you have a decent SIEM, and it's actually monitored...)

<comment><USER7> What stuck out to me was the part that said, "A similar attack affected the city's phone system last year, shutting down automated dispatches for 911 and 311 calls." Clearly what they had didn't catch it (twice) and that's a problem with SIEMs - usually not configured correctly or to log the right things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many copies of Healthy Holly do they want?

<comment><USER9> I really enjoyed this one: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/05/critical-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/05/critical- carlos-reads-healthy-holly/?utm_term=.d44626f7cb8d)

Lost it at "Remember kids, it's important to exercise... your right to take the 5th"</comment></comment>


Google's Chrome Hackers Are About to Upend Your Idea of Web Security - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/11/googles-chrome-hackers-flip-webs-security-model/ <comment><USER2> Hell, why not just put "NOT SECURE" on everything? Then people will just be extra careful all the time!!</comment>


2-Party System? Americans Might Be Ready for 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559774933/2-party-system-americans-might-be-ready-for-8 <comment><USER2> I took the quiz [0], and got 'Opportunity Democrat'. If I'm reading the results-by-question correctly, 99% of Opportunity Democrats aver that:

 _Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents_

I think I know why I believe that too... my parents were immigrants. I've managed dozens of developers and all my best employees were first-generation immigrants. I hope it isn't just my opinion - I hope I'm right... and I hope more US citizens get an opportunity to work alongside smart hardworking immigrants like my mom in the future.

[0]: [http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political- typology/?utm_sou...](http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political- typology/?utm_source=AdaptiveMailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=17-10-24%20Typology&org=982&lvl=100&ite=1874&lea=398369&ctr=0&par=1&trk=)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ideologically, maybe. But our first-past-the-post districted electoral system naturally reinforces a two-party status quo. That changes only temporarily, during major realignments, when one or both of the two dominant parties split and then re-merge.

<comment><USER4> I think this is an indication that a major realignment is in progress.

<comment><USER3> I'm not convinced of that. Both parties have comprised coalitions of groups with different principles and priorities for at least the past several decades, and probably since before we gained independence. Realignments happen when those priorities shift.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but the evidence I see is that priorities are shifting. Midwestern unions and Appalachian coal miners voted Republican this election for the first time since the New Deal. Wall Street broke solidly Democratic. Mormons went Independent. These are all very atypical voting patterns under the previous party system, and indicate a substantial realignment in the major parties.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'No layoffs … this week': Marissa Mayer's creepy comment kills morale - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ <comment><USER2> Maybe she should read her employees another children's book to boost morale. [http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-yahoo- nicholas-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-yahoo-nicholas- carlson-book-excerpt-2014-12)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have the feeling, Yahoo should just be split up. They are beating a dead horse. Maybe a few parts of it could survive on their own.</comment>


What ceiling? - <AUTHOR> http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=13004

<comment><USER2> they can't not hire you if you hire yourself</comment>