Microsoft's eBook Apocalypse Shows the Dark Side of DRM - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ebook-apocalypse-drm/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: (434 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331)

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't make sense to me that eBook retailers can claim they're selling licences to view books, instead of the books themselves. If I were to look for 1984 for a kindle, I'd:

1\. Search Amazon for "1984 George Orwell" 2\. Select the first option (paperback) 3\. See the "Format" selector 4\. Select the kindle edition 5\. Click "Buy with one-click"

Notably, between 4 and 5, reading the entire page gives no indication that the kindle format is fundamentally different from the paperback in regards to who actually owns the copy after purchase.

There may be a notice buried in a EULA that you agree to when setting the device up, but it may be hard to argue that it means they can tell you at the time of purchase they're selling you a book while actually selling you a licence.

<comment><USER4> Did you pick 1984 because ironically it was once wiped from all kindles?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18am...](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html)

<comment><USER5> I'd like to be devil's advocate here - in case of Orwell books, given that publisher had no rights for them, the situation is similar to the selling of stolen goods.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but if the local grocer realizes he sold me stolen eggs, he doesn't get to send his henchmen to my house in the middle of the night to steal them back.

The amazon/Orwell fiasco was the moment I decided to never buy a kindle and steer clear of anything with drm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. How much cost is really involved in keeping up the DRM server in maintenance mode on Azure?

2\. Maybe this will give the EFF enough case study to argue (successfully, finally) that the DMCA allows corporations to create rules that violate other existing laws such as the right of first sale.

<comment><USER7> The right sale doctrine doesn't apply to products like these; these are licenses to use. If they were first sale doctrine products, you could sell your goods on secondary markets, which you cannot.

<comment><USER8> So does the first sale doctrine not have any teeth at all? What is to stop companies from throwing a license on everything they sell, making the first sale doctrine meaningless?

Could a bookseller add a license to a physical book, and suddenly you can't sell it or lend it out?

<comment><USER9> > _" Could a bookseller add a license to a physical book, and suddenly you > can't sell it or lend it out? "_

Probably. I mean, they're already selling physical items laden with DRM (DVD/bluray), presumably in those cases they are selling you _" a license to watch the disk."_ The ability to restrict first sale of DRM'd movies is probably on their TODO list I'd wager, or their list of greatest regrets.

Incidentally, years ago, they did manage to invent a self-destructing DVD obsensibly for rental-without-return purposes. _Technology Connections_ has a good video about it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccneE_gkSAs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccneE_gkSAs)

<comment><USER10> The actual answer appears to be that you can sell _add-on_ digital content which is licensed only for sale with the physical item, and that's OK. But you cannot add license terms to the physical book itself, the book can be resold freely. That's recently been affirmed by the Supreme Court.

<comment><USER9> Hypothetically if they had the technology to create a paperback book that self-destructs when anybody but you opens it, would that business model be illegal? As far as I know, SCOTUS said companies can't use the legal system to prevent resale of their books. But did they say that technical solutions are also banned?

<comment><USER10> If you buy a product which is designed for a single use, knowing that it's a single use product, and obviously this is something that would have to fail gracefully and safely, I really don't see a problem with that.

Obviously companies (and therefore customers) should be paying for the ecological impact of their waste product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Microsoft will refund customers in full for what they paid, plus an extra > $25 if they made annotations or mark-ups.

Doesn't seem all that nefarious. Get your money back, order the paperbacks. No DRM issues again.

<comment><USER12> It's more a trust issue in a technology. Pirated ebooks don't have DRM and never expire, can be opened on any device and you keep the money anyway.

<comment><USER13> Or never buy DRM books to start with.

I own a Kindle, however I only buy ebooks from stores that offer epub and PDF as well. At max with watermarks.

<comment><USER14> Any recommendations for such stores?

I know of [https://www.downpour.com](https://www.downpour.com) for audio books and I get all my audio books from them since they are DRM-free.

Would love to know of such a service for ebooks, but for fiction.

<comment><USER15> It's not the same as buying DRM free, but stripping DRM from most eBook formats is pretty trivial these days, afaik. Unless something has changed in the last few years since I last bought a kindle edition of a book (which I stripped of DRM so something like this couldn't happen).

<comment><USER16> It's not trivial for Kindle anymore. I did it recently on a Mac, and it took a fair bit of work, was complicated and confusing, and required finding an old version of the Kindle reader program and somehow preventing it from checking in with Amazon's servers. My brother in law recently tried and failed after having done it in the past.

<comment><USER9> It's still trivial AFAIK (I last did it one or two years ago) if you have an old kindle device, and can therefore convince Amazon to send you the poorly encrypted files meant for old kindles. I use a "Kindle Keyboard" e.g. the 3rd gen. Amazon has stopped selling new-old-stock, but it seems you can still find them on ebay for somewhere between $20-50.

Incidentally this model of Kindle also comes with text-to-speach, which is a really nice feature which I believe is missing from all newer models (removed to avoid cannibalizing audio book sales.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the real issue here is an improper definition of the word "buy" from a truth in advertising perspective. I think if a company says you are "buying" a digital good, then that good than access to that good should be required to be perpetual, irrevocable, available offline, and enable the user to back up to their choice of media.

This doesn't preclude the use of DRM in its entirety but is very close to the experience of buying and owning physical media, which I think meets the common perception of what "buying" means. For companies wanting to use the current DRM paradigm, they should be required to use an alternate, accurate term such as "license."

Of course this is becoming increasingly academic with the rise of subscription services, where I think all parties are aware that content is impermanent and the relationship is defined month to month.

</comment><comment><USER18> This isn't the first time for MS, and certainly not the first time the dark side of DRM has shown itself.

MSN music: [https://www.cnet.com/news/defunct-msn-music-has-a-drm- contro...](https://www.cnet.com/news/defunct-msn-music-has-a-drm-controversy- on-its-hands/)

Zune's servers shut down in 2017, but at least you could download free MP3 versions of everything. [https://www.thurrott.com/music-videos/groove- music/82201/buy...](https://www.thurrott.com/music-videos/groove- music/82201/buy-music-zune-2012-please-read)

<comment><USER19> Seems like that they in a typical Microsoft style tried to link one product to another. I can imagine that the boss of the Edge browser argued to make their bookstore Edge-only, to promote the browser that way. And that move effectively doomed the bookstore.

Its like you go to Microsoft site to search for a registry problem, and the support person tells you to use Cortana to search. Because obviously his job is not to solve your registry problem, it is to promote Cortana for Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not the dark side, it's the designed in primary side.

The ability to view drm'd content is almost just an optional side benefit.

I still think legislation should require any product sold with a buy/purchase button should be required to continue functioning even if the "product" is shut down.

<comment><USER4> That's what's so infuriating about DRM. Lawyers may argue that we clicked OK to some fine print somewhere, but the product is advertised as something you buy, not something you lease. That's why I feel like the right of first sale should be legally protected.

<comment><USER20> Wait you don't read a hundred pages of small legalese before you spend $1 on a song? Are you crazy? Who would ever skip reading such a document?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's why is started decrypting and making backups of my ebooks.

Happy to play the corporate's game but only to a point. And it's clear that one need a plan B cause corporates will go nuclear without hesitation. So I don't feel bad at all about bending the rules on this

<comment><USER22> Same here. Most of my ebooks are bought DRM-free. But some times I want a book from a publisher that does not do DRM-free publishing. And EVERY TIME, it's a hassle : I have to link my e-reader to a specific website account. This account itself has to be linked to my email address, since there is no way to register anywhere without email nowadays...

Anyway, that makes me REALLY annoyed, so I break the DRM protection every time, just to avoid another hassle next time I reset my ereader, my Calibre library, or any other event.

Granted that does not happen very often, but I'll do anything to avoid yet another 2FA voodoo ritual across multiple online platforms just to claim ownership on a 100 pages book. I mean, come on !

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The planet is on fire because we consume to much stuff. We should have the right to repair things we own. Corporate lobbying is not in the general democratic interest of the people and should be forbidden.

</comment><comment><USER24> I mean, honestly this was clear from the moment online stores with DRM'd media started appearing. If it's not stored on your own device in a DRM free format, it can disappear at any time.

It's less 'the dark side of DRM', and more simply that DRM requires actively maintained infrastructure. When the business case isn't there to pay for that anymore (or the company goes bust), then what else can one expect?

<comment><USER4> Engineering has the concept of "fail safe". It literally means that the failure mode is a safe mode. If the dns of the DRM server can no longer be reached, a fail safe would allow the book to continue to be read.

<comment><USER25> Wouldn't it be easy to fool such a check?

<comment><USER26> Most DRM is trivially easy to fool: Just pirate. When you circumvent DRM, you are pirating, except you paid for the privilege. You probably also have a bigger risk of being caught, as you still run the DRM software.

<comment><USER27> well, you're still supporting the people behind the works, which - believe it or not - i like to do.

and also, while the iso/tv/movie scene has strict quality rules, the ebook "scene" seems more ad-hoc. pirated ebooks are sometimes OCR scans with tonnes of spelling mistakes or weird formatting, or ancient editions.

in short, de-DRM can still be preferable.

<comment><USER4> Also, there are other ways to implement copy protection. Eg Apple moved from DRM to fingerprinting downloads so torrented music could be traced to the leaker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > _And because of digital rights management—the mechanism by which platforms > retain control over the digital goods they sell—you have no recourse_

I feel this is actually the relevant point - and just a sign of the things to come.

What's done with systems like DRM - but what is also directly integrated into many new products - is the ability of a producer to essentially keep full control over a product _throughtout its whole lifetime_ \- in particular, even after it was sold.

You can see this trend in a lot of different areas: IoT, connected cars, game consoles and games that must always have an internet connection, subscription- only software, etc.

I believe, consumer protections are not even remotely compared to this kind of model.

</comment><comment><USER29> There is a non-dark side to DRM? Seriously, it just makes everything worse out of a misguided sense of greed and scarcity while not stopping piracy.

The whole concept of DRM is certifiable. Asking to have something accessible yet not accessible to the end client at the exact same time.

When it can be bypassed by capturing the output channel anyway on top of that.

</comment><comment><USER30> When my grandfather died he left behind a huge library of books. Many were junk, some were gold. I have a bunch of ebooks, I guess no one will ever see them again.

<comment><USER31> Sounds like we need to go back to the deposit libraries that were part of copyright in the early days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> When the article mentioned Walmart's 2008 "MP3 Store" shutdown I thought the author was about to relate it to the eBook store closure via the fact that they were both Microsoft DRM systems under the hood, but the author was only comparing them ideologically. I wonder if he knew that the Walmart "MP3 store" was actually a "PlaysForSure WMA store" originally and that the Microsoft PlaysForSure shutdown is the reason for the cited 2008 shut down.

From [https://help.walmart.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63/~/music-...](https://help.walmart.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63/~/music- downloads) : "If you downloaded music from Walmart before February 2008, some of your music files may be in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format."

Walmart shifted to selling 256k non-DRM MP3s after that, and then that store was _also_ killed in 2011: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2011/08/walma...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2011/08/walmart-pulling-the-plug-on-its-mp3-store-but-not-its-drm- servers/)

I also can't think of the Walmart music store without thinking of this dramatic reading of a timeless 2004 (!) rant about the usability of the Walmart store in non-Microsoft browsers/players. The SWF probably won't play for most of you, but the original post is screenshotted below it: [https://www.somethingawful.com/flash-tub/letter-from- interne...](https://www.somethingawful.com/flash-tub/letter-from-internet/)

</comment><comment><USER33> There are de-DRM tools for the Kindle; I bought almost no Kindle books prior to finding them. Now I'm willing to buy some because it's relatively easy to remove the DRM.

</comment><comment><USER14> For audio books I buy only from Downpour.com because they are DRM-free.

Any recommendations for a site selling DRM-FREE ebooks for fiction?

<comment><USER34> Fiction? What's wrong with just perusing gutenberg.org for that. If you really care about _paying_ them for the e-books, they do take donations.

<comment><USER35> Some genres and themes have to be current to be enjoyable, and since the authors are living it's worth supporting them. So Gutenberg is awesome, but not sufficient for one's full literary diet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm genuinely curious - what is the "light" side of DRM?

<comment><USER25> I can pay $10 a month to listen to any song anywhere. I assume it would cost more if I could trivially download them and stop paying. For me that is something positive.

But I'm well aware in this case that I'm not purchasing any long term licenses.

<comment><USER31> I think you may have it backwards -- it was trivial to download and listen to music and movies (Napster, Popcorntime, etc.) -- which provided pressure to produce low cost, high availability media sources. People in general want to support artists/creators and be law-abiding. Once the media corps provided easy, reasonable cost, ways to get enough of the media then people shied away from the copyright infringement that had otherwise become the easiest way to consume such media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Don't buy DRMed goods. If you did for some reason, make sure to break DRM and back up what you bought.

And there should be a stronger push to repeal corrupt DMCA-1201 and the like.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Originally intended as an anti-piracy measure, DRM now functions mostly as a __way to lock customers into a given ecosystem, rather than reading or viewing or listening to their purchases wherever they want. __It's a cycle that has persisted for decades, and shows no signs of abating."

This is precisely why I use Calibre with KyBook 3. You can import ePub and pdf formats and no DRM of course.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is why people should be legally allowed to remove the DRM from the items they purchase.

I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to remove the DRM from the books I buy for my Kindle or the like. Assuming I don't share them with friends, family or strangers (which is a different issue), the authors, publishers, & copyright holders aren't losing sales.

</comment><comment><USER40> And this is why I only 'buy' eBooks if they're dirt cheap (<$5). Even then if I really enjoy them I'll buy a physical copy.

<comment><USER9> DRM on old model kindles is trivial to crack, the key is apparently derived from your kindle's serial number. For this reason, I transferred all of my kindle ebooks to my oldest kindle, and was then able to strip DRM from the entire library and convert to epub with Calibre+plugins.

I wager there will probably come a day when Amazon refuses to send newly purchased ebooks to old models of kindles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well, Dah...?

In discussions with friends I always say "Imagine all the old books would have been e-books, and all the old DRM servers are gone. Now what?"

I have never (and will never) owned an e-book, unless it is a free of DRM.

</comment><comment><USER42> If nothing else, at least this might get tech companies to pause and think before entering a market just because one of their competitors entered that market.

</comment><comment><USER43> Always crack drm and save ebooks as pdf

</comment><comment><USER44> Same happened with Zune to me, all the music turned useless at one point...

</comment><comment><USER45> The dark side of physical books: sometimes you buy a book and then you lose it.

<comment><USER46> Sometimes Barnes & Noble break and enter my house and take off with my bookshelves.

Oh wait, nevermind, that's never actually happened.

<comment><USER47> A better analogy: Barnes and Noble sets up a reading room down the street where you can pay a discounted amount to read books rather than buy them. One day you stop by and the place is boarded up, but the guy outside apologizes and explains that they had to close because it wasn't making enough money, then he gives you a full refund plus $25.

<comment><USER27> i don't think this holds. ebooks are often the same price as paperbacks, and you still have to buy them individually.

okay, they're refunding people, which is a decent enough move (still inconvenient though). presumably, they didn't do it out of the kindness of their own heart, but to avoid controversy/lawsuits, what with public opinion slowly swinging away from DRM and towards right to repair.

<comment><USER48> > ebooks are often the same price as paperbacks

Not really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Publishers need to ensure that selling a copy of a book to someone does not mean that 10,000 copies are downloaded for free because that book was uploaded to a free download site. That can't happen with physical books in the same way — yes, you can scan pages and upload a PDF of the page images, but it's often a much poorer reading experience (although there was a story here just last week about bad actors selling photocopy duplicates on Amazon).

 __This is a hard problem for publishers. __Some publishers have decided to sell ebooks without DRM — though the biggest example of this that I always pointed to for years and years, O 'Reilly, stopped selling ebooks directly in 2017.[1] (It appears from that article that DRM/piracy concerns were not primary for O'Reilly, but the unprofitability of their ebook store and the rising profitability of their subscription business.)

[1] [https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/why-oreilly- media-n...](https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/why-oreilly-media-no- longer-selling-books-online-607871)

Most publishers don't believe that it is in their best interest to sell DRM- free ebooks. (This includes all the publishers I have done business with, which is a fairly representative sample). It's not that they're trying to get rich, it's that they're trying to stay alive. Ebook sales have been declining or at best have stabilized. Physical bookstores are declining. Publishers have a fear-hate-dependency relationship with Amazon, so they would like to sell ebooks directly, but very few have achieved any profitability there, and they don't believe that selling digital files without some form of digital copy protection is going to lead to more sales.

I have not been arguing here for DRM, I am simply telling you the reality of the publishing business and how it is grappling with a very different distribution environment than what we had 20+ years ago before there was such a thing as ebooks.[2]

[2] I built my first commercially distributed ebooks in 2000 for the (old) Microsoft Reader, Palm, and Rocket Ebook platforms. I've been in the publishing industry since 1997.

Now I will argue for DRM — or at least, for finding a solution that works for everyone.

I would like to think that DRM-free ebook distribution would work for publishers, and I used to try to convince them that they should move in that direction, but two things dampened my idealism: (1) my aforementioned experience talking with western publishers about DRM-free distribution. (2) I started talking with publishers in developing-world cultures. Many of these publishers (especially in post-colonial contexts, where books were traditionally donated by ministries and thus were free) have a very hard time making ends meet, and they cannot envision getting their customers to pay for digital files that don't have some kind of protection. There is too much precedent in those places for both books and digital files to be free.

In short, very few publishers are going to embrace a solution that fails to protect their content. If you buy a copy, they need to be able to ensure that it remains a single copy.

But at the same time, few publishers think, "I love having my customers locked into Amazon's platform. It's so good for my business that Amazon owns my customers."

What we need is a system in which:

* publishers and distributors can sell ebooks to customers and ensure that those ebooks are protected as single copies

* customers can buy ebooks and ensure that they will always have access to those ebooks, on any platform that they own, no matter whose DRM servers go down (because no single entity owns the DRM / licensing platform)

* customers can loan / given their ebooks to others, either permanently or for a limited period of time

* bonus: publishers (and therefore authors!) get a royalty on the resale

* important: buyers' full purchase history is knowable only by the buyers themselves

I believe the technical infrastructure to make this sort of system possible are just now being put into place. And I believe that someone will succeed in designing, building, and selling it to the publishing industry in the next few years.

And yes, I'm looking forward to it: I would like to see the publishing industry much less dependent of a single all-powerful distributor, and more able to sell directly to their customers without intermediaries and without fear. And as a reader, I would like to be able to buy digital books (and movies, for that matter) and know that I will always have access to those copies, no matter what, without being dependent on a single distributor. Or resell them if I so choose.

[edited to reformat because hacker news doesn't speak Markdown]

</comment><comment><USER50> When you buy things with DRM you get what you pay for: nothing. I only "buy" drm'ed products that I know I can break the drm for like kindle books and even then I rarely buy them.</comment>


On Capitalism, Philanthropy and Fine Arts - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@traintohustle/on-capitalism-philanthropy-and-fine-arts-3fe9e025b789 <comment><AUTHOR> From listening to your emotions to serving other's desires, there is a huge spectrum of motivations behind someone's actions. Personalities play a huge role in shaping the world we live in.</comment>


Dollar a Day - <AUTHOR> https://dollaraday.co/ <comment><USER2> I was hoping this would be implemented as:

\- I sign up to donate at least a dollar a day.

\- There is a growing list of non-profits supported.

\- I get emails with newly added ones.

\- For each non-profit I get to choose to either:

a) add a full additional dollar a day for that organization

or

b) add the new organization to a list of organizations that split my daily existing donation amount.

or

c) skip it.

I dislike this implementation for a number of reasons.

* From the non-profits perspective, re-occuring and emotionally invested donations are much more valuable than a one off big shot of money.

* From my perspective I will never donate to an unknown entity regardless of filtering criteria. I have limited resources and believe I can have the impact I want to have by chosen where to use those resources.

* If this system catches on I imagine it will result in many a controversy, which may just be the price dollaraday.co is willing to pay, but it sure seems like an unnecessary distraction.

<comment><USER3> I have to agree. If I don't know where my money is going, I simply can't countenance giving money to a nonprofit (or a company for that matter). I don't know what their selection process is. The one nonprofit they show on their site, Shelterbox, I've seen in action in the Philippines and I have a lot of issues with how they run their operation and the efficacy of their solution.

I've actually looked into that model. You wouldn't have to have partnerships with nonprofits, you can just mail them checks (they are already set up to receive donations and you don't need permission to donate!)

The wrinkle with that concept is with pass-through donations, the donor can't claim a tax exemption unless the pass-through entity is also classified as such. The way around it is to set up a clearinghouse with a bank that authorizes the pass-through entity to write checks on behalf of members. Then when you donate your $1 a day, it goes into your bank account, and checks are written from there every month to the charities of your choice. Then you have to figure out pricing and transaction fees with the extra overhead you're introducing across sending payments to multiple nonprofits.

Maybe it's not a big deal with $1 a day, but if you want to scale to supporting bigger recurring donations people are going to want a tax exemption.

It's a good start but I think it needs to be thought out more to become a viable product.

<comment><USER4> Do you know if there a legal/tax impediment to getting the pass-through classified as a not-for-profit? Or did you just mean it makes it harder to implement as a traditional startup?

<comment><USER5> The pass-through would have to set up as a foundation that then issues grants to other non-profits. That isn't an easy process. I won't donate anything unless there's a tax advantage. The reason is that non-profits that are registered 501 3(c)'s have certain reporting requirements. If they aren't registered, there's little accountability.

<comment><USER6> From their site:

We're a nonprofit too! Dollar a Day makes no money, in any way, from donations on this site. Dollar a Day was built by a team of (almost entirely) volunteers.

<comment><USER5> Are they a 501 c3? Nope? Then no tax deduction. Calling yourself nonprofit and actually being a non profit are not one and the same under tax law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I _love_ the idea of getting a daily email that tells you about a worthy nonprofit that you might not otherwise hear about, and this system makes it dead-simple to make micro-donations to each charity.

However, I _hate_ the idea of donating to a black box. True, Dollar a Day publishes its criteria for selecting nonprofits, but those criteria are highly subjective. And, according to the FAQ, there's no way to opt out of donating to a particular featured nonprofit that you don't want to support. Heck, even if you cancel your monthly "subscription," your money will still go to all of the nonprofits that are in the queue for the rest of the month.

I understand the organization's decision to make things simple to start out, but I hope that it soon offers a way to opt out on a charity-by-charity basis (it could be as simple as a link in the daily email), and pro-rated refunds so that if you decide to stop donating on Day 1 of the month, you're not on the hook for days 2-30.

<comment><USER8> An interesting take on this would be each day having to say "nope" to the nonprofit if you wanted to skip it. Make it an opt-out donation each morning (or a chosen time).

You could defer all the "no" dollars into a pile so the user could add a bonus dollar in the same way for another day.

Edit: I think you added this to your reply already! I love the idea, though.

<comment><USER7> I like your idea of being able to defer a dollar and then donate it to another charity you like more. That way, you're still donating a fixed $30/month, but you can distribute it more to your liking.

<comment><USER9> I think what he was more talking about was having an invisible balance. Every month you have $30, and if you choose to opt out of a payment one day, that just means you'll have $31 for the next 30 days. And now that I've actually thought about that, it doesn't make much sense - since you're only donating 1 dollar a day. Maybe you could choose to "add my credit to today's payment", or maybe they just allow you to run your account for longer after you choose to discontinue your subscription (but that is sort of a disincentive to continue subscribing for people who commonly choose to skip payments.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not saying this isn't valuable, but I believe that Google did this a year or two ago: [https://onetoday.google.com/](https://onetoday.google.com/)

What's the differentiation?

<comment><USER11> Google has a bunch of non-profits, and you are suggested one each day, and can choose to donate to it (or any other). It doesn't pool all One Today users into a single donation recipient per day, and there's no pre-commitment.

Dollar a Day looks great, but it basically boils down to you donating to a non-profit that grants to other non-profits and sends you a daily report: they direct the funds and curate the recipients.

One Today also has a nice challenge-match feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This approach would make sense if most charities were similar in how much better they could make the world with your dollar. But instead there are huge differences! For example, if we look just at developing world health we see a power law distribution, where a few interventions are much better than the rest. [1] Instead of signing up to give small amounts to lots of different organizations, it's much better to find one working on one of these best approaches (givewell.org is helpful here) and fund that more.

[1] [http://www.jefftk.com/daly-per-1000-usd.png](http://www.jefftk.com/daly- per-1000-usd.png)

<comment><USER13> a chart with no labels on the axes communicates almost nothing

<comment><USER12> Sorry! I forgot that the axes were in the surrounding page not in the image.

Vertical is "$/DALY" which is basically the cost-benefit ratio of a medical treatment. $100/DALY would mean $100 to give someone an additional healthy year of life. The horizontal axis is a wide range of developing world medical interventions, lined up from worst cost-per-daly to best. You can see that the very best ones are much better than most of them, though even the "worst" ones are still excellent value for the money both in absolute terms and compared to what additional health spending gets you in rich countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As someone who has spent a lot of time in the non-profit and B-Corp space, I'm very interested to see how this plays out. It's an interesting idea and one that can definitely have a lot of value if it resonates with donors.

However, I do worry about that last point. One of the most important part of NPO fundraising is around building a relationship with the donor. Dollar a Day seems to take that piece out of the fundraising process, for better or worse.

Best case, outsourcing your donor outreach to Dollar a Day opens you up to thousands of new donors who get to learn more about you.

Worst case, it's Groupon for non-profit donations; taking away your ability to market your brand and spamming you into a few million inboxes who will likely unsubscribe after a 3-6 months of daily emails.

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't this essentially the same thing as One Today?

[https://onetoday.google.com/](https://onetoday.google.com/)

<comment><USER16> Yes, but that's no reason to not pursue it, right?

I personally like non-google options, and competition is a generally a good thing

<comment><USER17> Especially competition in facilitating charitable donations!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Really nice concept

I _DO_ wish you would display this information a little more prominently instead of burying it in the FAQ. There are many companies that fundraise for non-profits that take a cut of donations and are _not_ nonprofit themselves. You aren't doing this. Good!

Q: Is Dollar a Day a nonprofit?

A: Yes, we're a nonprofit too! Dollar a Day was built by a team of (almost entirely) volunteers, and our minimal expenses are covered by a few direct donations. Dollar a Day makes no money, in any way, from donations on this site.

</comment><comment><USER19> Keeping you anonymous to the charity to preventing them from spamming you with mail is maybe the best part of this pitch. Even well run charities send a tremendous amount of mail after you give a donation. It's one of the big turnoffs I have about the whole donation process.

<comment><USER20> Welcome to the world of marketing. They can do stuff that sucks hard, because apparently doing it brings more money that not doing it. Remember, they care about your money, not about your feelings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hate the whole credit processing fee bit -- Why are 2+% of all donations going towards VISA? There should be a direct deposit through your bank card or something!

<comment><USER22> They actually use a payment processor and the full charge is 4%.

It states they also disburse the donations, which may actually end up being a rather good deal. That is, collecting money via creditcard AND getting that money to a local NGO in Mali is not going to be cheap.

But regardless, 4% does sound like a lot, especially if they disburse to e.g. US based organisations that work abroad.

If the bitcoin ecosystem matures it'd be able to help a huge deal in this regard. Circle just launched offering free and instant purchase using bank or credit, and Bitpay offers 0% payment processing in 33 countries.

Anyway, I hope people consider checking out the give well foundation. Giving well is extremely important, and I'm concerned that getting a daily email with some organisations, without any data, analysis etc, we'll be giving very ineffectively to the guys with the most magical story, and perhaps, to the guys with the most money spent on marketing vs aid. Now I definitely am of the opinion that this is okay (great Ted talk on this), BUT if you could spend better, I'd encourage that.

The best example for me was this. Millions of people worldwide are blind due to cataracts, often due to malnutrition. You can largely and often completely 'cure' these people from their blindness with a cheap $20 operation that commonly happens in countries like India. Alternatively, you have blind people who can't be cured, often born blind. We can improve their quality of life, but in say the US it'd cost $20k to completely raise, nurture and train a guide dog.

So we have a choice to either cure someone's blindness completely, or literally spend three orders of magnitude (1000x) more to improve a blind person's life.

As you can imagine, getting one million donors to drop $20 would be a hugely successful campaign. But if they all spent it on guide dogs, it'd have much less of an impact of merely 1000 people donating $20 to completely cure the blindness of a similar number of people.

That's why giving well is so important. I fear apps and services like these diminish that. I hope we all appreciate our influence and act accordingly by carefully considering who to give your money to.

<comment><USER23> The 4% also shocked me, since even PayPal has much better fees. There's a couple of posts on GiveWell about that payment processor (Network for Good):

[http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/10/network-for-what- now/](http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/10/network-for-what-now/)

[http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/17/quick- update/](http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/17/quick-update/)

<comment><USER22> Thanks for posting that. I still wonder though whether NFG is able to deliver money to charities abroad, included with that 4%.

For example, an average remittance payment is about 9.3%. In some places it's 14%, because the financial infrastructure to get payments to some of the remote places on earth is really, really tricky. So if that's all included in the fee, it's a bargain.

If not (and it's just pure payment processing without subsequent delivery outside the US) it's really terrible. Paypal, Google, Stripe, they all beat it. Especially as there's often deals for non-profits, e.g. Bitpay/Coinbase will process charitable donations for free. Kiva's creditcard fees for example are waived if I remember correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is very similar to a feature I love about Watsi: [https://watsi.org/monthly](https://watsi.org/monthly)

</comment><comment><USER25> Once or twice a year, I go to [http://www.charitynavigator.org/](http://www.charitynavigator.org/) to do my own research and donate to a charity that I think will make good use of the money.

Lump sum method has two advantages:

1) Easier to keep track of for tax filing.

2) Your employer might have a donation match program. Again it is easier to file a form and tell them to make a matching donation.

</comment><comment><USER26> Personally, I'd want an opt-out too...I don't mind a default of charitable, but for me to be on board, it'd be essential to be able to disable my contribution should I find the organization uncharitable.

More than that though, I think it'd be neat if this group hooked up with giv2giv.org and each day/dollar would create a new, well-funded endowment. And maybe give users a way to vote for their favorite reruns or something so there'd be a bit of a feedback loop.

Anyway, congrats to them for a basically good idea. I agree that there are some refinements that would make it a bit more palatable for me personally, but I dig it. I love innovation in this space.

</comment><comment><USER27> I created a non-profit with a similar concept about 5 years ago called Vonate.org (now defunct). Our concept was $1/month and you would vote/donate (vonate) your dollar to one of the two featured organizations. I'm a big believer in the micro donation space, but execution is key.

My biggest lessons learned were:

1) Find and vetting 24 great organizations was difficult. 2) Getting people to spend $15/year (how we covered costs) was a challenge, so keep your expectations on audience engagement incredibly low. 3) Revenue through sponsorships won't keep the lights on.

Regardless - best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER28> How is this any different than Google One Today ([https://onetoday.google.com/](https://onetoday.google.com/))? At least with Google, I trust them with money, plus, the app has a lot more than just $1/day if you really care about a cause. It has the game mechanics, too, so, I'm sorry, but I'm sticking with Google.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is an awesome idea. I like the idea of waking up and getting an email "this is who you helped without even knowing it!".

The detractors are missing two important points:

1) People like being part of a larger movement.

2) People like knowing their donation as impact. I would rather be part of a team donating $1,000 then just donating $1.

I signed up for the free email, but if I like what I see I'll be joining.

</comment><comment><USER30> _" all donations are 100% US tax-deductible."_

The tax-deductability of charitable donations has always sat weirdly with me. It's not exactly charitable if you're not actually sacrificing anything; it's more a rearrangement of your tax allocation. That can be a good thing in and of itself, but if you're going to claim donations on tax, it's not really something you should get a warm, fuzzy feeling for (in my opinion). I have a regular payment to MSF happening every month, and it doesn't really sit right with me that I can claim it on tax (and I don't).

On the other hand, this is a good argument against the libertarian dot-point that private charity 'would happen if we weren't taxed so much'. Given that you can offset your tax by your charitable donations, it becomes a zero-sum game, so why aren't people currently donating at the levels libertarians say they _theoretically_ would? In the US, you can deduct up to half your gross income from tax, and given that the tax load is less than 50%, you can at least convert your income tax to charitable donations, and then start this theoretical "extra charity" that would apparently spring into action.

<comment><USER31> > _" It's not exactly charitable if you're not actually sacrificing anything"_

Tax-deductible doesn't mean that the money comes straight out of taxes, it means that you don't pay taxes on the donation. So you give $1.00 to get out of your marginal rate, something like $0.28 or $0.35, in taxes.

In order to eliminate your entire tax burden (per your libertarian comment), you would have to donate considerably more than you pay in taxes. You'd have to donate everything you made above the 0% tax bracket (getting down to a net income of about $15,700 for a married couple.) There are actually people who do it -- pacifists who refuse to pay taxes that could fund wars, for example [0]. But even then it's only possible if your income starts low enough.

[0] [http://www.nwtrcc.org/practical5.php](http://www.nwtrcc.org/practical5.php)

<comment><USER30> Ah, yes, my misreading of the IRS article [1]. It's still meaning that you're paying less tax, should you want to give to charity.

[1] [http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable- Organi...](http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable- Organizations/Charitable-Contribution-Deductions)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Check out [http://goodst.org/](http://goodst.org/) to pay $0.25/day

<comment><USER33> Plus $2.50 a month of overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> They should run it like a city or country. Not everyone can be bothered to find these nonprofits. The community should be able to nominate nonprofits and and vote on which one gets the funding every day. Then they'll have to worry about sybil attacks, though.

Usually the way to avoid voting attacks is to take the hotornot approach and only present random startups for rating by users. But that doesn't prevent sybil attacks - in order to prevent those you need signup to be expensive. How do you do that? Requiring text to a mobile number used to work until Google Voice. Now what?

</comment><comment><USER35> It would be great if the daily email included the amount being sent to today's charity. It would be a nice feeling to see this number go up over time.

</comment><comment><USER36> It seems a good idea that can also be applied to open source projects who ask for donations. You could donate just to support the concept of open source.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was hoping this would be: here is a non-profit for the day. Do you want to a.) donate one dollar, or b.) donate x amount every day.

</comment><comment><USER38> Surely this is less effective than finding a few excellent charities and giving them a large sum.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think this idea is great and have no issues with the way they've structured it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Neat but your brand can be confused with: dollaraday.com, which I wonder what it is.

</comment><comment><USER41> The NFL is 501(c)...

</comment><comment><USER42> why aren't there any share tools on this site?

</comment><comment><USER43> My attitude towards charity is kind of the opposite. If I am to donate to charity, I want to concentrate on one or a few things, so that I'm able to actually research them and see for myself whether I think that the money will come to good use.

This kind of thing is different from people going door to door, collecting money; instead of someone actively going to _you_ in order to convince you to give to some "good" (according to them) cause, _you_ are the active participant. There isn't much immediate social guilt of having to say "no", in this case. People who collect for charities in the usual, door to door or through other means of confronting people probably want to play on people's feeling of social dignity and that they don't want to appear to be stingy. So then the average person ends up giving to a lot of different charities - because they all ask for a little at a time - and knowing little about each one.

But why would I _deliberately_ want to diversify my charity, if _I 'm_ the one who is actively subscribing to it? Isn't it better to research a few good ones, and actively pursue those? Why give up that choice to some other entity, and make it practically impossible for me to keep up with all the different causes (you can't and won't feel motivated to research where every dollar you give goes to, when it all goes to different things). Another user here has it right - it's a black box. And apparently for no good reason.

</comment><comment><USER44> I must ask this question and someone please enlighten me but -- 1\. Where does money come from to support these Organization ( e.g. dollaraday or Watsi ?

2\. How do these Organizations pay for developer costs , website, office maintenance and employee salary ?

Do they take cut from donation and donate rest of the money ? If that's the case then its pretty much scam.

Susan Komen for women's breast cancer collect millions of dollar. Innocent people pay thinking money is going to cancer research. But they instead pay their CEO some $500k+ salary. What a shame !

I must ask this is starting a non-profit new legal scam in United States to collect money ?

<comment><USER45> Firstly the people running this are already incredibly wealthy by themselves. They more than likely funded the startup costs themselves, or through wealthy benefactors.

They pay operational expenses from a percentage of the money they raise.

Just because they pay operational expenses doesn't make them a scam - that's how any non-profit operates.

The best non-profits contribute the greatest percentage of their revenue to helping people. I believe this is the case here.

Do you want the best person running a company like this? Or would you prefer the cheapest person running a company like this?</comment></comment>


Traffic From Syria Disappears From Internet - <AUTHOR> http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/05/07/breaking-news-traffic-from-syria-disappears-from-internet/ <comment><USER3> Here's the Google Transparency Report page that features ongoing developments involving this disruption:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/disruptions...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/disruptions/82/)

(This page is distinct from the time series graph linked in another comment.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Google's Transparency report showing the same thing: [http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/explorer/?r...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/explorer/?r=SY&l=EVERYTHING&csd=1367777940758&ced=1367958180000)

found via: <https://twitter.com/therealfitz/status/331867408102993921>

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope no one here thought .sy was a cool suffix for a domain name.

<comment><USER6> I don't think this incident would effect domain name resolution for .sy domains.

The nameservers for .sy domains are:

      sy.			172800	IN	NS	sy.cctld.authdns.ripe.net.
      sy.			172800	IN	NS	ns1.tld.sy.
      sy.			172800	IN	NS	ns2.tld.sy.
      sy.			172800	IN	NS	pch.anycast.tld.sy.

sy.cctld.authdns.ripe.net is still accessible so domains will still resolve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What disturbs me is how many people in other countries (like the USA) feel that this type of thing could never happen here. However, it seems that even in the US the internet could be controlled by the government/army if they so desired and various proposed 'internet control' legislation packages seem to push us one step closer toward that possibility.

<comment><USER8> While it could possibly happen, it would be very difficult, even if the US government (and general power in the US) was much more powerful and organized than it currently is. The US is big, and the borders between the US and Canada and Mexico are also big; there's a lot of room to set up some discreet wires or even microwave transmitters and receivers some distance from the borders. Latency would be crap at first but would get better over time. It would be harder to get a packet from the US to a European country if all trans-ocean cables were cut, but not impossible, and at that point we're probably well into WW3. The US population is also well educated as a whole (still with many offline centers of gaining technical knowledge--i.e. books) and many citizens would have strong motivations to get the internet back, there are many large concentrations of highly technical nerds who wouldn't be afraid to start wiring up their own internet (I'd love to see a wireless mesh network take over), there are lots of computers and routers and cat5 in circulation and other useful equipment as well. Many people also have printers, flash drives, and cars, it would not be hard to communicate across cities and states with a sneakernet. For a total internet blackout cutting US citizens off from other citizens (intra country) and from the world, the amount of individual and corporate cooperation with the government which the people would hate (for taking away their access to cat videos among other things) and powerful businesses would hate (for hurting their profits) is astounding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is civil war. And cables will always be delicious target for any party. No bank transfers for the fleeing elite or being able to deal with external affairs, total blackout for the defender (military and police have their own systems usually so the ruling party is not that affected)

The situation in Syria is dangerous. A failed state in that location ... Arab Peninsula in the 2013 is the Balkans in 1913 ...

<comment><USER10> And this is what bitcoiners and similar don't understand. It's not like your internet connection will remain happy and stable while the rest of the world goes to hell around us. Telecomms will be a first-class target, and most systems have some pretty central points of failure that would make juicy (and easy) targets.

In such a situation, if you've chosen to use an electronic cryptocurrency dependent on things like robust network and electrical infrastructure to function as your primary value store, you're going to have a bad time.

This doesn't even contemplate the additional issue for bitcoin and its derivatives: the blockchain depends on a consistent, global view of network transactions, and apocalyptic-type network segmentation will cause severe forking in the blockchain, further diminishing the utility and therefore the value of the [already worthless] cryptocoins.

<comment><USER11> What would you suggest people put their money in then? Gold? Guns?

The problems you describe are problems for just about every currency right now. How much of your money do you have in cash, and how much is in the bank? Do you think you will still be able to use the bank in a situation like the one you describe?

<comment><USER9> I will coin two phrases now:

1\. Venomsnake's law - every discussion on Hacker's news degrades to bitcoins.

2\. Goldilocks apocalypse - every goldbug, bitcoin miner and similar depends on the crash of civilization in just the right way that everything will be the same but his economic decisions will put him on top with the pure strength of speculation. Whatever assets you have the federal government will be able to confiscate if the need is dire enough. Whatever protection the law gives you can be reverted.

There is no safety. To be able to claim and hold to a property you rely on massive infrastructure. If the dollar and the federal government crashes - <USER2> will vaporize too.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, even gold (and as I'm loathe to put in the same category, bitcoin) speculators aren't really relying upon a full-out goldilocks apocalypse for their assets to appreciate, just a continuation of the current trend of currency devaluation of the U.S. dollar. I think you're right that if something really bad happened (read: worse than 2008 or 2001) then the men with guns would take your gold and your bitcoins (though honestly, they probably won't give a shit about the bitcoins) has they've done before and will do again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > There is civil war.

There is NO civil war in Syria.

There _is_ a campaign of terrorism waged by NATO, specifically Turkey , Qatar, Isreal, UK, France to secure the transit for the South Pars/North Dome gas field.

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/20128513344...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201285133440424621.html)

What's at stake? About $200 billion annual output between Iran & Qatar. That's about $360,000 per SECOND.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars_/_North_Dome_Gas- Con...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars_/_North_Dome_Gas- Condensate_field#Reserves)

Global Research has the best analysis out there:

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/search?q=syria>

<comment><USER14> Why this comment is down-voted? He tells the truth.

Please look at this guy: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi_al-Harati>

He is the commander of the terrorists in Syria. These people are crazy islamists and all they believe is that they'll save Syria by killing people.

Please see the truth. The Al Jazeera analysis linked above is really good.

<comment><USER15> Please get your facts straight. How about you also read these articles:

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/2011102799...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/201110279954762656.html)

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/20126410503...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/20126410503297278.html)

Before the terrorists you're referring to went into Syria, the regime was brutally terrorizing its own citizens. There are countless of videos that prove it. It's the very actions of the mafia-like Syrian regime that has lead the country to where it is today, unfortunately.

<comment><USER13> FACT: the overwhelming majority of Syrians support the current government & voted for them in independently observed free elections.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians- support-assad-western-propaganda)

> the regime was brutally terrorizing its own citizens. There are countless of > videos that prove it.

Where are videos - have you verified them? Didn't think so.

Re: Houla - carried out by NATO backed terrorists, confirmed in a UN report.

[http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012...](http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012/682-the-houla-massacre.html)

[http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012...](http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012/687-houla-massacre-update-the-un-report.html)

[http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012...](http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert- archive/2012/683-the-houla-massacre-part-2-shades-of-grey.html)

This is part of massacre marketing strategy by NATO, Qatar et al:

Writing in Bild, [2] longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of "deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government". He described this "massacre-marketing strategy" as being "among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict"

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG24Ak02.html>

So you fully support killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort?

<comment><USER15> > FACT: the overwhelming majority of Syrians support the current government & > voted for them in independently observed free elections.

Had you even lived in Syria, you'd realize how it's virtually impossible to get an accurate and true poll. There's absolutely no freedom of expression. Citizens don't trust each other. There's around 275 intelligence officers for each Syrian citizen. The country is littered with the picture of the ruling Assad mafia that's shoved down the throat of all citizens. The vast majority of Syrians are scared to death of government. I know this, since not only have I lived there, I have many relatives and friends who have been either imprisoned, tortured, or exiled for simply speaking out.

Obviously, the government does have some support, but it's vast majority of supporters are beneficiaries of the government or are dependent on the government for their source of income. Add to that the brainwashing and fear the government has instilled in its own citizens for over 40 years, and it's not surprising to see such reports.

> Where are videos - have you verified them?

Yes, many of those videos have been verified.

> So you fully support killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort?

What a ridiculous question. You very well know my position about advocating for the rights and freedom of civilians. But, that question demonstrates many of the classic logical fallacies in your entire argument.

The Syrian government has been terrorizing its own citizens before your claimed propaganda efforts were in the picture. Sure, there are players that are now taking advantage of the situation, but that doesn't invalidate the claim that the main responsible party in the destruction of the country is the Syrian regime, which has allowed other parties to take advantage.

<comment><USER13> Gotcha!

You are clearly not who you claim to be. You're either a liar or a shill. You created your profile a day ago:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dsaber>

I note that you are unable to engage in any of the critical issues.

> Had you even lived in Syria

You've never lived in Syria - you're a fake.

Contact me directly & I'll get one of my Syrian friends to have a chat with you.

What were the main electoral issues for the 2012 elections?

> Yes, many of those videos have been verified.

You have failed to provide any evidence of this. You dont seem to understand the difference between assertion & fact.

Facts & evidence please - not assertion.

> There's around 275 intelligence officers for each Syrian citizen

275 * 20.82 million citizens = 5500 million intelligence officers? You're an idiot.

> You very well know my position about advocating for the rights and freedom > of civilians.

NO, we don't know your position.

> , that question demonstrates many of the classic logical fallacies in your > entire argument.

Such as?

Yeah, didn't think so. If you even knew what a logical fallacy was you would have stated it.

> What a ridiculous question.

You don't seem to understand a rhetorical question. So I'll put it more clearly for you:

You are supporting killing civilians to aid a propaganda effort.

Again, we note that you do not acknowledge the fact that: \- NATO backed death squads were responsible for the Houla massacre; \- western media tried to blame the Syrian government; \- western media ignored the UN report exonerating the Syrian government;

> your claimed propaganda efforts

There's nothing claimed - the propaganda effort is a FACT.

Also the death & destruction on the ground is not claimed, it's a fact.

> the main responsible party in the destruction of the country is the Syrian > regime

Yet again, incorrect.

Snipers from Dagestan armed with US produced M40A3 rifles started shooting civilians in 2011.

<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27955.htm>

[http://www.ozyism.com/2011/12/us-sniper-squad-caught-on- vide...](http://www.ozyism.com/2011/12/us-sniper-squad-caught-on-video- in.html)

There are over 300 European mercenaries languishing in Syrian jails:

[http://www.ozyism.com/2012/06/40-german-arms-smugglers- arres...](http://www.ozyism.com/2012/06/40-german-arms-smugglers-arrested- in.html)

There are over 20000 Foreign Mercenaries in Syria:

[http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-uncleared-war- nearly-2...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-uncleared-war- nearly-20000-foreign-mercenaries-fight-in-syria/5330977)

[http://www.kurdnas.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&v...](http://www.kurdnas.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=371:us- helping-to-train-and-arm-islamic-mercenaries-to-fight-in- syria&catid=36:reports1&Itemid=56)

A United Nations Independent Commission, has confirmed that: \- contractors hired by the Pentagon were training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons; \- terrorists possess sarin nerve gas, which they are using against the civilian population

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=United+Nations+Independent...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=United+Nations+Independent+Commission+syria+sarin+gas&aq=f&oq=United+Nations+Independent+Commission+syria+sarin+gas&aqs=chrome.0.57j62l3.8097j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

[http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-contractors-have- train...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-contractors-have-trained-the- terrorists-in-the-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-syria/5334394)

Furthermore, Qatar has been implicated in a plot to procure chemical weapons from a UK security company for use by the death squads, hoping to blame the government.

[http://www.infowars.com/hack-reveals-washington-approved- pla...](http://www.infowars.com/hack-reveals-washington-approved-plan-to- stage-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/)

All of which you seem quite happy with.

It is obvious you have no empathy for the suffering of the Syrian people & fully support the killing of civilians by NATO death squads.

<comment><USER15> > You've never lived in Syria - you're a fake.

Not only have I lived in Syria, I was also born there. It's precisely because I previously lived in Syria that I care deeply about the issue and care for the country. It's precisely because I still have relatives there (who most are now refugees in Turkey) that I care about this issue. I clearly can't help you if you want to think I'm lying.

I'll take on your offer and contact you directly. You haven't left your contact info though. Do provide it and we'll get in touch.

> 275 * 20.82 million citizens = 5500 million intelligence officers? You're an > idiot.

Sure, I'm an idiot. Given how smarter you are and how much you know about Syria, you should have corrected my statement and indicated that I mistakenly reversed the ratio. My originally intended statement of 1 intelligence officer to every 275 citizen still holds.

> All of which you seem quite happy with.

It's interesting that most of your sources are ones that match the exact message of the Syrian regime, about the entire world conspiring against them. Your sources also happen to be the same ones that speak about other conspiracy theories, like 9/11 being an inside job, the Boston marathon bombing being staged, etc.

> It is obvious you have no empathy for the suffering of the Syrian people & > fully support the killing of civilians by NATO death squads.

Who said I like NATO being involved? Given how much you're singling out NATO, are you ok with the Syrian regime involving Iran and Hizboullah with the conflict and stirring sectarian strife?

Using your logic, I can say the same thing about you. You have no empathy for the suffering of the people there, given how much you support the current Syrian regime, which is ranked among the most repressive regimes on earth.

However, I'm not going to use your flawed logic here. I'm pretty sure you care for the Syrian people and the hundreds that are dying every single day. You just happen to believe the Syrian regime and the conspiracy theories. This is what the Syrian regime is good at: misinformation. Unfortunately, being on the Syrian regime's side is a dark future for Syria. It led the country no where for over 40 years; what makes you think it will suddenly change now?

As for me, I'm on the side of the people advocating for peace, freedom, dignity, and liberty. The Syrian regime does not have the best interest of the country in mind. It's run like a mafia, ruled by one family for over 40 years. At the same time, I'm also against foreign intervention. Unfortunately, the conflict right now is at a point where a lot of evil people are going to take advantage of, including governments, extremists, and others. Those sides need to be stopped as well. But who gave them the opportunity to get involved? That's right, the Syrian regime and its actions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I note that not one comment below addresses the substantive issues arising from this article:

Who had the means, motive & opportunity to disrupt the Syrian internet traffic?

Most likely one of the NATO intelligence agencies.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love these graphs with no scale on the y-axis.

<comment><USER3> See:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#do_the...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#do_the_graphs_reflect_actual)

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#how_do...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/faq/#how_do_you_generate_the_graphs)</comment></comment>


TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://textnutwriter.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I am creator of TextNut. Thanks for your comments. Some of my points:

* Price disclosed - Yes, it is not my false. No way to put price there. I don't want to baiting so I provide trial.

* File save location - You can export at current version, either in page or Library level. I am working on iOS version, after that TextNut will support icloud and dropbox.

* WYSIWYG - I believe this why TextNut is unique with others, it does not mix markdown delimiter with content, also provide a way to switch between markdown and rich mode

* Ulysses - unfortunately, after a few version upgrade, its UI more like Ulysses. Although I prefer you say I "rip-off" from Apple Mail most. Actually, I inherit most ideas from geniuswiki that I made since 2007. (That is why the link, image, footnote using curly bracket { to open popover!) I checked in first line code of TextNut in early of 2011, but I stopped only after very roughly UI code [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDxHr19UIAEVArE.png:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDxHr19UIAEVArE.png:large). Although UI looks more different with current, but basic design idea never be changed since then, 3 panes: doc tree, editor, help(was call `Macro` from geniuswiki), doc title is updated by content, etc. I restarted TextNut dev since the middle of last year, I got a out-sourcing UI designer and give my first version design [http://www.textnutwriter.com/img/1.png](http://www.textnutwriter.com/img/1.png). After I add Theme in 1.1 version, I set the default theme as current light grey as it can accepted by most writers. In latest 2.1 version, Tree structure doc tree is supported, then final version looks like current. As independent developer, I only invest very small amount money for UI design. I hope users can more focus on core functionalities rather than colour palette at early stage.

</comment><comment><USER2> So while this is common trend I really wish developers would stop using the "Download on the Mac App Store" graphic when it should be "Buy on the Mac App Store". Also there is NO MENTION of the price or even the fact this is not free (other than linking to trial which implies that). I really hate this practice of baiting and switching.

<comment><USER3> Blame it on Apple, they mandate using this button. I understand why they don't want to use prices, because those are localized, but agree that it should differentiate free vs. paid apps.

<comment><USER2> Odd, I could have sworn they provided a "Buy on the App Store" or similar but I just read through their marketing guidelines and you are right. Well then part of my argument doesn't hold up but still I feel like developers are doing this on purpose (obstructing the price and/or the fact it is paid not free) to hide that from you until after you get excited about the product/app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Files are saved in some undisclosed, unchangeable location (presumably the ~Library folder). This is a deal-breaker for me, since all of my documents live in a synced Dropbox folder (I could symlink the files over, but this should not need to be the case). This is more like a note taking application (like Notational Velocity), than a serious editor. Too bad, it looks nice.

<comment><USER5> Can't you just symlink it into your dropbox folder?

<comment><USER6> I shouldn't have to. Beyond that, what format does it save it in?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or, if you only need to edit one Markdown file at a time, I also recommend these Mac WYSIWYG editors:

\- Mou [http://25.io/mou/](http://25.io/mou/)

\- MacDown [http://macdown.uranusjr.com/](http://macdown.uranusjr.com/)

The latter is free and open-source.

<comment><USER8> MacDown is great! Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why are pretty markdown editors such a thing on Mac specifically? Is that the favored platform for bloggers, or something?

<comment><USER10> Not only pretty markdown editors. Software applications tend to be prettier in general under OSX.

There's the financial incentive, as pointed out in other comments.

Then, what I think it is most important, the technology support. Take just Cocoa, Core Animation and Quartz Composer and you are already light-years ahead of the competition. I won't even talk about things like the Win32 API or the existence of Swift.

'Pretty' Windows apps, in particular, are a royal pain to create. Unless, maybe, if you target Metro.

You _can_ make them pretty even on Windows. However,if you want to keep using native controls, the effort will be enormous. Many applications switched to using embedded browsers because of that. If you are not using standard controls, then you lose things like screen readers.

<comment><USER11> >'Pretty' Windows apps, in particular, are a royal pain to create. Unless, maybe, if you target Metro.

1\. Learn how to work with XAML

(1.5. Know how to make good looking UIs)

2\. Done.

Really. If you're forcing yourself to use WinForms, you're doing yourself a disservice. Any Windows Dev that wants to push out good looking application should learn how to use XAML. You can even ignore the databinding part if you want.

That said, TextNut looks an awful lot like OneNote UI wise.

I believe the major problem comes from the fact that most people developing for Windows are either doing it for free or for internal tools. There are very few tools that fit Apple's market of consumer focused applications, and the financial incentive clearly isn't there on Windows.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps one should try to create the same application on both platforms. I get a feeling that XAML (and WPF) are not a silver bullet and can't make up for deficiencies in other areas. Such as typography.

But my WPF knowledge is limited, so I'll try to keep an open mind and research more when I have the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I believe the correct term is WYSIWYM ("what you see is what you mean"): editing happens in rich text mode, with pretty styles and no markup, however, those styles are merely part of editor's UI, not written into the document.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM)

</comment><comment><USER13> How does it save the files? Looks like they are kept in a database in ~/Library/Application Support.

This would be awesome for keeping notes in plain text that will stand the test of time.

<comment><USER14> As someone mentioned in this thread, Ulysses 3 can do this. You can "mount" local directories and it will save and show those files in "plaintext". Use Dropbox, Syncthing, BTSync whatever to sync between devices.

[http://ulyssesapp.com/](http://ulyssesapp.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm really happy to see more What-you-see-is-what-you-mean Markdown editors. This previous HN discussion of Markdownify ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9354653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9354653)) alerted me to Texts.io, which initially looked extremely promising, but was riddled with bugs. I ended up having to go back to iA Writer Pro (which is a solid, normal MD editor). For pure writing activities, stripping away (hiding) as much of the syntax and chrome as possible is very valuable, which is why I moved to MD from Word in the first place. Two-pane write/preview editors are a terrible solution.

<comment><USER15> > Two-pane write/preview editors are a terrible solution.

I agree with you. You remind me there is a need in my editing workflow for a diff or divergence tool across my targets: github, PDF tooling and popular free editors where collaborators might be working.

I'm happy to learn in these comments about the [http://commonmark.org/](http://commonmark.org/) effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That looks like a pretty close copy—or rip off, rather—of Ulysses ([http://ulyssesapp.com/](http://ulyssesapp.com/))...

<comment><USER17> Ulysses' problem is that, despite saving as Markdown, there's no "real" Markdown editing mode. Certain things, like images, can only be entered through the GUI, and its clumsy parsing means that certain formatting gets permanently mangled in a way that messes up copy-paste, since what you see when editing isn't actually Markdown. Among other issues, for example, it adds escape characters, of all things, to anything with a [.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. That's one of the reasons I'm not able to use it as much as I'd like to. Basically only works perfect well for basic Markdown (and adding images with their GUI)—if you need any extra code or tweaks on Markdown, you'll be escaping a lot of characters.

Still a nice app in so many ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://www.foldingtext.com](http://www.foldingtext.com) is my go to Markdown editor. Combine with Notational Velocity which reads from a folder on Dropbox, it is great. Especially since I can edit with Draft on my Android phone and tablet.

TextNut looks like it will combine the two (organization and editing) but I will wait until it has flatfile compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER19> The website was vague: Can you "Open in TextNut?"

If so, this is useful. If not, this is a missed opportunity. I don't want you controlling where I store and open things, but I would very much enjoy a nice Markdown editor for writing things.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find the "100% Compatible with CommonMark" a bit confusing, without looking I'd assume CommonMark was another product from the same people, and they'd done a re-branding, and wanted to make the association.

That said, whilst writing this comment it occurs to me that CommonMark might also be an effort I've never heard of to standardise out some of John Gruber's original undefined spec behaviours, but as a developer Github flavoured markdown is the de-facto standard as it has many well written and well-tested implementations.

<comment><USER21> You're right that it was an effort to pin down the markdown spec by not-Gruber people. And Github actually was involved, along with some other big names like Reddit, Stackexchange, and Meteor.

<comment><USER22> But it didn't take off because Gruber threw a spanner in the works by refusing to endorse it and insisting they changed the name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slightly related topic - what typeface (font) do you guys use for writing?

For programming, I use Adobe's Source Code Pro.

However, for writing non-code, what do you recommend?

I'm currently trying Adobe's Source Serif Pro, which isn't bad. There's also Source Sans Pro, but I would have thought a serif font would be better for non-code tasks, and more pleasing on the eyes.

Other recommendations?

</comment><comment><USER24> If I had the time, one of my side projects would be to build something like this for AsciiDoc[1] that also includes a basic static site/pdf generator. It would be a nice way to build user documentation.

[1] [http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/](http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/)

</comment><comment><USER25> One of the best markdown writers I have ever used is iA's Writer for Mac (and iOS) [https://ia.net/writer/mac/](https://ia.net/writer/mac/)

They have an Android version as well, but I have not used it.

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a misspelled word on the "View" menu, first item. It is "libary."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hmm... from a cursory glance, this looks very similar to Write[1]. Wonder how it compares?

[1]: [http://writeapp.net](http://writeapp.net). Incidentally, I've been using it for a few months and it's pretty nice.

</comment><comment><USER27> Where is the library stored? Is there any way to select a custom folder for the library? It's possible in iTunes, in Preferences > Advanced > iTunes Media folder location.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a beautifully made application, very feature complete. Congratulations! Now my problem is to choose which one to use, with so many good ones!

</comment><comment><USER28> When we have markdown, why we need WYSIWYG?

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks like a rip off of [http://www.ulyssesapp.com/mac/](http://www.ulyssesapp.com/mac/).</comment>


Codec2: GNU low-bitrate speech codec (2400 bits/second) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?page_id=452 <comment><USER2> Low bit rate codecs with acceptable quality will be a boon for VoIP over satellite. Satellite Internet service is both bandwidth-limited and hideously expensive-- Inmarsat Fleet Broadband for cargo ships, for instance, typically costs $6/MB. The idea would be to set up local phone networks that employ one of the GSM codecs or mu-law (allowing the use of plain vanilla handsets) and then transcode the voice to a more efficient codec like this one upstream/downstream of the satellite connection to the PSTN.

Incidentally, David Rowe is one of the pioneers of the Mesh Potato.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the Mesh Potato mention. I haven't seen this project before but am very interested in stuff like this. My question is: what would happen if we overnight got an entire country wired? What kind of social, political and economic consequences would that have? I'm not thinking of the US, which already has a decent infrastructure, even if we want it to be better/faster/more neutral. I am thinking of African countries, a market largely underexposed to the internet. I suppose I can picture a startup trying to do this. Just think how many more Facebook users there could be...

<comment><USER2> Here are some suggestions for further reading: <http://www.villagetelco.org>

Steve Song's blog (Telecommunications Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation): <http://manypossibilities.net/>

<http://openmobile.futuretext.com/>

There was an article in Linux Journal last December that includes more technical details on the Mesh Potato.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can finally dig out my old U.S. Robotics 2400 baud modem and start doing some low-bandwidth voice communication!

Seriously, though, the samples are very impressive. I was surprised at the quality.

</comment><comment><USER4> The samples sound quite good, suspiciously good even. I'll give it a try on speech samples from other languages and speakers (this often makes quite a difference).

<comment><USER5> I've always wondered if some human languages work better with speech codecs than others, ever since I saw someone having a cell phone conversation in an Asian language without appearing confused or asking for clarification (based on facial expression, body language, and conversation pacing). My experience speaking English on cell phones is one of constantly repeating myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know much about voice encoding, but I'm really curious as to why all the example files are the same size (46.9 KB). Could someone explain why this is an advancement if the file sizes remain the same?

I suspect it has something to do with all of them using wav as the container, but would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable.

<comment><USER4> The example files are produced by encoding and then decoding the original. In PCM 16bit raw format they will end up having the same uncompressed size. The encoded bitstream files will be a lot smaller.

For example: hts1a

original: 48000 bytes

encoded: 1050 bytes

Edit: Note that this is only the size of the bitstream written to disk. I didn't look into the actual format.

<comment><USER6> Ah, that explains it. I didn't see that in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can hear the 50Hz modulation caused by the 20ms frames in the Codec2 samples. It's particularly problematic on the sibilants from the female sample. Codec2 seems to have a wider frequency response, but MELP is more intelligible.

That said, it sounds like a great version 0.1, and look forward to hearing what comes in the future.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm still trying to understand the processing involved, but it could be interesting if one could use it to effectively do voip calls over EDGE using this - may require having an external dsp dongle though.</comment>


Cassandra is not row level consistent - <AUTHOR> http://datanerds.io/post/cassandra-no-row-consistency/ <comment><USER3> Cassandra developer here.

Lots of comments here about how Cassandra is AP so of course you get inconsistent (non-serializable) results.

This is true, to a point. I'm firmly convinced that AP is a better way to build distributed systems for fault tolerance, performance, and simplicity. But it's incredibly useful to be able to "opt in" to CP for pieces of the application as needed. That's what Cassandra's lightweight transactions (LWT) are for, and that's what the authors of this piece used.

However! Fundamentally, mixing serializable (LWT) and non-serializable (plain UPDATE) ops will produce unpredictable results and that's what bit them here.

Basically the same as if you marked half the accesses to a concurrently- updated Java variable with "synchronized" and left it off of the other half as an "optimization."

Don't take shortcuts and you won't get burned.

<comment><USER4> > Don't take shortcuts and you won't get burned.

I'm sorry that the user did something unexpected and then posted about it in a way that made your application look bad. I know that must be frustrating. However...

Calling the user out as doing something wrong when your application is failing because of a use case you can't handle properly just looks bad. You serve your users, not the other way around. Don't forget that.

If it were me and there were a case that my application couldn't handle properly, if I couldn't fix it, I'd raise an error, and then document clearly that they should not do this, such that when they search for that error, they'd find the answer. Then, I'd work to see if there were a way I could avoid the error altogether by not allowing that use case.

<comment><USER5> There is no "one size" fits all database or distributed system in existence. To say that there is is to say that MySQL is equally as well suited to all use cases as Cassandra or Redis. They all store and serve data, right?

Cassandra makes no claims to be such a holy grail. Read their documentation, and you can see the use cases it is good for and those it is not.

The author of this blog post chose one it is not good for.

Put another way, "I'm sorry that the Lamborghini you bought broke when you attempted to go off-roading with it. Perhaps you should have bought a Jeep instead?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a long time Cassandra user its easy to forget that some of Cassandra's semantics will be surprising to new users. That being said, if you are considering adopting an AP database it really is important for you to know the details about how write conflicts get resolved. This is perhaps the biggest difference between Cassandra other databases like Riak and ought to be part of your decision making process instead of a surprise you run into later.

That being said, using Cassandra for distributed locks is a terrible idea. I can't think of any way in which Cassandra would be better than using {Zookeeper,etcd,consul}. Trying to force a database to do something it really isn't designed for will almost always lead to disappointment (and often resentment) of said database.

<comment><USER7> Seconded. Don't use an AP system for distributed lock management. As with most things, use the right tool for the right job.

When I speak to developers about Riak I tell them the biggest difference between systems like Riak (including Cassandra) and traditional relational systems is not the data model, ie. relational vs non-relations (or structured vs unstructured) but rather the architecture, ie. distributed vs not distributed. As in a "C" system vs a "non-C" system, where "C" is consistency.

Disclaimer, I work for Basho, makers of Riak.

<comment><USER8> I think you can make Cassandra "C" by using quorum reads and writes. Also they support some SERIAL consistency level, which uses PAXOS underneath, and supposedly achieves consistency as well.

<comment><USER9> The IF statement uses Paxos as underlying implementation and still it may result into an inconsistency if you are using two separate CQL statements. Cassandra does not provide begin ... end construction where everything is atomically committed or rolled back.

<comment><USER10> You can use Cassandra LWT as a building block for multi-partition transactions, in a similar way like CAS atomic operations are used to build locks, mutexes and monitors and then monitors are used to implement ACID transactions in RDBMS. However, noone says it would be easy or performant, therefore this is probably not a good idea.

<comment><USER9> Right. Cassandra crawled at 20 TPS when we sent IF cql statements. One thing to note is that Cassandra txns can never be rolled back - they can only be committed/ retrried and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This:

        INSERT INTO locks (id, lock, revision)
        VALUES ('Tom', true, 1)
        IF NOT EXISTS USING TTL 20;

looks like a race condition. The same problem comes up in SQL databases - <USER2> can't lock a row that doesn't exist yet. If you write, in SQL:

        BEGIN TRANSACTION
        SELECT FROM locks WHERE id = "Tom" AND lock = true AND revision = 1;
        -- if no records returned
        INSERT INTO LOCKS locks (id, lock, revision) VALUES ('Tom', true, 1)
        COMMIT

you have a race condition. If two threads make that identical request near- simultaneously, both get a no-find from the select, and both do the INSERT. SELECT doesn't lock rows that don't exist.

The usual solution in SQL is to use UNIQUE indices which will cause an INSERT to fail if the record about to be inserted already exists.

I ran into this reassembling SMS message fragments, where I wanted to detect that all the parts had come in. The right answer was to do an INSERT for each new fragment, then COMMIT, then do a SELECT to see if all the fragments of a message were in. Doing the SELECT first produced a race condition.

<comment><USER12> Some SQL databases (e.g., SQL Server and PostgreSQL) offer key-range locking which, along with a serializable isolation level, will prevent this race condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> And there's another surprise waiting to be discovered. The execution of a LWT is not guaranteed to return applied/not-applied response [1]. It can raise a WriteTimeout exception that means "I don't know if applied". It looks like in that case it can be worked around by inserting a UUID and in case of a WriteTimeout reading the UUID using SERIAL consistency and checking if it's the inserted UUID. But generally this limitation of LWTs makes implementing some algorithms impossible, e.g. you can't implement a 100% reliable counter.

[1] [https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-9328](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-9328)

</comment><comment><USER14> I railed against CQL right from the start and it's precisely because of this kind of thing. Imitating SQL has the side effect of setting certain expectations and drags a certain mental model along with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you're not writing purely immutable data or can't 100% guarantee a serialized reader/writer, then you're just looking for trouble with Cassandra.

</comment><comment><USER16> The post was quite interesting, but I find image macros and GIFs really distracting in technical writings.

</comment><comment><USER17> Shouldn't Cassandra be using Lamport timestamps or even vector clocks there? Relying on timer and its resolution sounds strange for a database, especially a distributed one.

<comment><USER18> Cassandra's timestamps can be specified by the client: it's possible to use any integer as your timestamp, such as Lamport timestamps, or even atomic distributed counters (possibly using Cassandra's own counters).

Vector clocks are still out, though.

Edit: Actually, you can't do Lamport timestamps because you can't query the current value of a timestamp.

Re-edit: That's wrong. I shouldn't believe any old blog I find. (I'm leaving it in the comment because it was quoted in a reply.)

<comment><USER19> > Edit: Actually, you can't do Lamport timestamps because you can't query the > current value of a timestamp.

you can get the timestamp of each column back as part of a SELECT.

is that not enough?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

Great discussion around the CAP theorem but it misses the point. AP vs CP / Cassandra being AP is not relevant to this particular problem:

1) This is not a distributed systems corner case. You will run into this if you are running Cassandra on a single node. A node should be able to guarantee consistency internally during normal operation. If it is not able to do that, there is something wrong with the system.

2) This is a case where queries are being send from the same process/thread and go to exactly the same nodes. Attach a simple, monotonically increasing query counter to each call and you can easily serialize it on the other side.

</comment><comment><USER20> I see this as a basic misunderstanding of how LWT works. If you want to ensure serializable operations, then you need to use LWT with preconditions that ensure serializable operations.

Even better, stop trying to emulate the old and tired distributed lock methods that have been proven over and over again to be insufficient.

</comment><comment> refresh-creds If it's not obtained synchronously what does the lock achieve?

</comment><comment><USER21> Couldn't explain the problem in a less cringy way? Sounds like a bug to me. So file a bug report?

<comment><USER22> I think not strictly a bug, just surprising behavior. They linked to the documentation that shows that it is "expected" to work like that, and to two requests for features to help mitigate this issue.

<comment><USER21> bug/feature whatever. CASSANDRA-6123 is exactly addressing row level consistency. but here maybe they found another case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I guess I'm old or just not hip (most likely both) but I had to google WAT (I know WTF but WAT ... never seen it).

Even now I'm still not sure but I presume WAT = what!

<comment><USER24> It is a particular form of "what" that is used when dumbstruck.

<comment><USER25> Closely related is WUT, particularly the popular variant LOLWUT: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lolwut](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lolwut)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hazelcast has a distributed lock (see [http://docs.hazelcast.org/docs/3.7/manual/html- single/index....](http://docs.hazelcast.org/docs/3.7/manual/html- single/index.html#lock)) and I've used for more than a year to synchronize jobs across a cluster.

</comment><comment><USER27> Using Cassandra as a lock is a terrible, terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER28> With the Oracle/PostgreSQL, readers never wait for writers and writers never wait for readers [http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/your-own- rdbms.html](http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/your-own-rdbms.html) using underlying locking mechanism [http://www.beej.us/guide/bgipc/output/html/singlepage/bgipc....](http://www.beej.us/guide/bgipc/output/html/singlepage/bgipc.html#flocking)

</comment><comment><USER28> Its' better to implement [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_inversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_inversion) in all [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoSQL#Types_and_examples_of_No...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoSQL#Types_and_examples_of_NoSQL_databases)

</comment><comment><USER29> It feels like it is 2013 all over again: [https://aphyr.com/posts/294-jepsen- cassandra](https://aphyr.com/posts/294-jepsen-cassandra)

</comment><comment><USER30> As others have noted, this blog uses an approach to data modeling that is considered an anti pattern for an AP data store like Cassandra.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anyone has experience around this on HBase, a CP database?

<comment><USER32> Apache HBase committer here.

HBase is strictly CP (except for its geo-replication, and optional timeline- consistent region replicas).

It uses MVCC for row "transactions" to always keep rows consistent. HBase also has checkAndPut and checkAndDelete primitives, which are atomic, as well as Increment and Append, which are atomic and serializable.

[http://hadoop-hbase.blogspot.com/2012/03/acid-in-hbase.html](http://hadoop- hbase.blogspot.com/2012/03/acid-in-hbase.html) explains it fairly well.

Together with Apache Phoenix you have full multi-row transactions, but they come with a price obviously.</comment></comment>


Integrated Network Poller for Go Scheduler - <AUTHOR> https://codereview.appspot.com/7579044/ <comment><USER2> Nice! Great to see the Go team aggressively going after performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, with this change as well as the garbage collector improvements, 1.1 should be an awesome release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> umm, so does it mean that go now uses epoll for go-routines blocked on i/o ? how was this done earlier ?

<comment><AUTHOR> This probably explains better than I could: [http://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1aajw0/just_landed_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1aajw0/just_landed_the_network_poller_epoll_etc_is_now/c8vluqa)</comment></comment>