Comparing Non-Relational Databases: CouchDB, MongoDB, Tokyo Tyrant - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/igal/ruby_datastores/raw/master/2009-11-14%20Non-relational%20data%20stores%20for%20OpenSQL%20Camp.pdf

<comment><USER2> The performance tests here seem about useless. When memcache is slower than all your databases its a good indicator that after your first call all the databases just cached the request, to get meaningful performance metrics you would need to use sizable databases and more realistic use cases. It's not enough to just publisher a disclaimer, why not just do it right in the first place?

It also states transactions as a benefit of MYSQL then shows the performance tests against the MyISAM engine which doesn't support transactions. This also explains why the MyuSQL inserts might be faster than any others.

<comment><USER3> I love how the graphs don't include any units. The "scores" one is particularly meaningless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These "NoSQL" comparisons are a tricky thing, inasmuch as this is a very volatile space with a lot of really interesting development happening. Furthermore, benchmarking a handful of storage options that are really only alike in that they share the same thing which they are not (relational, SQL) is a lot like running road tests on a handful of cars that are not Honda Civics.

I made the foolish decision a while back to choose a data storage option based on benchmarks and hype, and I'm currently paying for it by having achieved spectacular launch failure and now completely rearchitecting my backend.

NoSQL emerged only after a decade or so of webscale challenges helped us finally realize that everything only _looked_ like relational nails because the only tool we had was SQL hammer, and that tackling every data warehousing problem with SQL was coming at the cost of money, engineering hours, and headaches. Now that viable, production-ready alternatives have become available it's important that design decisions to go beyond seeing problems as not-nails and seeing them instead for what they are.

Are you looking for reliable, versioned master-master replication for embedded devices? Might want to consider Couch. An obscenely fast caching tier that need not persist to disk? Sure, check out Scalaris. A fully distributed and pluggable map-reduce architecture capable of storing a metric fucktonne of data? Hbase might be for you. And, it should go without saying, there are still and there will always be problems for which SQL is the best solution.

In any event, an invaluable starting point is Richard Jones' post at Metabrew discussing research on a number of options for Lastfm: [http://www.metabrew.com/article/anti-rdbms-a-list-of- distrib...](http://www.metabrew.com/article/anti-rdbms-a-list-of-distributed- key-value-stores/)

<comment><USER5> _I made the foolish decision a while back to choose a data storage option based on benchmarks and hype, and I'm currently paying for it by having achieved spectacular launch failure and now completely rearchitecting my backend._

Can I ask what you used - and how it hurt you? Just so I can avoid making the same mistakes ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing I see people rarely mention in these discussion is that since CouchDB is master<->master, you can design applications completely differently: peer-to-peer.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. The important thing about CouchDB is that it allows you to write applications you could never dream of, with the standard LAMP stack. p2p replication makes a huge difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The title is slightly misleading since they also include PostgreSQL, MySQL and Memcached in their tests. They conclude:

* MongoDB and Tokyo Tyrant are useful now. CouchDB has promise, but is too slow currently.

* Non-relational databases have shown their worth at larger sites when used cleverly.

* Non-relational databases will continue to improve performance, stability & features.

* Relational databases are still a great choice: fast, powerful and proven. With caching, denormalization, rework (e.g. Drizzle) & better replication, they will continue to be competitive.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm calling total bullshit on those performance graphs. Neither Tokyo Tyrant nor MySQL is anywhere nearly as fast as memcached unless you have a _really_ bad memcached client (and they do exist).

I got somewhere over 90k stores per second on my macbook localhost with my java client. If he's only getting around 3k, he must be doing them by hand.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice writeup. My current favorite is MongoDB (I blogged a few days ago on an easy way to index and search text in MongoDB docs), but I still also use CouchDB (and covered CouchDB in my last APress book).

I have played a little with Tokyo Cabinet/Tyrant but find it a little too 'low level' - would probably be great if you only need a fast hash. Cassandra is also worth a good look: if you are a Ruby developer, the Cassandra gem can auto-install all of Cassandra and manage it for you - very elegant, really.

I admit that one reason I like MongoDB is that it is so simple to use, and the documentation is good.

</comment><comment><USER11> I know little about couchdb but the documentation score seems wrong: <http://books.couchdb.org/relax/>

</comment><comment><USER12> Graphs don't seem accurate for real-life situations. And I miss Redis in the comparison chart (IMHO memcache shouldn't be there)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is CouchDB really that slow?

<comment><USER14> [Edit:

Having just read the paper (really, a few screens of a presentation) I feel confident that it's safe to ignore these "findings". Something is amiss. No way memcache is slower than MySQL for inserts/writes, and on-par for queries. Just doesn't make any sense.]

Hard to tell. You can "speedup" MS Access to Redis speeds, with sufficient RAM and a good caching strategy.

If CouchDB is slow in one benchmark, the developers can just go out and do something "nice", like, memory mapping all the documents in the "database", and serving them with a tight epoll(2) dispatch system using sendfile(2).

Speeding up databases for a benchmark is easy; scaling them for the real world is the tricky part.

<comment><USER7> The thing we see with CouchDB in production is that, although under low load we aren't the fastest kid on the block, as you ramp up concurrency (hundreds or thousands of simultaneous clients) with mixed reads and writes, on a multi- GB database, we don't slow down.

an old BBC case-study:

[http://www.erlang- factory.com/conference/London2009/speakers...](http://www.erlang- factory.com/conference/London2009/speakers/endafarrell)

Building a test harness is non-trivial, Igal's tests are a lot like ones I used in the CouchDB book to illustrate the importance of batch updates, so I don't blame him for the imprecision.

Right now the best test driver for CouchDB throughput looks to be Baracus: <http://blog.cloudant.com/benchmarking-couchdb-with-baracus></comment></comment></comment>


The hidden cycle-eating demon: L1 cache misses - <AUTHOR> http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=149

<comment><USER2> My dissertation was partly about prefetching to L1. <http://akkartik.name/akkartik-phd07.pdf>

It required changes to processor microarchitecture, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have posted this before, but if you care at all about memory and how it applies to writing efficient code, you owe it to yourself to check out this fantastic paper: <http://people.redhat.com/drepper/cpumemory.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER4> When working in a higher-level language, it's easy to forget that a lot of the performance disadvantage comes from using data types that are distanced from the hardware, require unboxing, RTTI, etc. Not only do those conveniences eat up CPU, they also eat up memory, which compounds the problem by forcing the data to live outside of cache, regardless of what optimizations the language implementation has.

Hence, I really appreciate it when a language offers some way to drop down to byte-level constructs and build space-efficient implementations where they're necessary. Improvements in memory compactness can often save you the effort of dropping all the way down to C.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. I had a recent situation where I was building a trie for prefix search, and found that object overhead / pointer cost was so expensive (a whole 8 bytes per instance in 32 bit - really adds up and worse in x64) I dropped down to using parallel integer arrays to store all data, and even then, I was able to squeeze out more space by going to a custom bit-packed array class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I found this an interesting read, I believe someone who works with *264 encoding with any regularity can easily justify using the relatively cheap hardware encoders available to consumers. I'm not sure if x264 is fully compatible with such a device, though. This is a lot more feasible than waiting for Intel and AMD to significantly change their architecture for what sounds like an edge case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hardware encoders are not feasible for ordinary consumers at all; if you want an encoder that produces reasonable compression, you have to go up to the $10k-$50k range (and even there, most of the ones on the market are really not very good!). Low-end hardware encoders are both often slow (usually outperformed by x264 on a cheap quad-core CPU) and extremely bad at compression.

Plus, a CPU can be used for things other than encoding video, while a hardware device is of course useless for anything else, so it's easier to justify spending money on a fast CPU than on a task-specific piece of hardware.

Also, it isn't really an edge case; it will occur in _any_ application which has a working set that is unavoidably larger than the L1 cache. Video encoders are just one of many cases where this occurs.

 _(Note: added that last point to the blog post after I posted this.)_

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the follow-up. After re-reading the post, I see that this is not /just/ an x264 problem.

Thank you also for informing me that hardware encoders aren't very good. I had actually considered purchasing one of the ~$100 ones, but now I'll steer clear.

I must be doing something wrong, though, because I can't seem to get much better than 2x real-time on my Q6600 w/ 4GB memory when using x264.

<comment><AUTHOR> The meaning of 2x real-time, of course, depends entirely on the resolution.

x264 now has encoding presets you can use to trade off speed for compression: they go from "ultrafast" to "placebo" (full list in the help). Grab the latest from x264.nl; we've also had a lot of speed improvements lately ;).

Do note that at high speeds, it's easy to get bottlenecked: the most common case is the decoding of the input, which is often only single-threaded. If your input is uncompressed, then you can get bottlenecked by reading it off the disk. And if you're running filters on the input (e.g. resizing it), that can also serve as a bottleneck.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


P.A.W.S. – Automated puppy news generator - <AUTHOR> http://puppynewsbot.com <comment><USER3> We're very proud to present for you the Puppy Aggregation Widget Script - <USER2> world's first automated puppy news generator. It's inspired by John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode this summer about the sad state of journalism today. Former Tribune Company C.E.O. Sam Zell famously told concerned staffers that once revenue is significant they can cover "puppies" (money making clickbait) and Iraq (serious topics).

We understand viral content makes up a healthy portion of readers' daily interest, so we've automated it with P.A.W.S. Head over to our site, grab the code and paste it into whatever part of YOUR site you feel you want to induce tears of joy, cries of AWWWWW!!!! and generally break some hearts. Say F you to Sam by supporting this!</comment>


Microsoft acquires Beam interactive livestreaming service - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/08/11/microsoft-acquires-beam-interactive-livestreaming-service/#sm.009e6ds21adqfbp10xs1oz8jvwca1 <comment><USER2> The CEO (one of the co-founders) is 18 years old – and already a prolific entrepreneur.[1] He did a great talk at TechCrunch Battlefield.[2]

Impressive work by the Beam team. I'm not a gamer (at all), and even I have way too much fun watching streams on Beam.

[1] [http://www.geekwire.com/2016/beam/](http://www.geekwire.com/2016/beam/) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRpgU2tTRWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRpgU2tTRWQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> > We've developed a world-first low latency streaming protocol built on top of > WebRTC and VP8 to do stream delivery with sub-second latency to power the > core of our platform.

Nice. Worked on something kinda like that a couple years ago.

> Would you rather have Gates, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: > "Zuckerberg, hands down. He has a unique global perspective on human > interaction and communities. We function as an indirect social network for > gamers, and Zuckerberg is the king of social."

interesting.

I'd rank him 3rd. Course this guy grew up with Zuckerberg as king and gates running charities.

</comment><comment><USER4> That was quick, Beam hasn't been around for very long. But they have innovative new stuff, where twitch has been kind of stagnating technically.

And access to Microsoft infrastructure and integration with their gaming platforms might help them grow. First stop: Minecraft integration.

<comment><USER5> Honest question: what innovative stuff does Beam have?

<comment><AUTHOR> (Beam employee, views are my own)

The primary points relevant to the push for interactive content are:

\- The "Interactive" system and SDK to develop and connect games to GUI controls. This allows first party to develop integrations, and also allows the creation of mods for existing games or integration via simple desktop automation.

\- Extremely low latency (~200ms) video distribution at scale. Other services like Twitch have latency around ~10 seconds, at which interactivity would not be feasible.

<comment><USER6> Does video latency matter for most game streams? The games I watch on twitch are delayed to offset stream sniping.

<comment><USER7> As connor4312 write, it majorly hampers anything interactive. The 10-30 second latency has been a persistent issue throughout TwitchPlaysPokemon, for example. Beyond TPP's very special case, though, it means streamers who want to ask questions to their audience have to speak and then pause to give time for the stream to catch up before people start answering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats to Beam but I will admit it's kinda sad since the chances of the PS4 ever getting an option to stream to Beam are now pretty much 0.

</comment><comment><USER9> The endgame is likely native TwitchPlaysPokemon-esque experiences for Xbox One / Windows 10, something which Sony/Nintendo definitely will not be able to do as easily. (streamer/viewer interaction + Minecraft could make things crazy)

<comment><AUTHOR> (Beam employee, views are my own)

That's the plan. As part of Xbox we'll have a lot more resources to build those kinds of integrations; as of yet _most_ of our resources have been developed to building the core streaming platform -- video distribution, chat, various third party integrations, and other miscellaneous features. Interactive will definitely continue to expand and increase in pace over the coming months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Xbox is on fire this year

</comment><comment><USER11> Not to be confused with Beme

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

</comment><comment><USER12> how much did ms paid for this?

</comment><comment><USER13> Already?! Jesus.</comment>


golintui – terminal UI that helps you run various Go linters via golangci-lint - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nakabonne/golintui <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the author of golintui. Any feedback would be appreciated.</comment>


Blockstack releases full details for token distribution - <AUTHOR> https://blockstack.org/blog/blockstack-token-sale <comment><USER2> I'm reading the token whitepaper, and I came across the section mentioning "proof-of-burn" as a way to gain Stacks:

         With proof-of-burn mining, miners destroy a proof-of-work-based cryptocurrency (currently Bitcoin) to get tokens

This seems strange to me - in a blockchain such as Bitcoin where the total number of coins are limited, wouldn't this make the bitcoin community want Blockstack off their chain?

Maybe I am missing something, or the amount of bitcoin destroyed will be negligible?

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin has a limited supply, so the less available the more valuable each remaining piece becomes.

But I'd guess you will only burns Bitcoins if you get something of more value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Future Is Near!

</comment><comment><USER5> NEAT! looks promising.

What are your thoughts?</comment>


Google Maps Timeline - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps/timeline <comment><USER2> requires a google sign-in.

<comment><USER3> Also requires location history enabled and with some data in it.</comment></comment>


As SpaceX Launches Starlink, Scientists See Threat to 'Astronomy Itself' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/science/spacex-starlink-satellites.html <comment><USER2> This is crazy, so we are seriously adding 8 times the number of satellites without having a clear understanding of the impact this would be on things like... being able to see soon enough asteroids coming towards Earth?

I don't get it. Why are we going so fast? We don't have to.

<comment><USER3> We don't have a solution for an asteroid coming toward earth anyway right now.

It's not illegal so SpaceX will try and do it and then astronomers can try and adapt. If it turns out to really bad, SpaceX could be forced to deorbit the satellites I suppose, but that seems unlikely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Astronomers should have a base on the moon.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could a tiny space telescope be added to each satellite, constantly sending telemetry down to earth via starlink? Maybe in concert that would be enough interferometric data to be a net gain for astronomy?

(I know nothing about it, just spitballing)

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought earth's atmospheric distortion was already a big problem. Wouldn't astronomers want telescopes as far from ground as possible?

</comment><comment><USER7> Nothing Elon Musk does threatens astronomy. Musk will accelerate innovation and development within the astronomy industry via reducing the cost per pound of placing satellites in orbit. It elevates the feasibility and affordability of space telescopes like the hubble, as well as future space missions and development.

</comment><comment><USER8> So now Musk is up to no good too. I am very disappointed.</comment>


Reddit says Bitfinex insolvent - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/8evf7b/bitfinex_appears_to_be_insolvent_popcorn_futures/ <comment><USER2> Reddit has been saying this for years now...

While they might well be right this time, bitfinex has a pretty good history of not going insolvent every previous time.</comment>


Poly(ADP-ribose) drives pathologic α-synuclein neurodegeneration in Parkinson's - <AUTHOR> https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6414/eaat8407 <comment><AUTHOR> Mouse Model Shows How Parkinson's Disease Begins in the Gut [https://www.the- scientist.com/news-opinion/mouse-model-shows...](https://www.the- scientist.com/news-opinion/mouse-model-shows-how-parkinsons-disease-begins-in- the-gut-66048)</comment>


RhodeCode - fast web repository manager for git and mercurial - <AUTHOR> http://rhodecode.org

<comment><USER2> Wow, this looks like a nice replacement to Redmine (which I always found incredibly hard to setup for something that should be a 5 minute installation). I'll give it a spin!

</comment><comment><USER3> sorry, but that design has made me ctrl + w that tab in a 0.3 sec.

Design sells, even with git/hg users.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site ? or demo.rhodecode.org ? We're not well finance startup that can hire graphic designers to make our software look fancy. We value functionality and performance over looks.

<comment><USER4> No need to get defensive.

Design is not always "graphic", strangers are not always nice and "fancy looks" are a cheap and easy way to attract attention.</comment></comment></comment>


What is the best advice you ever received? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Go out of your way to talk to people. Smile at them, learn their name and make sure they know you remember it. Learn the art of nonvapid small talk.

It takes an minimal amount of effort to learn two or three small things about someone, and you will never in your adult life have too many friends or business contacts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't put something in an email unless you'd be happy with everyone in the office seeing it.

</comment><comment><USER4> You don't have to persuade others. Let them be. Just do your own thing.

Forced work doesn't have forced result. It just doesn't work.

Let things happen naturally in your life: water finds its own level. Not have a girlfriend? Probably because you don't see enough people daily. If you keep working on what you love, you'll meet people with the same taste, and you'll click with them way more than you would, if you wanted to force yourself to have a girlfriend (who doesn't care about what you do anyway).

Admittedly, in some jobs you don't see enough girls and women around (remember all those jokes about programmers?), while in some other jobs like dancing, theatre, music, etc. you'll see many. This improves your chance of having a great relationship with (mostly) more beautiful girls. Now I'm not saying you should quit being a programmer and become a guitarist to attract girls, just know that at the end of the day, you can't have best of both worlds.

</comment><comment><USER5> Basically that any advice you receive is going to be just plain wrong.

Turns out it's true! People extrapolate advice out of their own unique circumstances, base advice off nonsense they see on the news, or just make things up to sound smart, just to name a few problems with most advice.

Think honestly and critically about the next piece of advice you give/receive.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't try to please everyone

</comment><comment><USER7> Therefore let your words be few.You can learn more by listening and observing all that is uplifting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Best advice I ever received was "Do it as if you knew how" so odd to hear growing up but really helped me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't do what most other people do.

</comment><comment><USER9> The fastest way to learn anything - do it to learn, not learn to do it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Read books. Many of them

</comment><comment><USER11> Maximize savings in tax deferred accounts (401ks, IRAs, etc)

</comment><comment><USER12> Be sceptical, especially about advice.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you have an option, listen.

</comment><comment><USER14> just be yourself

</comment><comment><USER15> learn to debug</comment>


A "nation-state" used Wikileaks to influence US election, the head of NSA says - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/838615/nsa-chief-on-wikileaks-and-the-hacks-affecting-the-us-election-a-conscious-effort-by-a-nation-state/ <comment><USER2> Has the NSA ever offered evidence for these allegations? The WSJ article linked says "this action originated from servers operated by a Russian company". That's rather weak evidence to offer up.

Further, why is there no backlash against the DNC or the government themselves for failing to secure their systems.

This entire election cycle just seems like _everyone_ has been acting irrationally.

<comment><USER3> What evidence would you accept? Short of an admission of guilt signed using the SVR's public key, everything will be circumstantial. And if the NSA has any assets that can give a more direct confirmation, do you really want the NSA to give them up just so that the people who disbelieve the NSA can say "well they're lying anyway"?

As it stands, the public evidence I've seen is

1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies

2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials

3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia

4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments.

True, this is all circumstantial. The NSA certainly has more. If the NSA released it, the people who disbelieve the NSA would rightly point out that any really hard evidence could have been planted by the NSA anyway, so it can't be taken as certain that the NSA didn't plant it.

So why should the NSA sacrifice any assets to satisfy them?

<comment><USER4> >1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies

This doesn't even hint that there might be Russian involvement. It's utterly irrelevant. Anyone doing something like this will most likely be hosting either in Russia or the Netherlands.

>2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials

Low-level officials probably aren't in positions to confirm intelligence operations such as these, and even if they were, such behaviour would hardly be unexpected from an entirely unrelated party.

>3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia

Would you like to back that up somehow? Not all of us share your security clearance so we can't read the emails between Assange and Putin.

>4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments.

The pro-Russian tack only stands out if you ignore the rest of their politics... In which case literally anything would stand out, no?

>True, this is all circumstantial

This is all bullshit. There exists _significantly better_ technical evidence of Russian involvement available to the public.

<comment><USER3> >There exists significantly better technical evidence of Russian involvement available to the public.

Could you share?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a messenger.

<comment><USER6> I certainly agree with you to a certain extent, but if we're honest there were just as many things to leak about Trump if they had wanted to do so. If you smear one side to put the other side in power and undermine American democracy on the world stage, then you are influencing the election for the benefit of other countries.

<comment><USER7> So you are accusing Wikileaks of sitting on a trove of data that was highly unflattering to Trump?

<comment><USER8> No, there is no evidence of that. What is clear is that 'someone' provided illegally obtained materials to Wikileaks, and all indications are that it was Russia. Russia chose to provide information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump.

Wikileaks just ran with what it got.

<comment><USER5> > all indications are that it was Russia

If you worked during normal Russian business hours and used a few proxies and a final exit IP in Russia paid for with a stolen Russian credit card, the assumption would be that you're Russian. It wouldn't prove it, though. AFAIK the attacker just guessed Podesta's GMail password, so it could have been a kid in Tennessee[1] for all we know.

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

<comment><USER8> It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies were incorrect in their analysis. The US intelligence community has a high degree of confidence on this one, but you never really know unless you can see the evidence first hand.

That's what makes this sort of espionage so effective and dangerous. You can significantly damage an adversary by meddling in their elections, with little risk to yourself. Yeah it might raise tensions, but the US is not going to retaliate with sanctions or military action.

I can only imagine in the future that this sort of thing will become a lot more common. No other nation can challenge the US militarily, but anyone can wage war in cyberspace.

<comment><USER7> > It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies > were incorrect in their analysis

I receive phishing emails like the one Podesta clicked on from time to time. They typically end up in my spam folder on gmail and get ignored. They can ensnare technically illiterate people, but are not very sophisticated attacks.

The spokesperson said that the phisher was targeting government officials in a number of countries. It's difficult to see why this makes the attacker "state sponsored". Is the idea that only a state would desire to dig into the emails of other states? I'd say that many corporate interests would also benefit from it, as would those doing speculative investment, etc. The list is long.

The other thing is that there was no damage to the US election. Arguably the release of the Podesta emails helped American voters learn more about candidates than would have been possible without alternative news orgs like Wikileaks.

If on the other hand there was a Stuxnet style attack on electronic voting machines, or on traffic lights near polling places, then sure, it's likely state sponsored.

Any teenager with pentesting tools and a VPS could have done all the hacking relevant to this election. Sure he/she could have been on the state payroll, but it counts more as mischief than cyber warfare. That our government and one of our candidates came out strongly beating war drums over it says more than any of the leaks or official statements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand this critique. Though "influence election" sounds ominous, in this case it really refers to "influencing" voters by revealing true things, does it not?

One can argue that the means of obtaining the information (hacking) is relevant, but I'm not sure if that's something I'd accept without examination.

<comment><USER10> Something can be true and be misrepresented at the same time.

For example, the DNC email leaks showed that the DNC was working with Clinton. However, when those emails were sent, it was mathematically impossible for Sanders to overtake Clinton when only counting primary/caucus-assigned delegates (not counting super-delegates at all). The emails were in response to Sanders (mostly his supporters) pushing super-delegates to change their pledged vote.

The emails were accurate, in that they showed the DNC supporting Clinton directly. But they were from a time where Clinton had just become the presumptive nominee, and it is reasonable to expect the party to offer support to the presumptive nominee in preparation for the general election. They were misrepresented as showing the DNC supporting Clinton while Sanders was still a viable candidate with a reasonable chance of winning the nomination.

I say all of this as a disappointed Sanders supporter who knew that he was running a tough race in a party he had just joined without much support from the party's rank-and-file members.

<comment><USER9> Of course people can draw incorrect conclusions from true facts. But since neither you nor I know the exact truth, we'll never know for sure which party is the one drawing the incorrect conclusions.

In this case it sounds like the NSA has several assumptions:

A. That Trump winning was worse than Clinton

B. That what Russian state-actors do is somehow more "bad" than what American state-actors do

C. That the people of America should be prevented from knowing certain things that "us smarter people in power" can handle, so that they vote for the person "We know is best."

C is pretty scary when you think about it. And I for one, certainly don't trust the militaristically-minded never-tried-marijuana lets-do-polygraph tap- everything-and-ask-questions-later people at our acronym agencies to be more objective judges of long-term good than the average citizen.

Let's (humans) work on stopping asteroids and climate change rather than fight over lines on maps.

<comment><USER10> > A. That Trump winning was worse than Clinton

If this is the case, why not pull a Comey and release this information before the election?

> B. That what Russian state-actors do is somehow more "bad" than what > American state-actors do

Since the NSA is an American agency, it follows that they think themselves less "bad" than the equivalent Russian agency. If they thought themselves worse, why not help Russia?

> C. That the people of America should be prevented from knowing certain > things that "us smarter people in power" can handle, so that they vote for > the person "We know is best."

Again, if they thought Clinton was the better option (your stated assumption from point A), why wouldn't they release information that appears to show that Russia is sympathetic to Trump before the election?

<comment><USER9> Let me try to make this simple, because I think you want to, and can, understand what I'm saying.

I'm saying this article quotes the NSA using language condemning what Russia allegedly did.

I'm saying, if we want to condemn this type of behavior we should:

A) Define why it is bad in a general sense (not in the context of a controversial president)

B) Ensure that if we agree it's an morally unacceptable or malicious process, that our acronym agencies do not do this same behavior to other countries (otherwise we are hypocrites and they will quite rightly feel they have justification to retaliate in kind)

And my last paragraph suggests that those in positions of authority are too- close-to-see-it, and that perhaps these distinctions on what is "cyber warfare" and what is "revealing the truth" should be made by congress in unambiguous and neutral fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks." — Sergei Markov, 9 November: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin- applau...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin-applauds- trump-win-and-hails-new-era-of-positive-ties-with-us)

(I don't know if him having said that means anything, but it's interesting nonetheless.)

</comment><comment><USER12> It is in the interest of every state to discredit Wikileaks, hence Russia "letting slip," they were behind the DNC leaks right after the election.

The intelligence community doesn't get an opinion. Arguably, any comment from them about domestic elections only reduces the legitimacy of their mandate.

</comment><comment><USER13> They've never lied before to protect their own interests before so why start doubting them now right?

<comment><USER2> For those that downvoted the parent, the NSA denied doing many of the activities that Snowden exposed. The US misled the public building their case to invade Iraq. Just two recent examples of where the government lied for their own interests. So, I think the OP makes a fair point.

Further, the gov. hasn't exactly offered substantial evidence to show that it was Russian government as opposed to hackers working alone. Maybe they don't need to provide the general public with all the details, but showing the evidence to a third party would go a long way to building trust.

<comment><USER13> It's interesting to note that the hack that likely got access to Podesta emails and subsequently handed those emails over to Wikileaks is recorded in the leaked emails themselves.

It was a typical phishing email scheme easy to recognize and ignore by anyone who's used a internet connected computer for more than a year, but for some reason not by their own IT guy who tells Podesta to click on the link! EDIT: Actually he does send the correct password reset link as well, but still identifies the original email as authentic. The link in that original email is a bitly one - clearly an email from Google themselves lol

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta- emails/emailid/34899](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899)

I don't know much about FSB's hacking abilities but I would guess they are a little more sophisticated than this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, the issue is not the content of the emails, but the fact that they were leaked?

<comment><USER15> unless you were interested in risotto recipes, yes

<comment><USER16> Or widespread and obvious collusion and corruption? Don't be thick, these emails revealed just how sleazy and inept the DNC is. The establishment left needs a serious overhaul if they want to do anything of substance in the next four years

<comment><USER17> This is hyperbole. It seems implicitly that you're saying the right doesn't need a similar cleansing.

<comment><USER18> How can anyone in this day and age assume when someone speaks poorly of a massive, corrupt oganisation that they think highly of another massive, corrupt organisation?

Shouldn't we assume that everyone outside of those massive, corrupt organisations are tired of the status quo?

<comment><USER19> _" How can anyone in this day and age assume when someone speaks poorly of a massive, corrupt oganisation that they think highly of another massive, corrupt organisation?"_

I'd so love for this to be the case. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be empirically true. There's a lot of political discussion just on HN that shows it's hard for people to grant the other side (whatever other happens to be) that benefit of the doubt. It does take work, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What evidence exists to suggest that this was a deliberate attempt by Russia to influence the results of the US election in a way that would benefit them?

<comment><USER21> Ukraine related economic sanctions would be probably cancelled by Trump, while Clinton would have maintained the status quo.

<comment><USER20> I'm not asking _only_ how Trump would benefit Russia, but what evidence exists to suggest that this entire ordeal was some elaborate scheme concocted by the Russian government?

EDIT: If this claim was such a stark truth, surely there must exist a smoking gun somewhere? So, where is the evidence?

<comment><USER22> I don't know if you've ever heard of the NSA before, but they deal in secrets. They don't publish their methods and they don't reveal sources. Remember that whole Edward Snowden thing?

<comment><USER23> They have also been caught telling rather big fibs for political purposes before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The NSA clearly has motives for rallying people against Wikileaks.

Do they have any evidence for this or should a sane person really take them at their word?

</comment><comment><USER25> There's a good summary post on Reddit on evidence for Russian infiltration or influence of Wikileaks:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/d9uwctp/?context=10)

The timeline suggests that Wikileaks was about to try to dump something damaging to Russia and/or Putin (is there a difference at this point?) and then was threatened, backed off, and now may have been folded into Russian intelligence as some kind of asset.

I wouldn't be surprised. It's naive to believe that a small volunteer outfit can take on an entire world of pro intelligence agencies. The USA is not the only country that does these things, and many countries such as Russia do so with a much more "gloves off" approach than we do... especially when dealing with civilians.

In any case I now see stuff about Trump and Putin communicating prior to Trump taking office, etc., and Putin's politics certainly aligns to some extent with elements of the 'alt-right.' Of course the Bushes have their Saudi "investors" and the Clintons have their Chinese pals, so overseas enmeshment with nations of questionable allegiance to the US is not out of the ordinary in US politics. One of the consequences of empire is that an empire's national politics become everyone else's business too. DC is a world capital, and our elections are world elections.

<comment><USER26> _" We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen," Mr. Assange told the pro-government daily Izvestia. "But not as much as we'd like... We will publish these materials soon."

He then dropped a hint that's likely to be nervously parsed in Russia's corridors of power: "We are helped by the Americans, who pass on a lot of material about Russia," to WikiLeaks, he said._

Really? Is it likely that Americans would pass dirt on Russian government to Assange and let him disclose the source? If they wanted to be so open they could as well announce it themselves, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Curious that the article quotes Assange but fails to mention that he's not been seen since his internet has been cut off back in October.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Divided we fall."

And by far, the biggest source of that division has been internal.

If some "nation state" (the catchphrase of the month, apparently) found a crack and applied a bit of leverage -- well, look to yourselves for blame -- and for the solution.

Democrats as well as Republicans. The high side of both parties outsourced, and basically told the dispossessed to "get over it".

Divided we fall.

<comment> wu-ikkyu >since we have (I may say) all the naval Stores of the Nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas, and then the united force of all Europe, will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves, is to disunite Us. Divide et impera. Keep us in distinct Colonies, and then, some great men, in each Colony, desiring the Monarchy of the Whole, they will destroy each others influence and keep the Country in Equilibrio.

-John Adams

[http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0003#P...](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0003#PJA01d005n1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> No kidding; this was obvious from way back. I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated as _significantly_ less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media than the Clinton emails.

It also needs to be brought out in _painful_ clarity: disinformation campaigns are real; they are not always lies; sometimes they are carefully pruning the truth to ensure the chosen outcome comes out to play.

It _also_ needs to be brought out: the cypherpunk model (anonymous hackers sourcing anonymous data) has exploded messily under the presence of coordinated group of actors come out to subvert the hackers.

Makes me wonder how to get involved with public policy, to be honest.

<comment><USER30> > I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated > as _significantly_ less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media > than the Clinton emails.

IMHO, a large segment of the media is not really journalism, but ideological promotion. This includes Fox properties (Fox News, the WSJ - at least their editorial page, NY Post, various UK publications, etc.), Rush Limbaugh and most talk radio, right-wing blogs, and many others. Therefore a large segment of the news media doesn't cover scandals on the right, while everyone covers them on the left:

* _An unsubstantiated hint of scandal on the left_ gets blanket coverage from the ideological sources. Consider the fake Planned Parenthood emails, or the fake investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

* _A substantiated scandal on the left_ is covered by everyone, the ideological right as well as the real journalists. For example, the NY Times broke the Clinton email server story and covered the Russian/Wikileaks emails extensively. Of course, Fox et al. covered and promoted these stories to maximum extent.

* _A substantiated scandal on the right_ is covered only by real journalists, and ignored (or used as fodder for spin and attacks against accusers) by the ideological right.

* _An unsubstantiated scandal on the right_ is ignored by everyone.

<comment><USER18> Not to disagree with one half of your assertion (that media leaning right is corrupt and broken), but you appear completely blind to the media that leans left being equally corrupt and broken. Many scandals about the left were covered up and hidden away. You just didn't look for them.

I struggle to find any mass media that hasn't been rendered completely useless during this election cycle. To contrast your Fox/WSJ/WaPo list of egregious terrible media, consider BBC, CNN, TYT, HuffPo, Slate (I'll stop there, but I could list 50 more).

Honestly, the best coverage I could find in this last election cycle came from dreary underground groups. All major media had clearly picked a side and was uninterested in providing useful, factual information.

<comment><USER29> That's factually a a half false equivalency, and will _badly_ mislead you into conspiracy theory.

\- Fox, WSJ, and WaPo are news organizations. HuffPo is definitely not up to their standard, being, AFAICT, a collection of blogs; Slate is primarily essays- not news.

\- CNN and BBC are actual news orgs.

Leaving the BBC out of it, as they are British. Please demonstrate where CNN covered a left scandal up.

<comment><USER30> IMO, Fox News is clearly the leading source of ideology, and the WSJ's editorial page, if not their news (though it's owned by the same people as Fox News), is the same ideology repackaged for the 'elite'.

In my experience, that's clear to people from everywhere on the spectrum. There's a reason the ideologues on the right only listen to Fox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How is this any different than what the CIA has done in the past to other countries?

Are the emails legitimate and do the American people have a right to know what's in them?

</comment><comment><USER32> I have [potentially unfounded] assumptions that groups within the NSA/CIA had a hand in the leaks. I'm sure the corruption of selling government positions and influence of foreign money/bribes happens in both establishment parties. Bringing this kind of corruption to the public's eye rings of the 'patriotic' motives of Snowden, etc.

</comment><comment><USER33> So suddenly it's not Russia anymore, but a "nation-state"?

</comment><comment> wu-ikkyu Is there any practicality to claiming the hack originated from a "nation- state"?

Any time news worthy hacks are ambiguously attributed to massive geographical regions (i.e. CN, RU) which can easily be proxied through from anywhere in the world, how is it any different from saying "we're certain the hack originated from somewhere on this planet, trust us."?

</comment><comment><USER34> I believe that a nation state did use wikileaks to influence the election. I just think it was the U.S. Also, Assange hasn't been seen publicly in ~42 days. You can see the timeline on assange.net (not Julians personal site). It doesn't speculate, just provides facts. Very concerning.

<comment><USER35> Um... he's just completed a two day interview over rape allegations and issued statements about it. I doubt that the Ecuadorean embassy, Swedish prosecutors, Assange's legal team and the @Wikileaks Twitter account are working together on this one...

<comment><USER34> no. his last confirmed public appearance was early october. The checksums of the evidence files don't match post his internet going down. The questions were relayed to him and his lawyer was not present. Do your own research, don't take my word for it, however the "wikileakstaskforce" account was made in October. There is significant skepticism he is alive and the embassy has a bay window which his cat was seen at yesterday. He could simply pull back the curtain or sign a document with the private key to quell skeptics who have become increasingly vocal since his internet was severed over a month ago.

edit: it is nearly 7pm local time in London. Do you not find it odd wikileaks has been rather silent that it's founder has likely completed giving a full days deposition to exonerate him of the crime he is seeking asylum for...in that vbery embassy. A half-decade or greater ordeal. They posted an infographic yesterday, an NEA Bill Clinton leak, and appeal for pardoing Chelsea Manning. No mention that this is day 2 of a major fight for Assange.

edit 2: In fact, according to google[0] there has been NO news about it. There are ~5 stories and none of them relating to todays depo.

[0][https://www.google.com/#q=assange+sweden+interview&tbm=nws&t...](https://www.google.com/#q=assange+sweden+interview&tbm=nws&tbs=qdr:d)

<comment><USER35> He _could_ simply pull back the curtain or sign a document with the private key to quell skeptics who have become increasingly vocal since his internet was severed over a month ago. But that assumes that calming paranoid people down is high on Assange's list of priorities, and that assumption alone is pretty heroic.

If your conspiracy theory involves Swedish prosecutors, Ecuadorean embassy staff and Assange's legal team all conspiring not to notice that he's not around to take their interviews or phone calls and doesn't involve public statements released in Assange's name looking any different to his usual output, it's not a very good one

<comment><USER34> I am simply stating that there is no proof he is alive, and hasn't been for ~40 days. The checksums don't match-- which is a bit odd as they have consistently matched pre-comitments until now. That said, I would assume that if Assange is alive (and hasn't escaped the embassy somehow) that he _would_ want people to know he was alive. If very powerful people were trying to kill you, you would likely not want to make it a habit to disappear for >1 month to elicit shock value. In the event someone actually does kidnap/threaten/kill you no one would think it odd for 40 days.

Again, I am not really speculating. There is no proof he is alive. Many have asked for it. The twitter poll vote was for a video, the pilger interview was a pre-recorded video and his spokesperson said he was "very ill and his condition had deteriorated" and the prosecutor relayed the info to him via 3rd party and barred his lawyer Samuelson from being present. So IDK what is going on, but something feels very strange about this.

<comment><USER35> > I am simply stating that there is no proof he is alive

 _rolls eyes_

Apart from the fact that his hosts, his own legal team, and Swedish prosecutors have all publicly vouched for having interacted with him in the past couple of days and even Pamela bloody Anderson has met him since his last "proof of life", none whatsoever.

Also, there is not cryptographically sound proof that I am alive, so it is not really speculating to suggest that you are interacting with a ghost.

This particular ghost finds it pretty hilarious that anybody could consider it plausible that powerful people wanting to kill Assange would form the largest and unlikeliest group of conspirators ever and then drip feed as much information drawing as much attention to his situation as possible to the press after doing the deed, and consider it unlikely that Assange might do something to elicit shock value.

<comment><USER34> > Apart from the fact that his hosts, his own legal team, and Swedish > prosecutors have all publicly vouched for having interacted with him in the > past couple of days and even Pamela bloody Anderson has met him since his > last "proof of life", none whatsoever.

Links? PA met him over a month ago. I have not seen the prosecutor state she has met with him.

> there is not cryptographically sound proof that I am alive

Well, to my knowledge you aren't being hunted by state government. You also didn't publicly state, build, and confirm a contingency plan and take pains to cryptographically verify most of your disclosures.

I am _again_ not speculating further. I am stating that despite his extremely precarious situation and his quarters being in a major city literally surrounded by reporters and with a balcony and windows he has not made an appearance despite tripping of his deadmans switch. Further, he is a pretty arrogant guy so I would be surprised he wouldn't be not only commenting on his successful influence of the election, his potential to exfiltrate himself from this legal mess or just generally make some statements, it is seeming as if he is no longer able to do so.

When your dead man switch goes off, and you have encouraged people to verify your identity in this scenario, it is pretty fucking weird there has not been cryptographic proof. Believe what you want, but clearly something is amiss.

<comment><USER35> Pamela Anderson met him twice since October 4th, most recently this week. As did a Swedish prosecutor, who just _might_ have had something to say and not gone back the following day if she'd been interviewing a mannequin. His legal team issued a statement over the interview saying that he was "very happy" and had "prepared himself very carefully". His website issued a statement in his name about the elections on November 8th. Another press release in his name issued November 14th complained that only his Ecuadorean counsel and not his Swedish counsel were there but said he was cooperating with prosecutors anyway.

But yeah, I'm sure none of these people _really_ interacted with him in any way because he hasn't reactivated his dead mans switch since October 4th. Your evidential standards and blind faith in Assange's desire to quell rumours about conspiracies against him are _totally_ reasonable here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe the democratics shouldn't have cheated, stolen the nomination from bernie, or coordinated illegally with their super pacs.

<comment><USER37> The "Democrats" didn't "steal" the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders got _crushed_ in the Democratic primaries, by a margin almost _ten times_ that of what Obama achieved over Hillary Clinton in 2008. Even if leaked emails had shown material support for Clinton over Sanders, let alone before the nomination had become a foregone conclusion, there's nothing the DNC could do to explain the extent to which Sanders lost. He lost decisively, both by the same pledged delegate count margin Obama achieved and for which his team was praised as delegate counting geniuses, and by a massive gulf in the popular vote.

<comment><USER34> What? Five thirty eight has them at:

HRC: 2,218

BS: 1,833

This _includes_ >700 superdelegates which are not tied to primary contests. Hillary won almost all of these. If this was 100% up to voters (which admittedly is not how this contest works) it would be closer. That said, she certainly influenced those SD to vote for her well in advance.

[http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-t...](http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate- targets/)

edit: The above information is wrong. Tptacek corrected me. Please see my comment below for expanded point.

<comment><USER37> Not only does that count _not_ include the superdelegates, but the page you linked to, in the only mention of superdelegates, below a count labeled "pledged delegates" (who are not superdelegates), specifically says they aren't. Further, by the logic you just used, had the count included "superdelegates" that Hillary Clinton won entirely, you would be suggesting that Bernie Sanders would have _won_ the Democratic Primary without them (he would not have).

Bernie Sanders lost decisively. But because Wikileaks strategically leaked the right hacked emails, his supporters believe instead in a false alternative history. It's Wikileaks you should be angry at.

<comment><USER34> Point ceded, Clinton did win without super delegates. I misread that. That said, I believe sanders would have beaten Trump. I also believe the wikileaks emails and do not believe it was a fair contest (primary or general election). Again, I agree you are correct Hillary won, however I do not believe this was "fair". I believe the emails to be genuine as they were not disputed, and some were released by the government itself. I won't try to convince you how to interpret the content, but much of it certainly seems clear to _me_ that between the non-agression pact, references to keeping in check due to their "leverage" over him, and the entire internal DNC scandal with DWS, ect. that this was anything but a typical primary.

<comment><USER37> Sanders would have gotten his _ass kicked_ against Trump. I can't make that argument as conclusively as I can the argument that the DNC didn't steal the primary from him, but I personally believe it just as firmly:

* Turnout was lower for _both_ the D's and the R's this cycle. R turnout would not have been lower if the D's had run an avowed socialist. Suburban/exurban voters --- a natural R cohort Clinton actually outperformed with in this cycle --- would have turned out in force for the GOP.

* Sanders policy proposals and the language he uses to talk about it aren't in sync with the white working class (really, any part of the working class); it's "let them eat college tuitions". Unemployed tool & die engineers aren't looking for college subsidies, and they already survive on handouts ("long term disability"). That's why they're angry.

* Sanders did terribly at engaging the African American vote, so much so that insider stories got written about how messed up their African American outreach was. The narrative of this election is that Clinton lost in part because she failed to mobilize Obama's coalition. But Clinton crushed Sanders in the primary with exactly that coalition, so the evidence suggests Sanders would have done even worse with the hand Clinton was dealt.

* Sanders was terribly vulnerable. His supporters like to believe that HRC gave it to him with both barrels during the primary. But she did not: she was a complacent candidate who believed (correctly) in the inevitability of her nomination and (incorrectly) in the inevitability of her election. It is simply a fact that Sanders did not receive a serious vetting during the primary, and to see that, you only have to see what stories didn't come up during the primary:

\--- Sanders chaired Senate VA during the Veterans Health Scandal and was on VA during the Walter Reed scandal. Unlike Benghazi, these were real failures of oversight that harmed large numbers of American veterans. Not only that, but Sanders has in part built a Senate career on support for veterans benefits, so the attack ads write themselves. How culpable was Sanders for any of this? Fuck if I know. That's not the point.

\--- Sanders wrote an essay that stated women fantasize about being raped by three men simultaneously. Does that really matter? Almost certainly not. That's not the point.

\--- While Trump was starting his real estate "empire" with help from his father, not only was Bernie Sanders not winning victories for the working class, he was collecting employment (in his mid-30s) and stealing electricity from his neighbors. Does that matter? Not to me; to me that makes him more relatable. But that's not the point.

\--- Sanders is not only a supporter of, but personally profits from, a scheme to transport toxic waste from Vermont and dump it in Latino communities in Texas. Does that make Sanders an "environmental racist"? Well, in fact, yes it does.

Are all of these things dispositive? No. But they give the lie to the idea that Sanders would have crushed Trump because Clinton had too much baggage to run with.

<comment><USER34> These are all fascinating facts and new to me. I actually didn't know any of these things. On balance, I think he is a leagues better person than Hillary or Trump but this definitely underscores hat all politicians make some terrible compromises/must do bad things.

We will never know if Trump would've beat Sanders but had he been on the ticket, I likely would've voted for him instead of writing in "no confidence". Interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sure, the USA.

High members of the USA will for sure like to prove everybody of corrupt and criminal actions by members in government offices.

</comment><comment><USER39> Also, here's Oliver Stone's "Snowden" movie (open with Transmission or similar):

      magnet:?xt=urn:btih:beb9b342be059a38a54bd1b3ec0cb6448ee07740&dn=Snowden.2016.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fzer0day.ch%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%3A6969

</comment><comment><USER40> Does anyone seriously think this isn't at least worth a congressional investigation?

</comment><comment><USER41> Julian Assange is the modern "useful idiot".

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Useful_idiot](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)

</comment><comment><USER42> More beating of the drum for war with Russia.

<comment><USER37> Can you draw up a set of guidelines for what facts we are and are not allowed to discuss here in the US for fear that we might be encouraging a war with Russia?

<comment><USER42> First of all, I didn't say anything about what we are "allowed" to discuss here.

I just think we should be honest with ourselves about what we're doing (by "we" I mean America, not HN). I remember what it was like when we were leading up to war with Iraq and all the intimations about Russia of late feel the same way to me. Lots of big accusations that are baseless but sound truthy.

As far as this particular piece of news, I would push back by suggesting that the Democrats blew the election by running a crappy campaign with a charisma- less DC insider that Americans mostly dislike.

Do I then get to accuse the DNC and everyone who pushed for Clinton against her primary opponents of colluding with Russia? I expect not.

<comment><USER43> baseless? a current, active Russian politician (whose name and position escape me) publicly said 'we might have helped with Wikileaks'

it's far from baseless -- no matter how (correctly) suspicious one is of anything the NSA says.

<comment><USER26> Reportedly it was said by

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

Seems legit ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The NSA kept a real, meaningful scandal--and not a blowjob scandal, but one material to how the President will govern and look out for American interests --buried until after the election. While the FBI released a pseudo-update on a scandal of IT incompetence the week before the election after dragging it out for months.

It's hard not to be bitter about how politicized both these agencies are. I can see arguments either way about how and when things should be released, but there should be consistency. The fact that they're inconsistent and always happen to come up anti-Democrat is pretty telling.

ETA: As misja111 points out below, the NSA and CIA did announce this before the election. So, my ding against the NSA's political integrity was uncalled for. Leaving this comment here so no one is confused by all the replies.

<comment><USER44> This is not a scandal.

If true, but embarrassing leaked emails had been obtained by a non-state actor, news outlets would do what news outlets do, and they would publish it. There would by cries to investigate and prosecute from the embarrassed party but typically at the end of the day little would come of it.

The fact that it was a state actor is a red herring. Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

Further, Hillary Clinton truly has no one to blame but herself for her FBI problems. Four years of dissembling and foot dragging caused this. Additionally, what the Wikileaks hack shows is that her carelessness almost certainly meant that top secret emails were hacked by an adversarial state actor as well.

<comment><USER45> > The fact that it was a state actor is a red herring. Would it had made any > difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

I think it makes a huge difference. The specific parties involved and their intent matters.

Suppose this were a shooting instead of hack. If an unknown US citizen shoots up a mall, it's a headline. If a member of a Foreign military shoots up a US mall, it's an international incident.

<comment><USER46> Inaccurate analogy. There are several analogies one can come up with to emphasize the "who" over the "what" and there are several analogies that can do the opposite. In this case, even if the "who" matters in some other context, it shouldn't matter with regards to the "what" which is the same regardless. So while the who does matter, that's a different question and a different discussion and arguably shifts the discussion away from the what.

<comment><USER45> The analogy is the least important part of my statement.

I'm not entirely clear on what you're saying. Just to be clarify, suppose that the hack was done either by a script kiddy, or a nation state. Are you saying it doesn't make a difference?

<comment><USER46> To the original question of "Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?", I believe it would not have made any difference in the election which is what I believe is implied by the question. As to whether it makes a difference _at all_ , sure it does in other contexts (e.g. foreign diplomacy), but the email writers and the contents are what helped make the difference in the election. Blaming the releasers is like blaming SMTP or computers, it shifts responsibility.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Can't People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Actually Saying? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/ <comment><USER2> Newman's more-or-less continual invocation of the Straw Man Fallacy is reminiscent of the favored debating tactic of notorious anti-evolution debater Duane Gish: the Gish Gallop.

Gish spewed such forth torrents of falsehoods, that the evolutionist didn't have a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate. Gish didn't address objections raised by his opponents, repeated the same arguments in every debate even after they were soundly refuted, etc.

In other words, both Newman and Gish subvert the very discussion structures that they're supposedly engaging in, using fallacies, distractions, appeals to popular biases, and outright lies to put on a show for a specific audience. There is no interest in truth, only the furthering of an agenda.

Newman is engaging in a dishonest public spectacle, failing at the most basic function of an interviewer (to understand the interviewee), and I believe that any honest intellectual should refuse to be interviewed by her.

</comment><comment><USER3> The spinning in mainstream media is extreme. This is especially a problem nowadays as attention spans are short and only very few people will look into people's actual statements. Furthermore, the selective word use e.g. "controversial" for someone who does not follow the narrative of the news outlet is highly effective in influencing how we feel about that person. Once brand marked with the gateway word, all the negative connections to this word solidify and the association will be more or less permanent and spreads.

<comment><USER4> Controversial is such a wishy-washy term to use as your example. In newspaper speak it mostly means people disagree or don't like something. Here are some examples:

"Slow iphone? Apple will let you turn OFF the controversial feature that reduces iPhone speed" from [https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/5368260/apple- iphone-slow-feat...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/5368260/apple-iphone-slow- feature-turn-off/amp/)

"Grieving Father Wants National Recall of Controversial Guard Rail" from [https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Grieving-Father- Wan...](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Grieving-Father-Wants- National-Recall-of-Controversial-Guard-Rail-470590493.html) .

"Amid boos and shouts, Elwood panel recommends controversial business park in Will County" \- [http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily- southtown/news/c...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily- southtown/news/ct-sta-will-county-business-park- st-0119-20180118-story,amp.html)

"Church of England braced for 'controversial' vote on using Methodist ministers" from [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/20/church-england- br...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/20/church-england-braced- controversial-vote-using-methodist-ministers/amp/)

"Texas Teacher Defends Her Controversial No-Homework Policy: 'Eat Dinner as a Family, Read Together, Play Outside'" from [http://people.com/celebrity/texas- teacher-defends-her-no-hom...](http://people.com/celebrity/texas-teacher- defends-her-no-homework-policy/)

"Controversial designer Hedi Slimane takes the helm at Céline" from [https://nypost.com/2018/01/22/controversial-designer-hedi- sl...](https://nypost.com/2018/01/22/controversial-designer-hedi-slimane- takes-the-helm-at-celine/amp/) .

If "controversial" is the gateway term you think it is, then it's so overused and applied to so many divergent cases as to have no power.

E.g., based on the article about Hedi Slimane, what are "all the negative connections to this word" that you imply may happen, and what is the narrative being pushed?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I don't care enough about anything to be great. How can I change that? - time-to-learn I am a generally happy person, and live a pretty good life. I read. I program a little bit for fun. I have a really great and interesting job. I am generally successful (by an average person's standards).
But, when it comes to actually doing things -- anything that would make someone awesome (creating things, putting myself out there, helping others, etc) -- I am completely lacking any impetus to do more than what is required to live a decent life.
I see people that have written really complex and useful pieces of software, or have composed brilliant works of music/art, or have built businesses that help us live modern life, or run charities that truly help people in need. People that create culture. People that inspire others. I know that based on how I live my life I will never be one of these people.
I wouldn't describe myself as lazy, necessarily (though you might!). I have just never done anything beyond the bare minimum. It has worked out reasonably well by most people's standards, but I want to do more.
I am not just looking for words here... I really need a plan of action. A list of things I can do (not just think about) that could potentially lead to doing more. <comment><AUTHOR> Do you even want to change it? It doesn't sound like it to me but you have no moral obligation to change the world or save it or start a business, be a leader, etc.

Being "great" is hard work, not all its cracked up to be and may not make you any happier than you are now and its not for everyone. Not to mention that "great" is a normative concept and who's standards are we talking here, yours or others? Do you want to be perceived as great in the eyes of others? Many people do and they "succeed" but it doesn't make them happy. At some level maybe you know that you are talented enough to be good but not talented enough to be great even if you applied yourself 100%. Perhaps you hold back for ego- protection and don't apply yourself lest you discover this fact.

You can see that your question is a bit complex and ultimately can only be answered by you. Nevertheless, I think I can help you in your quest by sharing an observation I've made about others. There are at least two types of fundamentally unhappy people as far as I can tell. The first type (I mentioned above in my first paragraph) are people who have no real self, no standards and just seek, in various ways, the approval of others. It is sad but I know many outwardly successful doctors, lawyers, business leaders, etc that are miserable because they thought being successful in the eyes others would make them happy.

The other unhappy class that I observe are people who ended up in jobs or situations that are significantly below their ability. These are talented people who never applied themselves, coasted through school and early life and then one day found themselves trapped by their poor decisions. They failed to apply their talent, to define who they are and what they would be and make an effort to achieve it. This is the auto mechanic who could have been an engineer or the grocery store clerk who could have been an electrician or a businessman or the plumber who could have been a writer, etc. It is a special kind of hell to be more talented than your job requires and many of these types resort to alcohol or weed to ease the pain. (The unhappy doctors and lawyers do too but the requirements of their jobs tends to limit the extent of their drug use)

My advice is to find a career commensurate with your talents in a field that you enjoy and don't worry about what others think. These are the happiest types in my experience.

<comment> time-to-learn My fear is that I am heading down the road you listed in the second scenario. I think the problem is that it is so easy to just tell myself "No, you're doing great. Look at where you are compared to 98% of the world". Even though I know I am just coasting through life.

I have a very happy disposition by default, and I think this has kept me from any action that could potentially cause an upheaval in the way I live. But I can also feel a growing discontentedness with how I have lived my life so far -- never truly challenging myself, never taking any risks, and never really accomplishing anything great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The answer is in your wording: 'I have a great and interesting job. I am generally successful'.

That sounds like a pretty good going, so why change it by needing to be great? It's not your fault that you don't care enough, it is your current circumstance.

Often, greatness comes out of intense desire to change one's situation, more as a byproduct.

You could try to simulate that intense desire by imagining dire situations, such as losing your job next week, or as buddhists do, intensely visualize pain, suffering and death to help others (Tibetan buddhism).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you do not have enough intrinsic motivation [1] to start what you crave to do (yet). Seek out for some idea/project that creates this inner motivation and then it will be easy to start.

Edit: You wanted a plan of action: try as many different things as possible in all areas. Start with something not related to computers ;)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_motivatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_motivation)

<comment> time-to-learn I definitely agree with your assessment. I have considered trying out a bunch of new things -- I've never really done anything not related to computers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I really need a plan of action. A list of things I can do...

Suggest reading the book Bold by Diamandis & Kotler; Chapter 5: The Secrets of Going Big, page 113 - The Creed of the Persistent and Passionate Mind. There you may find your list. > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609444-bold](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609444-bold)

</comment><comment><USER5> All the "great" people I can think of have something in common: they believed in something, acted on it, and happened to become great while doing so. Wanting to be great and then looking for a field to be great in seems to me to be putting the cart in front of the horse.

So, question for you: what do you believe in? What do you care enough about to devote your life to it?

</comment><comment><USER6> Discipline. Decide what you want to do or work towards and do an hour of it every day. You'd be surprised how far that can get you.

<comment> time-to-learn I get very caught up in deciding what to do as well. A bit of decision paralysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you care about changing this enough to put in an effort?

<comment> time-to-learn If I had some idea of what to do, yes I think so. I hope so, at the very least.</comment></comment>


On Authorship and Style (1860) - <AUTHOR> https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter1.html <comment><USER2> I like this essay a lot. But the hn title is incorrect. Article title is "On Authorship and Style" (1860). OP, if you want to discuss this as it applies to programming, it would be much better to leave a comment to that effect than to mislead with the title.

<comment><USER3> Submitted title was "Difference between ordinary and top programmers according to Schopenhauer". That of course broke the site guidelines, but the submitter has since corrected the problem. Let's get on topic now!

<comment><AUTHOR> The discussion seems to have dried up. Change the packaging and you change the quality of the product, it seems. At least the perceived one.

I was afraid that this might happen. It happened in the past. So I thought about a good title that would summarize why I though this essay is relevant for this community and I was hoping for some discussion and impressions about it. It did generate some controversy but for the wrong reasons (i.e. the title). At least it was read and taken into consideration. I still think this is a very nice write-up from ~200 years ago about what it means to create something from basically nothing (from pure thought, that is), which programming is clearly a sub-field of.

Searching through HN, I'm seeing this exact link posted a week ago, with zero comments and upvotes. It gathered 10 comments and 20 votes in half an hour with the modified title, none with its original title.

Thank you for your quick response and for unflagging this post.

<comment><USER4> I am in favor of people using titles that reflect what they think will be of interest to HN readers. I know the line between that and editorializing is not always clear, but that's a fact of life.

Often an interesting article will have a misleading title for SEO reasons. Seems like those are appropriately rewritten for HN submission.

Or imagine (I'm making this up) an article in the NYT entitled "Senator presses tech firms to supply encryption keys". Yawn...I've seen that for literally decades. But it turns out that the senator drew their analysis upon specifically bad info by relying on an article in wired or maybe a non-law enforcement-specific lobbying group, but one that turns out to have been funded by google. Then a title that called out the specific reason its relevant to HN would be useful.

(This is a totally made up example; I don't mean to diss wired nor google in this post).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's about authors, and using that metric, most of what we code is "half- true, perverse, forced, and vacillating".

I don't disagree, I just think it's a stretch to apply it to code - and not the good kind of stretch, more like the kind of stretch where you really want the german philosopher to have written about you so you'll go through all sort of lexical excercises to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER6> This hits hard based on my experience in academia.

In graduate school I was strongly advised to set aside "big" problems and focus on safe low-hanging fruit--derivative projects or incremental improvements to existing work--that will result in a steady stream of (mediocre) publications. The situation is the same for postdocs and even tenure track faculty at research-focused institutions. Only after you get ~15 years into your research career (and receive tenure) are you really free to focus on original work, which tends to be high risk and high reward.

(Of course you _can_ do that earlier, but there's a high chance your career won't advance on schedule, which is very bad.)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a huge stretch to retitle "On Authorship and Style" to "Difference between ordinary and top programmers according to Schopenhauer"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would argue that writing code is equivalent to writing, in general. As in prose, you're exploring a subject known to you. You've though about the problem at hand, you've come up with a solution after a lot of going back and forth, you're now trying to impart this knowledge to other humans. As such, you have to be clear about what you're saying, going straight to the solution and not _go round the thought and cover it up_. That is, if you actually do have something interesting to say about it, and you're not thinking about gaining likes or money or fame from it.

I've seen some projects lately with many people involved and months or years of development time invested in them, that I, an average programmer at best, was able to solve with a few days work and with at least an order of magnitude less paper used.

 _[..]they put what they have to say into forced and involved language, create new words and prolix periods which go round the thought and cover it up. Moreover, they write down words, nay, whole periods, which mean nothing in themselves, in the hope, however, that some one else will understand something from them._

I've seen comments and READMEs, for example, that have the exact same attitude to them, that is, they are written in the hope that someone else will understand them but the writer actually didn't, he doesn't understand why the project might be useful to someone else. I've seen big frameworks used, tests conceived, build methods and CI implemented but where the actual substance of the project was missing. Dozens of git branches and complex merging good- practices for projects with at most a few thousand lines of code and 2 or 3 developers only because someone else might look at it and see what a good job we've done. These projects usually don't solve much, but they sure talk a lot about how nice it is and how it will solve lots of problems for its users.

 _Nothing else is at the bottom of all such endeavours but the inexhaustible attempt which is always venturing on new paths, to sell words for thoughts, and by means of new expressions, or expressions used in a new sense, turns of phrases and combinations of all kinds, to produce the appearance of intellect in order to compensate for the want of it which is so painfully felt._

As years go by, I really feel that one, if not the most important skill in this field, is knowing how to write, how to cleanly and clearly express your thoughts that you yourself have about the problem and your ideas about the solution.

<comment><USER2> > I've seen some projects lately with many people involved and months or years > of development time invested in them, that I, an average programmer at best, > was able to solve with a few days work and with at least an order of > magnitude less paper used.

Are any of said software projects open source or otherwise well known? I've often gotten the same feeling but haven't gone so far as to reimplement and prove out my intuition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My first take on opening the link is "Wow! What an amazingly readable page."

(This on a mobile tablet.)

If but that more of the Web were like this.

<comment><USER8> The essay itself is also, of course, excellent. I've not previously read Schopenhauer, my error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those interested in the German original, this is "Über Schriftstellerei und Stil". It can be found at [http://aboq.org/schopenhauer/parerga2/stil.htm](http://aboq.org/schopenhauer/parerga2/stil.htm) (not as beautifully rendered, though).

</comment><comment><USER10> _big, brimming smile_ This essay reminds me of Emerson's essay "Character" and lecture "The American Scholar."

</comment><comment><USER11> The article describes Management books, startup guides, and self help books to a tee! Wonderful read and should be read by all students.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think that programming is a bit more complex. You see I get the difference between the "coder" and the person who cares about adding value and creating something that others will use. The industry needs both "good coders" and "creating thinkers" to move forward and its hard, ofc, to find someone who is able to use all of those parts of the brain. Probably there is a 3rd category of people who are here just for the $ :)

</comment><comment><USER13> The linked article is not about programmers or programming

</comment><comment><USER14> > Everyone who does things I don't like is bad

<comment><USER3> " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Apple Allows 3rd Party Web Browsers into App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/13/apple-allows-3rd-party-web-browsers-in-app-store/

<comment><USER2> Do any of these have a Javascript interpreter?

<comment><USER3> No. They're all vanilla WebKit with different chrome.

None of them even screw with the rendering engine, much less have their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could I make one that remembers passwords. I hate having to retype them in all the time! Oh and also I want to replace it's braindead caching scheme. If I switch to a different window, and switch back, why on earth would it think to reload the page??</comment>


Design Inspiration from Svbtle - The trouble with being efficient - <AUTHOR> http://ninjasandrobots.com/design-inspiration-from-svbtle

<comment><USER2> It's the same design principle - design each screen first, then abstract out templates as needed - that makes me love Jekyll, since a static website is already a valid Jekyll site and it's up to you how much you want to use Jekyll's post, metadata, and templating functionality, if at all.

Not that you'd use Jekyll for an app like Draft, I'm just saying.</comment>


Ask HN: How can one make money with Wordpress and the like - <AUTHOR>

I see a lot of people in this community indicating Wordpress  as one of the sources of making some amount of passive side income (1K+). My question is word press is a relatively mature platform what are the gaps that people can make plugins for to make money.
Can you identify some specific items/tasks that one can do to generate some passive income.
If your answer is tied to a different 'ecosystem' besides wordpress please indicate that too. <comment><USER2> I see it as a divide between either having a client / designer relationship and making a custom theme or website, alternatively you could make a theme and sell it on something like Theme Forest([http://themeforest.net/](http://themeforest.net/)).

</comment><comment><USER3> There's huge demand for packaged themes and code. You can go with Envato or one of the smaller stores like CreativeMarket or Binpress.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've had a lot of luck setting up a Wordpress installation for clients and putting a modified relatively inexpensive theme on it. I make it very clear to clients that they're getting a (slightly) modified theme and not a custom design.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you find these clients ? Also do you do this on the side or is this kind of work your full time job ?

<comment><USER4> I do this on the side. I currently work full-time at Run Games, a small indie game studio.

I started out doing freelance web development for people I knew personally. I'd set a price, usually ~$300 because I'd feel guilty if I took any more, and spend the time to make a custom website for them. They'd recommend me to a friend and I'd do the same thing over again.

I quickly realized this wasn't sustainable, so I experimented with raising my rate substantially and doing Wordpress sites with a theme for people. As it turns out, my clients didn't notice a different in the quality of my work and liked having a CMS they could use (over a Jekyll-esque thing I had set up for myself).

So, to sum it up, I recommend starting small with doing themed Wordpress sites for local businesses and offering low rates. You're going for recommendations at this stage. Once you have clients approaching you, you can start to raise your rate.</comment></comment></comment>


Can Biology Class Reduce Racism? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/us/race-biology-genetics.html <comment><USER2> "COLORADO SPRINGS — Biology textbooks used in American high schools do not go near the sensitive question of whether genetics can explain why African- Americans are overrepresented as football players and why a disproportionate number of American scientists are white or Asian.

But in a study starting this month, a group of biology teachers from across the country will address it head-on. They are testing the idea that the science classroom may be the best place to provide a buffer against the unfounded genetic rationales for human difference that often become the basis for racial intolerance.

At a recent training in Colorado, the dozen teachers who had volunteered to participate in the experiment acknowledged the challenges of inserting the combustible topic of race and ancestry into straightforward lessons on the 19th-century pea-breeding experiments of Gregor Mendel and the basic function of the strands of DNA coiled in every cell."

There are scientists such as Richard Lynn and the late Arthur Jensen who do think there are racial differences in intelligence, and there are scientists who disagree with them. A science class should not cover a controversial topic unless it can do so impartially and objectively, but it is clear from the article that the people developing the new curriculum have made up their minds.</comment>


Lockdown eased: Netherlands and France plan to re-open primary schools - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/lockdown-eased-netherlands-and-france-plan-to-re-open-primary-schools <comment><USER2> Norway has also re-opened kindergarten (1-3 year olds) and later this week/next the next levels will be opened.</comment>