Steve Jobs on Swift - <AUTHOR> http://blog.metaobject.com/2015/06/steve-jobs-on-swift.html

<comment><USER2> I'm going through half of Swift's ebook rewriting an old objc program in the process and the amount of syntax special cases is just mind boggling. So far the worst offender to me feels the use of the where keyword inside branched let assignments. Example: ``if let a = optionalValue where a.someFieldString = "hello" { ... }``. In general the ``where`` keyword signals they ran out of ideas designing the language.

<comment><USER3> So, at this point, what's your take on the language, as compared to Objective-C?

<comment><USER2> It's definitely an improvement, but most of the syntax complexity seems to come precisely from supporting all the annoyances of Objective-C.

The feature I most miss from other programming languages like Nim is meta programming. In Objective-C you had synthesized properties to generate all the boilerplate code, but in Swift you don't, so to copy certain Objective-C patterns you have to manually write your own private instance variable plus a computed property to control access and side effects. Stuff which is trivially hidden behind a macro. Come on, even Java allows use of annotations to generate code at compile time on Android.

Of course you can argue then that maybe Swift code should not use Objective-C patterns, but hey, I'm still porting and learning. And maybe Swift 2 by the end of the year will have this feature, just like the usage of the where keyword inside conditionals was added recently in 1.2.

I also dislike that there are no forward declarations, so instead of being able to put all your class public API in a single block you have to mingle it with setter/getters' implementations. I guess it's time to use a documentation generation tool and read that instead of reading header files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-pb I'm actually intrigued, what you'd propose as an alternative. A lisp? A smalltalk? Dylan? or even something like Factor?

The goal of swift seems to nudge programmers further down the immutable, functional path, while still giving them the impression of staying away from the scary FP stuff.</comment>


Edward Snowden: Whistleblowers and the economy of esteem - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/edward-snowden

<comment><USER2> "...I don't give a whit about the man who exposed two sweeping U.S. online surveillance programs, nor do I worry much about his verdict in the court of public opinion.

Why? Because it is the wrong question. The Snowden narrative matters mostly to White House officials trying to deflect attention from government overreach and deception, and to media executives in search of an easy storyline to serve a celebrity-obsessed audience."

Good crosshairs. I'm sure ES agrees.</comment>


Behind the ACH's Sizzling Growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltransactions.net/magazine_articles/behind-the-achs-sizzling-growth/ <comment><USER2> I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago (Planet Money) and was genuinlely shocked at how poor the US payments network is in relation to here in the UK.

Most bank transactions here complete within 2 hours (faster payments service) and are completely free.

<comment><USER3> I could not believe my eyes when I saw that a transfer (it's called a "wire transfer") will cost me $35 on the sending side, and the receiver will pay another $25. Then you need the bizarre routing numbers which banks bizarrely obfuscate for even more bizarre reasons and which are easy to get wrong because there is no checksum. And then it takes days.

No wonder when anything even slightly better appears, people jump on it.

For comparison, a SEPA transfer in the EU costs around 1 EUR, gets done within a single business day, and account numbers have checksums, so you can't easily make a mistake.

<comment><USER4> A wire transfer is a little different than an ACH. Some transactions seem to require wire transfer, not sure if that's just momentum or there is some other driving reason for the choice.

[https://www.thebalance.com/ach-vs-wire- transfer-3886077](https://www.thebalance.com/ach-vs-wire-transfer-3886077)

<comment><USER5> Wires are required at times because they're "good funds" faster - ACH may take up to 6 days to clear in bad cases.

Also, wires can't be reversed (generally). If that's a good or a bad thing is dependent on the transaction and transactors.

<comment><USER6> ACH never really clears, it just hasn't returned yet.

Big banks will have the money next business day at the latest, Tiny correspondent banks in alaska might be as far behind as an extra day or two.

There's a class of return that's supposed to come within 3 days, (NSF/No Account/Closed Account) that's usually what the banks are waiting for, but fraud related returns can be up to 60 calendars later by the rules.

<comment><USER5> Ah, perfect - I had forgotten that banks had up to 60 days! Just nuts.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but a CC chargeback has a similar time frame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article characterized healthcare as an anticipated future front, but US insurers have been required to offer ACH payments since 2014.

[https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and- Guidance/Administrative-...](https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and- Guidance/Administrative-Simplification/Operating- Rules/OperatingRulesEFTandRemittanceAdvice.html)

<comment><USER8> I would also expect with healthcare reform for healthcare related payments to decline. Not to mention an aging population will see a decline in payment activity.

With that said, it'd be swank to move as much paper checking activity to ACH as possible for efficiency reasons, as well as credit card activity to ACH to de-financialize payments (finance absorbs too much of GDP IMHO).

<comment><USER7> > I would also expect with healthcare reform for healthcare related payments > to decline.

In general, more people covered by public and/or private insurance means more insurer to provider payments.

<comment><USER8> More total dollar amount, lower quantity of payments, no? As you're cutting out all of the admin overhead, billing here and there, everywhere.

<comment><USER7> > More total dollar amount, lower quantity of payments, no?

Well, I mean, that depends on the shape of reform. If you mean what the ACA did, no.

Medicare for All? Maybe.

> As you're cutting out all of the admin overhead, billing here and there, > everywhere.

A significant share, as I understand it, of that cross-billing is to get an official denial from a higher-priority payer to show to another payer; my intuition would be that more coverage and security of payments would, even in a move to single payer, increase final number of payments unless actual payments are grouped and consolidated rather than paid individually as approved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to my bank ACH's can be revoked without the account holder's permission. Similarly, once the ACH link is set, funds can be withdrawn without the account holder's knowledge. I'm glossing over the terms and conditions account holders sign that enable this, because the essential point is that opting into an ACH funds transfer relationship can have consequences. We avoid ACH in our business for transactions of any real size.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know what Banks and/or services use same-day ACH? The article says same-day volume was up to $160B last year, but I've yet to see anything faster than next-day ACH.

<comment><USER11> ACH in the EU is generally same day. The US is super behind the times in that regard.

The reason that it's next day is that for most banks, the process of doing an ACH transfer is to effectively SFTP a file with the amount to transfer and account details to the receiving bank, and they batch process them nightly.

Also, with this system, there is no difference between a direct deposit and direct withdrawal. One just has a negative transfer balance. So once you approve someone such as your employer to direct deposit they can also withdraw from your account with no warning.

It pains me that a system so shitty powers the world financial market... that's what you get from monopolies.

<comment><USER12> False, the fraud filters on our account (ACH Positive Pay) pick up all direct withdraws for approval handling (we can add rules with limits for recurring withdrawals).

For folks with reasonable transaction volumes per year I highly recommend both this, electronic payment systems and positive pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does ACH cost? I know in the UK we have faster payments, it usually shows up a few seconds later in the target account, and it's free. I've mostly stopped using paypal as a result.

<comment><USER14> ACH is not a service directly exposed to consumers. Instead it is the backend for a lot of other services. It backs direct deposit, paying with "electronic cheque", and most interbank-bank consumer transfers, broker-to-bank transfers, and even many service-to-consumer transfers. For example, when you withdraw money from paypal in the US, it would normally be via an ACH transfer to your bank account.

ACH transfers are not same day by default, and definitely not near-instant. However some of the consumer visible services offer immediate delivery, while still using normal "slow" ACH in the backend. Typically this is done via another network that verifies that the funds are available, and that the ACH transaction has been submitted. If both are verified, the receiving institution can be fairly confident they will get the money, and will make it available immediately.

For more immediate and irrevocable transfers, wire transfers are used. The Fedwire system for example, allows banks to directly transfer funds from their Federal Reserve deposits to each other. The sending bank ensures that the sender has the available money and debits it, while the receiver bank gets notice from the federal reserve that the transfer is complete and credits the receiver account. Obviously the banks can also use this system to directly settle any debt that they owe to the other bank, since federal reserve balances are legally equivalent to cash in the vault.

The US does not have any system quite like the UK's faster payments system. In the US there is basically an unwritten rule that no consumer should ever actually see the account number of a company or other consumer except when printed on a physical paper check.

So the closest we've gotten to the faster payments system is the Zelle payment network, which unlike Paypal or Venmo is a service offer directly by the bank, but abstracts away account numbers by using phone number or email addresses. Zelle does offer immediate settlement from the consumer's perspective. This system is far from universally implemented right now, and still only works for consumer to consumer payments.

For bank's billpay services, they end up using ACH if they have an agreement with the biller, or otherwise create and mail a physical paper check!

Basically the US payments systems are still stuck back in the 1990s.

<comment><USER15> Living in the US I miss the UK's standing order system where you can instruct your bank to periodically transfer funds without risk of a cheque getting delayed or lost in the post (frequent occurrence with billpay.)

Used to take a few days until Faster Payments got implemented, free of charge and dates from 1968 best I can tell.

The Zelle systems don't seem to allow periodic payments and the maximum amount is well below that needed to make a Bay Area rent payment.

<comment><USER8> Most landlords use cozy.co or some other rent payment management system that should handle the electronic payment with ACH on the backend so you don't need Zelle. If your landlord doesn't, ask them to. It's free for both of you.

<comment><USER15> Of the three landlords I've had in SF none have used such a system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder how much of this is practical use of ACH vs using it to enter and exit other modern payment networks like venmo and coinbase, because ACH is actually abysmal.

</comment><comment><USER17> Server just got slashdotted. Anyone have a cached link?

<comment><USER18> Slashdotted? Now there's a phrase I haven't heard in a while :)

Wayback machine has it:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190404230059/http://www.digita...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190404230059/http://www.digitaltransactions.net/magazine_articles/behind- the-achs-sizzling-growth/)

<comment><USER17> Hah what's the new word? Redditased? Hackeromped? Techcrunched?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> le-mark If anyone's interested in beta testing an app for easily viewing/editing fixed length files (ACH format files) shoot me an email.

<comment><USER19> I seem to remember reading somewhere the transport channel used to be nightly FTP of these files in a cron job. Is that still true, and if so, how do they manage to secure something like that?

<comment><USER20> SFTP - I can't say what's happening today, but 8 years ago this was the only channel available when I added an ACH payment system to B2B accounting system. 80 column text files SFTP'd overnight to the company's bank. I also had a couple of 200 page dead tree books on my desk describing the process & formats.

I joked that it was originally designed for delivery by telegraph. I'm still not convinced I was wrong.

<comment><USER6> 80? The file format is 94 char fixed width, and it's based on the track specs of 9 track mainframe tape.

<comment><USER20> It was a 3 month project I finished 8 years ago...I guess my memory failed me.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I was just switching away from the first low level NACHA file stuff I've had to do in years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pretty sure physical check use decline can be directly correlated to ACH use growth.</comment>


A 1300% performance gain in Ruby using Date - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@devlucky/ruby-time-parsing-optimization-524622354201 <comment><USER2> The problem with performance optimization is that if you obsess with optimizing code well outside the critical path, it's often wasted effort drowned out by larger latencies.

If this code was part of a web application, the I/O bound latency of backend/persistence calls will almost always outweigh any CPU bound processing time.

So they may have made this method call 14x faster, but how much latency were they really shaving off their average request? I would be surprised if it were more than a rounding error.</comment>


Fixing the Desktop Linux Security Model - <AUTHOR> https://forums.whonix.org/t/fixing-the-desktop-linux-security-model/9172 <comment><USER2> All desktop OSes assume virtually all code that's run on them (natively) to be trusted. This is in contrast to the mobile security model (at least iOS), and arguably the web, where all apps are assumed to be potentially-hostile. Apple is trying to back-port macOS to the more modern model but so far the efforts seem to mostly be clunky and futile. Windows has UWP and Linux has "Snap", which sandbox individual apps, but they aren't widely used (and of course any malicious app wouldn't use them).

When installing anything on your desktop system, keep the above in mind. Never run anything you don't 100% trust.

I do wonder if package managers actually make this problem worse. As another commenter pointed out, they encourage people to install random packages liberally. It's an interesting exception to the "Windows is insecure" trope.

<comment><USER3> Windows 10 doesn't work the way you claim all desktop OSs do.

<comment><USER2> Last I checked (I suppose this was in Windows 7), it's trivial to write a Windows desktop app that can directly control the mouse and keyboard input without even requiring admin permissions.

<comment><USER4> Yes which is very useful in videoconferencing. We don't want to run Microsoft Teams or Skype elevated. You won't be able to control elevated applications though. You're still on the other side of the watertight hatch.

<comment><USER5> _Yes which is very useful in videoconferencing. We don 't want to run Microsoft Teams or Skype elevated._

In macOS, applications do not have permission to capture the screen, control the mouse pointer, use the mic, use the camera, etc. But the user can choose to elevate the permission (similar to iOS).

<comment><USER6> which as an user infuriates me daily

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thank you! Linux desktop is far from secure, even with all these suggested solutions. The lack of popularity by attackers means defenders and coders alike focus on mitigations based on assumptions or a small amount of historical data.

From a bad guy's perspective, they just need a foot in the door and move laterally if possible.

In my opinon, while all these hardening features are great, nothing beats behavioral detection and prevention. This isn't easy on linux to be honest, but a way for admins(power users?) To define rules like "a process tree with firefox as a parent is running unusual commands or processes" , more or less what is done with sysmon except with perhaps the audit subsystem would be of tremendous use. Assuming you can't prevent initial access or exploitation, what can be done to detect attacker activity on Linux Desktop?

<comment><USER8> _> From a bad guy's perspective, they just need a foot in the door and move laterally if possible._

How does the bad guy get a foot in the door?

<comment><USER9> > How does the bad guy get a foot in the door?

If you were using Ubuntu Linux in 2007-2008 you will remember the compiz/beryl craze. Everybody and their dog wanted the latest version of compiz.

Adding random repositories was not a problem if that got you the latest version of compiz/beryl.

Until a guy, one of the maintainers of a popular repository, tricked everybody: in the install scripts he added code to change the desktop background to an image with a text reading: don't add random repositories from the internet.

Think about all the random repositories and PPAs that people add to their systems without thinking. That is an example of how you get a foot in the door.

<comment><USER8> _> Think about all the random repositories and PPAs that people add to their systems without thinking._

This doesn't seem like a "desktop Linux security" problem. It seems like a "some users do dumb things" problem. You can't fix that with an OS. But I can "fix" it easily by not adding random repositories and PPAs.

<comment><USER10> Lots of security issues are fixed not by "fixing" them but by adding mitigations which include user approval, surfacing otherwise hidden activity, and other crutches. At the end of the day it is an automated system and must do things without the human in the loop, so the best you can do is make "the loop" visible to the user.

<comment><USER8> _> user approval_

Adding a repository/PPA does require user approval. You can't do sudo without knowing you're doing it.

 _> surfacing otherwise hidden activity_

Yes, and Linux gives you plenty of tools to do that, like, say, "ps aux" and "top" (or the many GUI equivalents in various desktop environments).

 _> At the end of the day it is an automated system_

Remember we're talking about _desktops_ here, not servers. Desktops are not "automated" in any relevant sense for this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In summary: make Linux roughly as annoying as Catalina.

e.g. constantly having to allow applications access to files outside the initial default sandbox.

e.g. constantly having to grant permissions applications that need "unusual" system capabilities (e.g. raw I/O)

It also seems clear that this concept ultimately heads towards signing application binaries, like macOS.

Maybe this is a win for some set of Linux users (maybe even most); it's far from clear that it's appropriate for all.

<comment><USER12> > e.g. constantly having to allow applications access to files outside the > initial default sandbox.

Any system that has ordinary users trying to do this for ordinary software will fail.

Things like apparmor can work well because the author or distributor of a package knows that it shouldn't ever do a particular thing, so if it attempts to, that is a bug and it should be refused. The user shouldn't even have to be aware that this is the case because the program shouldn't even _attempt_ to do the thing the author/distributor asserted it will never do.

> It also seems clear that this concept ultimately heads towards signing > application binaries, like macOS.

Linux has had that for years already. Packages are signed by the distributor. Nobody complains about it there because the device owner can authorize additional parties to sign packages for their machine, as it should be. Have a look at the install instructions for Signal Desktop for Debian on signal.org -- "sudo apt-key add" etc.

You can also install binaries outside the package manager, and then the filesystem executable bit serves a similar purpose -- disabled by default but the user can override it.

<comment><USER5> _Things like apparmor can work well because the author or distributor of a package knows that it shouldn 't ever do a particular thing, so if it attempts to, that is a bug and it should be refused. The user shouldn't even have to be aware that this is the case because the program shouldn't even attempt to do the thing the author/distributor asserted it will never do._

The AppArmor + vendor-provided profiles doesn't work, because it means that you have to give most applications access to the user's full home directory. If you e.g. have an office suite and don't permit full home directory access, users will bail out because they cannot open files in their random folder structure. If you permit full home access, it could be exploited to exfiltrate data, write malicious files, etc.

macOS solves this by using a privileged service for Open/Save dialog boxes. If you ask for an open dialog in a sandboxed application, it is handled by this privileged service, which makes the file available in the application's sandbox. It is quite elegant, because it does not require the user to follow any additional steps (it works as any other file dialog), but restricts an application to its own sandbox. Flatpak also follows this approach with its portal mechanism (which is unfortunately not supported by every application yet).

<comment><USER12> > The AppArmor + vendor-provided profiles doesn't work, because it means that > you have to give most applications access to the user's full home directory.

It works fine. Its purpose is to solve a different problem than this.

> macOS solves this by using a privileged service for Open/Save dialog boxes.

There are circumstances where this can be useful, and it would be fine to implement this on Linux for applications where it's appropriate, but it doesn't work as a universal rule.

For example, suppose I have a music player app, I choose open, I get the dialog and choose a playlist. The playlist file is just a list of paths to music files which were never selected in the dialog. The app still needs to open all the music files. And the same thing for office documents with links to images, source code project files etc.

And what about background services? If I install an app to make regular backups of my home directory then it needs access to the whole thing, and not just once. Likewise anything that does indexing, malware scanning etc.

So it's still really the same thing. You have an app that asserts it never needs access to files outside the open dialog and then it can be restricted to just that, but other apps need to do different things. You need somebody to identify which apps can do without certain capabilities, the average user is not equipped for that, so it falls to the author or the packager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like that madaidan is thinking deeply about these issues, and I think this is a great intro to the subject, along with some very interesting comments on the page. madaidan is also behind obscurix which is a hardened arch variant [1]. I tend to think the containerization of apps is the lowest hanging fruit approach, but I also think that there is a larger underlying issue touched upon which is the monolithic style of the current linux kernel, which is why I have also hoped HURD would rise some day, and continue to find minix 3 very interesting.

All that said, I see one glaring omission: hids. One thing I like to emphasis with people is that especially in an age of APT, if someone sophisticated enough is targeting you, you will probably suffer a compromise. One of the most vital parts of a security model therefor is reducing the amount of time it takes to discover a compromise. This is highly undervalued in modern orgs imho.

There are a few different ways to do this, and none are perfect but I tend to prefer a good HIDS like ossec, sometimes custom scripts checking file hashes, etc. There is one large weakness here though, which is how often I see a hids deployed but 1) not configured well, and 2) the logs never get monitored/ingested/alerted on! If you can combine a good hids and actually monitor the log outputs, you can discover most compromises fairly quickly with telltale system actions.

Lastyly, this is also why versioned backup is so important. Because you need to be able to trust old data pre-compromise. The longer you go without knowing you are comped, the more likely you have data being restored that is comped also.

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

</comment><comment><USER14> I am surprised no one has mentioned Qubes OS yet on this thread. Are they many Whonix users not also using Qubes?

<comment><USER15> Qubes is just the hypervisor. The security within the VM still matters. Whonix supports being run in Qubes.

[https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes](https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why no mention of firejail or similar tools?

Sandboxing applications is an excellent way to minimize risks. And firejail comes with a long set of default rules that make it easy to use without any configuration.

<comment><USER15> Firejail has far too large attack surface and is suid root which has resulted in plenty of privilege escalation vulnerabilities.

[https://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q1/25](https://seclists.org/oss- sec/2017/q1/25)

[https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list.php?vendor_id=...](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list.php?vendor_id=16191&product_id=0)

Also see this thread [https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/3046](https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/3046)

Instead, we're going to use bubblewrap which is similar but with minimal attack surface. See the sandbox-app-launcher section of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dumb question: why would somebody prefer apparmor over selinux? Why isn't selinux cited?

From my (basic) understanding of selinux some limitations could be put in place using selinux (I'm thinking of, for example, preventing Firefox and it's children from accessing filesystems outside a predefined path, or labelling files downloaded using Firefox from accessing certain paths if executed -- using labels and policies)

<comment><USER17> Apparmor is easier to understand, learn and use. Selinux is definitely more powerful but the learning curve is so deep. It is not just the security model that is complex. The documentation surrounding it isn't that good, and avc logging is not enabled by default (you need to install some package) so when something goes wrong I always struggle to figure out how to debug it. Finally, there's also this library of existing selinux settings provided by the operating system that you need to integrate with. That one is largely undocumented, and what little documentation exists is scattered.heck it took me a week just to find its source code (hint: it is separated in two different repos, not obvious st all).

In contrast, apparmor made sense and worked the first time I used it.

So yeah, selinux is more powerful, but by being so difficult to use it encourages people to go 'hey something is broken, fsck this I'll disable selinux'.

<comment><USER18> SELinux is just so complicated. I'm sure there are B&E tools out there that will just search to see where you have misconfigured it and attack there.

With a really minimal system (like an IOT box) you can lock things down very tight with SELinux, but not practical for a standard desktop to have full coverage, it just protects some standard components.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is all great work, undoubtedly. I do wonder if the app sandboxing story can be improved further, though. For example, I suspect you can further harden the defense with a gVisor style approach to sandboxing syscalls and filesystem access, while still using the same kernel mitigations to protect the sandbox itself (if not more). But, I don't know for sure.

<comment><USER20> There already seems to be seccomp filters in place.

<comment><USER19> gVisor is a step further: it acts a bit like a user mode kernel, which handles syscalls and carefully passes them to different components that are individually insulated with seccomp, etc. The idea there is that even a root escape gets you nowhere because root in the sandbox can never be root in the host. You'd first need to exploit the "usermode kernel" then you are an unprivileged Linux user with a very strict security profile depending on what component you have exploited. Exploiting the actual kernel would theoretically be a lot harder because the syscall surface is no longer directly exposed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why not just run android on the desktop? Seems easier than changing all this.

<comment><USER22> Because there is lots of desktop software available for Linux and virtually none for Android and the user experience of Android as a desktop is crap.

If I had to choose between Android and windows I would most certainly pick windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are there distros that have these 'fixes' built in? Alpine Linux?

<comment><USER24> This short post doesn't talk about a lot of things that are happening like wayland to address X security issues or flatpak for sandoxing. The way it's written looks more like marketing than anything else... If you want to build your own hardened apps and kernel, you can look into Gentoo

<comment><USER15> > like wayland to address X security issues

The post does mention X's security issues. We are discussing switching to wayland but XFCE doesn't support it yet.

If we don't switch to wayland, I might add X sandboxing via a nested X server such as Xpra to sandbox-app-launcher. It's already on the TODO list.

> flatpak for sandoxing

Flatpak is not a good sandbox. It fully trusts the applications and the permissions are far too vague to be meaningful. For example, many applications come with "filesystem=home" which means read-write access to the entire home directory so to escape, they just need to write to .bashrc.

We're using sandbox-app-launcher instead.

> The way it's written looks more like marketing than anything else

Sorry for talking about our recent projects then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am developing proper application firewall in form of linux kernel module, but have encountered issues with the linux "kernel protection. What linux is doing is making half baked solutions, which are preventing real solutions to be implemented. It is just crazy. Instead of simple way of defining what application can do (which affects 99.999% of users), they are implementing protections against highly advanced threats which are affecting other 0.001% of targets of APT and preventing to protect all others. It is just crazy.

</comment><comment><USER26> These ideas are mostly for people that want to run prepackaged, closed, commercial software. Community maintained software with short dependency lists doesn't have this problem.

I run Linux on my desktop for a number of reasons and one of them is not dealing with stuff like this. If I really don't like something I dump it in a container (I know it can get out but at some point you either trust the software or decide it's unusably malicious, I mostly only do this when I have to run node.js crap anyway.)

<comment><USER27> > Community maintained software with short dependency lists doesn't have this > problem.

That's just not true. One of the first things mentioned in the post is vulnerabilities. An image viewer shouldn't be able to put your SSH keys at risk no matter how many memory safety issues it has.

Plus there's all sorts of software that doesn't have short dependency lists that I'm sure you'd still like to use. A web browser, for example?</comment></comment>


Twitter Suspends Alex Jones for Seven Days Over Tweet - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/technology/twitter-alex-jones-suspension.html <comment><USER3> I'm curious about how this is happening in America, of all places. As a European, I've always wondered (with a certain hint of jealousy, I might add) at the USA's absolute freedom of speech. People like the Westboro Baptist Church would've certainly been blocked from protesting here in the Netherlands.

At the same time, it's now companies that are very American, both by origin and by culture, that are (letting themselves be pressured into) censuring speech more than has ever been seen in the modern West. This strikes me as an odd paradox, coming from a country where people get taught from primary school onward to "disagree with what you say but fight for your right to say it".

I wonder where all this is going to lead, especially since these few companies control so much of global information flow. Are Facebook, Google and Twitter, once self-titled champions of free information flow, going to be the forces that end America's freedom of expression (in practice at least)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm all for freedom of speech even if that speech includes ideas I vehemently disagree with (even hate speech). However, when speech incites physical violence and can be viewed as a legitimate threat, then it needs to be shut down.

Parents of children who were lost during Sandy Hook received physical threats and death threats because of Jones' comments. That's the line where free speech should be censored.

<comment><USER4> so then those people should be banned. A public individual cannot be held responsible for the actions of their followers unless they called for those actions to be taken.

<comment><USER5> So for example "tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their "battle rifles" ready against media"?

<comment><USER4> I'd have to see the video myself - I'll probably look it up later in order to have an informed opinion. Because it could be meant in many ways, and my suspicion is that it was intended in a metaphorical way rather than literally calling for his followers to shoot up some offices.

<comment><USER6> > Because it could be meant in many ways, and my suspicion is that it was > intended in a metaphorical way rather than literally calling for his > followers to shoot up some offices

Welcome to the world of "plausible deniability". Deliberately speaking in a way that lets you defend yourself "oh I was only meaning metaphorically!" or "I was just joking!", where you intend a subset of your listeners to understand that you are speaking literally, is a common tactic. It's somewhat akin to the Motte and Bailey defense: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and- word...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words- words/)

<comment><USER4> that's a huge presumption on your part. What you're essentially saying is that you know what the internal motivation of Alex Jones is, and that his metaphor is definitely what he actually believes. I don't think even he knows what his internal motivation is, and to suggest that you know he's secretly harbouring these murderous thoughts is ridiculous.

plausible deniability is clear in cases where someone makes an actual argument for something then pulls the "haha I was only trolling" argument, but to say for example to be ready for battle, in the context of politics, should not be immediately taken as a call to start tying the lynching ropes. People use references to war, battle, fighting and so on all the time in the context of political conflict.

<comment><USER6> > should not be immediately taken as a call to start tying the lynching ropes

Is that what happened? I guess I'm behind on the news; I had heard his twitter account got suspended, I didn't realize he was lynched!

Or is that just hyperbole? Why do you feel the need to resort to hyperbole in this situation, instead of discussing what actually happened?

I find interesting the transformations you use in your language—"get your battle rifles ready" becomes "be prepared", but "twitter account suspended for a week" becomes "tying the lynching ropes".

[this was edited, btw, since you responded while I was editing it]

<comment><USER4> That's just my poor writing skills - I meant that someone calling for political battle may not actually be inciting lynching or shooting the media or whatever, but speaking in metaphor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The New York Times reports that Jones tweeted a link to a video calling for supporters to get their "battle rifles" ready against media and others"

Turns out that there _is_ a limit, and it's making really overt death threats. I'm surprised he didn't get banned over the "Democrats are going to have a revolution" stuff. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/wp/2018/07...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/wp/2018/07/03/a-short-history-of-alex-jones-claiming-that-the-left- is-about-to-start-a-second-civil-war/)

<comment><USER8> > get their "battle rifles" ready against media and others"

> it's making really overt death threats

I don't think that's overt, but I think it's grey enough (perhaps deliberately so) that it constitutes incitement to violence. This is awesome - <USER2> account for _specific_ reasons (message X contained an incitement to violence) means moderation can be applied consistently. Twitter has had a much better approach in this case than FB or Apple, who've simply stated there's an issue with hate speech on the entire account without saying what it was.

<comment><USER9> Being specific means the malcontents will simply adjust their language.

No longer will it be, "get out there with your battle rifles and let the blood of the infidel run free" but it will become, "let loose your holy Christmas candy and witness the tears of the spoilt children of the Left!"

There's no death threat or incitement to violence there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those that missed it, Infowars' podcast was also recently dropped from iTunes, and several of Jones' pages dropped from Facebook as well. I'm sure there are many people who are looking to see how successful Jones is in suddenly having to swim on his own, without these hugely successful platform. As much as I'm not a fan, I do kind of hope that he can prove we don't necessarily need these platforms to distribute content and grow one's following (creating that following in the first place is obviously another matter).

Will this wave of platform rejections force Alex Jones fans onto Mastodon?

</comment><comment><USER11> Now if only they'd do the same for spam, scams, malware, etc... you know, the actual stuff that hurts the platform.

I don't support Infowars but I'd take it any way over "Hai this is @EloanMusk2499 and I am giving out free cryptocurrency - just click this link or send 1BTC to this address and you'll get 10BTC in exchange!!!".

<comment><USER12> I think the problem is technical and not moral. Alex Jones threatened lifes, and the banhammer is easy to give to one single user. What about new user that are doing so many accounts a hour with different (guess private) proxy, etc?

I hope that twitter is addressing that problem with stronger anti-spam measure, but it doesn't really relate to Infowars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This whole ordeal is a good example how f'd up the current internet infrastructure is. For a decade or so it just seems like the beginnings of a megacorp-ruled Blade Runner-ish world.

While companies have all the right to have control over whatever on their platforms, there just isn't a well known unfiltered, unmoderated, "real" spot on the internet anymore that is known to all - just some niche spots requiring technical or insider knowledge.

It's sickening to look at all the stock-footage-showing happy-go-lucky feeds - comments, articles, posts disappearing without a trace, individuals banned, search results removed.

I'm rather sure that the more this continues, the sooner a breakout moment happens, creating p2p-ish network not needing direct corporate support for content delivery.

To note: in no way do I support Jones, and as said, companies have the right to censor.

<comment><USER14> In the 90s and early 2000s you had to search for the nieche content as well or know where it was located. Hundrets of different phpBBs or other forums hidden from "uninitated" people.

The simplicity of central platform just has all the users going there, because they don't want to search for hours to find communities to participate in.

infowars is still available at infowars.com, they just can't use the platform and distribution effects of fb, twitter, spotify, etc anymore, so they are precisely back in 1999.

<comment><USER13> The majority of people only access these distribution platforms. The "they still have a website" argument equals to "in a dictatorship, you still have a home and you can say anything between its walls, people can come to you and listen". The internet is / should be much more than that.

I always found "disapproval by removal/banning" to be absurd. The true way of them not gaining ground is by educating people. Yes, it's a much, much harder way. Yet it's infinitely more fair, and probably the only way to a healthy society.

<comment><USER15> You never lived in a dictatorship, do you? If people comes to your home and you say something against the "system", they will come and take you, the people who were listening to you and probably your family too. And you are probably not coming back.

I really wondering, how would you educate somebody who is shouting and threatening other people. Also, can you imagine how you would feel, if your child was killed in a school shooting and then somebody is telling everybody, that you are lying?

If you want to educate this idiot, go ahead, and before you try to do it, stop him from hurting people, who are already having the worst time of their life...

<comment><USER13> There are many forms of dictatorships. The stalinist police state you allude to is just one, very outdated variant. It was easy to hate it, and thus it didn't live long. Far more dangerous forms are emerging now.

It's not just him you should educate. It's more about the people who listen to him. As for shouting lies: is it a better alternative to silence that man because you are right? On one hand, argue back, and accept that he has a voice even if it hurts you, on the other, it's the task of all the people standing around to dismiss and ignore and that guy.

<comment><USER16> Why is he entitled to my platform and resources, exactly? I own stock in Twitter, why is he allowed to use my money for his voice?

Let him use your property as you see fit, by all means, but don't insist others do the same.

But of course you're equating Twitter with the State or a "voice" which is ridiculous. Please stop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those who are actually curious about what was said in the video Media Matters posted a clip that should provide some context:

[https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1029477795561463808](https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1029477795561463808)

</comment><comment><USER18> Alex Jones will be fine. He's been around since the 90s, when shortwave radio -- that bastion of white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, fundamentalists, and other assorted kooks -- was his primary means of contact with his audience.

If anything this will make Alex, and his followers, even crazier, as his censorship by major Web outlets only PROVES that the DEMONS behind the New World Order are plotting to silence the righteous!

</comment><comment><USER19> Twitter put up a ban for 7 days because the account tweeted a video calling for violence against media. People commenting here either have not read the article or are deliberately bringing in false parity between call for violence and request for cake for a wedding. It would be outrageous if any media did not ban call for violence, especially by somebody with considerable following in the public.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is great for Alex Jones, he gets global notoriety, free publicity and gets to be the martyr.

Given Alex Jones weakness for theatrics he is going to play up this 'conspiracy' against him to prove every other conspiracy theory he nurtures for the next 10 years.

The 'co-ordination' however is blatant and raises questions about whether they are trying to silence him or martyr him. Is this really necessary, why is it co-ordinated and so heavy handed?

The only logical explanation for it being so brazen is they are doing this against him as cover to silence more 'problematic' figures which would raise more serious concerns about dissent and free speech. But that's a conspiracy theory.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its pretty insane that public businesses are forbidden from discrimination on most grounds (political views, religious views, etc) of who it employs, or who can enter their business, but its perfectly fine for FB, Google, Apple, Twitter, etc., to completely control the content of the conversation on their platforms.

It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, or as a Restaurant owner I can't open a 'straight white people only' restaurant, but Social Media giants can basically purge any and all far right content.

<comment><USER22> > It doesn't make sense that as a baker I can be forced to bake gay wedding > cakes, or as a Restaurant owner I can't open a 'straight white people only' > restaurant [...]

What is wrong with you? What happened to you as a child that made you think this form of discrimination is even remotely acceptable?

<comment><USER23> You are completely misunderstanding his point.

He is saying why is it OK for a small business to be forced to accommodate something that may be against their belief system. But the biggest corporations, who are also managing our online discourse, can pick and choose what they like.

<comment><USER22> But he's insinuating that people like Alex Jones should be protected by freedom of speech as if their fucked up ideads are some sort of alternative view that's just not for everyone.

This is a form of gaslighting that tries to establish credibility for extremists that they don't have.

<comment><USER4> > But he's insinuating that people like Alex Jones should be protected by > freedom of speech as if their fucked up ideads are some sort of alternative > view that's just not for everyone.

That _is_ the case. In my opinion he's a hilarious nutcase, but just because you find his views offensive does not mean his speech is now illegitimate. The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow the airing of controversial opinions, even if that means you end up with professional trolls calling tragedies a hoax. Any time you make a "freedom of speech doesn't apply to opinion X" argument, you are actively arguing against freedom of speech.

> This is a form of gaslighting that tries to establish credibility for > extremists that they don't have.

What does this even mean? Having a different opinion is not gaslighting and to suggest that it is, is to trivialise a form of psychological abuse.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Two Faces of AMP - <AUTHOR> https://timkadlec.com/remembers/2018-02-14-the-two-faces-of-amp/ <comment><USER2> The particularly gross thing about the AMP project is Google's abuse of the concept of open source to recruit volunteer technical labor to implement their anti-FB corporate strategy.

It's just corporate astroturfing.

AMP is obviously conceived, funded, and implemented by Google and its employees. If you squinted your eyes and tilted your head just right you could see a "good for the web" angle with faster mobile pages.

But AMP for email & AMP Stories have nothing to do with making the web faster, it's just another part of Google's attempt to essentially fork the web & control the platform so they can compete with Facebook by shoehorning FB/IG/Messenger features on to the web (Instant Articles, Stories, Carousels, "interactive" email etc).

That's bad in and of itself, and for Google to present its corporate strategy as an "open source" project so it can enlist the help of volunteers and those passionate about the web is disingenuous in the extreme.

There are far more worthy projects that could use volunteer help than a $750 billion company's corporate strategy.

Further thoughts here: [https://twitter.com/lukestevens/status/963905898895699968](https://twitter.com/lukestevens/status/963905898895699968)

<comment><USER3> If only I had a nickel for every online commenter who swore up and down that no one else implements or supports AMP, and then uses that to justify claiming Google is trying to fork the web...all major platforms pursuing end-arounds mobile ad garbage, _except_ Facebook and Apple, use and contribute to AMP.

Anyways, I'm just happy to finally have usable web results on mobile.

<comment><USER4> People's participation in AMP isn't voluntary. They _have_ to implement and support AMP, or they get penalized by Google Search.

<comment><USER5> Bing, Cloudfare.

<comment><USER6> They sure exist! But Google's search has like 4/5 of the market.

If you optimize for the bottom line (as a business should), what will you pay most attention to?

<comment><USER7> I think his point was that Bing implemented AMP voluntarily, without being pressured as you suggest publishers were: [https://blogs.bing.com/search/September-2016/bing-app- joins-...](https://blogs.bing.com/search/September-2016/bing-app-joins-the- amp-open-source-effort)

<comment><USER4> Bing's primary pressure is a need to compete performance wise with Google. The fact that the implementation is bad doesn't mean they don't need to match on the metrics.

<comment><USER8> To play devil's advocate: the reason Bing can implement their own AMP cache and conform to AMP pages so easily is because AMP is an open project.

<comment><USER4> Nobody said the problem was AMP's code being available. The issue is the way Google is forcing their framework's dominance using their search monopoly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It will never be okay to give preferred treatment to those that use your framework. This basically is telling all other framework authors, "never mind, Google has decided the one that anyone that everyone will have to use (if they want in to the SEO club)" At this point, they're no longer saying, "we've found the most pertinent search results". Instead, they're saying, "our friends provide the best stuff... don't bother looking at the others"

</comment><comment><USER10> The basement dream of the web is dying faster and faster. At the hand of large, scared companies. It's ironic that the more powerful you get the more scared you become.

<comment><USER11> The phrase "nothing to lose" comes to mind about the fearless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> At what point do the people working in tech come to the realization that Google has become a problem that must be eliminated if the web is to continue to flourish?

</comment><comment><USER13> > The letter calls on the AMP team to make two primary changes:

> Instead of granting premium placement in search results only to AMP, provide > the same perks to all pages that meet an objective, neutral performance > criterion such as Speed Index. Publishers can then use any technical > solution of their choice.

How would you measure this in a way that couldn't be gamed?

I'm not saying AMP is the best solution, but the way AMP prevents you from doing things that hurt performance makes it much easier for you to know for sure an AMP page has certain performance properties.

<comment><USER14> This might be a somewhat controversial (or just reviled) opinion, but: _why should search engine rankings care about page performance?_

As soon as Google, the thing that indexes for _relevance_ starts caring about an orthogonal behavior like performance, my ability to trust that I'll see relevant things first is compromised. Balancing between two good criteria dilutes both, basically.

Performance impacts a page's relevance in one case: if it _never_ renders (times out), in which case it isn't indexable anyway. Otherwise, users have "stop" and "back" buttons at their disposal if a relevant page doesn't load fast enough for them.

Performance is important, but should not be a criterion for search results. The fact that it's may be incorporated into the ranking system is at best extremely misguided and at worst baldly avaricious.

<comment><USER13> > This might be a somewhat controversial (or just reviled) opinion, but: why > should search engine rankings care about page performance?

They'll care because faster results will generally mean happier and more engaged users who'll want to use your search engine again. This applies even more for mobile users where you might be waiting 10s of seconds before anything is rendered on a slow page.

<comment><USER14> That concerns me, if true. If users will blame the search engine for directing them to a page that is relevant yet slow, and the logical solution to that is that the search engine should ensure all pages are fast, doesn't that open up a bit of a can of worms about the search engine itself? I.e. if users blame the search engine for providing results for "whose religion is the best" that they _disagree_ with, wouldn't the same logic incentivize the search engine makers to filter those results for users whose religious preference is known?

It seems like a bad tradeoff to make: marginally increase user engagement by serving faster pages at the cost of potentially compromising the primary reason (relevance) that people use your search engine? I'm sure there is data supporting that decision, but this doesn't make it sit any better with me. It's like going to the library and saying "I'd like the complete works of Shakespeare, please" and having the librarian say "well, here's our theater section, but please pay special attention to these abridged/easy-reading versions of Shakespeare, since we think they'll make for a more enjoyable experience for you. The complete works are on this floor somewhere; you can find them yourself."

I'm not saying that we'll automatically slide down that slope, just that it's there, and a bit slippery.

<comment><USER13> Yep, I'm not saying it's without issues but I can see why Google wants to show users fast pages. I can relate when using a mobile: it's super frustrating when you're on the move, need a quick answer, the first link takes 20 seconds to load so you go back, you try another etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> AMP implementation also sucks, why cant i use !important in css for AMP ? Also try to convert any user generated page to an AMP page and have fun with all the validation errors. AMP might be a good thing for web in general but the way it is handled poorly by google , atleast Facebok Instant Articles dont have that many restrictions

</comment><comment><USER16> Google have to answer to shareholders, it's in their interest to keep users within their ecosystem.</comment>


Disney Adds A Bit Of Nonsensical Anti-Open Source FUD To Kid's Sitcom - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/19/disney-adds-a-bit-of-nonsensical-anti-open-source-fud-to-kids-sitcom/

<comment><USER2> It's a Disney kids sitcom. If you've logged as many hours as I have watching this stuff with your kids, you'll realize it's quickly-written slop. I wouldn't go looking for conspiracies in this stuff.</comment>


On some intelligence tests, chimps beat humans. - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499989/The-disturbing-question-posed-IQ-tests--chimps-cleverer-us.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I posit that a chimp could understand and learn from Wikipedia if it were presented audiovisually (like Qwiki.com but with the English speech replaced by a much simpler (sign?) language).

And what if the chimp were also wearing Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation?

</comment><comment><USER2> Does anyone have the link to the original article (or title or authors)? It looks interesting, but this version has almost not details.</comment>


LLVM releases compiler-rt, a libgcc replacement  - <AUTHOR> http://compiler-rt.llvm.org/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone know why they create a new project that's supposed to be compatible with libgcc, instead of patching libgcc?

<comment><USER3> Probably because of licensing; libgcc is GPLv3, compiler-rt has a BSD-style license

<comment><USER4> More precisely, it is licensed under GPLv3 + runtime exception with the result being pretty much LGPL. In the case of libgcc, for 99.9% of the users there is no difference between this license and BSD.

<comment><USER5> For 99.9% of the contributors to LLVM, there is a difference. And guess who wrote the library.

<comment><USER4> I don't quite follow your logic. The license is there to establish what others can do with your code. Contributors, as copyright holders, can do with the code whatever they please without any license.

What I am trying to say is that to me the user of libgcc or the LLVM version there is not difference between BSD and LGPL conditions.

<comment><USER5> Contributing to a project doesn't mean you get to ignore the license; if you submit a patch for readline, you still have to GPL your app that links to it.

The LLVM project isn't controlled by a single entity, but it does get a lot of code from "commercial" users, so those users chose a license that works well for them. (It ensures that any future contributions will be usable under an acceptable license.) Admittedly the LGPL would also be fine, but ... that's not what they picked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks like compiler-rt is a replacement for only a small part of libgcc, It's just the functions you need to _run_ C programs. It doesn't include functions like printf.

And as for why they're doing it, it's to allow llvm work without a dependency on another project.

<comment><USER7> libgcc is not glibc</comment></comment>


Show HN: Solver for the game 24 in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chris-kuo/twenty-four <comment><AUTHOR> Wrote a solver for the game 24 as a afternoon project.

It's is based on reducing the number of integers in the problem set by 1 in each iteration, and when there is only 1 integer left in the problem set, check if it's equal to 24.

The command line prompt assumes 4 numbers inputs but supports custom target number (24 is the default). It can be configured to either tell whether a solution exists or print the actual solutions.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you know if your idea is legal? - <AUTHOR> Every time I get an idea of a cool product I could do, I fall under if it is legal or not,
some of the ideas involve crawling other websites or using other websites content
How do you know if your idea is legal? <comment><USER2> Research online for similar ideas and if they ran into any trouble. But ultimately, you will have to consult a lawyer, especially if you plan to make money from your idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any idea where I can find such lawyers online? or maybe some community where I can ask questions for free?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://xkcd.com/1494/](https://xkcd.com/1494/)

<comment><AUTHOR> haha so true</comment></comment>


Winamp's woes: How the greatest MP3 player undid itself (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/winamp-how-greatest-mp3-player-undid-itself/ <comment><USER2> From my memory as a kid.. I remember winamp was amazing. I had many skins and it was all beautifully hooked up in my IRC client.

And then, at some points, the UX completely changed. It also started being spammy. Almost like the project was sold to some incompetent people. Then I felt like it lost its magic. It also happened to be the time when streaming from Napster became possible and I completely switched to it.. and then to grooveshark/deezer/all-the-others.

Winamp could have been Spotify but went in a completely different directions. Saying that may sound crazy, but that's what Netflix did. It was selling/renting dvd, saw streaming coming and did a full 180.

<comment><USER3> > Winamp could have been Spotify but went in a completely different directions

Yes I remember that the first time I used streaming music it was shoutcast.

It was really fantastic with hundreds of different music channels and podcasts. One radio station I was particularly fond off was called Atlantic sound factory. They had a goldmine on their hands and it's a shame they let it all go to waste.

<comment><USER4> And video streaming too. It was uncommon but they had the nsv (nullsoft video) format.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the ex-developers is running the Winamp Community Update Project, or WACUP. It's got new features, bugfixes and so forth.

I use this all the time. It sits in a tiny corner of my unscaled 4k display.

[https://getwacup.com/](https://getwacup.com/)

<comment><USER6> Thank you for this! I didn't know this existed

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I contend that Winamp is the best MP3 player to have ever existed. Nothing comes close to its speed, usability or extensibility, even 20 years later.

Foobar fans may disagree, but I stand my ground.

<comment><USER8> for windows yes it's still true!! but in that 20 years I've also moved on from windows: nothing comes close on macos and on Linux I've been using audacious which i must say does sound amazing.

lack of cross platform options inspired me to start reAMP:

[https://github.com/conceptualspace/reAMP](https://github.com/conceptualspace/reAMP)

it's still very much an experiment but the end goal is an open source player made with the same love of music that inspired the original winamp. some of the features im working on:

\- smart shuffle algorithm: no repeats until playlist exhausted; randomized between artists so artists with many songs do not monopolize the playlist

\- studio quality audio analysis (VU meter, oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, full track waveform, displays for bitrate, samplerate, channels, format, encoder)

\- controls to loop, change tempo

\- remote control via mobile with queuing and adding youtube URLs ('party mode')

\- logarithmic volume control

<comment><USER9> I was amazed to find out foobar2000 works great under Wine, including input & output plugins, so I just use it. Best ML management IMO. Can't recall if I ever got the Winamp AVS plugin to work though.

<comment><USER6> AVS works pretty well in Wine

<comment><USER9> I meant it on foobar2000 with its foo_vis_shpeck plugin, which is a wrapper for Winamp visualization plugins. I have run it successfully under Windows but I recall having trouble on Wine some 5 years ago.

<comment><USER6> Yes that's how I use it, shpeck is a little funky under Wine but it basically works correctly. I think it will crash in some cases if you stop the visualisation when it's attached to the main window or something, I forget. I run it in a separate f2k install that just has a single shpeck instance filling the whole window, and receives audio input from pulseaudio's loopback.

Example: [https://streamable.com/nzy730](https://streamable.com/nzy730)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Internet Archive has a Winamp skins collection. [https://archive.org/details/winampskins](https://archive.org/details/winampskins) If you open the page for a skin and click the llama way up in the right corner, it will apply the skin to the music player site-wide.

<comment><USER11> Sort of NSFW, blurred images with click throughs, but NSFW text in some skin names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> See also:

2017 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14689280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14689280)

2013 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5616323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5616323)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154421)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is like a post-mortem of watching high-ranking business people making very important business-y decisions braying loud business noises, brimming with confidence. It's like anything they see is shiny, they think, "How can I get thingy? How can I use thingy to be more business-y?" then later "Thingy is broken" and they wander off in search of another thingy. It's just so frustrating to watch Pakleds in three-piece suits (Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode "Samaritan Snare") asking if you can make us _go_. And the people responsible for the terrible decisions probably thought they did a great job, and then were paid as _if_ they did a great job, despite somehow managing this thing into the ground.

</comment><comment><USER14> I remember a dorm mate in college used to run multiple instances of Winamp to do some rookie DJ mixes in parties.

<comment><USER15> Did they experiment with the pitch adjust plugin that let you go +/\- 50% ... but only in 1% steps? I used to have fun with that.

A friend recently played a set at an online party using two instances of VLC, went down great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Same people are now making Reaper DAW which is the best DAW out there for $60 (and probably better than some more expensive DAWs).

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

</comment><comment><USER17> Winamp was incredible - it even had a plugin for syncronized playback that I couldn't replicate easily. You could get 5 friends to all play at the same time - so fun.

Then BOOM - ads everywhere, bundled installers, crazy redesign. I didn't know this history.

</comment><comment><USER18> Winamp was pretty nice until v3.

Version 3 was pretty shitty. I think they used new tech to build it and also replaced the UI.

Later they released v5, which was v2 UI + v3 tech, which was good again.

At least that's how I remember it.

<comment><USER19> 5 is _still_ good, and it's still what I use. There are newer things that are shinier, but nothing that works nearly as well for an album listener.

<comment><USER20> Do any of the skins help it work on hi-DPI screens? That is it's main drawback now for me.

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't know. I have no use for hi-DPI screens. It's just extra processing for no real benefit. (In fact, there's a net negative for my primary computing activities, which mostly involve highly-magnified pixel pushing.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know if it still runs on modern Windows versions, however I always put Winamp (later called Lite, ie the original without bloatware) on all Windows machines I installed until the day I abandoned Windows. The original Winamp was a wonderful piece of software that did the one thing everyone wanted it to do, and did it wonderfully; a lesson on how to write optimized software a lot of developers should learn from. Then they ruined it, but that's another story.

<comment><USER22> It still runs just fine!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Winamp definitely had its appeal in the "small but packed with features" category, but it always seemed to lack polish.

These days my go-to music player on Windows is [https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine- windows](https://github.com/digimezzo/dopamine-windows)

It is open source, super clean and polished. At 33mb it is not quite as compact as Winamp, but not bad for today's standards....

</comment><comment><USER24> The reason why Winamp died wasn't because of anything it did, but because more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. That's the only reason why Winamp died.

It's just a relic of the past, but in its day it was amazing. As an old guy I still use it. Asking a 10 year old to use Winamp to play an mp3 would be like asking a 20 year old to figure out how to use a rotary phone now.

<comment><USER25> > _more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And > ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming._

I listen to tunes with the Android version of Winamp.

> _Asking a 10 year old to use Winamp to play an mp3_

You still need an application of some sort to play media. Are you saying that the pre-installed ones on mobile devices and desktop (e.g. Windows media player) are so vastly better than Winamp that Winamp looks like a rotary phone?

> _And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming._

I'm sorry, but that's not a well-considered statement. Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like.

Streaming allows people who want to casually listen to music to use their device as one previously used a radio.

(Speaking of which, streaming has not even killed radio yet.)

A ten year old kid today can still understand that stream content won't always be there, and is inaccessible whenever you are out of mobile networking coverage, so you better capture your favorite material to your device.

<comment><USER24> > Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like.

Sorry but this is an ignorant statement about the current landscape. A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs. Most music these days are consumed via streaming. Just because you do it doesn't mean that most other people do it. Even I still use Winamp and listen to mp3s but that doesn't mean that most people still do.

<comment><USER25> > A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs*

My comment doesn't have anything to do with buying. I haven't bought a CD in some 25 years myself.

People still play content stored in their device.

<comment><USER24> Sadly, the world doesn't revolve around you. There has been 25 years of new music that had been created since you last bought a CD. You may pirate or purchase your mp3s, but even piracy has plummeted.

And people who used to download mp3s found that they no longer needed to maintain music anymore if they paid a small subscription fee.

Digital music sales are lower than physical CD sales, which is 5% of what it used to be back in 2000. The numbers speak for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The main thing I remember about Winamp is how Nullsoft release that P2P thing and made corporate at AOL really angry, so they pulled it, in like a day or so.

I also switched from Windows to MacOS just before that and transitioning from Winamp (where a lot of meta data for my collection was stored in the filesystem as directory hierarchy) to iTunes was sorta painful and trying.

</comment><comment><USER27> I remember trying to play it on Linux using Wine back in 2004/05! I don't remember if I succeeded! It was the only one thing that I missed from the Windows world.

<comment><USER28> There /was/ x11amp. That became XMMS. There's qmmp though if you want a blast from the past.

<comment><USER27> You're right. I did use it. Thanks for the reminding. Then a bunch of others from other open source projects. I've been mostly using Macs in the recent years.

<comment><USER28> They should (I've not looked) build on Macs - honestly I don't know what sound system a Mac uses. There's always 'elementaryOS' if you like that style of interface.

<comment><USER27> I don't think it works on Macs. Besides, these days I listen to music only while driving or on trains! I've given up on Linux due to many reasons, mostly because I need a reliable Laptop with a UNIX based OS where all my dev tools work! I recently downloaded Elementary OS for one of my old Thinkpads. I will give it a go then. Thanks. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Winamp was close to pure assembly coding, wasn't it?

It's smoothness and performance at the time of couple-hundred-MHz CPUs was outstanding.

</comment><comment><USER30> Huge fan of Winamp.

Damn. How many good product died or stagnated, because of stupid politics.

<comment><USER31> What did politics have to do with the creation of Winamp 3?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> iTunes and iPod integration killed Winamp.</comment>


Design of a hyperstable 60-subunit protein icosahedron - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v535/n7610/full/nature18010.html <comment><USER2> Hey cool, 3rd author Shane Gonin is now at Janelia (where my lab is) and I know a bit about this work. Funny to see it pop up here.

The kind of electron microscopy (EM) of brain tissue I do relies upon embedding the tissue in a resin called Epon. Epon has excellent cutting properties and low intrinsic contrast in EM. But in order to embed tissue in Epon it has to be completely dehydrated, which quenches genetically expressed fluorphores like GFP.

My fantasy for these genetically expressed buckyball-like proteins is that one could engineer their interior to be sufficiently hydrophilic that GFP fluorescence would survive complete dehydration of the surrounding tissue, instead relying on the polarized residues of the amino acids in the interior. This would let us combine highest quality EM with highest quality light microscopy in the same sample -- which would be very useful indeed.

<comment><USER3> I doubt you could avoid diffusion in these proteins to the point you desire. It would be worth looking into species that exploit cryptobiosis, specifically anhydrobiosis (rotifers, tardigrades, daphnia, and C. Elegans are all examples). In most cases they can dessicate extremely, some of them by exchanging glucose or water with trehalose (itself a fascinating topic worth further study), so i wonder if you could make trehalose binding sites inside the body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ouch, that comment: _Those are not icosahedra; they 're dodecahedra. A regular icosahedron has 20 faces and 12 vertices._

No matter how I look at it, it seems to be right. I wonder if they have a good reason for abusing nomenclature like that. Or perhaps they'll have to issue a rather embarrassing errata stating the very title was wrong.

And an unrelated but equally bewildering thing: the page has this "editor's pick" section containing a uselessly gigantic 5672x1823px image resized to 280x90px. What the fuck.

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing here, but it's probably because dodecahedra have icosahedral symmetry ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedral_symmetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedral_symmetry)) and dodecahedrons are the dual of icosahedrons (see the row equating them here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsid#Triangulation_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsid#Triangulation_number))

Realistically it's most likely that Baker is using the terminology from crystallography and virus studies, consistent with his background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone paying attention, the dearth of comments in this thread is a key indicator that the most commented threads on HN are all bike shedding threads.

A topic like this suffers from high barriers that prevent the formation of opinions, whereas today's Pardon Snowden thread[0] provides ample opportunity for lengthy editorials.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12494998](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12494998)

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the Andromeda Strain (except that didn't have any amino acids)

[http://mymeaningfulmovies.blogspot.com/2015/02/the- andromeda...](http://mymeaningfulmovies.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-andromeda- strain.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> The fact that you can tack on an extra protein domain to each protein subunit is really neat because it lets you assemble little macromolecules containing several custom functionalities. Presumably these extra domains face outwards, coating the surface of the cage. Hopefully these extra domains don't interfere with the cage assembly process.

For example, say you created fusions between the cage mononmer and antibody Fv chains that bind two different proteins (A and B) and then you created fusions between the cage monomer and two different fluorescent proteins (GFP and RFP).

In bacteria strain 1, you express fusion A and fusion GFP so that you assemble cages that will show a green signal where-ever A is found (e.g., for fluorescent microscopy). Likewise, in bacterial strain 2, you expression fusions B and RFP so that you get a red signal where ever B is. You could use these as detectors in a western blot, for example. (Obviously there are better, established ways to detect proteins of interest in a western blot, but that's just a simple idea).

Another idea that I remember reading about was creating glucuronidase fusions to antibody fragments designed to bind cancer cells. The patient would then be administered the glucuronide of a cytotoxic drug, which is not toxic in its glucuronide form. The idea is that the antibody fusion protein would activate the drug so that it would be concentrated highly near the cancer cell and nowhere else.

</comment><comment><USER8> Could someone ELI-human? Ta

<comment><USER9> They made a really big, really stable molecule, inside an E Coli bacterium.

<comment><USER10> That is producible in huge quantities on demand (for the cost of sugar, sunlight and water). That is defined with atomic specificity. And can have appendages and payloads of arbitrary (genetic) sequence attached to it (again with atomic specificity).

<comment><USER11> "... attached to it with atomic specificity" \- and then what?

<comment><USER12> Enzymes and substrates could be grouped together so that they work more efficiently (don't have to bump around looking for each other in a large space).

Synthetic machinery that we design could be made functional inside the protein complex so as not to disturb background cellular processes.

Receptors for specific cell types could be attached to the outside so that the complex is taken up and a payload is delivered.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Reading Lists - <AUTHOR> http://www.daniellemorrill.com/reading-lists/

<comment><USER2> Check out Imagine. Really great read on where creativity comes from and how to foster innovation within teams.

[http://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Creativity-Works-Jonah- Lehrer/...](http://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Creativity-Works-Jonah- Lehrer/dp/0547386079)

<comment><AUTHOR> I will, thanks!</comment></comment>


Show HN: React comment section component that keeps those to yourself - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ctrlaltdev/react-comments-void <comment><AUTHOR> Comments are hell - so I made this component that stores them in localStorage - so you can only see your comments. Was for fun.

Example on CodePen: [https://codepen.io/ctrlaltdev/pen/XPZNNP](https://codepen.io/ctrlaltdev/pen/XPZNNP)</comment>


One Day Compilers (Graydon Hoare) - <AUTHOR> http://www.venge.net/graydon/talks/mkc/html/index.html

<comment><USER2> Ugh. Run the following code to make the UI bearable:

      function makeSlide(src){
          return "

";
      }

      document.write('
');
      for (var i=1; i<10; i++){
          document.write( makeSlide("http://www.venge.net/graydon/talks/mkc/html/mgp0000"+i+".jpg"));
      }
      for (var i=10; i<=58; i++){
          document.write( makeSlide("http://www.venge.net/graydon/talks/mkc/html/mgp000"+i+".jpg"));
      }
      document.write('
');
      document.close();

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that. I wish I had it when I first started reading the article, because I quit about halfway through after I got "bad-UI fatigue". At this point, however, I'm still debating whether or not I want to take another 15-30 minutes to go back and finish going over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a downloadable version?</comment>


Facebook closes journalist accounts on the pretext of terrorism and violence - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-doesn-t-care-activists-say-accounts-removed-despite-zuckerberg-n1231110 <comment><USER2> The people running Facebook seem to be pure evil, full stop</comment>


Show HN: QuickAnswer – An AskReddit Alternative - <AUTHOR> https://www.quickanswer.net <comment><USER2> Only problem I see. I don't see motivation in coming back to your site, because I can't farm karma</comment>


Box Refreshes Its iOS Apps, Gives Users Who Download Them 50GB Of Free Storage - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/box-refreshes-its-ios-apps-gives-users-who-download-the-new-code-50gb-of-free-storage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

<comment><USER2> The 250MB/file limit on free accounts is brutal. (It used to be even smaller, something like 100MB, but they relented and increased it somewhat recently.) Even worse, the client doesn't tell you when it's not copying the file because it's too big - it pretends everything is just fine and dandy.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like I got 50GB from Box when I signed up like 2 years ago.

I still haven't use it at all. Dropbox, drive & even mega seem to be more seamless :-/

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact: If you interview with recruiters at storage companies, they'll often add free space to your personal account.

<comment><USER5> Dropbox often recruits at my alma mater, they'll always have stacks of free 10gb/15gb space expansion cards (with some redeemable code) to hand out. Big hit with the students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> cloud.mail.ru offers free 1Tb for life if you register until 20 January. Yes the interface is in Russian(at least for the desktop app) and rough at edges, but still worth spending 5 minutes registering.

Edit. The interface of the Android app is available in English. Also, being an active Dropbox user, Mail.ru solution is obviously less polished and still in beta. But it is an established company in Russia(I would guess second biggest internet media holding), and you can somewhat rely on them.

<comment><USER7> Do you not need a russian phone number?

<comment><USER6> You could specify it as a means to restore the password, but it is not necessary. Other options include secret question, or alternative email address.

<comment><USER7> I wasn't able to sign up for an email account without one until I found this link [http://e.mail.ru/cgi-bin/login?lang=en_US](http://e.mail.ru/cgi- bin/login?lang=en_US) where you can use any phone number (but still require one to sign up).

<comment><USER8> Or you can just click "I don't have a mobile phone." and sign up with a security question...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Storage space is so cheap nowadays. I find it very hard to be enticed by even more free cloud storage. I doubt that offering me more and more would help.

I would be interested in an application that makes agreements with the ISPs that have throttling or download limits so that traffic to and from their servers don't count.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Offering for free something that gets cheaper as time passes, I don't if can be considered as clever marketing or not.

<comment><USER11> I believe that it was clever marketing when google first did it when gmail was first released. I feel like the storage is only part of the service, it's access to your files everywhere that they are really trying to sell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just got 50GB on Google Drive on my new Moto G, I'll use about a tenth of that, at a push.

It's at the point where giving away your product for free is no longer a large-impact sales tactic, wonder how they'll innovate?

<comment><USER13> This is merely to offer a service of equal value. I'm not sure as an individual service it's possible to innovate. It's what you build that plugs into that service that can make it more valuable, more useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mediafire also seems to be doing 50gb as well as Mega.

Now they just all need desktop syncing programs with easily accessible public sharing urls and decent traffic bandwidth.

<comment><USER15> What they really need are TAHOE-LAFS backends, so one'd get 50+50+50 GiB on free offers and have a generous 100 GiB of fault-tolerant secure storage (or 150 GiB, if they're greedy or consider services going down is not a problem)

;)

<comment><USER14> Personally I don't really need more storage unless it is in a really usable format. I have 10TiB in my personal computer for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dear Tech Crunch staff. Please stop making your videos auto-play in IE and Chrome. Seriously ... 10 videos on one page and they ALL started up, playing. Conform to freegen standards from the W3C. I would have been ok with my IE browser, but it had the same bizzaro world experience in Chrome.

<comment><USER17> You're complaining to the wrong company.

Chrome has 'click to play' option for flash. Why can't we control video? Youtube conflict of interest maybe.

We can disable javascript, images, even audio. Why not Videos?

Screaming at webmasters to behave ethically, or app developer to not steal data is naive and idealistic.

Scream at google, mozilla, microsoft and the rest to give US control over our browser is that too much to ask in this day and age?

Or has following apple's "we know what's best for you" philosophy clouded their common sense?

The browser is to blame!

<comment><USER18> "You're complaining to the wrong company."

The company that embeds the videos should consider how said media is presented to it's users. It is a weird concept yes I know. Just try to contemplate it.

<comment><USER15> It depends on how you view a website-browser relationship.

If you believe your browser displaying a site is under third-party control, then yes, it's third party that's responsible for presentation issues. If you believe since something running in your browser then you and browser vendor are responsible for presenting the contents in a manner you want it, then, well, it's another way.

Actually, I think one should complain to both companies.

<comment><USER18> Outside frames are called parent for a reason. I'm pretty closed book on how I feel about the issue. Though I agree both should be complained to, just that responsibility falls on those who embed.

I really thought we made it past the auto-play era of the 90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Shame that a) iOS only b) iOS _6+_ only. I wonder what they're doing that couldn't be done with software barely a year old; it must be pretty mind- blowing, world-changing stuff.

<comment><USER20> Apple designs it's entire platform to basically drag developers to using the latest SDK and codebase. I can't even download the iOS 5 simulator in xcode right now. Shit starts breaking in the newer versions of things when you use the older way of doing stuff, and sometimes the decision is an exclusive or. Support %95 of the userbase using ios 7 & 6 and frankly give yourself less of a development headache or support ios 5 laggards who are less likely to pay for things as a group anyway.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the info. Obviously, if it's literally a case of 'support 95% or support 5%', the choice is made for the developer. I assumed 'support 100%' was not impossible, or even particularly difficult, but I stand corrected. Although I would like to note that _some_ developers do still support iOS5 - somehow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wish they'll put some effort to make Linux client. Definitely a minus for me right now.

</comment><comment><USER10> A startup which core business is collect in just one place all the free storage provided as marketing growth tactic from other cloud storage startups.

<comment><USER19> But would you stripe or mirror? :-)

<comment><USER22> The though of psuedo-RAID6 across multiple storage providers makes me want to cry into a beer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Would there be noticeable performance issues if one were to run Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box simultaneously?

<comment><USER24> What about Skydrive and SugarSync?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks like Android users are out in the cold on this one. Any filesize limitations?

</comment><comment><USER26> 1\. Box offers WebDAV. 2\. Zotero can store files in a WebDAV server.

</comment><comment><USER27> I got 50GB by connecting to my LG phone not too long ago.

</comment><comment><USER28> For a little over $200 I can get a 50GiB USB flash drive. If I can pay more and buy one five times as large, I can get below $1 per GiB. Why would I need cloud storage for these sizes?

<comment><USER29> Isn't this kinda missing the point? First of all this was free, but Box is like Dropbox, so it syncs files between computers and you can access them in your phone.

<comment><USER28> How can I not access a flash drive in my phone? It's _in my hand_. I can just _plug it in_. If I want to access the files from a computer, I _plug it into the computer_.

 _That's_ my point. "Cloud" storage is completely unnecessary for these storage sizes, as I can just carry my personal data with me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm sure the NSA is loving this.</comment>


Letters – my new iPhone word game side-project is live - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letters-game-about-spelling/id823334911?ls=1&mt=8

<comment><USER2> Interesting concept. It's a pity you've copied Loren Brichter's Letterpress style a little too much ([http://www.atebits.com/letterpress/](http://www.atebits.com/letterpress/)).

Also, the animations could do with a little more fluidity, and where are the sound effects?

I sincerely hope you take these points constructively and use them to further your success in your next versions!

<comment> shawn-furyan > It's a pity you've copied Loren Brichter's Letterpress style a little too > much

I don't think this is a fair comment at all. They are both flat design word tile games, and there's only so much visual distinction you can squeeze out of those parameters. Regarding similarities with Letterpress, I don't detect any visual influences that couldn't be attributed to projects that use a flat UI and predate both games, and nothing strikes me as a direct copy of anything I've seen.

<comment><USER3> Could start by choosing different colours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not bad! Any plans to open source some of the underlying libraries? Could be interesting to see more games made in this style with these visual mechanics.

</comment><comment><USER5> Congrants. Know it can be tough getting these things done especially on the side.</comment>