Marvel Comics API - <AUTHOR> http://developer.marvel.com <comment><USER3> While having access at all is nice, the terms of use are prohibitive and somewhat heavy handed. They basically say you can make something, but can't charge for it in any way, you can't create a mash-up (no augmentation of data) and if it works out, Marvel will probably implement it for themselves anyway. Not really as 'open' as you might hope.

The following default rules apply to all Apps:

Advertising. No advertising or sponsorship of any kind may appear on or be associated with any App (unless included in the Content made available by Marvel).

No Charge. All Apps must be offered free of charge to download or otherwise access and may not contain any in-App purchase features or any other method of monetization, unless approved in writing by Marvel pursuant to a separate written agreement as described below.

...

NO PRESS RELEASES. You may not issue any press release or make any public statement about the Marvel API (and related Content), Tools, the inclusion of any of the foregoing in any Apps (yours or others') or these API Terms of Use without Marvel's prior written approval.

...

Use of our Content. You may not change or edit the Content (e.g., modify, augment).

...

You understand and acknowledge that Marvel may be independently creating applications, content and other products or services that may be similar to or competitive with your App, and nothing in these API Terms of Use will be construed as restricting or preventing Marvel from creating and fully exploiting such applications, content and other products or services now or in the future, without any obligation to you.

<comment><USER4> They never said it was open, so I don't see the problem, unless you readily associate "API" with "open".

<comment><USER5> I would not have anticipated all of those and I appreciated the heads up. If you're offering an API to the public at large like this, yes, I would default towards assuming it was relatively open barring notice to the contrary. When you make it really easy to start sending requests and bury all the terms in conditions in fine print, that's something of an anti-pattern.

Especially when talking about the kind of API most likely to be used by clever teenagers on a fansite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who has enjoyed Timehop, I put together an app I call Marvelhop [1]. It simply picks a random comic that was issued on this week in the past 20 years.

I am surely biased, but it's a pretty fun way to rediscover comics you might have forgotten about.

[1]: [http://marvelhop.jit.su/](http://marvelhop.jit.su/)

 _UPDATE:_ The code that queries the API (while messy) is entirely written in client-side JQuery, so feel free to view the source.

<comment><USER7> I hate to be "that guy", but what about turtle4's observation [1] of some TOS items? Seems like your post may be crossing some lines?

~~

NO PRESS RELEASES. You may not issue any press release or make any public statement about the Marvel API (and related Content), Tools, the inclusion of any of the foregoing in any Apps (yours or others') or these API Terms of Use without Marvel's prior written approval.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7649077)

<comment><USER8> I'm _hoping_ you're just kidding. Would making a forum post really violate their TOS? I would consider this a "public statement," but I am not a lawyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really cool, however I found one major flaw that will prevent me from using this: I have a marvel.com account and forgot my password, so I went to "Forgot my Password" to get a new one.

I was emailed with my email _and_ password in plain text, meaning that Marvel stores the passwords in plain text. Knowing that, I'm not sure how comfortable I would be building something on top of this API.

<comment><USER10> While concerning with regard to their stance on security, you should really assume all web services store their passwords in plaintext. Passwords have always been kept in confidence on the web, without any guarantee of secrecy. Until web standards improve and address this with client side hashing this is an uphill battle, like trying to get people to use prepared queries instead of escaping. Use a password manager with a random per-site generator and just accept it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently developing a website, Longboxed ([http://www.longboxed.com](http://www.longboxed.com)), that helps users build virtual pull lists, keeping them up to date with the latest releases.

The comic industry needs more of this. There is a wealth of information out there, nearly all of which is user created. Its nice to see Marvel offering this.

I'm very interested in seeing what people make with this. Now let's pester DC, Image, Dark Horse, etc to get on the bandwagon!

<comment><USER12> Good luck! I traveled that road for a few years with a site called MyPullList (2007-2010, RIP), and had a heck of a time with ... basically all of it. I did have a lot of fun talking about the data model and its challenges during the height of the NoSQL hype, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like they're putting in place infrastructure for an API affiliate plan.

To use the API you must display a copyright link whose href points at a url included in the API's response.

Ignoring the nice boost this gives to Google rank, the urls change based on the request and so can point to a place where the viewer can buy the API response's content from Marvel.

Plus each url includes a tag so Marvel can know which app sent them the customer.

Not sure why they're putting such a powerful linkback/affiliate scheme in the copyright notice though. If they're sending back custom urls it's no extra effort to include call to action text for the link as well eg: Buy 'Avengers: The Quest For Profit'.

More info in the linking section of [http://developer.marvel.com/documentation/attribution](http://developer.marvel.com/documentation/attribution)

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know what I'll use this for, but I'm happier knowing it exists.

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't forget what Disney has done to corrupt copyright law and government: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Via John Carmack's twitter feed:

[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/459728407169728512](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/459728407169728512)

<comment><USER16> Amusingly, you basically won the HN lottery on uptake:

[https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/0/developer.marvel.c...](https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/0/developer.marvel.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the difference is that I used the word API in my submissions title, which immediately makes the developer part of my brain say "Comic book API? What's that about?" and want to know more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Maybe a bit off-topic, but the Grand Comics Database ([http://www.comics.org](http://www.comics.org)) is an fan non-profit effort to index all comic books worldwide. We don't have an API, although we'd like to - it's mostly that we have no clear requirements yet, and since all data is available as a DB dump under CC-BY, there's not much push for one.

The project is now in its 20th year and this shows in that the database schema isn't as canonicalized as could be (for example, creator credits and character fields are just text fields and not DB references. Yet slowly but surely improvements are being made, faster in the last couple of years.

We could use some help if anybody is interested - our code is GPL ([https://github.com/GrandComicsDatabase/gcd- django](https://github.com/GrandComicsDatabase/gcd-django)) and since the dev team is limited and everything happens on our free time, all kinds of help are appreciated.

Further links: our wiki: [http://docs.comics.org/](http://docs.comics.org/) our tech mailing list: [http://groups.google.com/group/gcd- tech](http://groups.google.com/group/gcd-tech)

</comment><comment><USER18> I built something small to try the API out a couple months ago: [http://cesnotseth.com/marvel/](http://cesnotseth.com/marvel/) Type in an event to see characters and covers from that event. Click individual characters to see covers throughout their history.

</comment><comment><USER19> A cool thing about the API is that it returns both normalized and denormalized foreign entities. (E.g if I query a character, it will return a reference to an endpoint to query all that character's comics _AND_ it will return the total number of comics). It saves a lot of time for aggregation.

I used that data a few months ago to create a chart of the most popular Marvel characters: [http://i.imgur.com/KVAT3Xn.png](http://i.imgur.com/KVAT3Xn.png)

Code for retrieving the data here: [https://github.com/minimaxir/all-marvel- comics-characters](https://github.com/minimaxir/all-marvel-comics-characters) (I have absolutely no idea if this still works)

<comment><USER20> Thanks - we tried to make discoverability of related entities easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Started hacking on a Go client: [https://github.com/ImJasonH/go- marvel/](https://github.com/ImJasonH/go-marvel/)

Feedback/contributions welcome if you feel like it

edit: I might just break down and write a Go client generator for Swagger...

</comment><comment><USER22> POST v1/public/fanfiction

<comment><USER23> Needs a crossover endpoint that takes a url (and schema) for another universe's API

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I find that the ComicVine API is really good. [https://www.comicvine.com/api/](https://www.comicvine.com/api/)

Has both Marvel and DC characters, so that's a huge plus.

</comment><comment><USER25> So effectively someone could build a marvel wiki entirely off this api.

HOWEVER the geek in me wants to see the "comic graph" and someone map the hell out of all the cross appearances and so forth.

<comment><USER26> Already exists (2011): [http://exposedata.com/marvel/](http://exposedata.com/marvel/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Back when this was announced, I blogged about it and built a demo. This demo simply finds a random cover over the past 50 years. It updates every - <USER2> seconds - I think. Anyway, here it is:

[http://marvel.raymondcamden.com/](http://marvel.raymondcamden.com/)

And the code: [http://www.raymondcamden.com/index.cfm/2014/2/2/Examples- of-...](http://www.raymondcamden.com/index.cfm/2014/2/2/Examples-of-the- Marvel-API)

</comment><comment><USER28> One would think you could sign up using ones github/bitbucket account. Would probably make it easier for them to showcase what devs have made using the api over time.

</comment><comment><USER29> Bah. Create your own IP. If you piggyback on the work of others you'll just get taken for a ride.

<comment><USER30> Good luck spreading the word about your own IP. You'll have to either be that one in a million viral hit, or sink a lot of money into advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here's a small script to access the Marvel Comics API from F# Interactive using the FSharp.Data JSON Type Provider:

[http://fssnip.net/mC](http://fssnip.net/mC)

</comment><comment><USER32> This looks a lot like the Riot Games developer portal. I wonder if they used it as reference.

[http://developer.riotgames.com/](http://developer.riotgames.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone know what they're using to generate this page? [http://developer.marvel.com/docs](http://developer.marvel.com/docs)

<comment><USER34> Source of that page seems to point to "Swagger UI":

[https://github.com/wordnik/swagger-ui](https://github.com/wordnik/swagger-ui)

[http://swagger.wordnik.com/](http://swagger.wordnik.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Fail - to create an account you have to enter a postal code and they limit the length to 5. Just as the limit of a zip code. Canadian postal codes are invalid. :/

</comment><comment><USER36> This would be pretty nice combined with the Open Gaming System to produce a marvel + d&d mashup. Think dungeon crawls with Iron man

</comment><comment><USER37> Its nice but strict non commercial license means if you built something cool you would have no way to support it.

</comment><comment><USER38> would be great if a proper search parameter was provided. Right now you can only search characters by the exact name or 'namestartswith'. It would be nice if the searches had a priority associated with them (Iron man shows up way in the bottom for a search for 'iron')

<comment><USER20> We get this request a lot and we're evaluating adding it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The `v1/public` namespace is interesting

That seems to imply there is might be a `v1/private` namespace as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> what kind of information you can pull? is it possible to pull content of the comics?

<comment><USER41> Looks like just metadata - characters, series, events - I was just a tad disappointed that event didn't have a "event date" which constituted a date that the event occurred in. Such a date would allow construction of a marvel- verse wide timeline.

<comment><USER42> Does it have "issue release date"? That's what you'd need to make a timeline that made any sense at all. An in-universe "event date" doesn't really make sense because of the whole sliding timescale thing where continuity makes no sense and we (comic fans) pretend it does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I build a node client,never used it,

[https://github.com/Mparaiso/mpm.marvel](https://github.com/Mparaiso/mpm.marvel)

if anybody has an idea of app he is welcome.</comment>


Turkey Shoots Down Russian Warplane Near Syrian Border - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/europe/turkey-syria-russia-military-plane.html <comment><USER3> Live feed (updates) from the Guardian: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/24/russian- je...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/24/russian-jet-downed- by-turkish-planes-near-syrian-border-live-updates)

One of the two Russian pilots is dead. US and France urge Russia and Turkey to prevent escalation.

ps. On a side note, does Germany actually count as a military force? Because when we're talking about the EU's economic policy, we're basically talking about Germany. But when war is at the gates we always see France as the major European player.

<comment><USER4> France has nukes and a UN Security Council seat, Germany has post-WWII military restrictions.

<comment><USER5> Source for Germany military restrictions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The US president's rush to defend Turkey is beyond ridiculous, even taking into account that Turkey is part of NATO. Turkish airplanes breach the Greek airspace over the Aegean sea multiple times every day (Turkey considers parts of the aegean disputed despite international treaties). Never has an incident happened, despite dogfights having been happening for decades. By this logic there would not be any turkish pilots alive by now.

Turkey's military often likes to interfere in turkish politics, and this was probably caused by some hothead militant. I doubt turkey has at this stage anything to gain from confrontation with Russia.

<comment><USER7> Russia also has a history of "testing" airspace of other countries though.

<comment><USER8> As does every other country, US and Turkey included.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Putin may have come off as angry in his reactions after the shoot down but this plays very much into his hands. The Russian economy is in trouble and avg. russians are feeling the pinch. so nothing like some military engagements and patriotism to distract people.

Now there will be predictable sabre ratting and retaliation from Russia - <USER2> do not want this to calm down...not really.

</comment><comment><USER10> Now we have conflicting claims about whether the plane crossed the border, with both sides releasing radar tracks.

It's even possible that both sides could be making their claims in good faith - if someone's equipment isn't perfectly accurate. (Hmm. Where have I heard this before? Oh, yes, _Tomorrow Never Dies_.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Russian Ministry of Defense statement for a Russian view of the situation: [https://youtu.be/KGlJFoIBKQw](https://youtu.be/KGlJFoIBKQw)

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes, we did.

<comment><USER12> So in recent months you've been buying oil from ISIS, sending supplies to ISIS, and shot down Russian planes that are fighting ISIS. Why are you still in NATO?

<comment><AUTHOR> _So in recent months you 've been buying oil from ISIS,_

Substantiation, please?

<comment><USER13> Turkey actually has a lot to gain from supporting ISIS.

For one thing, the Turks are traditionally enemies of the Kurds, who want to establish their own state within Turkey's borders.

So it's not surprising (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) that Turkey would support ISIS, if not actively, at least passively.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're giving an explanation as to why it _could be_ happening.

But you're not providing any factual information to support the allegation that it actually _is_ happening.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CPU BattleTanks - <AUTHOR> http://pddring.github.io/cpu-battle-tank/ <comment><USER2> I think this would be much easier to appreciate and understand if the idea was first explained in text.

Now the user lands on a page with a grid, a tank and some control arrows, with no idea how all of it relates to CPUs. I'm sure the whole thing is rich and deep, but it's probably lost on most of the visitors.

<comment><USER3> Thanks-good point. I've added a brief welcome message. I made this for a couple of lessons teaching about low level programming and how CPUs work for my Y9 CS students before getting them started with python. Very surprised to see it on here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A link to the wiki page [https://github.com/pddring/cpu-battle- tank/wiki](https://github.com/pddring/cpu-battle-tank/wiki) should be better than main page to explain what is CPU BatteTanks.

</comment><comment><USER5> For the first twenty years of my career I was an embedded systems engineer (hardware and software) - thanks for bringing back lots of good memories!

</comment><comment><USER6> I got to level three but the program is blank and I can't find any documentation as to what the "special" instructions are.

<comment><USER7> In the code editor window, if you expand the "Output" frame the two drop-downs tell you the numbers of the available output devices (argument to the OUT mnemonic) and for the output device you select, the number of the commands it accepts (in the accumulator register).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The control pad system is broken. It doesn't do what I tell it to, and often does other unexpected things. Firefox 43.0.1 on Windows.

<comment><USER7> Does it help knowing that it's not "move up/down/left/right" but "move forward/backward" (the up and down arrows) and "rotate body clockwise/anti- clockwise" (the right and left arrows)?

<comment><USER9> It still rotates weirdly, it goes 0->-90 by turning 270 degrees instead of -90 (it's just animation bug, but very confusing).

Also there's no obvious connection to CPU until level 2, and level 1 is boring. If not for the hn comments I would assume "shitty tank game" and stopped playing after 2 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It 'd be great if one could use the keyboard. Mouse input sucks hard.</comment>


What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/six-things-we-lose-with-the-end-of-the-shuttle-program/0

<comment><USER3> Interesting points from Prof. Brian Cox:

      * NASA costs less than 0.13% of  GDP
        and provides 9x return on investment

      * The entire Shuttle Program cost approximately
        the same as the UK bank bailout

      * The Iraq conflict so far has cost significantly
        more than a manned mission to Mars

Source:

<https://twitter.com/profbriancox/status/88955884390195202>

<https://twitter.com/profbriancox/status/88956654539902976>

<https://twitter.com/profbriancox/status/88957802281840640>

<comment><USER4> I wonder how he comes to the conclusion of 9x return. I think that we ought to invest in dragons instead and that they would bring returns in orders of magnitude greater than any space program, plus they live longer.

Source: [http://blog.mises.org/6512/socialist-calculation-versus- magi...](http://blog.mises.org/6512/socialist-calculation-versus-magical- monsters/)

<comment><USER5> Your link isn't even about NASA, it's just an ideological discussion (and not a particularly coherent one). For reference, here's a list of NASA spin-offs:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off>

It's not hard to see the multiplier effect of our investment in NASA.

<comment><USER6> Like I said in another related post, the Ludwig von Mises Institute is not the place you go for coherent discussions. The sooner we drop it as a source of discussion arguments, the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, when you pour money down the money hole, you do tend to get a few things in return. My real question, which we'll see answered hopefully over the next few years, isn't "Were the capabilities we got with the shuttle _cool_?" but "Was the shuttle a cost-effective way to obtain those capabilities?"

And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say _yes_.

In general, we really need to get over whining about what we could have if only we could spend money we don't have.

<comment><USER8> _And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say yes._

How effective/efficient would a tax-payer supported version of Xerox PARC or the Golden Age Bell Labs be?

Something more pleasant than DARPA, for example.

<comment><USER9> Funny thing about that. Bob Taylor ran ARPA and then Xerox PARC. May be that he was his own golden age.

<comment><USER10> Nothing funny about it. The analogy is good. Garrett Reisman, astronaut, joins SpaceX:

<http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110304>

The time of NASA-monopoly (DARPA) is fading, and the time of commercial space (Xerox PARC/Bell Labs) is just beginning. But it really shouldn't be anything for anyone should get worked up over--Xerox PARC/Bell Labs ushered in golden age of innovation and wealth creation, and DARPA still exists and still does amazing things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm more horrified they canceled the James Webb telescope (or are just about to).

<comment><USER12> Holy shit! This just happened:

[http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?Doc...](http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=250023)

      $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million
      below last year's level. The bill also terminates funding for
      the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars
      over budget and plagued by poor management.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for that link.

People should know that there's a lot of turmoil in the astrophysics community about JWST. In current plans, JWST overruns have resulted in elimination or long-term postponement of all other NASA astrophysics missions in the next decade. Even non-flight-project research is being cut significantly.

<comment><USER14> I am utterly incapable of intelligently commenting on the cost effectiveness of this telescope, but I will note that all of NASA's current money problems could be solved by allocating it just a tiny fraction of what we instead wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm sorry to keep talking about these fucking wars, but it really does make me want to cry.

<comment> T-hawk Expanding NASA's budget by 2x or even 10x would not solve its problems. Parkinson's Law is as applicable to NASA as to any other organization. JWST and the other missions will overrun any amount of time and budget allocated to them.

<comment><USER14> I had that thought as I was writing the comment, which is why I added the word "current". But you're probably right to a large degree, and my only answer is that, to the extent that larger budgets _don't_ decrease NASA'a fiscal discipline, the investment is better made there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Shuttle fails in its primary objective, that of being a "reusable" vehicle. I attended a presentation by a NASA employee that explained the Shuttle process from landing to launch, and I was amazed at how much of the craft is replaced. I think we would have been far better off extending the Apollo program to new missions, similar to the Soyuz (which is still flying although much improved from the moon landing era).

<comment><USER16> The shuttle was the worst of both worlds. They replace enough parts to make each mission absurdly expensive, and keep enough components in place that it's extremely difficult to be sure they won't fail in flight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Shuttle is inspiring, and compared to nothing it looks excellent. But on the whole it is not a good system. It has unique capabilities that it uses extremely rarely or not at all (such as the cross-range flight ability) but which impose tremendous compromises on the system's cost, reliability, and safety.

All of this added up to the system falling far, far short of its design goals in payload cost and flight rate, by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. By any sound measure the Shuttle is a failed experiment that was left to run, and bleed NASA budgets dry, for far too long. On the whole each Shuttle mission cost $1.6 billion dollars.

The alternative to not building the Shuttle was continuing with what we had before, which even at a reduced budget compared to the Shuttle would have resulted in larger space stations, moon bases, and perhaps manned Mars missions. The alternative now to not continuing the Shuttle is relying on commercial launch providers as the base of manned spaceflight, which looks to be both cheaper and more capable than the Shuttle.

<comment><USER18> The shuttle mission, which was to provide a safe, reusable, cheap spaceflight platform, failed on two of the three goals. It was reusable, but not cheap, and not safe. We need a better LEO platform, not more shuttle missions.

<comment><USER17> 3 of 3. The Shuttle is not reusable, it is at best refurbishable. In between launches the SRBs and the ET have to be replaced and the orbiter itself has to be processed including replacement of its main engines, draining of all consumables, and extensive inspection of each one of the thousands of thermal protective tiles. All in all the process takes months. This is not reusability in any meaningful sense of the word, it borders on a complete overhaul of the vehicle. Imagine if on landing a 747 it had to be drained of fuel, the engines replaced, the center fuel tank replaced.

This is a major factor in why it is so expensive to operate the Shuttles. They are not truly reusable, and the refurbishment in between launches takes so long and requires such an extensive permanent staff and facilities that the per-launch cost is astronomical. If the Orbiters were truly reusable then they could easily quadruple or more the number of flights per year for little increased total cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 7\. Dead astronauts.

The space shuttle was a bad idea and dangerous from the start. Bring on the robots!

<comment><USER20> Not to sound insensitive but 134 flights and 2 accidents is a good enough record. I for one would have volunteered to go, if I was presented with these odds. Robots can't do everything.

<comment><USER21> The risk is worth it, if the mission actually does something. Most of the shuttle missions were just jerking off in orbit or hauling stuff to the space station.

The shuttle program was an unmitigated disaster that set back space exploration a generation. By trying to build a "reusable" space plane we ended up with the most complex machine ever built-- and complexity is dangerous-- that does nothing especially well.

<comment><USER22> Shuttle does one thing very well: it's a gorgeous sight watching her lift off. And seeing her glide to a landing is like poetry.

Too complex, too expensive, not best at any one thing.

But a sight to see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> NASA has been screwed since someone made the decision that we needed to land on the Moon by the end of the 60's. We didn't build the infrastructure to go and stay in space. Being first should never have been a goal. Being there to stay should have been.

</comment><comment><USER24> We lose a lot. We gain incentive to go out into space privately and commercialize spaceflight.

Is living in a Futurama-esque commercialization of space worth it?

I believe so, yes. Bring on the frontier!

</comment><comment><USER25> Aren't some of these things possible with the X-37B?

<comment><USER26> Some, with limitations to most of the retained capabilities. The X-37B is substantially smaller and is not manned. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37>

1\. Gentle delivery of large modules for attachment to existing complexes. - Probably lost, the main reason the shuttle is gentle is because it carries fragile humans.

2\. Bringing cargo down gently. - Partially lost: the cargo bay is much smaller.

3\. Safe "proximity operations." - Lost or at least made much more challenging.

4\. Temporary deployment of a workbench in orbit for experiments, repairs, and other assembly. - Lost.

5\. High-precision research orbits with specialized instrumentation. - <USER2> not lost.

6\. Flexibility of crew composition. - Lost.

<comment><USER6> How many times did we actually need those capabilities?

edit:

> 1\. Gentle delivery of large modules for attachment to existing complexes. - > Probably lost, the main reason the shuttle is gentle is because it carries > fragile humans.

I cannot imagine we don't have any launcher that can do that. Any launcher, when approaching its payload limit, should be very gentle (as in pull low G's). A Saturn V was much gentler than the SRBs in terms of vibration, BTW.

> 2\. Bringing cargo down gently. - Partially lost: the cargo bay is much > smaller.

How many times did we need that? We could keep one shuttle operational for that kind of mission or just build a bus-sized capsule that would go up empty and land on parachutes.

> 3\. Safe "proximity operations." - Lost or at least made much more > challenging.

I am not sure I see a scenario where we would need that. The arms attached to the station are adequate for manipulating objects close to it and capable of doing it very precisely. Automated cargo vehicles have been servicing space stations for decades.

> 4\. Temporary deployment of a workbench in orbit for experiments, repairs, > and other assembly. - Lost.

Do we really gain so much by bringing the workbench back? Why would "temporary" be an advantage here? Couldn't we just pack the supplies and leave the workbench there?

> 6\. Flexibility of crew composition. - Lost.

We could have built a larger Apollo capable of launching 7 people. For a fraction of the price, most likely. If putting people in LEO were cheaper (a promise the shuttle never fulfilled) we would have far more diverse crews in space.

And all of that negates the fact the shuttle is useless for anything beyond LEO. And LEO is costly because we have to take everything with us.

<comment><USER27> When we did need it, we -needed- it. Hubble for example.

<comment><USER14> Wait, I'm sorry, I see what you mean. You're right; manned shuttle missions were the only way to keep Hubble from going to waste.

<comment><USER28> Perhaps, but what's the cost of "fuck it, we'll just build a replacement Hubble" in Shuttle mission equivalents?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Blame Nixon. Or OPEC.

<comment><USER10> Interesting that this is at the bottom; people who downvoted this probably don't know their NASA history...

(EDIT: for context, most of trouble NASA has gotten itself into stem from commitments made for political reasons to appease the Nixon administration and a Congress dealing with fallout from the OPEC oil embargo in '73--when Apollo was winding down and Shuttle revving up.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best resource to simulate AD environment? - <AUTHOR> I need to demo AD integration functionality with my web-app.  Any services you guys recommend that would simulate an environment? <comment><USER2> Could try a free demo of Azure or turnkey linux domain controller: [https://www.turnkeylinux.org/domain- controller](https://www.turnkeylinux.org/domain-controller)</comment>


Webmin 1.890 Exploit – What Happened? - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmin.com/exploit.html <comment><USER2> For folks wondering how to check whether a given git checkout has modified files that git hasn't detected, you can tell it to reset the cache and re- checksum all files on disk:

        git update-index --really-refresh

For anyone using a persistent checkout approach, consider how _often_ you should run this command on your checkout, and when you _last_ did.

<comment><USER3> How does this interact with git clean, reset and checkout?

<comment><USER2> Those commands all depend on the index that this command regenerates. Presumably git puts a lock while it's regenerating the index, but I haven't tested that yet. (It would be unlike git to _not_ place a lock here.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      Because the timestamp on the file was set back, it did not show up in any Git diffs.

Is `git status` / `git diff` etc relying only on the timestamp of modified local files to decide if a diff is needed?

If so, that's a pretty sneaky exploit and something I'll bet many build systems are vulnerable to.

This reuse of the local clone is probably done to avoid the needed to clone from scratch. An alternative might be to have a (bare/mirror) clone maintained in `~/.cache/whatever`, then use the `--reference` flag e.g.:

      git clone --reference ~/.cache/git-whatever https://github.com/whatever/whatever

<comment><USER5> > Is `git status` / `git diff` etc relying only on the timestamp of modified > local files to decide if a diff is needed?

Of course. There's no other way to implement these commands efficiently.

But you don't even need to play with timestamps. You can ask git to pretend not to see the changes:

      git update-index --assume-unchanged password_change.cgi

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would guess most people did not install Webmin via some binary distribution package but rather by using their distros package manger meaning they most likely got built from the unmodified source code using completely unrelated and probably uncompromised build servers.

Just saying this could have been worse.

<comment><USER7> It is my understanding that while git was unaffected, the source release tarballs were. Distro packages tend to prefer the source release tarballs to doing git checkouts.

I know that FreeBSD's webmin package was affected.

<comment><USER8> I don't get how this could happen. Why would anyone trust their build server to package the release tarball? Were they ever signed and checked by the devs?

The way I understand releases and tarballs, I'd do it like this:

\- git on my machine (supposedly safe)

\- bundle the source code, sign it however necessary

\- upload and publish the tarball + signature & checksums

That way, unless my own machine was compromised, it should be OK.

<comment><USER9> The typical reason is that one has a build chain which predates docker and those things, where it wasn't guaranteed that doing it on different machines yields the same result, but having a master host gives consistent result, independent from who does it.

In modern times the reason is that the release is produced in a CI pipeline. So once a build is green and matches allmothe rreleas criteria that tested build is released.

In both cases using a git checkout for longer time is not a got idea and builds should be done as exports into clean directories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is why I set most services to listen only on localhost. When I need to expose them externally, I put them behind nginx with http basic auth. It's not top security by any means, but it does the job and provides _enough_ security to stop stuff like this. It's like the old saying about outrunning a bear: you don't have to be the fastest guy, you just have to be faster than the slowest guy.

<comment><USER11> Client side cetificates are also convenient for this purpose.

<comment><USER12> Yes! From your own CA. This is a great method.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> nevi-me Wow! This is scary. I used webmin many years ago on one of my servers, and seeing this reminded me that it's still running.

I was running 1.881, and I'm at least glad I never updated to the 1.890. While I haven't needed to change network interfaces or any hardware related change, I still think it's worthwhile keeping it.

Thanks edwintorok for sharing this. I've patched and disabled webmin, I'll temporarily enable it if/when I need it. Yes, I could do everything through the terminal, but a GUI's still useful in the case where I can't remember/don't know the terminal way of doing something.

<comment><USER13> You may want to look into Cockpit.[1]

While there are other panels out there, Cockpit is sponsored by Red Hat. I'm not a fan of panels, but it offers more functionality out of the box than Webmin. Last time I looked there was some pretty large gaps in functionality outside of a Red Hat environment; the Ubuntu package was missing container management.

[1]: [https://cockpit-project.org/](https://cockpit-project.org/)

<comment><USER14> The problem with cockpit is that it lacks almost everything, while webmin has modules for almost everything. I regularly look for webmin alternatives, and though there exist a couple of nicer, cleaner ones none has more than 5% of webmin's functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So many mistakes, not doing a clean checkout before a build, setting up a new build server by literally copying everything from the old one, including checked out directories!!!

</comment><comment><USER16> installed 1.930 from Jamie Cameron on a lonely Ubuntu 1804 this week.. its been 18 months since looking last.. then saw this! generally, Webmin looks great -- updated interface, and more nerdy perl tricks than you can throw a Perl Book from OReilly at .. I hope Webmin project takes this (and the cold- shoulder from Debian) in stride .. keep up the good work, Webmin !

</comment><comment><USER17> webmin has been around for centuries and was dropped from Debian in 2005.

It has a long history of vulnerabilities ([https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list/vendor_id-358/...](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list/vendor_id-358/Webmin.html)).

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, I don't use this software, but this went undetected for a fairly long time. There's probably actually quite a lot of ways this could've been prevented, so I hope the project will view it from more angles. I think it would be smart to redo the build server from scratch as well, personally I wouldn't trust it anymore.

</comment><comment><USER19> And, of course their site is HTTP only, including the path for their PGP signing key (!!!).

They do have a valid Let's Encrypt cert, but apparently it's only configured for the `download` subdomain.

</comment><comment><USER20> It should be of interest that Webmin is a listed target on Zerodium.

</comment><comment><USER21> A creapy exploit..." the Webmin source code had been maliciously modified to add a non-obvious vulnerability' question: how is or was the proces for commiting the malicious pull request in July 2018 orgazized?

<comment><USER22> Seems like there was no commit. Instead of commiting code, 'they' hacked the build server somehow, and modified files on a synced directory Webmin used for building its packages.

<comment><USER16> doesn't git hold a checksum for all files changed in a change-set ?

<comment><USER15> As an optimization git doesn't check files with an "old" date.

Running git status in an 1 GB checkout directory will return instantly. Do you really believe it has hashed all those files?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I misread the title as "Webmin has 1890 exploits - what happened". Could someone change "1.890" to "version 1.890" (Hello, @dang?) Thanks.</comment>


Former Shelby American designer John Chun (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2013/07/09/former-shelby-american-designer-john-chun-dies-at-age-84/ <comment><USER2> [https://www.mprnews.org/story/2012/11/28/business/john- chun-...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2012/11/28/business/john-chun- foreclosure-loan-modification)

They got scammed by bankers late in their life. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER2> More detailed profile of Mr. John Chun done in 2011.

[http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2011/stories/chun- des...](http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2011/stories/chun- designer.html)

He would've been 21 years old in 1950, the year the Korean War started. And the profile mentions he was a veteran of the Korean War. Stories of that alone would be great to hear...

</comment><comment><USER3> Before changing careers I worked as an agronomist for sixteen years at a fertilizer plant just down the street from the A.O. Smith factory in Ionia.

A.O. Smith was a conglomerate that was famous in agriculture for creating those blue silos you see on farms.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a car guy, this is a huge loss. Chun penned some awesome automobiles. Thanks for your work, John.</comment>


Google goes "evil" - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-green/breaking-google-goes-evil_b_676021.html <comment><USER3> This is a pretty terrible article: the author basically mis-represents what actually happened, and then dismisses any possible legitimate motive for Google doing what it did with no argument, merely by asserting that such a motive can't possible exist.

Maybe, just maybe, Google thinks that massive government regulation of the still-nascent wireless internet market will do more harm than good at this point, and that we should consider the question later once we have actual empirical data about what works and what doesn't? Is that really such an illogical position to adopt?

<comment><USER4> "that really such an illogical position to adopt?"

yes, because once giant corporations make a tiered wireless internet take hold there is absolutely no chance of untiering it.

<comment><USER5> It's possible that in the wireless space tiered access might make sense. I'm not a wireless engineer but my understanding is that wireless access suffers from overcrowding a lot more than wired access simply because the overall bandwith within a given frequency band is a lot lower than a bundle of optical fibers.

Given this limitation I think we should be very careful in saying that a given solution should not be allowed. I can imagine scenarios where tiered pricing models would be very beneficial to most people.

For example, imagine a business setting up wireless security video cams. Thoughtlessly, they set them up to record and send video in HD. A few of those pointed at a rapidly changing scene (eg, a road) can chew though a lot of bandwidth. The owner of those cams doesn't care - why should they? They just pay a flat rate and the fact that everyone else's access is bad isn't their problem.

If an access provider could charge extra for that traffic then it would give the cam owner motivation to fix the problem.

(Yes, there are other solutions - a price per Gb of traffic is an obvious one. But my point is that I'm not convinced other options should be outlawed _yet_ )

<comment><USER6> But I think you are confusing things. There is no question anywhere as to whether people who use more data can be charged more for that use. The fact that most home plans are all you can eat has nothing to do with net neutrality. So in your example, hopefully the security camera company would be charged a higher fee than a competing company who streamed non HD video. Youtube pays a hell of a lot more to hook up to the internet than I do.

The question is whether Verizon can charge a separate fee to prioritize one company's traffic over another. My understanding is that this recommendation partially closes that door for wired traffic but leaves it wide open for wireless traffic. Now fledgling startup security video hooks up their cameras to the web and find their bandwidth artificially restricted compared to the entrenched competition because they aren't paying for the super deluxe plan, or because Verizon has an exclusivity agreement with the entrenched player, or whatever. That is what seems to be left possible in wireless land with this recommendation, and that is frightening.

<comment><USER5> I understand your argument. Did you see my line _Yes, there are other solutions - a price per Gb of traffic is an obvious one. But my point is that I'm not convinced other options should be outlawed yet_?

My point is that it may make sense - and be good for consumers - <USER2> deprioritize and/or discourage some kinds of usage over wireless. <http://danweinreb.org/blog/google-and-verizon-a-new-hope> references the story [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/The-Truth-About- Googl...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/The-Truth-About-Google- Verizon-and-Net-Neutrality-371606/). I hadn't read this when I made my original post, but it makes a much more compelling argument based on the same ideas.

It makes the point that for VOIP to work properly over wireless you can't have jittery delivery. One way to solve that it to use QOS to increase the priority of that in comparison to video. That isn't "neutral" access, but it is good consumers.

<comment><USER7> As long as my neighbor and I are both paying the same ISP the same amount of money for an internet connection, then we should have the same probability of one of our packets making it through their network. If I'm making an FTP transfer and my neighbor is teleconferencing, it's fine for some of his packets to be delivered more quickly than some of mine, provided that over any given second, we get to transfer roughly the same amount of data. Until our ISP redefines itself as a telecom provider with ancillary FTP capabilities, their QoS strategies shouldn't benefit my neighbor at my expense.

If ISPs are allowed to discriminate significantly based on the protocol, then what's to stop them from inventing a new proprietary video transmission protocol and prioritizing that over any protocol used by YouTube, effectively reimplementing discrimination on the source or destination of traffic (which is the most obvious justification for net neutrality)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think we have a lot of Chicken Littles reacting to this news.

All the articles that speak out against this agreement are mostly just laundry lists of no-network-neutrality doomsday scenarios, and are not even attempting an unbiased discussion of what this proposal is actually saying.

The proposal explicitly solidifies network neutrality for wired services, which is good. But it's true, this proposal does not cover wireless service: "Because of the unique technical and operational characteristics of wireless networks, and the competitive and still-developing nature of wireless broadband services, only the transparency principle would apply to wireless broadband at this time." Those last three words are important. This proposal is not advocating for wireless service network neutrality, but it also is not advocating against it. And perhaps most importantly, this proposal explicitly leaves the door open for discussing wireless service network neutrality in the future. So I think we should be able to accept this as a first step, then afterwards continue to advocate for similar practices to be implemented for wireless service as well.

It also suggests that ISPs be able to have content and services specific to their subscribers, as long as it does not "threaten the meaningful availability of broadband Internet access services or have been devised or promoted in a manner designed to evade these consumer protections." I suppose people can be up-in-arms about that, but I think that's a reasonable target: ISPs can do what they want as long general internet access is not compromised.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ive long felt that there is an eerie parallel between Google and Standard Oil (the historic Oil company owned by John D Rockefeller). Heres a quote from the wikipedia page for Standard Oil - "The company grew by increasing sales and also through acquisitions. After purchasing competing firms, Rockefeller shut down those he believed to be inefficient and kept the others. In a seminal deal, in 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central, gave Rockefeller's firm a going rate of one cent a gallon or forty-two cents a barrel, an effective 71% discount off of its listed rates in return for a promise to ship at least 60 carloads of oil daily and to handle the loading and unloading on its own.[citation needed] Smaller companies decried such deals as unfair because they were not producing enough oil to qualify for discounts."

<comment><USER10> That sounds like they found an efficient deal for both sides.

<comment><USER11> The industry and consumers were much better off with Standard Oil controlling most of the industry. It stabilized markets and led to more efficient crude and refined oil production.

<comment><USER9> Significant portions of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil> would disagree with that assessment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> i've been dissatisfied with every article i've read about this subject, and it's something that i care deeply about as a supporter of network neutrality. just like every other article, it's linkbaiting and taking the opportunity to bash google when the only alternative is to let congressmen make up these rules on their own with the telecoms (not the type of situation you want to be in).

if anyone is going to negotiate the formal policies of network neutrality, i can't think of a better company to do it than google. the formalization has to happen one way or the other, we've already seen that the fcc's power is questionable at best right now.

engadget wrote the best explanation of the tradeoffs here: [http://i.engadget.com/2010/08/09/google-and-verizons-net- neu...](http://i.engadget.com/2010/08/09/google-and-verizons-net-neutrality- proposal-explained/)

<comment><USER13> Jared, from the linked article:

"it's hard to reconcile the stated need for net neutrality in this agreement with a giant exception for wireless networks, which are quickly becoming the most important networks of all"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a good article. Google and Verizon basically said "we are supporting net neutrality, as long as it only applies to the parts of the internet that we have no interest in". Wireless and new services like TV are not included. This is not net neutrality. This is Google/verizon profit guaranteed utopia. New business models need not apply.

<comment><USER15> > "we are supporting net neutrality, as long as it only applies to the parts > of the internet that we have no interest in"

Except Google makes most of its profit on wireline broadband...

<comment><USER16> Today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Adam Green is being hyperbolic to boost his 'bold progressive' activist organization's campaign. Assign his words no more weight than when you receive direct mail with alternating paragraphs in ALL CAPS and an RSVP about how important it is for you to DONATE NOW.

</comment><comment><USER18> >Google's decision to cut a deal with Verizon wreaks of either impatience or fear. Either Google wasn't willing to wait for the Verizons of the world to crumble and die -- and therefore moved it's own business development timeline up 5 or 10 years at the expense of the entire American public. Or, Google feared doing the dirty work that comes with being a leader -- despite launching a "Google Fiber for Communities" program that competes head-to-head with the decrepit incumbents, Google feared actually having to fulfil their potential to defeat the bad guys.

Maybe someone can correct me on this, but as far as I've been able to determine, Verizon's been the one pushing FTTH more than any other company with FiOS. Google might have this pet project, but Verizon has put quite a lot of money into laying new fiber.

<comment><USER19> Correction: Verizon _used to_ push fiber-to-the-home. They shelved FiOS months ago: [http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/27/verizon-shelves-plans- for...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/27/verizon-shelves-plans-for-future- fios-rollouts-relocations-to-m/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If the narrative continues to grow the way it's growing, Google are going to backpedal on this the same way they've backpedaled after making other mistakes. It doesn't matter much what the particulars of the deal are or how unfairly they're being misinterpreted (if they are); there's a risk to Google's brand here and they're smart enough to protect it.

The reaction against this deal is emotional. How many people have studied the details? I haven't. It doesn't matter because people have such strong feelings about net neutrality and -- on the whole -- rightly so. These feelings may be limited to the small tech community but that community's importance is greater than its numbers and includes a lot of people inside Google itself. If this doesn't die down in a couple days, expect some sort of adjustment from Google.

<comment><USER21> I've learned something about the news today.

If A has a good reputation and B has a bad reputation, and A and B come to a compromise, it makes the reputation of A worse, and doesn't make the reputation of B any better, regardless of what the compromise actually is.

Verizon is so toxic that them just being a party to this taints it for everyone it seems. If this agreement were something that Google was _demanding_ of Verizon rather than something they agreed to with Verizon, everyone would be praising it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The biggest problem I have with this is that the rationalization for why the "unique characteristics" of wireless networks require no network neutrality is completely missing.

Limited bandwidth? But why does limited bandwidth mean it's ok to prejudice services? Why does that make it ok that YouTube can purchase prioritized service over GlueTube? Doesn't having a limited resource make it _more_ important to share that resource around rather than _less_ important? Isn't that the way it works everywhere else (eg: limited water supplies usually mean we regulate the price and ensure Grandma doesn't have to pay way more than BigCompany or we know that Grandma is getting no water).

The "still-developing nature" of the service? I still don't get it. If anything the immature nature of the services mean that the nascent network needs more protection, not less. We just don't know how it is going to evolve - ok fine - but doesn't uncertainty counsel more caution rather than lack of caution? We can always relax rules later if they are determined to be harmful. It will be very hard to wind back a non-network-neutrality situation once that has emerged and established itself if we determine it is harmful.

Perhaps I can buy these arguments if they are made sufficiently, but there just isn't enough detail here to make a sound logical link. I'm not going to say they are evil, but I do think Google has got some explaining to do.

<comment><USER21> It seems like caution in most circumstances is _not_ to regulate it.

<comment><USER22> I guess the argument I would make against that is that the risk of starting with network neutrality is low because _it is approximately what we have now_ (I'm sure someone will provide counter examples, but I would still say it is fairly much the situation). There is more certainty in maintaining the status quo than adventuring into unknown territory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When are people going to give up this notion that companies are evil or good? Companies try to make money and crush those that try to stop them. it's just when you're big, you get to do the crushing. When you're little, you're dodging giant feet trying to step on you.

Google and Apple are now unquestionably large. And they are crushing things that stand in their way.

Just remember, "Don't be evil" as a motto to make money. Until you can no longer make sufficient money with the motto. Then being evil is almost certainly the only way.

<comment><USER24>
        When are people going to give up this notion that companies are evil or good?

Hey, I didn't start it, _Google did_. If a politician stands up and says, "Elect me because I'll do the best backroom deals for you, my constituent," you know what you're getting. You don't elect her and then complain that she's in bed with lobbyists.

But when she calls for transparency in government and bringing a new broom to the legislature, you have every right to be outraged when she's discovered steering fat consulting contracts to her college buddies.

It's not an issue of whether Google is evil. It's an issue of whether Google is _Hypocritical_.

<comment><USER25> Google is not an elected representative either. They work for the market, not the people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there something wrong with being overcautious in this case?

<comment><USER25> wouldn't the term "OVERcautious" imply too much caution? Caution is fine, great in fact. But too much of anything is ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a sensationalist article and the author read into it poorly. Something is bound to happen, there _will_ be some sort of compromise between complete network neutrality and telecom dominance; primarily because neither camp will get _all_ of what they want. This deal is great news because at least _something_ is being preserved!

If you truly care don't just support network neutrality, support projects like GNUnet (<https://ng.gnunet.org/>) or FreeNet that actually enable people to use the internet anonymously and securely.

<comment><USER28> In in a "tiered internet" projects like GNUnet and FreeNet are at risk.

Service provider routers with deep packet inspection and similar technology will simply turn a little dial until bandwidth for GNUnet et. al. slows to a trickle.

That's why this is such a touchy issue.

Any attempt on the part of Google/Verizon to _not_ come out directly in favor and clearly stating support of Network Neutrality, is in fact a PC way of saying that they _don't_ support it.

<comment><USER27> Would it be that feasible to detect anonymized and encrypted GNUnet traffic? The packets would be largely scrambled, no? Unless you knew that sending/receiving nodes were in fact GNUnet endpoints - you could infer _what_ the traffic is, based on that - otherwise they shouldn't be able to reliably determine whether it is an encrypted SSL browser session or an encrypted GNUnet transmission (I may be missing a crucial piece of information here, please fill me in if so!).

I would imagine that coming out and clearly supporting it would be a difficult PR move to swallow. The extreme of net neutrality ensures that the internet remains open regardless of what is being transmitted; this includes everything from illegal content, socially taboo content, legal content, and liberal expression of thought/idea/opinion. While many critical thinkers would correctly say that "supporting an open internet maintains innovation and the free exchange of ideas and that it is often a self-regulating entity that should not be stifled" they also forget that many _many_ people _do not_ see it that way. There is quite a bit of archaic thinking that qualifies an "open internet" as a harmful medium because that openness allows for the unregulated transmission of thought dangerous to the state, child pornography, and other illicit materials and subjects. Those same people that believe it must be regulated are locked in a state of believing it is people they must control rather than themselves (I know that sounds unnecessarily philosophical, but, it really is the truth).

Is this worth fighting? Are we making headway? Maybe a little. But the establishment is _established_ while the progressive roots of free thinkers is protean (it is necessarily so, otherwise we wouldn't be progressive). The goal should be to keep pushing, slowly, persistently, and steadily while exploring mediums and clever ways of circumventing the silliness of people that believe regulating something as transformative as the internet will actually _work_.

Hell, it's all a bunch of _old_ people coming up with these policies! In 20 or 30 years, people in political power will be those young people that were _born with the internet_ and were witness to it - the internet already made its impact and the momentum is far too great for anyone power to stop it. It may be muffled for a bit (if even that), but it won't be stopped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I laughed out loud at "wireline" internet becoming irrelevant in a few years. Even when I'm surfing the web on my phone, I'm doing it on wifi as often as on EVDO. Then there's the 10+ hours a day in front of a computer.

Cellular internet is a long way from offering the speed and convenience of broadband. And even then, the cost of landline internet is just so much lower that we'll see wi-fi continue to proliferate.

<comment><USER30> 3G is roughly as fast as DSL, isn't it? Like 1.5Mbps. 4G is supposed to have 100Mbps down, and 50 up. That's plenty fast.

And the cost of wireless internet is cheaper. I pay $30/month for my unlimited data plan with T-Mobile, and I pay $60/month for my FIOS.

<comment><USER29> No, for two reasons. 1, What you're quoting is a theoretical maximum, actual rates are substantially lower. 2, The latency is brutal. Most of the net (especially as viewed from mobile devices) is very small files delivered frequently, which makes latency a much bigger factor in overall experience than speed. Ping times on even the strongest 3G connections are much higher than even an average wired broadband connection.

Also you only pay less for your wireless internet because the average consumer uses WAY less of it than wired. Per megabyte we're spending far more on those wireless data plans, and as soon as the rate of use grows I think we'll see them start becoming metered.

<comment><USER30> Nice catches... I was agreeing with you until I thought about it a little, now I'm agreeing with you again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There already is a channel that offers only limited access to information, and people pay for it: TV. I guess if people are content with limited channels, why not let them. It also doesn't bother me much that I can not watch TV through my internet connection.

Overall I am not worried, because there should be enough people who would want a free connection. Competition should do the rest.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems to me like a lot of the furor over this announcement has to do with Verizon's involvement - there seems to be a de facto assumption that if Verizon has said it's good, it's bad for the consumer.

I have my own opinions on that statement, but if I were Verizon's PR dept, I'd be drinking.

</comment><comment><USER33> So did Google essentially lie to the public about this last week or have I misunderstood?

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net- neutrali...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/google-verizon-net-neutrality/)

<comment><USER34> [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_verizon_propose_...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_verizon_propose_enforceable_net_neutrality.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Although i'm not american, and so it doesn't affect me, i think this sounds like a good move from google. I fail to see the horrible, evil plan when i read the original article [http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint- policy-...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy- proposal-for-open-internet.html) .

Would someone care to point me to the evil in those 7 points? To me it sounds like "we want the internet more open and transparent for the customers". That's good for american customers, isn't it? Why evil?

</comment><comment><USER36> If these guys really cared about their cause, wouldn't it make more sense to provide a text field like YouTube does to embed the ad on your own site, rather than, or in addition to trying to raise money to pay for it?

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm still not quite sure why this is terrible.

Will this decrease bandwidth for all the smaller sites? I don't see any reason why it would, unless ISPs go over capacity. In which case if they do, then everyone would suffer... and paying some money to suffer less does not seem so unfair to me.

We already have tiered internet on the consumer side, ie, DSL vs Cable vs Dial-up vs FiOS. I don't see what difference it makes if there are also tiers on the content provider side.

The real problem seems to be one of capacity; any issues is caused by a bandwidth scarcity, and that would have to be increased. What these people are discussing is just a way to allocate the remaining bandwidth, in which case 'fairness' is completely impossible. There's absolutely no way to determine who deserve the bandwidth more arbitrarily... Putting it on the market seems pretty reasonable!

Anyway, I hope new service provider startups come into being that will make the investments to improve infrastructure, though from what I understand that seems to be a completely thankless job...

Please don't vote me down just because you disagree, I actually do not understand many of these positions and this is a plea to be educated.

Thanks.

<comment><USER38> With wireless you can't just keep increasing capacity forever.

The problem is that there is a theoretical limit to how wireless infrastructure can be improved. Sure, new generations of wireless tech. are improving the bandwidth available every few years. But RF frequency bands are a limited resource and sooner or later Shannon-Hartley's theorem [1] will dictate that the only way to improve bandwidth will be to increase power levels received at user's antennae (either by increasing effective transmission power or clustering cells more densely). But doing this will deliver ever diminishing (logarithmic) gains and an increasing public health risk associated with increased RF levels.

Couple that with the fact that wireless is going to be _the_ Internet in the coming decades (for many youngsters it already is) and you are faced with a problem of how to allocate things fairly.

Wired Internet resources on the other hand can be upgraded effectively forever. If the demand is there we can keep laying new fibre whilst maximising the existing lines with new modulation techniques etc. The same cannot be said of wireless technology.

It is precisely because of these major contention issues that wireless spectrum should be protected under net neutrality regulations, its need of regulation is in fact greater than that of wired Internet. When there is an approaching hard limit to bandwidth available why would we want to allow the parties with the biggest wallets dominate the traffic? It is precisely these sorts of situations that governments are for, without them monopolies will naturally form at the expense of the populace.

Imagine if governments around the world said, let's solve (or rather ignore) the problem of car traffic congestion by allowing employers to bid for priority access to the roads on behalf of their employees, and businesses to bid on behalf of their customers, even though everyone has already paid their own car tax, fuel etc.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem>

<comment><USER37> I see, but what about the fundamental problem of bandwidth scarcity? If it's not the market that allocates, is there a fairer way?

<comment><USER38> The market already allocates the bandwidth! Consumers pay for varying levels of service with bigger usage caps for higher prices etc. The content providers pay for their bandwidth at the other end (or the big ones enter 'tiering agreements' etc.)

As demand increases for wireless bandwidth, prices may rise to reflect the supply shortfall. At points this will hit an equilibrium level and demand will cease to rise. At other points new technology will increase supply etc. At some point in the future we will likely hit a fairly final equilibrium. As long as governments maintain a level of competition in the market (something they are generally not doing very well right now I admit) we could avoid price fixing cartels between the carriers.

We just have to face it, wireless RF spectrum is a shared finite resource nothing we do will ever overcome this fundamental truth. No amount of financial manipulation of the market business models by the carriers will ever change this.

If _I_ want to get priority access over others _I_ should pay for it! Allowing content providers to bid for priority reduces consumers freedom to choose what they are able to access. Problem is, a lot of people these days will take free over paying a premium even when their freedom is removed.

Imagine say Verizon et al get their way and say for simplicity's sake 10 big content providers manage to achieve the overall bandwidth priority between them on most networks. People accessing other content will likely become frustrated with smaller services and migrate their usage to the services offered by these 'big 10'. Eventually most people use these prioritised services and small sites/startups just don't get a look in. However nothing has changed with regard to bandwidth, there is now the same contention just that a small number of providers have managed to dominate the market. The carriers are making loads of extra money for doing effectively nothing, all they have done is played the content providers off against each other _and_ against the consumers (and pocketed lots of money in the process). It seems to effectively amount to extortion.

Allowing prioritising of traffic based on provider will _not_ likely reduce prices for data contracts for consumers. The same issues of bandwidth contention will arise, except that this time the carriers are able to effectively blackmail content providers. The big content providers may see themselves as able to profit from this scenario, the smaller ones won't stand a chance.

In the long, long term lets hope quantum entanglement based communication allows us to leave RF behind!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I know Google became the poster-child for net neutrality, but why aren't other big internet companies that have shied away from this debate being labeled "evil"? The agreement text doesn't describe anything that differs from the internet as it is today, it just leaved loopholes to appease Verizon investors and to show the gov't that their not needed, the usual bullshit.

<comment><USER39> When your motto is "do no evil" people tend to call you on it when you do.

<comment><USER34> Did they? The agreement have some good point as well as compromises, nothing particularly earth shattering, if you want something different call your senator, not Google.

<comment><USER39> I was not coming down either way. I was just stating that if people perceive this as "evil" they are certainly going to call Google on it. Not that I think Google cares.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Small height evolved twice on 'Hobbit' island of Flores - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45049024 <comment><USER2> It's gonna be mayhem when someone successfully extracts some DNA and applies IVF...

</comment><comment><USER3> But I think it actually evolved three times, right? The Stoors, the Harfoots, and the Fallohides...[ducks]</comment>


Ask HN: What SaaS software market is growing the most? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Low code is around 50% CAGR. MVP is more involved than other markets though</comment>


Ask HN: How much does your device on you, or do you own your device? - <AUTHOR> Device can be mobile phone, laptop or both. <comment><USER2> Someone needs to make pants with faraday cage pockets. Protection from radiation and notifications at the same time.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good one. Usually I block all notifications on both laptop and mobile. Do not disturb is my favourite feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Using screens in grayscale helps to take control of your usage.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. Can you elaborate? How does it help you?

<comment><USER4> Can only speak about myself, but it renders social media with pictures or videos pretty much useless. My usage dropped significantly. Check it out for yourself under accessibility settings if your have iOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am on iOS, yes. Have you noticed any positive impacts on battery time, too?

<comment><USER4> A little bit. It seems 10-20% better. I have not analyzed the data though. It's my gut feeling :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have neither mobile phone nor laptop computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Desktop PC then?

<comment><USER5> That I have. I don't have any programs with notifications other than I put in a notification for the number of mail messages by myself. Many programs I use I wrote myself or modified for my own use.</comment></comment></comment>


Wuhan death toll evidence points to 40,000+ number (official 2,563) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-families-should-be-sweeping-graves-now-but-thousands-still-havent-buried-their-dead/2020/04/03/5a6daa50-7234-11ea-ad9b-254ec99993bc_story.html <comment><USER2> actual title:

>>Chinese families should be sweeping graves now. But thousands still haven't buried their dead.<<

<comment><AUTHOR> I prefer to surface key data from article right upfront. WP title felt constructed to create a sense of clickbaity drama

<comment><USER2> Its not about preferences, editorializing titles is not within the rules:

" If the title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. "</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Goodnight Journal – Online journal meets a community - <AUTHOR> https://www.goodnightjournal.com/ <comment><USER2> Since the new year ive been trying to plan and reflect on my day each night. Perfect time to launch this product. Will be trying this out instead of using my basic note app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you svu79 ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Annotate a simple iMessage sticker app to annotate your messages - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/annotate!/id1161173401?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><USER2> Cool idea, makes the idea of sticker apps more useful than just being emojis</comment>


SQLite is a toy (apparently) - <AUTHOR> https://tt-rss.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3902&p=23000#p22993 <comment><USER2> I have never heard of "tt-rss" and the developer's "Suicidal Pepe" avatar doesn't exactly make me want to learn more.</comment>


Object Detection in photos with Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gazemetrix.com/post/89252542071/announcing-object-detection-in-photos-with-deep

<comment><USER2> the logo recognition very much reminds me of SIFT as opposed to deep learning

I like the stats they're able to provide, but wouldn't trust it very much without some confidence bounds...never know how many hard negatives may have slipped through

<comment><AUTHOR> We use deep learning for object detection.</comment></comment>


Can you really, practically, avoid the "filter bubble"? - <AUTHOR>

Can it be made easy to hack one's way out of being subject to the pandering algorithms of the googles and facebooks of the worlds?<p>I'd much like the capacity to be able to substantively distort, hack or otherwise bypass the "filter bubble" <comment><USER2> 1) I use duckduckgo.com instead of Google; in addition to its other advantages, it doesn't try to tailor results to me (or track what I'm up to in general).

2) I make looking at alternate viewpoints a part of my research heuristic in general. I don't believe in the mythical "neutral news source" so instead I grab things written from vastly different viewpoints and try to get a complete-ish picture.

3) I have the kind of people in my social circle who think that debate for the sake of debate is fun, so we take positions pretty much at random sometimes. It leads to some interesting conversations, and occasionally makes one or more of us re-think our beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER3> tor + no browser cookies will get you that.

The problem with the 'filter bubble' is not that you can't get around it. It's that it's not obvious that censorship is occurring, so most people won't be looking for a way to get around it.

Unlike other kinds of censorship, getting around it yourself doesn't help much. It's all the other people you have to worry about.

<comment><USER4> It's not just a technical problem though. Hanging out in Hacker News gives a very specific set of view points... Even when we buy newspapers we tend to buy ones that align with our point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Will tons of iframes querying your site make google think you are important to your users?</comment>


Anti-burn: How bootstrapped Zoho survived two tech bubbles - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/10/14/anti-burn-how-bootstrapped-zoho-survived-two-tech-bubbles-and-became-a-massive-success/ <comment><USER2> > When everyone in the Valley was signing 10 year leases at $10 per square > foot – a bubble indicator that we're seeing again today – the company > relocated to Pleasanton, where it remains today, and instead invested in > keeping its headcount up.

> "We don't really agree that a short-term, mercenary mindset and incentive > structure is required to hire the best talent," Vegesna says. "We issue cash > bonuses at the end of a good period, whether it's a month, quarter, or year. > It actually ends up being a better outcome for most employees. And, of > course, we have free lunch and all the other typical perks. We have had > extremely low employee churn..."

Something not mentioned in the article: according to Wikipedia[1], 90% of Zoho's employees are based in India. While I'm sure that some in the Bay Area will scoff at this, I don't think there's any question that when the business cycle turns, the ridiculously high costs of employee salaries and office space will be the undoing of countless Bay Area startups.

It's nice to read stories every once in a while about companies living within their means. Ironically, they're usually the ones that _could_ actually afford to live large if they wanted to.

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

<comment><USER3> Zoho also hired and trained people who were usually out of normal companies radars' (like college dropouts).

<comment><USER4> Interview with the founder Sridhar Vembu, where he talks more about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5EMnATY_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5EMnATY_Q)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (Zoho CEO here) My analysis of financial bubbles informs how we operate in Zoho. I believe the Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen era will go down in history as one of the biggest bubbles the world has ever seen.

The economy is now fully addicted to bubbles, and the start-up ecosystem is particularly affected. Withdrawal from this bubble-drug is going to be painful.

A couple of anecdotes about the last big tech bubble of 2000. At that time, there were 300+ optical networking companies in silicon valley. We had sold our network management software to about 150 of them. By 2003, only 2 were left standing. We survived because we had saved up some money for that eventuality, and we reinvented ourselves using those savings.

One painful bubble memory I have is the real estate lease that we had no option but to sign in 2000. We moved from San Jose to Pleasanton to escape the worst of the bubble-rents but even in Pleasanton, while the rent wasn't ruinous (about $20 per square foot per year), the landlord forced a 7 year lease on us. Still, the rents fell to about $10 per square foot per year by 2002, but we were stuck with the higher rent for 5 more years. Fortunately, the company was financially strong enough to withstand it but the episode taught us a lesson in bubble-planning and bubble-survival.

I am shocked that people are signing $50-100 a square foot per year leases for 10 year terms these days.

Our goal right now is to survive the present bubble, bigger in some ways than even the one in 2000. I tell our people that there is going to be a serious bust and we should aim to survive it first.

<comment><USER2> > A couple of anecdotes about the last big tech bubble of 2000. At that time, > there were 300+ optical networking companies in silicon valley. We had sold > our network management software to about 150 of them. By 2003, only 2 were > left standing. We survived because we had saved up some money for that > eventuality, and we reinvented ourselves using those savings.

That's eerily similar to the situation today. A lot of startups today count other startups as their largest customer segment. It's not often talked about, but accelerators have greatly contributed to this trend.

The big question is how many of today's startup-dependent startups are saving their money and will be in a position to try to reinvent themselves when their customer ranks are decimated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Zoho is often an inspiration for Indian startups. They might have grown out of the early days of startup grind and culture but it has continuously given inspiring environments for future founders like girish from Freshdesk.

this article is a reflection of its growth strategy and how longevity trumps over 'growth hacks'

</comment><comment><USER7> Spending within your means and growing organically certainly give me a good feeling. However, I don't think it's decision to base 90% of its employees in India maps too directly to the stereotypical SV startup. It looks more like a Indian company with an office in the US.

<comment><USER8> So you're saying Apple (Foxxconn), Nike, Dell, The Simpsons (Rough Draft Studios), etc. are Chinese/Korean/Mexican companies with offices in the US?

<comment><USER9> Apple isn't Foxconn. Zoho is a company started in India by Indians with 90% of its workforce in India.

Of course Apple, Nike, Dell, News Corp., and Zoho are international companies, but Zoho is as Indian as Apple is American.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "We issue cash bonuses at the end of a good period, whether it's a month, > quarter, or year. It actually ends up being a better outcome for most > employees."<

With all the obsession we see over the stock options/startup lottery, I think this point bears consideration. A stable, low employee churn organization with great cash flow can make you plenty rich if the founders and board put aggressive profit sharing and bonuses in place. I think for bootstrapped businesses this is a great alternative to complex options plans that have no value until an exit/IPO. Wish this approach gained more publicity, even if they've offshored the bulk of the operation.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good story, sadly won't get crazily upvoted since Zoho keeps a low and stable profile.

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER11> Very inspiring story, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER12> ... and produced some shitty software in the process.

<comment><USER13> what's your definition of shitty? Useful software used by millions of people who are glad to pay to remove this pain from their lives?</comment></comment>


Cocotron: The only possibility left for portable iPhone apps? - <AUTHOR>

http://www.cocotron.org - cocotron is an Open Source ObjC API that implements much of Cocoa.
Given Apple's new developer agreement, is implementing CocoaTouch APIs for other platforms alongside cocotron a viable option for writing cross platform iPhone apps?
What do people that have used CocoaTouch estimate the development time as? <comment><USER2> If you're using Cocoatron for your UI, your development time is as long as it takes for you to reimplement the necessary bits of UIKit, plus however long it takes you to make the rest of your application.

The same goes for GNUStep / the GNU ObjC runtime. Both of these projects have been focused on the Mac environment, not iPhone; they have AppKit, not UIKit.

Of course, you could write the core part of your program in ObjC and build against GNUStep/Cocoatron and use that elsewhere. But, at that point, why not just use C/C++ instead and libc/libstdc++ instead? It would be easier and save you a lot of headaches.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't have any evidence of this, but if people start shipping Cocotron apps on Android Apple will probably find some way to stop it.</comment>


The Missing Semester of Your CS Education - <AUTHOR> https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ <comment><USER2> Pretty amazing for self-taught developers, or people coming straight from uni. You'll learn most of this within like the first year of a dev job.</comment>


So Lyft is paying $8m/mo to AWS, $100m/yr Each ride costs $.14 in AWS rent - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/MohapatraHemant/status/1102401615263223809?s=08 <comment><USER2> Pardon my naivety but wouldn't making the code twice as efficient mean they could reduce their aws costs by half?</comment>


Python Flask App in One Minutes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/python-flask-app-in-few-minutes-4756874df2f4 <comment><USER2> Appreciate this. Starting to learn flask and I'll start with this

<comment><USER2> Any way you could do a write up on how to productionalize flask app with nginex or Apache proxies?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why you don't try our AppGen to download and design a full project, if you download the project you will find a docker script to dockerize the project for you

<comment><USER2> I will attempt this. But is the app served by nginex or Apache proxy Or flask directly?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Meet 'Intrusion Truth,' the Mysterious Group Doxing Chinese Intel Hackers - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjka84/intrusion-truth-group-doxing-hackers-chinese-intelligence <comment><USER2> one of the basement boys got a bored living in a scif for 10 hours a day, sounds like.</comment>


How to Keep Your Lambda Functions Warm - <AUTHOR> https://read.acloud.guru/how-to-keep-your-lambda-functions-warm-9d7e1aa6e2f0?__s=dnkxuaws9pogqdnxmx8i#.833pac539 <comment><USER2>
        Ideally, AWS would have an option along the lines of
        "keep warm" that you could toggle and agree to pay more
        to have AWS keep an unused container running at all times.

They have those. They're called SERVERS.</comment>


Introducing Gmail Mic Drop - <AUTHOR> https://gmail.googleblog.com/2016/03/introducing-gmail-mic-drop.html <comment><USER2> The Internet becomes very hard to use on April Fool's Day.

</comment><comment><USER3> How will we explain to alien scientists that 1/365 of or news output is potentially untrustworthy...?

<comment><USER4> I'd put that closer to 364/365...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's 1 April here in New Zealand already and was sure the two were connected (noticed my Gmail change a few minutes ago) until I saw the date on that post.</comment>


BMC Software Sues ServiceNow for Patent Infringement - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bmc-software-sues-servicenow-for-patent-infringement-2014-09-23 <comment><AUTHOR> Patents linked:

[http://www.google.com/patents/US5978594](http://www.google.com/patents/US5978594) [http://www.google.com/patents/US6816898](http://www.google.com/patents/US6816898) [http://www.google.com/patents/US6895586](http://www.google.com/patents/US6895586) [http://www.google.com/patents/US7062683](http://www.google.com/patents/US7062683) [http://www.google.com/patents/US7617073](http://www.google.com/patents/US7617073) [http://www.google.com/patents/US8646093](http://www.google.com/patents/US8646093) [http://www.google.com/patents/US8674992](http://www.google.com/patents/US8674992)

</comment><comment><USER2> the question arises - Why didnt BMC sue service now few years back?

Is It the fact that they are getting their a$$ kicked by Servicenow who are number 2 in the market?

If yes - this is true corporate evil

</comment><comment><USER3> Dear BMC, Remedy stinks. Sincerely Former User</comment>