Internet Archive Starts Seeding 1,398,875 Torrents - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/internet-archive-starts-seeding-1398635-torrents-120807/

<comment><USER2> This is among the most brilliant digital preservation strategies I've encountered. You want to make sure your material lasts as long as possible? Get it out on bittorrent. End of story.

We wonder what books scholars will write about 500 years from now. It won't be what's popular, it'll be whats pirated.

<comment><USER3> Er... bittorrent is certainly _not_ the end of the story. Anyone who's ever used a torrent tracker knows that access to data on a torrent network is only as good as the network's collective will to share data.

If everyone just hops on, downloads the data and disconnects without continuing to serve as a source for the data then the Internet Archive wouldn't be terribly better off than just hosting direct downloads (they'd get the benefit of leechers sharing bits between each other during the download process).

<comment><USER4> _If._

Well, we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Glad to see more legitimate uses of bitorrent which currently are basically getting new linux distros and the odd free indie movie.

<comment><USER6> Blizzard also uses bittorrent to distribute their games and all patches for their games. I'm not sure about other game companies, but I'd be surprised if Blizzard was the only company doing this.

<comment><USER7> League of Legends also uses it in their download client.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Internet Archive is the most important project on the internet today, preserving culture. I've already gained so much from it myself. They work hard to make sure that the artifacts of our culture are not lost. They are totally winning, and these torrents are an awesome step in that process.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. In particular I love their public domain movie archive. It is a crime that with extended copyrights new films won't be added to it any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> are people aware that the internet archive includes netlabels with a huge amount of free music? <http://archive.org/details/netlabels> (there is some decent chilean electronica at <http://archive.org/details/pueblo_nuevo> for example; clinical have experimental jazz <http://archive.org/details/clinicalarchives> (some of it is a bit freaky for me, but their collections are ok))

trying to work out if it's available via torrent now...

<comment><USER11> Yes! A lot of the audio is available via torrent now [1].

"Decent chilean electronica" nice, but the Internet Archive has an impressive collection of live music; you can thank the Grateful Dead for letting people tape their concerts [2].

[1] <http://archive.org/details/bittorrentaudio>

[2] [http://blog.archive.org/2012/03/27/sharing- works-100000-conc...](http://blog.archive.org/2012/03/27/sharing- works-100000-concert-recordings-for-free/)

<comment><USER10> i'll tell my grandpa about the dead stuff, thanks. meanwhile, how can you tell if a particular track is on a torrent? or how can you to search for files on torrents?

ah, ok, so if it's a torrent it's listed as such in the download links.

and it's the etree collection (the concerts) that seems to be what is available. you can search with "collection:etree" in the search. so "bluegrass AND collection:etree", for example.

<comment><USER12> if there's something you want torrentized that's not, feel free to post here too and I can poke it.

edit: assuming it's in one of the collections we're currently testing on. (all the opensource_* ones) (etree and netlabels _should_ be all torrentized [we hope])

<comment><USER10> hi, ok, so here's an example (taken at random from the pueblo nuevo archive i linked to above) - <http://archive.org/details/pn014>

i don't particularly want that album (i probably already have it thanks!) but it doesn't mention a torrent that i can see (the etree files have torrent in the links). and that's the same for all netlabel files (not many) that i have checked.

in comparison, <http://archive.org/details/SPBB2006-04-29> (bluegrass etree!) does have a bittorrent link (bottom right).

i don't understand your opensource_ comment, but pueblo nuevo is a netlabel. so it seems to me that etree have torrents, but netlabels do not.

(this is just in case it helps / it's likely i am confused / no criticism intended / thanks for doing all this)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Right now the most popular archive.org torrent is a collection of My Little Pony porn from /r/clopclop.

<comment><USER14> <http://bt1.archive.org/hotlist.php>

second popular one.

<comment><USER12> It's two of the top three in the most snatched list, though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> archive.org is one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen on the internet. I'm amazed since I first stumbled over it about 12 years ago or so. Free knowledge to everyone, that's the way to go to make the world a better place.

<comment><USER16> Just to be clear, the top shares right now are Asimov's _Foundation_ trilogy (always a good read), a bunch of films, and My Little Pony pornography.

"Free knowledge to everyone" -- we're not quite there yet, and I would stick with the various OpenCourseWare-type free-university-education initiatives. The Internet Archive as I understand it is aiming more to be a library than a synthetic learning resource.

<comment><USER15> My Little Pony pornography? What the ...?

I was referring to knowledge not as in education but as in the corpus of all media. For learning resources universities will almost always be a better bet. That's what they're for after all (and research, obviously).

<comment><USER17> "My Little Pony pornography? What the ...?"

Rule 34 of the Internet. If it exists, there will be porn of it. In this case, the new series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has received a lot of attention due to Bronies, who are men and women outside of the target audience, yet fans of the show. A minority of them create and consume this kind of content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome! Though I wish archive.org was redesigned to make it easier to browse files. Too much text, too little video/image previews.

</comment><comment><USER19> There should be a formal way of coupling a torrent file with a bitcoin address, some way of donating money to the creator but trusting that the address is the correct one.. maybe when content is first released it's registered somewhere alongside a bitcoin address and this shows up on the creator's website too.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anybody have a magnet URI? The site is overloaded right now.

</comment><comment><USER21> Are there any good ways to contribute bandwidth and storage to this without manually choosing and downloading a bunch of files? I would love to dedicate a few 100gb of storage to mirroring some of these files automatically (I have plenty of bandwidth to go with that too).</comment>


Huffduffer - delicious for podcasts - great UI - <AUTHOR> http://huffduffer.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Check out the great approach on the signup page: <http://huffduffer.com/signup></comment>


JavaZone 2012 Trailer: The Java Heist - <AUTHOR> http://jz12.java.no/videos

<comment><USER2> Lmao. Hillarious.

 _"I thought you were supposed to be an expert on the Java?"

"I lied, I'm just a Java Certified Programmer."

"You skullfucking cuntwaffle!"_

</comment><comment><USER3> Alan Ford is so perfect for that role and he's a popular actor, I wonder how they got him involved, they must have deep pockets. Such a wonderful video.

<comment><USER4> Yes, my first thought "why is brick-top in a Java video?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good one, but this one from a few years back is even better, IMHO: <http://jz10.java.no/java-4-ever-trailer.html>

<comment><USER6> Starring Scala Johansson and introducing Lenny Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fun fact: The username "Kenneth36" is a reference to the leak of a Norwegian mans financial records earlier this year [1]

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/22/2892471/norway-altinn- kenn...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/22/2892471/norway-altinn-kenneth-tax- leak)

</comment><comment><USER8> That was a quite brilliant advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER9> For about the first half of the clip, I actually thought they had taken a real movie and added a few Java references.

That sort of makes the second half look a bit strange. But it's still hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even if one doesn't like java, this video and Java4ever are very amusing :)

EDIT: They're using Vim, awesome :P

</comment><comment><USER11> With this video, gratuitous profanity at technical conferences has officially jumped the shark.

<comment><USER12> well it's in europe. culture is slightly here different wrt those things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gotta love the XML books :)</comment>


Google internal employee-compensation presentation on Transferable Stock Options - <AUTHOR> http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312508212899/dfwp.htm <comment><USER2> summary: traditional employee stock otions can not be sold by employees they can only be excersized. But new google ones can be sold to investors, subject to some restrictions. Thus employees can gain money even from an underwater option.</comment>


Plain Text and Google Keep Is a Killer Combo for Notes and Organization - <AUTHOR> https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/plain-text-and-google-keep-is-a-killer-combo-for-notes-and-organization <comment><USER2> Google Keep is a great little thing for small lists that get tweaked often, like things to do, daily objectives, shopping lists, etc. The web version is quite nicely made and suitable for avoiding distractions.

The only qualm I have with it is the lack of any official or half decent iOS app, which is understandable, but also indicative of where the service stands in Google's playbook.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I really enjoy using the web version. It's what I use 99.9% of the time.</comment></comment>


Top misconceptions of autonomous cars and self-driving vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.driverless-future.com/?page_id=774 <comment><USER2> Interesting rundown and I agree with most of the main points. One quibble with a subpoint:

> As we know, the trolley problem has no ethically right solution- because in > principle we can not weigh one life against another

That is not the current philosophical consensus.[1]

Notably, the trolley problem doesn't ask you to weigh one life against another, but relies on the fairly unobjectionable premise that five deaths are worse than one death.

The trolley problem also involves an examination of the moral difference between action and inaction, which is probably irrelevant for a machine.

But the article is right that these situations are highly contrived and unlikely. The action "brake as fast as possible to limit the force at the time of impact" is probably always the best possible solution, or near enough.

The more likely dilemma autonomous vehicles will face is how much effort they should use to avoid rear-end collisions, but calibrations like that will probably become possible with autonomous vehicles, when we could never expect humans to have enough situational awareness to roll forward when safe to avoid rear ends.

[1] [http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP](http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP)</comment>


The Parrot Virtual File System - <AUTHOR> http://ccl.cse.nd.edu/software/parrot/ <comment><USER2> The idea of extending file-related system calls to remote pathnames was present in a few systems in the 1980s: ITS, Lisp Machines, VMS, probably a bunch of others I am not aware of. You can see the vestiges of this in Common Lisp pathnames. Kent Pitman provides a good summary in a comp.lang.lisp post from 2002: [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.lisp/UCeOl3sUlFQ/V...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.lisp/UCeOl3sUlFQ/VkdFCoAXW4gJ)

This approach is much more powerful than the Unix style of mounting. FUSE provides some degree of extensibility, but it is not composable. Pitman's post mentions the "chained hosts" of VMS. GNU Emacs TRAMP has a completely general and composable mechanism called "multi-hops": [https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/#Ad_002dhoc- multi_002dhop...](https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/#Ad_002dhoc- multi_002dhops)

Using explicit remote pathnames as opposed to mounting is a very powerful idea, and I am glad it is becoming practical today. I think it is possible to write something like a portable Parrot as a library and set of shadow include files you could use to recompile applications.

<comment><USER3> Just curious, in what way is FUSE not composable where TRAMP is?

<comment><USER2> For example, if you want to use SSHFS to access files on a machine that is only reachable via a gateway, you would have to change your SSH configuration with the details of the gateway, or set up port forwarding: [https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070925181947](https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070925181947)

TRAMP provides a pathname syntax for this kind of connection:

        /ssh:bird@bastion|ssh:you@remotehost:/path

So the steps to get to the remote files are part of the pathname, and you can compose several steps with |. With FUSE, or any kind of mounting, this information is not part of the pathname; next time you need to access somewhere convoluted you have to set up the proxying/forwarding again.

You can also share the pathname. It is easy to copy-paste an SHH to sudo to Docker container multi-hop; setting up and tearing down the mounts to do the same thing would be fairly involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an interesting method of providing a user space VFS later without the need of a kernel driver, like FUSE.

However, that said, I wonder if it would still work in cases when a file is memory-mapped (via mmap() and friends) and modified directly in memory rather than direct FI/O calls. Would parrot still work in this case?

</comment><comment><USER5> If you'd like to see code for a minimal version of something similar, I wrote one that's loaded using LD_PRELOAD rather than ptrace. Toy quality: [https://github.com/viraptor/libremotec](https://github.com/viraptor/libremotec)

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how feasible this would be to trick Plex into transparently 'mounting' a remote server's media files. (e.g. a VPS that can burst CPU to re-encode data once/twice a day and another one with barely any CPU but large storage)

I guess things like sshfs or rclone already do similar things, but it would be really neat to see the performance characteristics of Parrot vs other solutions.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't resolve the domain. I've seen websites fall down due to load but I've never heard of a domain disappearing due to load.

Edit: And now it's working.

<comment><USER8> on windows: ipconfig /flushdns

<comment><USER9> Sadly, that doesn't help on the bullshit Chrome is apparently pulling with name resolution internally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would this be able to make a device acting as a USB mass storage device work as a network storage backed USB Drive?

I don't see any one command from this guide that the utility could be run before to enable this. [https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pi-zero-w-smart-usb- flash-...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pi-zero-w-smart-usb-flash-drive/)

<comment><USER11> no, you would still need something like a file server serving read/write requests to the USB drive.

Think of this program like automatically giving any program that has a "File -> Open" menu the ability to load files from FTP, or HTTP, or any other file serving protocol. You still need something serving up the data - it's just possible for you to treat it like any old file on your file system now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really neat. I was looking at FUSE for something last year and it never occurred to me to come from the other direction, so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was interested to read about CVMFS - is this something people have experience with outside of CERN?

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminded me of the Parrot language prank:

[http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/parrotstory_04...](http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/parrotstory_0401.html)

[https://slashdot.org/story/17381](https://slashdot.org/story/17381)

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there any supper for running Fuse file systems using Parrot so that fuse can run completely from userland without any exotic privs needed (e.g. if you wanted to mount a squashfs file system for a process from within a docker container running inside Kubernetes).

</comment><comment><USER16> wouldn't using Dtrace be a lot more efficient than using ptrace?

<comment><USER5> What they're doing is trapping the execution on syscall and providing own implementation. That's not the kind of thing dtrace is good for. Also, this works on Linux, so there's no full dtrace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool</comment>


Visual Studio 2012 will build apps that can run on XP - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2012/06/15/10320645.aspx <comment><USER2> I have to admit I am honestly surprised that Microsoft actually listened to it's customers on this issue. However, the wording in the post makes it a bit vague on whether the compiler itself will simply also target XP, or if there will be some project flag to make it compatible with XP.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft for all its many faults is very good at listening to customer feedback. Once you consider that their main customers are enterprise and government you begin to understand how many of their decisions get made.

<comment><USER4> +1.

The thing to understand about Microsoft is that its customers are OEMs and Enterprise first, and end-users somewhere in the distance.

That said, all this means is that VS 2012 will target the .NET runtime which will continue to run on XP.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, that is the C++ team blog and talks about the CRT from 2012 being made to run on XP, which it doesn't at the moment due to it taking reliance on Vista+ platform APIs. This has nothing to do with .NET.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the correction (and good to know).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was announced a few weeks ago.

Visual Studio 2012 still won't run on XP, and more importantly .Net 4.5 cannot be installed on XP.

<comment><USER6> I can't imagine this surprised anyone.</comment></comment>


A new type of Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-life-3/f44705f97830 <comment><USER2> Having to show results to your fellow founders every week at your in-person meeting is extremely motivating. Doing everything via Google Hangouts doesn't allow for the sort of serendipitous encounters that happen at the weekly meetings. Investors come to Demo Day not just to see the newest batch of companies, but also to meet with others.

I'm skeptical that this would work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Edit: I think PG answered this accurately in just one line above. The following thoughts might help the OP.

I think this has been tried before, with nReduce[1]. And failed. Story of taking a company off the ground is not so simple. And that story doesn't separate the role of investors and founders in such a discreet unattached manner:

> _Founders focus exclusively on the startup. Investors care primarily about > traction and who else is investing, so these decisions can be made remotely_

No it doesn't work like that. Founders and investors together focus on the startup == traction i.e. building something that people want. That sense of togetherness gives the baby startup a chance of survival. Success is not guaranteed even then, mind you.

For other points:

> 1\. Everything is remote.

I doubt this is even possible. Incorporation, paperwork is but one moment/small step of creating a company. It could be done remotely even today.

> 2\. Cohorts are rolling.

Perhaps this is possible, however it's important not to discount the energy, vibe and support system of the batch psychology.

> 3\. Partners are decoupled. You can book time with anyone and you know > exactly what they specialize in, so there are no wasted meetings.

I think this would be hard on partners simply because he/she would be bombarded and not have enough time to digest and respond effectively. Also there is a saying that _when the student is ready, the teacher appears_.

> 4\. Decisions made in 48 hours.

Handling anxiety and calm is one great attribute to have in entrepreneurship. That said, quicker decision making is always good unless rushed too soon.

> 5\. Demo days all over the world. Demo days would be expanded out to metro > hubs: LA, SF, NYC, etc. Kickstarter operates well and it's run entirely > online.

By 'all over the world' and LA, SF, NYC I think you mean just America. There could be a solution to demoing all over the world. Getting covered on Tech news and blogs is a form of it. The question is whom do you want to demo to?

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/28/nreduce/](http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/28/nreduce/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The fundamental flaw here is underestimating the value of in-person conversation.

<comment><USER5> In-person conversation increases the odds, for sure.

But opening the pool of players beyond those who are or can be co-located can also increase the odds. There will always be more smart players outside of any region than within.

The problem is that removing the co-location constraint also increases the pool of potential posers.

Telling the difference is a key challenge. If a distributed organisation can take advantage of greater pool of resources without being taken advantaged of by the posers, the in-person advantage might come to be less important than it has traditionally been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Decisions made in 48 hours" would be extremely helpful for startups. Since YC only skims written applications for a few minutes and interviews applicants for about 10 min, it seems possible for them to make quick decisions.

<comment><USER7> They probably do process each application quickly but they get ~10^3 of them. Even if they spent 10 minutes total on each, that'd still be ~6 days of continuous work. Factor that it is probably 1500 or 2000 and the fact that they can't possibly work 24/7 and you get about the time they take to respond.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like nReduce.com but don't think it worked out. Agree with gaborcselle that bonding would not be the same without meeting in person. Also cohort effects are diminished with smaller rolling cohorts. Starting and finishing something at the same time is a big deal.

Think about your best friends. I would hazard a guess they are probably from school and college. Now compare to friends you've made taking MOOCs (i.e., remote) and at work (i.e., rolling cohorts). Over simplified but you get the idea.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes. And it's a stupid idea to constrain an online dating service to let people only meet on Wednesdays. Cohorts should be always rolling and you should be able to meet up anytime you want. Also, to get rid of the bottleneck that is offline meetup, it should let people meet up exclusively through Google Hangouts. This will let people date virtually all over the world.

<comment><USER10> Yes and be in a relationship over google hangouts :) Kidding</comment></comment>


Krita 3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://krita.org/item/krita-3-0-released/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11810802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11810802).

</comment><comment><USER3> been waiting for this to come out for a long time :)</comment>


The Secretive Gathering Of Elites That Happens Every Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-bilderberg-2013-6?op=1

<comment><USER2> Yay conspiracy theories! On a more serious note this isn't really all that new probably as it says even Rockefeller was an early one.

It is more interesting that the world is so easy to dismiss some of the good conspiracies that are like the majority of the money is from a few distinct companies and a few distinct people. I mean you can literally see it's much easier to be insanely rich if you come from old money. Billions breed more billions just look at the Forbes Billionaries list if you want a list of people who have struck it big in the past.

I also don't really care what they discuss there after all it's not a very long period of time. And with some of the more powerful or smart people they will barely have any time to really get all out what they want to address if it's an open dialogue because it's probably too diverse of a group.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Full List Of Incredibly Powerful People Who Will Attend This Year's Bilderberg Meeting

[http://www.businessinsider.com/full-list-of- bilderberg-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/full-list-of- bilderberg-2013-attendees-2013-6)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really thought that this Bilderberg stories were conspirationnist nonsense. Now they are trying to get some momentum by going via PR & building on their secretive image. Sad & pointless.</comment>


Apple Plans Return of Touch ID and New Cheap iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-05/apple-working-on-in-display-fingerprint-id-for-future-iphones <comment><USER2> > Apple Inc. is developing in-screen fingerprint technology for as early as > its 2020 iPhones, according to people familiar with the plans.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. As an Apple fan boy, I will tell you straight up that I will never ever buy a phone / device from you when it does not have the fingerprint option to bypass the facial recognition.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20880686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20880686)

<comment><USER4> Seems due to the headline, there isn't much discussion of Touch ID coming back. Still post there?</comment></comment>


A monospace that looks like a proportional  - <AUTHOR> http://design.canonical.com/2011/09/ubuntu-monospace-beta/

<comment><USER2> Here's what O'Reilly books use: <http://www.lucasfonts.com/fonts/thesansmono/about/>

Ubuntu Monospace is the first free font I've seen which approaches TheSans Mono's level of quality.

<comment><USER3> Actually, Consolas is extremely similar.

<comment><USER4> Lucas de Groot, who designed TheSans, also did Calibri and Consolas.

<http://www.lucasfonts.com/case-studies/calibri-consolas/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Letter Gothic circa 1960 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_Gothic>

Nothing beats it.

<comment><USER5> For those interested Letter Gothic is available from several online type shops but be aware that since the original was released it has been reissued as both fixed and proportional variants. Additionally, it looks good out of the box on OSX but under Linux you'll want to ensure that you are running a font config like Infinality.

I own the monotype version of regular and bold, they work well, but other variants might be worth trying out. [http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/monotype/letter_gothic...](http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/monotype/letter_gothic/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> FTA: "We need to test the readability of the font, particular the Cyrillic and Greek which have had less testing."

Why not release the Ubuntu font-in-progress to the general public and create a "font bug tracker" where users can report their experience with the font in various characters sets across multiple devices? Ubuntu is open-source, community based software - why not open source the font design?

<comment><USER7> One possible reason is that people tend not to upgrade their fonts. Therefore, old and buggy versions would remain out there, and lots of people copy fonts from their friends instead of getting them from the source.

It's a difficult problem: what's better for free software? Sticking to our principles of open development even for assets, or ensuring that potential new users see a high-quality, finished product? I don't know the answer.

<comment><USER8> They're distributing it through a PPA, so assuming that you click "Install" when update manager bugs you once a week, you should have the newest version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The full set are true monospace fonts, each character being exactly 0.5em wide"

Umm... a 0.5em width m?

<comment><USER10> I used to think "em" was defined as the width of the letter m (hence the name), but The Elements of Typographic Style doesn't mention that:

 _Type is usually measured in picas and points ... but horizontal spacing is measured in ems, and the em is a sliding measure. One em is a distance equal to the type size. In 6 point type, an em is 6 points; in 12 point it is 12 points ... Thus a one em space is proportionally the same in any size._

The book then shows a little diagram with several different sized squares.

So, as I understand it, one em is the width equal to the height of a font (which is generally, but not always, the width that the letter m is designed as). What your quote is saying, then, is all the letters fit in a box which is twice as tall as it is wide.

<comment><USER11> I think you're a bit confused here. It's the height of the capital M, not the width of the lowercase em, that is generally 1em.

<comment><USER12> "In olden days, an 'em' was the _width_ of an 'M', but this is no longer true; ems are simply arbitrary units that come with a font" - the TeXbook, p60

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mark Shuttleworth really cares about design. He is like the Steve Jobs of Linux :)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, it is a bit weird: some of the stuff from Canonical's design department is great (like scrolling indicators, getting rid of 'Quit'), and some is mediocre at best (like Unity)

<comment><USER15> Unity is awesome. I honestly find it better than OS X's desktop.

<comment><USER5> Unity is risk taking and I applaud it. Some very cool features when I played with the recent beta. Easy to pick up but has some power features as well.

Now if I could just get my brand new touchscreen to fully support it's cool gestures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It looks like "Error establishing database connection" in a proportional font to me. :P

Here's the google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&client=ubuntu&channel=cs&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Adesign.canonical.com%2F2011%2F09%2Fubuntu- monospace-beta%2F)

<comment><USER17> The original worked for me, albeit slowly. If it's still slow for people, you can try the Coral CDN mirror [http://design.canonical.com.nyud.net/2011/09/ubuntu- monospac...](http://design.canonical.com.nyud.net/2011/09/ubuntu-monospace- beta/)

I really like monospace (mostly) sans-serif fonts, as opposed to the Courier family, for development and terminal work. Another free addition is always welcome, although I'm not sure I like this better than my current font (DejaVu Sans Mono, I think). The raised middle stem in the 'm' looks decidedly weird to me, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So the (open) sources of this font family are available in a closed format and not a single tool used by the designer is available on Ubuntu itself without resorting to convoluted solutions and (possibly) breaking a bunch of licences in the process.

What if an actual enthusiastic Ubuntu user wants to participate in the project or fork it? Well he is forced to tinker with wine or work on a Windows PC or buy a Mac.

Great.

<comment><USER19> I guess Canonical couldn't find any professional type designers who are also free software martyrs. The solution to this problem should be to improve the free tools, not to ask pros to reduce their productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very impressive! A neat trick to make small characters serif.

<comment><USER21> Nearly _all_ nominally sans-serif mono-spaced fonts do this.

<comment><USER20> Very stupid of me that I didn't notice this. But I never noticed it until I saw the Canonical font. Maybe that's why it looks proportional?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know about operating systems, but these folks at Canonical sure know how to make some pretty damn good fonts.

</comment><comment><USER23> Whoa! Can't wait to use this.

</comment><comment><USER24> link is dead</comment>


Essentials of complexity-theoretic stand-up comedy - <AUTHOR> http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=414 <comment><USER2> " ...or the actual flesh-and-blood hairless apes who are dozing off in the seminar room while you speak."

Wow. I can understand wanting to keep the audience attentive, but the solution might be, "Don't be boring", rather than "Put on a circus act."

Most audiences _want_ the talk and the speaker to succeed, and give them the benefit of the doubt. A good way to lose a crowd is to waste time with off- topic jokes, visual gimmicks, and show-bizzy patter.</comment>


Tarsnap now available to residents of Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.tarsnap.com/legal.html

<comment><USER2> So much for my plans of "send an email to tarsnap-announce, write a blog post, then submit that blog post to Hacker News"...

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised no one posted your other emails when you were sending them (the ones about the outage). Kind of expected here.

<comment><USER2> I don't mind having information "leak out" -- as far as I'm concerned, it's public as soon as I hit send. I was just surprised at how fast it arrived here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Announcement: [http://www.mail-archive.com/tarsnap- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg...](http://www.mail-archive.com/tarsnap- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg00007.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 7(b) is new and 13 has been changed from "You may not use the service if you are a citizen or resident of Canada".

</comment><comment><USER4> Just a general question: why offer a GPG key for download on the same site as the file to be verified? (If you expect users to download the key once and then verify multiple releases with it, why rotate the key every year?)

<comment><USER2> If I did it right, the code signing GPG key is signed by my personal GPG key, which is signed by the FreeBSD Security Officer GPG key, which is signed by lots and lots of people. So there's a chain of trust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What was the problem preventing residents of Canada from using tarsnap?

<comment><USER2> Sales tax paperwork -- Tarsnap is based on Canada, so it has to charge sales taxes to Canadians.

Oddly enough, the Canada Revenue Agency is a bit unclear on how exactly to handle picodollars.

<comment><USER6> _Oddly enough, the Canada Revenue Agency is a bit unclear on how exactly to handle picodollars._

So are many of your prospective customers! STOP DOING THAT.

<comment><USER2> Using picodollars attracts exactly the customers I want.

You have absolutely _no idea_ how many people have told me that they started using Tarsnap because of the picodollars.

<comment><USER7> I think I vouch for Thomas when I say that you have _no idea_ how many more customers you can get and more importantly how much more money you will be able to make if you drop your picodollars pricing.

I work for various hedge funds in NYC and none of my clients will ever take Tarsnap seriously based on your pricing. They equate pricing with quality.

<comment><USER2> I think you're conflating two different issues here -- advertising prices in picodollars, and what the price per GB ends up being.

As far as picodollars go, I figured that hedge funds would understand those perfectly -- after all, they're in the business of shaving microseconds off their order times so that they can extract a few extra microdollars per share, right?

<comment><USER7> Colin,

I have a tremendous respect for you and I love your product. But you have to understand that hedge funds do not care about 'saving money' as much as they care about 'making money'. So yes, they will go to crazy lengths to shave microseconds off their order times but they will not try to save a penny while they are conducting their business.

From their perspective, when they see a product priced in picodollars their immediate reaction is that this is not a product for them. They want to use best in class product and they have learned over the years that the best in class product costs money, lots of it. So even though Tarsnap is best in class, they will ignore it because it is priced too low. For their back up service, they want to pay thousands of dollars and get a guarantee from the vendor that they will be their if shit hits the fan.

<comment><USER8> The lesson here is to fork a copy of the tarnsap codebase. Then hire a good designer/marketer to make a corporate-safe image for tarsnap-enterprise. Pictures of people in business attire smiling at spreadsheets and stuff. Price it 100x current- It's _military grade encryption!_

Then retire to somewhere arm and have umbrella drinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why charge US dollars for Canadians using a Canadian service? Big turn off for me as;

a. I incur extra fees converting money b. My sense of privacy is impaired.

<comment><USER2> Good question. Unfortunately, the Canadian dollar hasn't taken its rightful place as a pre-eminent world currency yet, so advertising prices in Canadian dollars would make it difficult for all the Tarsnap users outside of Canada to figure out what it costs.

I could theoretically take payments in both US and Canadian dollars, but practically speaking that would be a huge headache for my accounting systems.</comment></comment>


Sony Built a Craft Set for the Coding Generation - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcodesign.com/90128057/sony-built-a-craft-set-for-the-coding-generation <comment><AUTHOR> I think it is very expensive considering that Lego Mindstorms EV3 price is ~$350 [1]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-MINDSTORMS-31313-Robot- Kids/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-MINDSTORMS-31313-Robot- Kids/dp/B00CWER3XY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496835948&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+ev3)</comment>


Elvis in the Box - <AUTHOR> https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/177228 <comment><USER2> Contrast: Cartier Bresson's candid shots of Gandhi's funeral pyre. When? 1948. Just as prurient?</comment>


Amazon Plans Free Video-Streaming Service, WSJ Reports - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/27/amazon-plans-free-video-streaming-service-wsj-reports/

<comment><USER2> It's a clever idea if they think the economics are sensible in regards to user acquisition cost. Targeted ads could drive direct e-commerce purchases and receive high CPMs. The primary problem they face though is securing licensing for Prime SVOD content in an FVOD (i.e. Hulu style) window.</comment>


Why is apple refusing to support WebRTC? - <AUTHOR>

I really can't understand why Apple is not supporting WebRTC?   Are they really going to push Facetime over WebRTC?  They seem like completely separate products. <comment><USER2> It comes down to simple economics:

1\. Support web standards allowing developers to build cross-platform apps in which you [Apple] profit little from.

\-- or --

2\. Lag behind web standards so that developers build iOS-specific apps, increasing the value of iOS and taking a 30% cut of profits of those apps.

It's in the company's best monetary interest to support #2, so that's exactly what they're doing, and WebRTC is not the first time. (They're still lagging behind on HTML5 audio, for example.)

These market forces are the same ones that caused Microsoft be the evil Microsoft of the 1990s: they have a financial interest in lagging behind web standards.

<comment><USER3> The flaw in what you're saying is that lagging behind web standards does _not_ increase the value of iOS. It may be in Apple's _short term_ best monetary interest, but I'm more skeptical that it is in their long term best interest.

There's a reason why so many people hated Microsoft back in the 1990s, and it led many people to get away from Microsoft wherever possible. Apple doesn't want to end up there...

<comment><USER4> Which is ironic because Apple is ending up on exactly the same road MS took in 90's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This what we know about the technology behind Facetime: [https://cdn.andyet.com/webrtc-reports/facetime- report.pdf](https://cdn.andyet.com/webrtc-reports/facetime-report.pdf)

Apple is already participating to the WebRTC Working Group at W3C: [http://www.w3.org/2000/09/dbwg/details?group=47318&public=1](http://www.w3.org/2000/09/dbwg/details?group=47318&public=1)

Tip from the Apple team: just ask! Seriously! >> [https://forums.developer.apple.com/content?query=webrtc](https://forums.developer.apple.com/content?query=webrtc) >> [https://bugreport.apple.com](https://bugreport.apple.com)

A way to contribute getting WebRTC supported by Safari: [http://www.webrtcinwebkit.org/blog/2015/3/28/bringing- webrtc...](http://www.webrtcinwebkit.org/blog/2015/3/28/bringing-webrtc-to- webkit)

In the meantime, a few workarounds: [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/heres-make- internet-explorer-sa...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/heres-make-internet- explorer-safari-work-webrtc/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree with judah it really comes down to let these developers pay the 100 dollars, buy a mac book then develop on my platform spending bucks on my "eco- system" rather then let them easily develop fast on the web without any headaches.

[https://bloggeek.me/apple-dragging-feet-webrtc/](https://bloggeek.me/apple- dragging-feet-webrtc/)

I think in a couple of years Apple will be so behind that someone else less evil will be the underdog.

<comment><USER7> >I agree with judah it really comes down to let these developers pay...

I think you're making a subtly different point than judah. They seem to be claiming that apple lags because it enables them to make more off of consumers via iOS specific apps whereas you seem to be claiming they make more off of developers via iOS specific apps. I imagine Apple is far more concerned about judah's consumer point than your developer point; there isn't a ton of profit in selling $100 developer licenses compared to the massive consumer market.</comment></comment>


Redis Labs Raises $100M - <AUTHOR> https://redislabs.com/press/redis-labs-raises-100-million-series-f-financing/ <comment><USER2> With all this free money floating around, it feels nice that some of it landed on good people.

That said, being overcapitalized is perniciously corrupting. I saw first hand what happens when there's too much money floating inside a company. Malinvestment is an issue at the company level just as much as at the macroeconomic level.

Management starts acting like trust fund kids, forgetting that, one day, the money might run out, and making a profit is the only sustainable way to run a company.

<comment><USER3> A billion dollar valuation implies billion dollar expectations. They must surely be well on their way to $100M ARR in order to attain a valuation this high - and likely at 100% annual growth rates. I'd say congratulations are in order.

As much as there are examples from history of companies that have blown venture capital on stupid things, I think Redis Labs has a good shot at reaching the holy grail of an IPO.

<comment><USER4> Being a former Redis Labs employee (disclaimer: I own a few shares), I can attest that their leadership has a scrappy ethos and this is a company that doesn't waste money on stupid things.

<comment><USER5> How does redis make money?

<comment><USER4> Hosted cloud redis and enterprise redis. It's all in their website.

<comment><USER6> I used it a few times.

Pricy, and worth every penny.

Made my life so much easier

<comment><USER4> Do you mean the hosted or enterprise versions? The enterprise version is a behemoth (in a good way). Tuning an open source redis to be able to do what it does is nearly impossible.

<comment><USER6> Redid labs.

Click a few buttons it gives me an URL to point my apps at.

Now and then I'd get an email, hey instance X needs more memory, click here to see what's going on, or just drag the slider to a higher plan.

Worked great, Hardest part was giving good names so I could remember what each instance was for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious what the key value Redis Labs is bringing that justifies so much money (other than a sales team, support, and other minor changes to Redis). In other words, what key tech are they adding? The page dedicated to the software is really generic:

[https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise- software/overview/](https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise-software/overview/)

I started using KeyDB and the project is great. I'm more inclined to support the tech they are integrating that check things off my Redis wishlist such as Active-Active replication and true multi-core support (not just IO treads).

[https://keydb.dev/](https://keydb.dev/)

<comment><USER8> Redis Labs developed all the modules (RedisSearch, RedisGraph, etc). Those are all licensed in such a way that Amazon cannot rehost them.

<comment><USER9> > are all licensed in such a way that Amazon cannot rehost them

You mean in such a way that Amazon cannot "productize" them, right? Surely you can host them on AWS if you're setting it up yourself.

<comment><USER8> From a licensing perspective, yes. However I looked into installing custom modules in Elasticache Redis once and you cannot do it (Same with RedisLabs' hosted solution although you can at least install their modules).

If you installed Redis on an EC2 instance manually you could run the modules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only person that gets worried when a great open source project gets a lot of VC money?

Without VC funding, an open source project is a success if it is useful to the devs and provides a comfortable income to the maintainers. Basically, a "lifestyle" business.

With VC funding, the goal now becomes generating huge returns or failing fast, which is fundamentally at odds with a good open source project. Thus the pressure comes to either aggressively monetize the project, or else to get it acquired by someone.

<comment><USER11> The investor is not a VC though, but a private equity firm, which is probably even worse? I hope this won't negatively affect the future of the open source version.

</comment></comment><comment> bra-ket I hope antirez has equity in it

<comment><USER12> If he doesn't, then I'm disgusted.

The fact that cloud providers are built on repackaging open source solutions and that the authors have no equity is one of my biggest disappointments in the modern tech world.

My feelings are made worse by the fact that we seem to be building more walled gardens, forgetting the original intent and ethos of the web.

It's wealth for the few on the backs of free labor provided by our best luminaries.

And then they don't give us the keys. We have to pay rent.

Ugh, I hate it so much.

We need stronger copyleft. And we need to stop contributing our time and resources to open source that isn't equitable to the authors.

<comment><USER13> Arent there OSS license types that disallow commercial forks and/or service businesses? I'm assuming if someone chose a license that allows for commercial activity, they want it to happen.

<comment><USER14> Yes there are. MariaDB has built a license that prevents strip-mining of open source code and prevents Cloud providers from offering it as-a-service.

CockRoachDB followed suit and implemented the same.

<comment><USER15> Those aren't open source.

<comment><USER16> Right, and that may have consequences for whether a particular distro packages you or whether the OSI shines on you, but those are just part of the trade- off; a license like this is still a perfectly valid choice for a given endeavour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >... As the home of Redis, the most popular open source database, we provide a competitive edge to global businesses with Redis Enterprise, which delivers...

> Redis Labs - home of Redis [logo and motto]

I like Redis Labs, but: this wording is misleading and inaccurate.

@antirez (Salvatore Sanfilippo), the creator of Redis, joined them in 2015 [0]; however, he left recently. That's the only claim they can use to somehow be seen as the "home" of Redis, but it is still a very weird claim.

What's the home of an open source project?

My personal perception is that they shouldn't word things this way; I might be mistaken, or at least other people might see it differently. What's your take?

Again, to be clear: I have nothing against the company - I actually like and admire them and @antirez. I just don't want them to get down the rabbit hole of corporate jargon and marketing BS (see what happened with New Relic, as an example).

[0]: [https://redislabs.com/press/redis-creator-salvatore- sanfilip...](https://redislabs.com/press/redis-creator-salvatore-sanfilippo- antirez-joins-redis-labs)

<comment><USER18> I think Salvatore Sanfilippo left the whole of Redis, not Redis Labs specifically.

[http://antirez.com/news/133](http://antirez.com/news/133) \-- The end of the Redis adventure

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bain Capital, aren't they the ones that sunk toys-r-us? Along with antirez stepping down, I'm nervous about the future of redis. Am I just being paranoid?

<comment><USER20> You're not being paranoid. There are few examples of PE firms running a company in a product-focused way that delights consumers.

<comment> enahs-sf PE firms are beholden to the bottom line. I can't think of one instance where PE bought a company and it got better for the end user.

<comment><USER21> Maybe that's just confirmation bias though? Ie the PE-owned well-run companies don't make the news?

I know one example: NXP Semiconductors. Got spun out of Philips, along with all the Philips cultural baggage (which means high bureaucracy and low productivity). A PE firm bought it, kept yelling about the bottom line for years on end, and everybody started cutting away waste, ineffective people (the "human furniture") got fired, prestige projects that had no economic value got killed, and they started _shipping_.

I'm sure it's not all been roses and sunshine but last I checked, NXP is a better company than when they were a part of Philips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Would it be possible to add autoscaling RedisGraph and other modules in the affordable part of Redis enterprise? The RSAL license terms prevent anybody from really using the modules and the alternative is thousands of dollars, which is nuts to evaluate early stage software.

I'm not sure why Redis Enterprise needs so many different price levels. If Redis were priced like DynamoDB, there would be much less friction for folks like me to sign up. Right now it's like all the other cloud database companies: want to use our database? Great! Calculate your storage needs in advance and convert that into our measure of choice (different for each provider)

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems a big jump in valuation (1bn) from previous round.

"Redis Labs, the provider of a database management system, has raised USD60 million in Series E funding round to accelerate the delivery of the most efficient database to the world. The funding was led by Francisco Partners, a leading private equity firm. With this funding round, Redis Labs' valuation has now reached USD146 million." - [https://ciotechie.com/news/redis-labs- gets-usd60-million-in-...](https://ciotechie.com/news/redis-labs-gets- usd60-million-in-series-e-funding-round-for-database-platform/)

<comment><USER24> wow 60 at 146 is awful. This company must be almost entirely owned by VC at this point.

<comment><USER25> And by the way it's worded, I assume 146 is post-money.

<comment><USER12> I'm still learning all of these investment terms.

If the 146M is post-money, then they own (60/146M)%? If it's pre-money, (60/(60+146M))%?

<comment><USER16> Yes, that is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> newb here -- why would a developer pay for Redis? i.e. "Redis Enterprise"?

<comment><USER27> Check this out:

[https://redislabs.com/redis- enterprise/advantages/](https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/advantages/)

> Redis Enterprise is a robust in-memory database platform built by the people > who develop open source Redis. It maintains the simplicity and high > performance of Redis, while adding many enterprise-grade capabilities, such > as linear scaling to hundreds of millions of operations per second, Active- > Active geo-replication with local latency, Redis on Flash to tier data > across dynamic and persistent memory and solid-state disk (SSD) to reduce > total cost of ownership, and five-nines (99.999%) uptime based on built-in > durability and single-digit-seconds failover. Redis Enterprise supports many > data modeling methods with modules such as RediSearch, RedisJSON, > RedisGraph, RedisTimeSeries, RedisBloom, and RedisAI, and allows operations > to be executed across and between modules and core Redis functionality using > RedisGears, a serverless engine that runs across shards and nodes of Redis > Enterprise cluster. All this while keeping database latency under one > millisecond, so your application can respond instantaneously. Learn how to > implement the best in-memory database: Redis Enterprise.

<comment><USER28> If an external contributor were to bring such features to the open source redis, would they refuse it?

<comment><USER29> Probably won't be able to refuse it outright. Though It's unlikely that an external contributor would be able to bring these features in easily. Redis Labs has a lot of people working on their enterprise offering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Congrats to the Redis Labs team!

I'm really intrigued by the concept of a multimode database. I'd love to hear from anybody who is doing this in practice. I run a document, sql, and graph db strung together with pub/sub. All in one definitely seems appealing but I'm trying to size up downsides, what migration work would be needed, and what integrations may break (especially SQL).

</comment><comment><USER31> That is a lot of money to raise for an established technology. Sounds like they might be standing up their own cloud?

<comment><USER32> For B2B startups the large amount of capital raised usually goes mostly to sales & marketing. The calculus usually goes something like this:

"I've got an existing product that I know enterprises want to buy. For every $50K I put into consultative sales, I'll sign a client whose LTV is $500K. Therefore, if I raise $100M for 10% of the company, I can hire more salespeople, increase the future earnings of the company by $1B, and hence all our existing shareholders will be better off and so will the new investor." Repeat until the target market is saturated, which for software startups can be a long way off.

This is why SaaS startups usually run at negative profits, even after they go public, and yet the majority of public investors still continually undervalue them (as in their value goes up over time). You have a machine where you put in $X and get back $5-10X over time, but the time period is usually many years. It makes sense to feed the machine with as much $$ as you have, and oftentimes some $$ that you don't have.

<comment><USER33> So a small company making some software is now transformed into another b2b huckster leech on the fat pigs that are the fortune 500 rent seekers?

Ugh, this economy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Happy to see money going where it's deserved.

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems over priced.. A small team can make something similar in a few weeks?

<comment><USER36> This comment is HN distilled.

<comment><USER37> Reminded me of the (in)famous dropbox comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Graphical Analysis for Pivotal Tracker? - <AUTHOR>

I am a freelance contractor who is putting together a proposal for Pivotal Labs to add graphical analysis to Pivotal Tracker. My question for HN is: what new features would you like to see in Pivotal Tracker?
Pivotal Tracker already includes a couple of visual analyses, including the velocity chart, burndown graph, and point breakdown report. Are there any other metrics, or different approaches to those metrics, that you think would be helpful in visual form? On a larger scale, are there different groupings of data that you think would be useful, such as cross-team comparisons, or progress reports for each individual?
Thank you for your responses! <comment><USER2> I like the idea of individual progress reports (my velocity compared to my team's velocity or what share of tickets I close), but my colleagues have argued that programmers would hate the idea of being judged against a personal score in Pivotal.

Another thing to consider would be "participation metrics" - how much people login, comment, file tickets - to encourage people to be active in the app overall.</comment>


Homebrew 1.7.0 - <AUTHOR> https://brew.sh/2018/07/15/homebrew-1.7.0/ <comment><USER2> Congrats to all the maintainers and contributors!

I was unaware that the Mojave headers package is not officially supported, according to this comment from an apparent Apple employee: [https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/4334#issuecomment-4029...](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/4334#issuecomment-402917616) . I'm sure it'll be fine and there will be growing pains as with all OS updates, but hopefully it will be resolved soon!

I'm also excited at how well Linuxbrew is progressing. Recently superenv (Homebrew's build system, which isolates builds from configuration quirks) was upstreamed into the main Homebrew/brew repository. With a bit more work it should be easy to install a common build environment on both Linux and macOS machines from a single codebase. For me personally, I develop on a Mac but run compute jobs on Linux, so having this level of convergence is super useful.</comment>


Covid-19 update and guidance to limit spread - <AUTHOR> https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ <comment><USER2> This graph showing how many days other countries are behind Italy's infection rate is quite alarming [1]. Especially the close alignment of most of the countries.

[1] [https://ibb.co/gZDfgPy](https://ibb.co/gZDfgPy)

Edit: Sorry, I didn't include the original source. I had taken a screenshot and couldn't find the original article. But the original data is from Mark J Handley [2] who is (non-medical) Professor of Networked Systems and part-time Roboticist at UCL. And the article I took the picture from is at [3] (I don't normally read the Daily Mail, I promise).

[2] [https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112](https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112)

[3] [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8095299/Man- under...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8095299/Man-underlying- health-conditions-80s-UKs-SIXTH-coronavirus-death.html)

<comment><USER3> There are still a ton of people who still think that it is just like the flu... Talked to a few people and i basically lost hope that we will handle the right way (until it is too late) i cant wrap my head around it.. Two countries went in lock down... Becuae it is just like the flu? Yeahhhh.... Right.

<comment><USER4> I totally understand the _reaction_ is totally different from the flu.

Here's my question: If we had real-time dashboards and 24/7 news coverage of every flu case, hospitalization, and flu death... would it look much different? I think it would actually look much worse.

<comment><USER5> Well, yes? When was the last time a flu DDoSed medical systems of two countries to the point people are routinely refused treatment and die in the ICU corridors?

<comment><USER4> The WHO estimates that the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" killed ~250,000. [1]

Reported case mortality of H1N1 during the pandemic was similarly upwards of ~5% in some countries, [2] although later retrospective studies found that H1N1 was actually less lethal than a typical flu season (0.01-0.08%). [3]

ICU utilization was very significant in some countries, e.g. 30 people per million admitted to the ICU [4]. (Italy is currently at 14 per million.)

Hospitals definitely had to adopt "surge management" although in 2009 it often had as much to due with managing fear and panic as it did with getting people access to ventilators. [5]

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic)

[2] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_India)

[3] - [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic- resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi...](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic- resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html)

[4] - [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0908481](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0908481)

[5] -[https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/136827-the-next- pandemi...](https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/136827-the-next-pandemic- hospital-management)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's so nice to see someone who has the qualifications explain so clearly why the efforts we're making are important. I live in Seattle and I have a hard time explaining to my mother why me working from home and avoiding public events is important right now. She just keeps stating that everyone is going to get it eventually and it won't matter.

<comment><USER7> I am sure it has crossed many people's minds, but what if I want to get it before the medical systems are taxed? Like get it before the peak. I am sure it's very bad thinking, but what are some solid points against such thinking?

<comment><USER8> If everyone thought like you and tried to get it early, then the hospitals would be overrun and you'd be no better off. Also, it's possible for you to get it again after recovery [1], so it may not even help you at all.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-risk-of- re...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-risk-of- reinfection-2020-2?op=1)

<comment><USER9> > If everyone thought like you and tried to get it early, then the hospitals > would be overrun and you'd be no better off.

If the reality is that only a small fraction of people would think like that, the we don't need to worry about that line of reasoning.

But I agree with your point that it's moot due to the potential for reinfection.

<comment><USER10> The more people that think like that, the more that type of thinking increases. Like panic buying inducing more panic buying. So it might start small, but could easily balloon quite fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Relative to Other Countries, US Labor and Healthcare Policies are a Perfect > Storm for Pandemics

> Zero universal guaranteed paid sick leave [1]

The United States of America in the same list as India, North Korea, South Korea, Somalia, Angola, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau. Some of these countries are poor or low income. The USA isn't one of them though. I'd be ashamed of my country.

In The Netherlands, an entire [large] province (North Brabant) has been ordered to stay home if they have anything resembling illness. People are asked to work from home. Children can't go to school. Still, working from home is better than nothing.

Also, some people are in quarantine. The people who have COVID-19 but otherwise don't have it severe can stay home, in quarantine, instead of in the hospital.

One thing I wish I knew way earlier is that COVID-19 victims rarely suffer from a runny nose. I recently got it from Our World In Data [2], it was linked here on HN. I did not read about this in our local media, sadly.

[1] [https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/policies/for-how-long- are-...](https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/policies/for-how-long-are-workers- guaranteed-paid-sick-leave)

[2] [https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus- Sympt...](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus- Symptoms-%E2%80%93-WHO-joint-mission-1.png)

<comment><USER12> > Zero universal guaranteed paid sick leave

This is a false statement. There are 12 states which require paid sick leave, amounting to 30% of the population [1]. Federal employees are guaranteed paid sick leave days [2]. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 61% of workers have paid sick leave, 78% have paid vacations, (80%/90% in large employers with 500 or more workers) [3].

That whole section is just political garbage. There's plenty of reasons to believe that businesses will take precautions themselves to limit the spread of the virus internally, which includes offering paid sick leave to encourage people to be extra careful.

[1] [https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/paid- sick...](https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/paid-sick- leave.aspx) [2] [https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave- ad...](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave- administration/fact-sheets/sick-leave-general-information/) [3] [https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2009/ownership/private/...](https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2009/ownership/private/table21a.pdf)

<comment><USER13> If I may nitpick your response: the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is from 2009. 2018 data suggests 71% of workers receive paid sick leave. [1]

BUT, the data is highly skewed if you look at income. [also 1] The worst paid workers also have much less paid sick leave. Only 45% of the lowest 25% income group do. According to the BLS there were 130 million workers in 2019, thus leaving roughly 15 million people (130 x 0.25 x 0.45) without paid sick leave and likely without the financial means to go on unpaid sick leave or get medical help (like testing).

Also, the average paid sick leave varies between 6-10 (working) days. Suggested quarantine is 14 days. [2] Only 3% of workers have sick days "as needed". [3] This supports the argument that these circumstances make matters worse. I tend to agree to the general argument.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/higher-wage-workers- more-l...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/higher-wage-workers-more-likely- than-lower-wage-workers-to-have-paid-leave-benefits-in-2018.html)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/private-industry- workers-w...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/private-industry-workers-with- sick-leave-benefits-received-8-days-per-year-at-20-years-of-service.htm)

[3] [https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2019/ownership/civilian...](https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2019/ownership/civilian/table33a.pdf)

<comment><USER14> Does this count people who receive PTO that made be used as paid sick leave? If so, I'm not sure it should be counted.

A person who doesn't have any paid sick leave nor PTO they can use it place of it has to take a sick day doesn't get paid for that day. One way of thinking about it is that they do get paid, but then have to give up pay equal to what they get (and all this is calculated before tax purposes). A person who has to use a PTO day that isn't only for sick leave is giving up something with a near value equal to a day of pay. In most cases, any benefits or the like are not cut for either person, meaning they still receive some level of pay when you look at the averaged out of those benefit values over the day.

This may feel like a needless distinction, but I think it matters because when a person without paid sick leave or PTO is sick they have to weigh staying home against not making money, while a person who doesn't have paid sick leave but is allowed to use PTO has to weigh staying home against losing a day of PTO that they can't use for vacation. A person with true sick leave has no such calculation, sick leave they can only use when they are sick means they aren't giving up anything. Well, there is an argument to be made for the day's worth of experience and other such matters are still loss, which for some positions can be enough to choose to work even when there is paid sick leave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The content is awesome and the site is starting to struggle with the demand. Here's a cache/mirror/archive (ctrl-f) in case it goes down completely: [https://archive.is/Du1G2](https://archive.is/Du1G2)

</comment><comment><USER16> speaking as someone who served in the army national guard, this pandemic isnt nearly as devastating as a natural disaster. So long as there is still clean water, electricity, and communications systems online, you're okay.

A few tips on things that can be stocked (or should be checked) for general disaster preparedness:

0\. bottles of clean water. Old milk jugs of tap h20 will do. 1\. dry goods like beans and rice which are compatible with boil-water advisories. peanut butter is also good.

2\. a fever reducer of some sort. even a few Acetaminophen or aspirin.

3\. Cheap bar soap. dollar store or discount brand. The article is correct in that every emergency needs good hygiene. bar soap can be split up among family members.

if you're handy with technology, you should consider an amateur radio license. [http://www.arrl.org/](http://www.arrl.org/) amateur operators are absolutely appreciated by military and red cross workers as the fastest way to get in touch with affected communities.

<comment><USER17> > dry goods like beans and rice

Rice is relatively quick and easy to boil and cook. However dried beans can take a lot of boiling and soaking to become edible.

I'm not trying to say don't store dried beans, but just be aware of their cooking requirements.

<comment><USER18> Actually most beans don't need to be soaked before cooking.[1] The major exception are kidney beans, which require soaking to neutralize a poison.

[1] [https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/soaking-black-beans- faq....](https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/soaking-black-beans-faq.html)

<comment><USER19> Soaking is not enough to remove phytohaemagglutinin. Phytohaemagglutinin is destroyed by sufficient cooking, which according to the FDA's food safety book[0] means boiling for 30 minutes. Slow cookers do not get hot enough. And it's not just kidney beans; many other beans also contain phytohaemagglutinin, sometimes at dangerous levels.

[0] [https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodborneIllnessContamina...](https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/UCM297627.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a great resource, but I hope that the author sees this comment.

If you want to maximize credibility, remove the line about supporting artists, and anything that can be perceived as political like the line about healthcare.

Artists are a small percentage of people impacted, restaurant workers, nail salons, retail, hotels, airline employees, contractors, massage professionals etc. The list is almost limitless. If you are in another group, you are going to read that line, and think, what about me?

Healthcare is a politically charged issue, right or wrong, listing that here discredits the message for half the readers.

The overall message is important, and I encourage the author to make a few tweaks to get it in front of more people and save lives.

<comment><USER21> Where is the line about artists? When I searched via ctrl-F, I couldn't find it. Is it embedded in one of the images? Or has it already been removed?

<comment><USER22> I think he is referencing this line in particular.

"Live performers are going to be hard hit economically. Consider supporting their work on Patreon, directly via PayPal, or attend only the smaller shows. Promote them on social media. Buy their work directly."

I do not really agree with removing this line, as it is good advice. I wouldn't be against expanding the content to include other professions, although the single-payer advocacy kind of does that for some of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A whooping 430 points, posted 3 hours ago, overall favorable comments. I am very confused as to how or why this slipped to page 3 already.

<comment><USER24> It's being flagged by users, and also downweighted by mods. HN has had a ton of these threads already, and there are other covid-19-related posts on the front page.

Take a look at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527396) for a fuller explanation, and if there's still something I haven't answered, let me know.

<comment><USER23> Fair enough! Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22535650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22535650)

 _Editing in response to the comments below ..._

This submission is of a different resource. This resource goes into more detail about lots of things. However, the "Flatten the Curve" idea had already been submitted in the referenced submission above. It was less complete, but had already sparked a large discussion.

So should the resulting discussion be started all over again here on this, more complete submission? Or should the discussion remain in one primary location to avoid repetition and to gather the insights, thoughts, rebuttals _etc_ in one place?

Who knows ... I provided the cross-reference to allow the decision to be made. This submission has now hit the top spot on the front page and is spawning a conversation. So the decision is made, and the cross-reference has been rendered moot.

 _Further edit ..._

I think it unreasonable that the people who responded to me should be downvoted, and I've upvoted them in an attempt to balance that. I think the comments are fair and reasonable, and belong in the discussion.

<comment><USER26> That discussion revolves around a wholly different resource.

<comment><USER25> Except that the discussion is common ... it's all about the concept of flattening the curve to reduce the peak and thereby not exceed the capacity of the health service.

It's the same data, it's the same idea, it's the same argument, but from a different source.

It's also all now all over the place ... I could find 8 or 10 different sites to submit, all with the same message. Is it useful then to have 8 or 10 discussion on HN all hacking over the same ground, all making the same points, all having the same "insights" and disagreements?

I think not, and that's why I linked this submission to the existing discussion.

<comment><USER26> I don't think you've looked at the linked page in this case. It's not what you think it is, and the difference in the two discussions also reflects that.

<comment><USER25> Now moot ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why put the goal at flattening, instead of just killing it completely? If you observably flatten the curve, you're already almost all of the way to get R_0 to below 1. Why not just go all the way? The Chinese seem to have managed it, why aim at anything less?

<comment><USER28> Because, between the lines, the level of top down, military like action and trampling of civil rights that is possible in China is likely not possible here without sparking a civil war - making the whole situation worse.

<comment><USER29> It would cause disorganized resistance and economic breakdown, but not civil war, tbh.

<comment><USER30> >disorganized resistance and economic breakdown

Even worse, imagine all the thing we have to do to get back to our baseline economy. A civil war would be very quick

<comment><USER29> Well I'm just talking a few Waco Texas, nothing too apocalyptic on the insurrectionary front. If the government learned how to stimulate the economy for real, and starting doing some all the deferred infrastructure work, I'm sure it could lift us out of the economic woes the quarantine created. It would would just take some time to figure it out, the US governments are all brawn no brains right now, but things ran decently well in WWII so we'd get there after a while.

I'm not saying this is good, I'm saying if you don't like a huge state intervention, don't pat yourself on the back saying it would go miserably enough to make the government change its mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Part of the problem is that too many people look at the current state of their communities and conclude everything is all right.

What they're failing to consider is that Wuhan, Italy, New York, Seattle, and San Jose are not anomalies. If your community has no reported infections, _it 's_ rapidly becoming the anomaly.

Consider those places you keep hearing about as a glimpse into the future - your future. Then take steps to do what you can as an individual to prevent that from happening.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone of the time series by country? The United States just reaches 800 tested infections. I think we had 88 on March 1.

Would like to see how fast the recent numbers are growing.

<comment><USER33> worldometers has more complete info but here is an interesting chart I've also been tracking that compares the exponential growth of several countries after they reached 100 cases [https://studylib.net/coronavirus- growth](https://studylib.net/coronavirus-growth)

Despite the differences in start times, the similarities in the curves are remarkable - although so are the deviations. I've basically been watching the US follow the same path as a few European countries, just on a lag of a few days.

<comment><USER34> I'm curious -- are there things that Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong doing that we should all copy? Their trajectory looks pretty different from that of other countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I like the rational way it was presented. I'm going to unilaterally declare a WFH period starting tomorrow. My tiny contribution.

</comment><comment><USER36> Interesting that the advice here - masks not helpful - is almost totally and directly contradicted by the advice in all infectious disease transmission training, most other countries that have flattened the curve by dramatically increasing supply and distribution with mandated mask wearing, making them available at the post office etc.

The odd image of folks wearing masks saying masks don't help is not lost on most americans.

Here's a different doctors advice on masks:

The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth. Use disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask is just to prevent hand to mouth contact, it will not avoid the sneeze part of things.

Masks are a low cost, non-hospital, low side effect, low economic impact intervention. Even if only minimally effective there are very few downsides to mask usage for an individual.

I've come to think that the re-assurance that this virus is "fully contained" \- see Kudlow, that masks don't help (see this and others) will come back as some pretty bad advice later on. We'll see I guess.

<comment><USER37> Who is saying masks are not helpful?

The closest thing the article says is that you should not hoard masks, that their usefulness is against airborne particles is limited to 30 min and that masks can make some people touch their face more.

<comment><USER36> "Masks are NOT the most useful thing you can do to protect yourself: they're hard to wear properly, especially for long periods of time, and their effectiveness against viral particles stops as the filter gets moist with your breathing. Also for some people, wearing a mask makes it more likely that they will touch their face."

Reality - masks are a valid, additional step. And given all the other crazy, high cost, high impact steps being taken to "flatten the curve" a low cost low impact step like mask wearing should be on the recommendations list.

Even kids (ultra low risk) in shanghai are wearing masks in the playgrounds. And here we have older adults squeezed onto mass transit and are telling them all the reasons why masks may not help.

To flatten the curve all low cost low impact steps should be taken.

<comment><USER38> In Asia it is common to wear masks for air pollution reasons. It might or might not help with a virus, but you can't cite kids in Shanghai unless you can show there is an increase.

<comment><USER36> I was basing this off first person accounts from ex-pats in asia - the big message was that masks are now worn both as a courtesy to others and in some cases are required and kids don't like to wear masks - which makes it tricky when they are mandated. I can't find the blog though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Has someone with industrial strength hosting made sure this page is going to stay up, and/or created static mirrors?

</comment><comment><USER40> There's a Symptoms graphic on that site attributed to the WHO. For sneezing and Coronavirus it says 'no'.

Can the author of the website or someone else please provide a hyperlink to the original source of that graphic, so its authenticity can be validated.

</comment><comment><USER30> Here where I lived they canceled schools for 2 weeks and all sport events.

</comment><comment><USER41> Good resource, although a bit America-centric

</comment><comment><USER42> As I suggested on another thread (and received some flak for it), it would be really interesting to see some math and/or a simulation to compare these two scenarios. In reality, closer to 30% than 100% of the world population will end up being infected by a disease like this (look at Spanish flu or Swine flu for reference [0]), and the total number of infected is probably different between the two curves.

Consider a hypothetical scenario: authorities encourage young and healthy people to go out and about their daily lives and get sick, and they institute a voluntary quarantine for people who would be considered highly at risk. Would more or fewer "at-risk" people become infected?

These are some other factors to consider:

\- Could a short term quarantine for at-risk groups (shorter because the faster general infection rate would result in faster herd immunity) be more effective? Do quarantines and social distancing measures suffer from "quarantine fatigue"?

\- What are the comparative mortality rates between people with medical care and those without it? (i.e. those in an overwhelmed system due to the fast spreading scenario)

\- Does recovering from the illness result in strong immunity?

\- What are the comparative costs of quarantines to society and economy at large?

\- At what point is a vaccine or treatment likely to be widely available (if it is soon, then the slower spread is obviously crucial).

I suspect the answer is very nuanced. If I get some time, I will put together a simulation and try my hand at the math, but I am curious if anyone has already considered and compared these factors quantitatively.

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

<comment><USER30> >At what point is a vaccine or treatment likely to be widely available Just like it said in the article, 12-24 if we are lucky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > 22.214.171.124 DO NOT BE RACIST

I long for the day that concern trolling and virtue signalling are not included in otherwise helpful resources like this one.

<comment><USER44> +1. The absence of racism will not improve the outcome of this virus in any way whatsoever. This is just the author trying to masquerade her opinion as science.

"Do not be careless" and "do not binge the news" are equally useless pieces of advice.

<comment><USER45> "do not binge the news" is excellent advice. The only possible improvement would be to substitute "watch" for "binge".

<comment><USER46> > The only possible improvement would be to substitute "watch" for "binge".

Unless you're taking a stand strictly against 24 hours cable news, you still need to be informed, and that'll involve viewing some form of news.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Judge Blocks Deep Water Drilling Moratorium - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/us/23drill.html

<comment><USER2> Here's what a law professor considers to be the key finding in the decision ([http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/06/gulf-oil- spill...](http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill- moratorium-decision.html)):

" _Much to the government's discomfort and this Court's uneasiness, the Summary also states that "the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a "misrepresentation." It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they "do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium" on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them._ "

Judges don't tend to view blatant lies with favor.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the judge:

 _He wrote that "the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger."_

Personally, if I have a component fail violently and no explanation why, then I tend to err on the side of caution until I have some answers.. but that's just me. I'm sure this judge knows what he's doing.

<comment><USER2> For an evenhanded report on the decision including a link to the actual decision, try The Volokh Conspiracy: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889>

Here's the words that are wrapped about the about incendiary NYT quote:

" _The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm. While the implementation of regulations and a new culture of safety are supportable by the Report and the documents presented, the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.

On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium._

As a matter of law, I suspect the judge does know what he's doing. And we are, or at least aspire to be, a nation that lives under the rule of law, not men.

Also, as he notes: "no one yet fully knows why", which is very different from "no explanation why". We know _quite_ a bit about how this happened, probably enough to prevent it from happening again with the current state of the art.

BP wasn't following industry best practices, wasn't listening to its subcontractor, saw a bunch of large red flags as previously noted in in submissions to HN, etc. etc. Prior to the inevitable new regulations, we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon.

After all, the last one was 30 years ago (Ixtoc I); the real danger will be when people become complacent again.

<comment><AUTHOR> The extra words don't change what he's saying at all, or make it particularly less incendiary.

Yeah, it was a tragedy, I love puppies, blah blah, but here's what I'm saying: "Even though this blew up and nobody knows why, and even though this was allegedly safe under the previous inspection regime, I see no reason to stop drilling for 6 months while we figure what went wrong."

The preamble doesn't change anything.

<comment><USER2> Well, read the rest and see what it says.

NOTE: jbooth probably wrote his "nobody knows why" while I was adding to my initial draft of my posting that we actually do know a lot of why it happened.

<comment><AUTHOR> I skimmed the rest of the excerpt on Volokh.

It seems like this judge is playing politics. He's not an engineer. He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality. And yeah, the report the administration sent to him sounds sloppy -- that's _more_ of a reason to be cautious for a few months while they get their house in order.

"You must prove imminent danger beyond a reasonable doubt before I let you take cautionary measures" is a sort of ridiculous position to take.

EDIT: Regarding your addendum to your previous comment: _"we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon."_ \-- I see absolutely _no_ reason to assume this to be the case. Do you see them voluntarily stopping drilling and auditing all of their processes to make sure they're ok? Probably not, right? So stuff's gonna continue the same as before.

<comment><USER2> " _He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality._ "

Not exactly. As a court of first instance (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_courts>) " _[...] evidence and testimony are admitted under the rules of evidence established by applicable procedural law and determinations called_ findings of fact _are made based on the evidence. The court, presided over by one or more judges, makes_ findings of law _based upon the applicable law._ "

Also note that the domain of the ruling is not the engineering per se but how the executive came to its moratorium decision.

In the case of a preliminary injunction he's supposed to assume that all the questions of facts go in the favor of the defendant (the government) and to then decide if as a matter of law the plaintiff would likely win anyway. Hence the closing paragraph I included above.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>