Favstar will shut down as a result of Twitter's API changes for data streams - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/14/favstar-twitter/ <comment><USER2> I have no clue why you'd build an app on Twitter's API anymore. I get it from their perspective (they want to control the ecosystem completely), however they've made it clear they don't care about anyone developing on them. Which is sad, since they only exist thanks to their early community of developers.

I can't believe they killed off their MacOS Twitter app, told people to use third-party apps, and now are effectively killing them off too.

(All this being said... Twitter is ripe for abuse, and locking down their API is probably one of the best ways to fix this)

<comment><USER3> They killed off the Windows Twitter app a few weeks ago too, replaced it with an iFrame to www.twitter.com

I really don't understand why a social media site so large and influential is spending so little on their own product. Twitter won't let anyone develop any clients, but Twitter itself won't develop any clients either. Twitter acts like they wished no one would log in at all, they act like they're just waiting to be acquired and shut down.

<comment><USER4> And they have over 3000 employees. It's quite a mystery to me what all those people could possibly be doing.

<comment><USER5> Making more buttons into the retweet button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I deleted my twitter account a while ago but this is a new level of forgetting history. If I remember correctly Twitterrific/Iconfactory were the first folks to actually use the verb 'tweet', and absolutely provided the first iteration of the interface to twitter that we all expect today. It took acquiring Tweetie, which literally invented 'pull to refresh', before they had their own native app 3 years after Twitterrific had been released.

Twitter's success is directly attributable to a fantastic native app ecosystem on mobile platforms. If there's a lesson to be learned here, I guess it's "don't make apps for platforms you don't control because they'll drop you like it's hot the moment investors want an exit"...

As an aside, Tweetie/Twitter for iPad's column based interface was one of the absolute best interfaces I'd ever seen and used on a tablet, and one I have yet to see reimplemented in a use-friendly way to this day.

<comment><USER7> You're absolutely correct re: the history. Twitterrific not only came up with the word "tweet," they were the first one with a blue bird logo!

Twitter basically encouraged a third-party ecosystem to blossom, then decided that rather than finding ways to monetize that ecosystem, they should start slowly strangling it to death. I can't imagine that this is happening because investors are insisting on it; yes, they want a positive return on their investment, but who's really saying, "If only you guys knife Tweetbot, the stock price will double!"? There's a very small minority of users who use third-party clients, but those users are disproportionately the highly engaged "super tweeters," if you will. Is supporting them -- ideally better than they do now -- really so expensive that it's easier to just kill them? And if the answer is yes, is it really better to keep pretending that you're _not_ doing that, and instead just make the experience of third-party developers _and dedicated Twitter users_ steadily worse over time?

<comment><USER8> They faced the prospect of aggregation of the clients via takeovers, this would have allowed the owner of the majority of the clients to change out the platform. I had a conversation with a private equity guy in 2009 who wanted to do this, what stopped them was the idea that twitter would ratelimit and control the interface. So there was a pretty rational fear driving Twitter to do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just find it strange how developer-hostile twitter is, considering the community it once fostered.

If you want to move with your feet, Mastodon [1] is rapidly growing in popularity, and it's completely open source [2].

Disclaimer: I used to run a mastodon instance, now I run a pleroma [3] instance to save on memory/cpu usage. Feel free to ask me any questions.

[1]: [https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/)

[2]: [https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon](https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon)

[3]: [https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma](https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma)

<comment><USER10> I've been meaning to start my own Pleroma instance due do the excessive hardware requirements of the Mastodon client. How would you compare the two projects since you've used both?

<comment><USER9> So currently, choosing Mastodon vs Pleroma boils down to what you care more about: performance/less complexity, or more features/maturity.

Mastodon is really nice, but it's fairly intensive. Precompiling the rails/webpack assets in particular made my tiny VPS choke, even with 4GB of memory I believe. It also requires Sidekiq and other services [1].

Pleroma is newer and written in Elixir/Phoenix purely as an API. It only has itself as a dependency, and it's lean enough to run on a Raspberry Pi. It offers two frontends, pleroma-fe and mastofe, the latter is a port of Mastodon's UX.

\---

Features wise, Pleroma doesn't really have a lot beyond the basic functionality of subscribing to people, posting, etc. There aren't real moderation tools (yet), since it's mostly a weekend project for the core devs. Blocking instances requires an IP block still, I think.

Mastodon wins features-wise, hands down. But some things aren't really easy to reconfigure- since the frontend is baked in, changing things like the post character limit (500 chars) is tedious. In pleroma it's a simple config file change.

\---

I like Pleroma personally but it's not for everyone (yet). I plan on contributing more soon to help change that.

I also was only running single user instances so I can't really discuss scaling. @email@example.com [2] would be better to ask about that, considering their instance has ~3k users [3].

[1]: [https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Runni...](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Running- Mastodon/Production-guide.md)

[2]: [https://niu.moe/@Technowix](https://niu.moe/@Technowix)

[3]: [https://niu.moe/about/more](https://niu.moe/about/more)

<comment><USER11> I've only heard of Mastodon. Is Pleroma a Mastodon server, or its own thing? (Searching for Pleroma does nothing but result in Greek Mythology hits).

<comment><USER9> You can see it on their gitlab instance. [1]

Mastodon and Pleroma are both part of the Fediverse [2]. They work with any software that works with OStatus and the newer ActivityPub. This includes things like GNUSocial, etc.

Mastodon doesn't explain any of this well, or at all, to my dismay. (As far as I'm aware, on the joinmastodon page).

[1]: [https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma](https://git.pleroma.social/pleroma/pleroma)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More from Apps of a Feather:

1) Push notifications will no longer arrive

2) Timelines won't refresh automatically

If you use an app like Talon, Tweetbot, Tweetings, or Twitterrific, there is no way for its developer to fix these issues.

[http://apps-of-a-feather.com/](http://apps-of-a-feather.com/)

<comment><USER12> So tweetbot is dead then?

Why can't twitter make a decent app on it's own? This shouldn't be complicated...

<comment><USER13> *its

They don't want to make a decent app. They've bought great apps and shuttered them. They want you to use the web client.

<comment><USER14> > They want you to use the web client.

I use the web app version exclusively -- based on that I don't agree.

Both the Twitter and Facebook Android/iOS web applications constantly push you to download the native client. They even get demanding sometimes. They want to be able to send you push notifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bye Favstar. I followed you for years. They shut down my [https://2fb.me](https://2fb.me) app so many times, I no longer keep track of how bad they f'd it up. The latest blow was to my @shareU account. Yes, about 3 months ago I owned twitter.com/shareu and it was alive and sharing people's tweets to Facebook. Many people loved it, and it was a great promotional tool. All it's following was 100% organic, and it followed no other users. 17% of it's followers were from verified accounts, yet it was shut down for doing what it was set out to do, share tweets to Facebook.

but the original "like" on Twitter is back, [http://2fb.me](http://2fb.me) for the time being, let's see how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand what Twitter is doing, I think they arguably have one of the most valuable social tools on the planet in terms of real time information and news, more than Facebook, more than Google...but they don't seem to understand what they have, how useful it can be in rich API forms, etc. It's baffling. They are hostile to their developers and to their userbase all in some weird chase to be Facebook. The one and only good move Twitter has made recently is teaming up with Bloomberg...but even that has been a botched a bit.

IMO Jack has to go, he seems to understand Square, but he seems very very out of touch with Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER17> I started to use third-party twitter clients exclusively because of the annoying timeline manipulation. Now this. Is there any other way around other than quitting twitter ?

<comment> eigen-vector Tweetdeck.

<comment><USER18> Tweetdeck isn't third party

<comment><USER19> It does however avoid screwing with the timeline order, and I find the column layout very convenient in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They should have waited a little more before shutting down on June 19th. Twitter announced they will postpone the death of real time streams after Tweetbot and some other apps complained about it weeks ago. It was told on the Twitter API account.

</comment><comment><USER21> All these years and I haven't grasped what favstar is for. The article also really doesn't clear it up. I only see it congratulating people on milestones of 500/1000/etc. Favs.

</comment><comment><USER22> Once again, proving that building a business dependent on other business is a bad long-term idea. I say long-term because Favstar had a good run.

But every app company loses out.

</comment><comment><USER23> Favstar was useful back in the day when you didn't get notifications about favs, etc. Not so much anymore. I also used it to read the most liked tweets of certain users, but these greedy fucks want you to pay to read the top one (which you can bypass with Inspect Element) and to read more than the top 10 or so. So, good riddance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not associated with Favstar. But, if you want to call names for someone who wants to make a living on the product they built, then you have a wrong understanding of software.</comment></comment>


Upgrade Your Memory with a Surgically Implanted Chip - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-10/upgrade-your-memory-with-a-surgically-implanted-chip <comment><USER2> "If brain activity is suboptimal, the device provides a small zap, undetectable to the patient, to strengthen the signal and increase the chance of memory formation."

I always wonder if things like this are worded like so for the layperson to understand? Because to me it sounds like an incredibly crude and hackish way to do anything. "Yeah, just shock the brain and it forms better memories! We're not entirely sure how or why, or what the implications are, but it seems to work for some reason!"

<comment><USER3> You'd be surprised but that's how a lot of medicine works. Your common paracetamol (Panadol) has a mechanism of action that is "not completely understood". We've come a long way in the past 100 years but certain areas are still pretty much trial and error.

<comment><USER4> So much of medicine is like this. My in-laws are doctors and so many of their diagnoses eventually end up as "we have no idea what's happening, but these steroids should help. Why, we have no clue."

<comment><USER5> And yet doctors reject all manner of so-called "alternative" therapies on the grounds that they have no plausible mechanism of action.

A family member of mine had a somewhat-debilitating chronic condition in high school, which only got better with a combination of what today are garden- variety alternative therapies (acupuncture, elimination diet, et al). Today, as a doctor, pooh-poohs a lot of that stuff. It's confusing and disappointing to see.

<comment><USER6> As a doctor, they may have a better understanding of placebos and statistics.

<comment><USER7> You'd be surprised at the lack of statistical knowledge most doctors have.

<comment><USER8> This seems an offtopic generalisation and looks unhelpful to me in this context.

I'd like it more if it linked to a study. Or if it had more details, preferably addressing placebos too.

<comment><USER9> It seems that way, but it's not.

[https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9078698](https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9078698)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28166019](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28166019)

There is a depressing amount of evidence that doctors don't have a basic level of statistical literacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> " He was the first person the Finn had known who'd `gone silicon' -the phrase had an old-fashioned ring for Case -and the microsofts he purchased were art history programs and tables of gallery sales." \- not quite the same thing but we are on the way there.

</comment><comment><USER11> No, of course it isn't biased towards certain brands, or censor certain criticism.

As a happy recipient of the device, I don't know how you could even think such as thing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Someday a method/implant will be invented to trigger the orgasmic response in the brain. Will be interesting to see how humanity handles that drug.

Reminds me of Star Trek DS9, where the Cardassian tailor had the brain implant to make him resistant to torture. He had turned it on, and left it on for 20 years, then it failed.

<comment><USER13> This following is completely unfounded, but I think that it would become a stigma to those who got it.

We are all driven by chemicals and everyone has their own preference on how to release dopamine and any other chemicals, be it exercise, drugs, alcohol, anything you can imagine. Getting a button to trigger such a strong response would mean a certain division in society, those who seek pleasure the new way or those who want to keep with the traditional way.

Overall I think that facilitating this would give people a huge (maybe too big) escape from reality and would certainly be abused.

Robin Cook had a plot about this (triggering orgasm-like responses on brains) many years ago in his book Brain:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/529804.Brain](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/529804.Brain)

<comment> Funes- >Getting a button to trigger such a strong response would mean a certain division in society, those who seek pleasure the new way or those who want to keep with the traditional way.

Isn't this already happening to a certain extent--and progressively getting worse? I think there's an ever-increasing chasm between people who occupy their leisure time with digital entertainment engineered to be an easy--and highly addictive--dopamine fix, and people who try to enjoy more mindful activities. The latter option is, of course, incomparably harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In two separate studies, researchers found the prototype consistently > boosted memory 15% to 18%.

No mention of controls or error bars. Until then, this is all placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was kind of hoping for a chip that interfaces with the brain. Stores data digitally and responds to brain's request for information. But that's probably the wrong way of thinking about it on multiple levels.

As someone with no knowledge of how this stuff works, I like to imagine that when you try to remember something, your brain sends signals the same connections that were formed when you last saw that thing. It then activates your visual cortex, your auditory cortex and language centers. So you visualize it, see the word, and hear it in your brain, then suddenly you feel as if you know the answer to the thing you were trying to remember.

<comment><USER16> [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160517131928.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160517131928.htm)

It's thought of as occurring just as you described, but it's very difficult to prove it even in rodent models.

Also, humans are wildly diverse. Some people have aphantasia, where they cannot 'image' things in their heads. Invariably when you bring this up on HN, you get a lot of people saying they cannot believe this and a lot of people saying that this is their normal reality. Similar to discussions on synestensia (hearing colors, tasting names, other 'mix ups') and if you stand or sit when you wipe in the bathroom.

[https://www.iflscience.com/brain/cant-imagine-pictures- your-...](https://www.iflscience.com/brain/cant-imagine-pictures-your-mind- you-might-have-aphantasia/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if rare circumstances like taking hallucinogens or being in the middle of a Carrington event have been considered...

</comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12678461-amped](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12678461-amped)

This is a great romp, good for your next flight or downtime.

The premise is what happens to society when augmented people start to matter.

</comment><comment><USER19> >"I don't think any of us are going to be signing up for voluntary brain surgery anytime soon," Sanchez says. "Only when these technologies become less invasive, or noninvasive, will they become widespread."

Are you kidding? 15-37% improvement in memory formation/recall? Where do I sign?

<comment><USER20> The surgery needed to install the chip is itself detrimental to your IQ. The brain was not made to be exposed to air. You don't get your skull opened up unless there's no other option — these are patients who were already forced into this circumstance.

<comment><USER21> Could you not e.g. operate in an artificial vacuum using oxygen masks? If open skull surgery is so detrimental to IQ, why is this not done? I understand there's a cost factor but given the scale of medical expenses, it seems within the realm of possibility?

<comment><USER22> Because brain and other body tissues normally have internal pressure of 1 atmosphere, so if you put it into vacuum, it will explode and blood and other liquids will boil.

<comment><USER23> Could use argon in a vat shaped system and continuously push in more to wash out any oxygen following the tools. Could probably be done with very little oxygen touching the brain if we really want to build the tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any idea why the max in the graph is at 350? It looks like the data only reaches a maximum value 150...

</comment><comment><USER25> > get your competitive advantage now! Get your chip now!

<comment><USER26> i like the idea of artificially enhanced humans (including implanted hardware) but I don't really want to be the guinea pig for this kind if thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is like a precursor to Elon Musk's Neuralink idea.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)

<comment><USER28> Please stop ascribing old SF literature ideas to the first billionaire who passes along, promising to make them true.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. The term 'neural lace' was coined by Ian M. Banks (as far as I know) but the concept of an implanted brain-computer interface which can augment brain function is decades old.

<comment><USER30> Musk reportedly got the idea from the Banks novels: [https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/the-daily/the- novelist-...](https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/the-daily/the-novelist-who- inspired-elon-musk)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tim Bray: Serverless Latency? - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2018/12/14/SF-4 <comment><USER2> (1) For some applications it is all about the "cold start" latency. I am building up a "smart home" system and that involves the system doing quite a bit a work ahead of time so that you don't wait 0.4 seconds for a list of albums in your music system to display the first page, or for weather radar to load, etc.

(2) There is a way to eliminate 20 sec waits at P100 and that is to say that you are going to abort at 1 second, not start requests which are obviously going to take >1 second, etc. This is a "path not taken" because most people would rather deal with the long waits rather than the fails, but serving one of those 20 sec requests can sometimes mean 100 other requests are late.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> But my personal favorite choice for serverless compute is the Go programming language. It's got great, clean, fast, tooling, it produces static binaries, it's got superb concurrency primitives that make it easy to avoid the kind of race conditions that plague anyone who goes near java.lang.Thread, and finally, it is exceedingly readable, a criterion that weighs more heavily with me as each year passes. Plus the Go Lambda runtime is freaking excellent.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How to talk about it · To start with, don't just say "I need 120ms." Try something more like "This has to be in Python, the data's in Cassandra, and I need the P50 down under a fifth of a second, except I can tolerate 5-second latency if it doesn't happen more than once an hour." And in most mainstream applications, you should be able to get there with serverless. If you plan for it.</comment>


And then there's Haskell... - <AUTHOR> http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20070219/044101.html

<comment><USER2> I'm a pretty big sucker for these kinds of analogies.

I've used one like this for Perl:

"Perl is kinda like that cute girl you dated back in high school. You had an amicable breakup when you went off to college, and you're happy to hear that she's doing well every once in a while, but you're really just on to bigger and better things. Not that there's anything wrong with her, you've just grown apart."

<comment><USER3> Actually Perl is more like the crazy cute you wonna slap yourself on the face for ever letting her go!

The madness was too much, and you wanted sanity, but now that you know better, you know that the madness is the only thing that could save your spirit today! But its too late and you are so sane!

You are happy to hear that she is doing well, but the better truth is, your are happy to know that you could have been happier! It gives you hope that maybe you still can do better!

<comment><USER2> I'd agree with you in full, except for the fact that I just moved on to the Japanese version. She's still totally into that whole "I'll do whatever you want" thing, but she's even better looking. Hubba hubba.

Okay, maybe this analogy is stretching a bit...</comment></comment></comment>


Experiments with Matrix for the Purism Librem5, Starring Ubports and Nheko - <AUTHOR> https://matrix.org/blog/2017/09/28/experiments-with-matrix-on-the-purism-librem5-starring-ubports-and-nheko/ <comment><USER2> Congrats to the Matrix team (mostly Matthew/Arathorn?) for this! This is a really cool proof of concept for making a native mobile client for Linux. One question, though: my understanding was that some of the work needed to use megolm/olm correctly and securely was in matrix-js-sdk (unless I read the audit wrong). That said, how much work would need to be done to current Qt/GTK SDKs to replicate this (I assume it's mostly key management stuff), and how would the team keep this in sync with any changes made to the JS SDK in the future? Alternatively, am I misunderstanding something fundamental?

I've already backed Purism's Librem 5 campaign, and I think everyone else should too, if they care about a fully free handset. It can be found at [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/) if you were looking for it.

<comment><USER3> At the moment about 60% of the code required to do e2e encryption is in the main SDK layer (as it has to hook into all of the Matrix API stuff, client UI/UX and local storage), and 40% in libolm. This isn't great as it makes porting the app code between platforms more work than it could be and risks bugs - but we have already ported it to ios and android, and kitsune is working at porting to libqmatrixclient and penguin42 is porting it to glib for use in libpurple. In future we'll try to push more of this down into crossplatform library on top of libolm (libolmmatrix?) which can then have a slightly hairy API to call back to the main SDK to do HTTP and storage operations etc - but for now we're trying to get it out of beta in the current architecture before we then go and refactor it all.

So: in an practice a native Librem client would use libqmatrixclient or something similar, with the application layer E2E functionality handled by that library - but in future that could be factored out to simplify life for everyone.

Another approach could be to use a sidecar process to proxy the traffic and offload all the E2E stuff (which we need for a shim for simple clients anyway - even curl etc). But nobody has yet stepped up to build this, plus integrating with UI is a bit of a pain (local popup notifs + local web interfade for key management?). It would be a superfun project for someone wanting to play with E2E though!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the response. Seems like there's a lot of work to be done on refactoring, but I can appreciate that E2E stuff is still in beta.

As for that last remark, perhaps it's a good GSoC proposal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Too bad that the Purism Libre5 won't qualify for FSF's RYF¹ certification². I'm sorry, I really don't mean to come off as snarkily dismissive as this might appear. Let me try again.

This project certainly seems to _try_ to do their very best, and what they have achieved might be all that's possible to achieve at the present time. I just wanted to, as politely as I might, note that there _are_ those of us for this is a dealbreaker, and that we will rather go without than get the current good-enough product. (If there were none of us, there would be no commercial incentive for any company to keep improving in the right direction.)

I really don't mean to dismiss anyone's effort; honestly.

1\. [https://www.fsf.org/ryf](https://www.fsf.org/ryf)

2\. [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

<comment><USER5> Considering how they phrased it and the fact that no phone has the FSF's RYF certification I would tend to think it's because it's currently impossible.

That they took the time to add a note about RYF certification and that they will continue to keep the FSF up to date on this shows that they do care about this. I honestly don't think there's any more you could ask of them.

<comment><USER4> > _it 's currently impossible._ […] _I honestly don 't think there's any more > you could ask of them._

I don't dispute that. I have no ill will towards them. I just, you know, won't actually be buying the phone until one exists which _is_ RYF-certified. I just felt it important that someone pointed this out – while surely their _effort_ towards RYF compliance counts for much, it won't get me all the way towards actually buying it. I'll wish them all the luck in actually achieving it, but I (at least) won't be buying anything until they actually _get there_.

<comment><USER5> I suppose I can understand this reasoning a bit, but it seems a little counter intuitive to me. There is literally no alternative. And without efforts like this it's unlikely there would ever be something that is RYF compliant. Accomplishing something like RYF certification requires work, money, and someone willing to try to accomplish it. There is someone that is willing to invest work to at least attempt to accomplish it, but they need money. Why not support them in their quest for this?

<comment><USER4> Suppose that I'm a vegetarian, but I really like sausage (maybe I acquired the taste before becoming vegetarian), but there are, for some reason, no makers of vegetarian sausages. Should I then accept whatever sausage _is_ available which has the least amount of meat in it? Of course not; I'll simply go without sausage.

Even if a sausage maker came along and tried to attract the vegetarian buyers with a new kind of sausage which had no meat in it, just a little bit of gelatin in it. They say they can't currently make vegetarian sausage without any gelatin in it, but they're working on it. Should I "support" them and buy the sausage with gelatin in it anyway? Of course not; I'm a _vegetarian_ ; gelatin means it's off the table.

(I'm not necessarily really a vegetarian, of course; it's just an analogy.)

<comment><USER5> I don't think that analogy is a fair comparison to make because it doesn't fairly portray that Purism doesn't have a choice in this. It is the upstream manufacturers who control this area, and they will have no reason at all to make something which is RYF approved unless someone big enough is pushing for it.

So to make this comparison more apt, it's more like a sausage maker who is focused on making vegetarian sausage. Now, it just so happens that they'd also _love_ to make these sausages vegan sausages, but the suppliers of the contents of the sausage just don't make a "meat" which is vegan because literally no one with any power has asked for it before. If no one buys their sausages there is literally no chance of a vegan sausage being produced because there is just no reason for it.

Even that isn't really an apt comparison because it doesn't correctly portray the ubiquity of cell phones. I guess instead of a sausage maker it would be something more like "a producer of food", where there is literally no vegan food anywhere. So what I don't understand in all this is why someone who wants an RYF certified cell phone would choose not to support the one group even attempting such a thing. You don't even need to eat the sausage or use the phone in this case either, they just need the support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really hope the Librem 5 meets its target (I'm a backer). I'd also hope that the fundraising deadline could be extended if it only needs a few more days to complete. Having a FLOSS phone platform, especially with a strong communication platform like Matrix at its core, is something that should ultimately do a lot of good for the continued growth of open source/free software.

<comment><USER7> if they keep going at their current pace they will most likely make it.

<comment><USER6> $821,660 / 35 days = $23,476 a day (on average)

$23,476 * 25 days = $586,900

$821,660 + $586,900 = $1,408,560

Fundraising campaigns are rarely linear and often see an upsurge at the end, but it's still clear that the fundraising trajectory is slightly behind the $1,500,000 target at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's awesome to see they are so gung ho to get work started. Here's hoping the librem gets funded and things get on track on the hardware side.

</comment><comment><USER9> > TL;DR: If you love FOSS-friendly hardware and if you love Matrix, please > preorder a Purism Librem5 Matrix-native smartphone, so we can fully bring > native Matrix communication to both phones and desktop!

Something about this header rubs me the wrong way. This is not "hey, throw us 10 bucks because $reason" (The Librem 5 seems to be 599$ and it's not from a company I moderately trust to ship a good product, on time)

Call me cheap, but I've never bought a smart phone for more than 300 EUR, and they've all worked fine at the time (HTC Click, HTC Vision, (ok, the Kingzone wasn't great) and Nexus 5X (still 100% fine with it, right now).

</comment><comment><USER10> I am very excited for this. I will buy a free software phone with Matrix as a first-class citizen in a heartbeat. Matrix and Purism seem to be putting a lot of effort into paving the way for truly free phones.

</comment><comment><USER3> (author here: i'm waiting for someone to tell me how installing qt5.9 on ubports is actually a oneliner if you know what you're doing... :D)

<comment><AUTHOR> installing qt5.9 on ubports is actually a oneliner if you know what you're doing

<comment><USER3> :D</comment></comment></comment>


OpenSSH (5.2 and below) zero day exploit being released to Full-Disclosure - <AUTHOR> http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/2009-July/069752.html

<comment><USER2> FYI this was posted earlier and killed not long ago

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=714479> (the consensus is FUD)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out.</comment></comment>


Panic of the Plutocrats - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html?_r=1&src=mv&ref=general <comment><USER2> I've noticed that wall street is taking a very clever tactic in what is clearly a critical PR battle - they are trying to associate anger against _wall street_ with anger against _wealth creators_ in general.

It's a great tactic, because Americans generally are not hostile toward very wealthy individuals when they perceive these individuals as wealth creators - in fact, they actually _admire_ these people [1]. Yes, most support progressive taxation and would support higher taxes for the rich (even wealth creators whose activities we want to support), but they'd oppose a "soak the rich" kind of class warfare, on practical and moral grounds.

No surprise, then, that people who profited, first from risky and economically worthless activities [2], and next from a massive taxpayer supported bailout, would want to get real close to the founders of tech companies in silicon valley and hope that nobody notices the difference.

I'm not surprised that the movement against "wall street" is incoherent right now. There are so many angles, so many different opinions. You have the anarchists who protest globalization in general, but you also have Tim O'Reilly stating that he thinks wall street bankers got away with a crime [3] (and kept the money too).

As someone in high tech, the most important thing to me is to make sure that financial "engineers" don't get to associate themselves with the wealth creation of real engineers and other people who are wealthy because they created wealth.

[1] An interesting article about this in the nytimes titled "How we value the super rich" talks ab it about the mentality behind this distinction...

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/weekinreview/28stone.html>

[2] For a pretty comprehensive version of the argument that much of investment banking is useless, check out a New Yorker article "what good is wall street"...

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/29/101129fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/29/101129fa_fact_cassidy)

[3] [https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/Sy8Z2uWy...](https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/Sy8Z2uWy655?hl=en)

<comment><USER3> Wall St. is responsible for raising capital for companies representing a huge portion of the American economy. Outside of Silicon Valley, people don't do VC. Instead they go to Wall St.

I'm not going to defend rampant mortgage speculation and public bailouts. But be careful at the venom you heap on Wall St. We will miss it when it's gone.

<comment><USER4> Sure, Wall Street serves a purpose in allocating capital. So do personal injury lawyers. That's not why people are mad at them. Read the New York Times. The outrage is largely directed at activities that don't pass the "smell test." Traders losing billion dollar bets with pension fund money, private equity firms loading up healthy companies with debt than cashing out, the insidious relationship between Wall Street and the Treasury/Fed. If Wall Street stuck to underwriting IPOs and providing business loans and other unobjectionable activities, it wouldn't raise peoples' ire. But if they stuck to unobjectionable activities, their revenues would also be cut by more than half and profits by even more than that.

An interesting statistic is that Google's is more profitable than Goldman Sachs by almost every metric. They have higher revenues per employee, higher profits per employee, higher profits per unit of equity, etc. Nobody is demonstrating in Amphitheatre Parkway about how Google is ruining the country. Because people are smarter than you give them credit for.

<comment><USER5> Yes, absolutely. It's not just that they are making high risk bets for clients who are advised of the risk. It's that they are taking "investments" that have zero percent chance of payout, such as selling million dollar McMansions to unemployed high school drop outs, and scheming the system to package them as AAA securities by creating bogus insurance schemes that have no chance of being paid out, then ensuring their profit by investing the money in "donations" to political candidates. The idea that this is investing in productive economic activity or that these are investments at all is a fallacy. It's fraud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The shrill tone in American politics has always irritated me. Be it economic policy or going to war, it seems terribly easy to choke off a sensible argument by calling it 'unamerican'. Maybe controversy and argument should be resuscitated as American values... Clearly having had a sensible argument over, say, the Irak war, no matter the outcome, would not seem so ridiculous now. The way I remember it, this was pretty much impossible in the media.

<comment><USER7> It's really the height of irony.

If there's one guiding principle that Americans should believe in, it's that we're all Americans, and that America is all of us. There's really nothing more un-American than calling someone who lives here un-American.

But of course ya can't say that.

<comment><USER8> Very good point. If the majority of Americans advocate for something "un- American", then you really need to think what's what. That's the revolution Wall St is trying to prevent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The movement seems situated somewhere between the Bonus Army, which had a clear and attainable goal, and the Hippie Movement which was far more diverse.

The 60's counterculture still managed to have a huge cultural impact. Refusing to take part in a system which is apparently working against your interests is a necessary step one, even if you don't know what step two is.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps, but sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like Krugman, but a Krugman editorial is the epitome of the sort of topic HN should avoid, imho.

<comment><USER12> 1000 upvotes. Let's keep both the regular NYT and WSJ opinion page writers off HN. The regular columnists provide zero signal as you can predict their positions on any issue (does anyone think Krugman will counterintuitively oppose OWS? Or that James Taranto will support it?)

These editorials carry zero information in the Shannon sense.

<comment><USER13> The substance -- not the source -- is what should be considered in every encounter with an idea.

<comment><USER14> There are too many ideas to consider them all. Source is a valid filter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just thought I'd throw this out there. If you're looking for a way to help/support the protesters: Why not order them some food and have it delivered to Zuccotti Park Zip Code: 10006

I found this pizza place that accepted online orders. <http://www.majesticpizzatogo.com/>

<comment><USER16> upvoted you for a specific practicality - too rare and precious element in the environment where many talk, yet a few do.

Though personally i will not order the pizza or do anything else that would leave records trail on the government servers and till the end of my life can be mined with "an active sympathizer to extremists" result.

<comment><USER17> Maybe you can pay with bitcoins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The funniest thing about today's plutocrats is that they fail to see that they are setting the economy up for an implosion in which they will be the greatest losers.

<comment><USER7> Funny? I find it utterly bizarre.

The people who owe $300,000 on a house they never should have bought? They're going to be left with no debt and a house to live under. The people with $700m in net worth are going to lose _everything_ they can't fit in their pockets; their houses are all going to get looted and razed the night of the collapse.

So why the hell is the guy with debt working hard to prop up the system, and the guy with investments doesn't seem to care what happens to it?

<comment><USER19> Yes, that's _clearly_ how what's going to happen. Revolutions historically share the single property that they're totally predictable.

And, by the way, your disgusting cheering for violent robbery is exactly why, even though I sympathise with some of the fundamental grievances of the movement, you will never find me expressing support for it.

<comment><USER7> What the hell makes you think I _want_ this to happen?

Shit, I'm not wealthy, but I'm upper middle class. You think I'm coming out on top in this scenario? It's pure self interest: I'm the guy who _doesn't want to get looted._

<comment><USER19> I'm glad that's not the case, and I apologise for assigning you ideas you don't hold. However, I did, and still do, have a very hard time reading your comment differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What are the Tea Party 'riots' of Summer 09 he is referring to?

Seems like both the Tea Party and OWS demonstrations are peaceful (I'm sure there are a couple of knuckleheads in each group).

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow! Now I know that only Republicans represent the obscenely wealthy. Thanks, Krugman!

</comment><comment><USER22> The bank bailout is the one thing that seems to have actually worked.

The Fannie and Freddie bailout is still sucking money. TARP was a disaster.

And, the less said about Obama's green initiative, the better.

<comment><USER23> I'm a bit confused. TARP was a part of the bank bailout. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, the 700B investment will actually cost about 19B.

That said, to claim that they were "too big to fail", bail them out, and then not address that "too big" issue is bullshit. Either they're too big and need to be broken up, or they weren't, and should've been allowed to fail. Trying to have it both ways is, in my estimation, part of the reason for discontent today.

<comment><USER22> > TARP was a part of the bank bailout

Lots of things were bundled together. I'm pointing out what cost money and what didn't.

> That said, to claim that they were "too big to fail", bail them out, and > then not address that "too big" issue is bullshit. Either they're too big > and need to be broken up, or they weren't, and should've been allowed to > fail.

I agree, but point out that there's no good reason to limit that argument to financial institutions.

For example, it applies to govt institutions (fannie and freddie come to mind) and even govts (the US govt being a prime example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor > react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is

Just like unions. You can't have it both ways.

</comment><comment><USER25> To steal shamelessly from the George Will piece that Krugman pretends to respond to, "Paul Krugman is a pyromaniac in a field of straw men."

</comment><comment><USER26> I see no evidence at all the "plutocrats" are panicking. "Rolling their eyes with the rest of us" is probably closer to the truth. So far these protests are a media creation, of which Krugman's effort is a part.

<comment> wh-uws _So far these protests are a media creation_

That is categorically false. This protest is about as organic as they come.

"Adbusters Media Foundation is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro- environment organization"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters>

They concocted the idea, started it, Anonymous did some promotion, and it caught on with people

<comment><USER27> So it was astroturfed/seeded by a media organization.

<comment><USER28> Adbusters is an advocacy organization. Do you count PETA as a media organization?

<comment><USER27> My survey of the Adbusters wikipedia article suggests that it is a media organization dedicated to activism for particular political aims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The movement still, as far as I can tell, has no intellectual grounding. Watch the Reason.TV Video: <http://reason.tv/video/show/what-we-saw-at-occupy-wall- str>

You have a Ron Paul supporter next to a guy who wants to nationalize the banks. You have a guy supporting Obama next to a guy who thinks Mitt Romney will "fix the country".

And of course the folks "letting their freak flag fly"

So this movement stands for nothing. Except for maybe "we're unhappy with the world right now" and really who isn't unhappy with the world right now? The only thing more ridiculous then the Occupy Wall St crowd are the pundits and politicians trying to use them to make their own points (which includes Krugman and the people he's criticizing)

<comment><USER30> > So this movement stands for nothing.

I read your comment, shrugged, then read the op-Ed. When I got back, I found myself scratching my head as to whether you'd even bothered reading it.

The thread of common anger among the protesters is the notion that banks took risk, enjoyed protection by tax payers and then, once resuscitated by the people, bought politicians to prevent regulation that would prevent future indiscretions.

I don't need to have philosophical agreement with my neighbor for us to be joined in outrage when the guy across the street gets mugged while we're watching. These guys have a legitimate beef. I'm not going to quibble about whether their proposed solutions are in agreement.

<comment><USER31> The _seed_ of common anger is the perversion of regulation and governance at the highest tier of financial institutions.

However, the expressions of anger at the occupy* protests has been running the gamut. From moderate calls for financial reform all the way to straight up marxist wealth redistribution.

There may be fairly broad public support behind the sentiment that there's a fair number of problems with the system as it exists today, but there is nothing like widespread support for the gamut of messages coming out of occupy*.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How is a partisan political analysis _Hacker News_?

It's hardly news, the protesters have been there a while. And it's not an objective analysis of the economics involved -- in fact, there's hardly any economics in there at all.

Sure, he's a Nobel laureate. But this particular piece by him is clearly partisan. He calls parties and politicians by name.

Is this what Hacker News is going to turn into? Linking to partisan political columns?

<comment><USER33> Oh man, does mentioning the name of famous people or parties count as partisan now? How exactly would you like your news?

"A party tried to vote on a bill today. A leader of that party said it was a good idea."

Since HN is targeted at the startup crowd, many of whom hope to become or are already wealthy, this seems applicable. Doubly so, since Krugman is pointing out that the financial industry is using a false association with productive rich people to cloak their behavior. If the hammer end up falling anyway, Silicon Valley might be wishing that Wall Street didn't drag their name down into the mud alongside their own.

<comment><USER34> I thought the article brought up points worth discussing, but surely you're being disingenuous when you imply that it wasn't partisan??

FDR praise...complaints on "Republican politicians"...Cantor criticism...Obama the victim...

you could write a bayesian classifier to determine how a columnist votes :P</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HamPanda – You Get Hams for Playing and Pandas for Winning - <AUTHOR> http://blog.deepgram.com/hampanda-you-get-hams-for-playing-and-pandas-for-winning/ <comment><USER2>
        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/root/routes/game.py", line 395, in get
            audio_filepath = audioSubmission['filepath']
        TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable

        During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1467, in _execute
            result = method(*self.path_args, **self.path_kwargs)
          File "/root/routes/game.py", line 445, in get
            user=self.get_current_user().decode('utf-8'),
        AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'decode'

so many wrong things with this..

<comment><AUTHOR> debug mode is fully on!

We're working on the problem now. Everyone churned through audio faster than expected. New hams coming up.

<comment><USER3> Without seeing the actual code base, `audio_filepath = audioSubmission['filepath']` smells like a security vulnerability. Also calling `decode` on a user object seems wrong...

<comment><USER4> It's just UTF-8 decoding, not something dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't wan't hams and pandas, I want money! USD or Bitcoin would make the game/job more attractive from a user's POV.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point and we are definitely looking into this. How much is the right amount for a few seconds?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey, I'm one of the creators of HamPanda. Just released a new update today for an RPG-like leveling system. I'm probably working on achievements next or King of The Hill where the person who scores the most number of pandas in that hour gets some sweet bonuses.

<comment><USER7> please tell me the bonus is a party parrot

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking laid back party parrot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Deepgram (W16) is pretty pumped about HamPanda and all the fun that SHOULD be had with it. Seriously, go have fun with it.

The magic is mostly brought out by drshrey, I'll have to get him in here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Oh crap, sorry it was down; got it back up and running. Try it out!</comment>


If You Have A Smartphone, Anyone Can Now Track Your Every Move - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27784/ <comment><USER2> Note that the tech is there to do this with the cell radio -- no WiFi required. It's just a lot more expensive and hasn't been widely commercialized yet.

The gap that's left open here, as with many semi-anonymized tracking systems, is joining the data up with some other stream of data that identifies the person. Once cell phones become wallets, that should be easy enough for merchants to do. Just join up the purchase transaction data with the location data. Of course the obvious way to do this would be to simply provide an open- access WiFi spot that required a valid email to access. And don't forget that such publicly-accessible data as your WiFi radio ID is easily put on a database and traded. Over time, using several such matching systems, you could probably build up a 95%+ accurate tracking system of people with their identities attached.

Not trying to over-dramatize this story. No matter what your views of privacy and anonymity, to me it's fascinating from simply a technology standpoint to watch all the pieces slowly lining up. It's like watching a puzzle slowly being fitted together.

<comment><USER3> Ooh, let me help you over-dramatize.

One great way to radio-fingerprint people is when they use a point-of-sale device like a credit card checkout or an ATM or a pay-at-the-pump gas station. Put a camera on it (if you don't have one already), and you get (1) a good picture of someone's face; (2) their name and maybe address; (3) a unique way to identify them (credit card number); and (4) a short list of their possible radio IDs. Within a few encounters, you can be 99.9% sure which radio IDs belong to them. Put this system in, oh, 7-11s, Shell gas stations, and pay ATMs, and pretty soon you'll have a match for a good chunk of the population. Plus of course it gets easier as you go along -- the more people you have affirmatively identified in a location, the easier it is to narrow down the rest.

The product is a subscription database that will show you a map of your surroundings with a mug shot for each person nearby. Click the picture and you can find out anything that can be learned from their name, address, magazine subscriptions, purchase history etc -- their politics, income, education, interests, relatives, etc. If you've managed to link their email yet, you can also get all their recent online activity ...

OK, maybe banks and gas companies aren't that evil, or at least would quickly be stopped. So let me ask this: what kind of radio-fingerprint database could someone build with a botnet? You control a webcam, a wireless card, and unencrypted access to the user's internet browsing. Where does that get you?

(Probably all of this is a bit silly, but it's fun to imagine what could be done with existing technology ...)

<comment><USER4> Big Brother, where art thou?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Most of us leave Wi-Fi on by default, in part because our phones chastise us > when we don't.

I rarely ever have wifi turned on. I've never been chastised.

<comment><USER6> The iPhone begs for wi-fi regularly (especially if you're looking at, like, maps, or downloading things), makes it easier to connect (popup captive portal dialog technology, Wispr) and makes it more tedious to turn off. Android phones make it easy to turn on and off (custom widgets on the home screen) but do not make it quite as easy to connect. Therefore you see a lot more iPhones hanging around on random free wifi than Android, in terms of installed-base percentage.

AT&T's early iPhone monopoly and the (in)ability of their network to handle the increase of traffic in those early days is probably a factor which contributed to this state of technology.

<comment> X-Istence Not only that, but iPhones will automatically connect to any open ATT wireless nodes, they are configured that way when you go purchase a device from ATT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      In addition, Navizon also has the ability to assign real
      identifying information to a device, but it's a process
      that could hardly occur without your knowledge.

When the user buys something, you have their name and credit card information and maybe an existing member/discount card. Connect to whatever dot is closest to the cash register. Maybe make it more of a Bayes weighted connection instead of a _certain_ connection to handle edge cases like "spouse using other spouse's card", "member-card swap club", etc

Easy, effective, and transparent to you, the person being tracked. You're just buying something right?

You can track people in meatspace using cell phones the way you track them online using browser cookies. This just makes it affordable (especially compared to the cost of tracking via cell tower)

<comment> X-Istence The thing is that they can track this over time ... so even if they registered all the dots in the area at the time, if they do this often enough a pattern will emerge where you are the only one with that specific radio ID that makes a certain purchase. So unless you can get your friends to come with you every single time they only need to get data from 3 visits or so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those that are interested in how this works: it's basically a feature of the 802.11 MAC. When a station STA1 transmits an RTS packet (request to send) to some other STA2, STA2 has to respond with a CTS (clear to send) packet (collision avoidance, hidden terminal problem). So basically if a detector knows that a mobile station exists with some MAC address, it can 'ping' it by sending RTS packets to it. It has to know a) the MAC address, which it can learn by overhearing probe request sent by the mobile station when its scanning for access points, and b) the channel the station is on. Of course, you can ping repeatedly on different channels or use multiple Wi-Fi transceivers.

Note that when the mobile station is associated with an access point that uses PSM (power saving mode) this does not work because the mobile station is in sleep mode 99% of the time and only wakes up periodically to catch a beacon packet from the access point.

By pinging the mobile station and measuring the received signal strength of the CTS response packet at various locations you can triangulate the location of the mobile station (or better yet, use fingerprinting, MLE).

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm working on a hobby project to create a crowdsourced, "open data" alternative to proprietary geolocation services like Google or Skyhook. This would enable desktop applications (like freedesktop.org's GeoClue library) to geolocate (using a web API or by downloading data to use offline).

A possible player in this area is WiGLE (Wireless Geographic Logging Engine), a Wi-Fi "wardriving" website with a database of 60M Wi-Fi network's MAC addresses and lat/long positions. Unfortunately, they don't want to create a free service because they sell the database to undisclosed partners. Even though most of "their" data consists of 10 years of wardriving volunteers uploading their personal logs, WiGLE locks the community's data behind a crappy Java map application and doesn't make the crowdsourced data available for download or from a web API.

<https://wigle.net/gps/gps/main/stats/>

<comment><USER10> Yeah, those WiGLE guys are really not helpful. I drove around several weeks and mapped thousands of new APs for them. They didn't even answer my email regarding offline use.

<comment><USER9> That's interesting. They talked around my questions about offline use and a GeoClue developer's questions about web APIs for Free software.

I wonder what their deal is. The "cynical me" wonders if they are a front for a company that quietly profits off wardrivers eagerness to share. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sensationalist headline alert: They forgot to finish the sentence with "if you leave Wi-Fi turned on".

<comment><USER12> How many people actually bother to turn their WiFi off? I don't know of any who do it manually (although I do have Juice Defender to do it for me, based on location).

<comment><USER13> I do. I believe it saves battery, and it's really quick. In Touchwiz, the WiFi/GPS/4G controls are built into the notification pulldown. I believe the same is true of cyanogenmod.

Having it automated might be better, but it's never bothered me enough to look into that.

<comment><USER14> WiFi is a big battery hog on my phone. I can go three days on one charge without it, but if I connect up to my home network with WiFi I get less than two.

<comment><USER15> Are you running an app that's configured to perform a particularly data- intensive activity only on wifi? That's the only way I can reconcile your experience with ryandvm's comment (sibling to yours).

<comment><USER14> Nope. That's with virtually no data usage at all. Just turning it on and connecting to my home network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wait, so this is only inside someone's building? They can already track my every move with cameras.

<comment><USER17> AFAIK, current machine vision technology can provide at most ~85% tracking accuracy in crowded environments.

<comment><USER6> This technique may be relevant to your interests.

<http://www.google.com/patents?id=hXYEAgAAEBAJ>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How about regularly changing one's wireless MAC? I'd be surprised if this is extremely difficult, even on an iPhone.

<comment><USER9> I believe some Android phones (at least, the Galaxy Nexus and Droid X) randomly select a new MAC address on reboot. Whether this is a bug or a feature depends on your point of view:

* Android Issue 23330: Galaxy Nexus (VZW/LTE) wifi MAC address changes with every reboot <https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23330>

* Droid X WiFi MAC address changes when I power WiFi on and off. [http://rootzwiki.com/topic/1332-wifi-mac-address-changes-whe...](http://rootzwiki.com/topic/1332-wifi-mac-address-changes-when-i-power-wifi-on-and-off/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "most of us leave wifi on by default" I wonder if this is based on some real evidence. I don't see any reason to leave wifi on by default, and most phones i've owned don't enable it by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. When I purchased my first smart phone 18 months ago, I was pretty compulsive about turning the wifi off if I was in a place where I couldn't use it. I figured it would save battery. I lamented how the phone (iphone 4) made it a little cumbersome to turn off the wifi (and bluetooth, also) and asked others what they did (maybe 5 people). They said they just left it on. Any lessening of battery life was outweighed by the convenience of getting out the phone and going through the menus every time you leave the house or office.

Now, I also don't turn off my wifi.

<comment><USER20> As of Gingerbread, the 'turn wifi on/off' button is in the top pull-down menu in Android (that was previously reserved mostly for notifications). It's as easy as swiping down and touching the button.

EDIT: After reading this[1], it's probably a Samsung-only thing. My wife's Samsung phone is my only experience w/ Gingerbread. That said, I think that this is an awesome addition based on my experience with Froyo.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3868005>

<comment><USER21> For jailbroken iPhones, there is NCSettings, which adds SBSettings-like settings options to iOS 5.0's Notification Center: <http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/26/ncsettings/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When is the quaint notion of privacy going to die? I don't get it. Any privacy you have today is purely through obscurity. I decided a couple years ago to just go fully public, my Facebook is open, and I assume at some day in the future, every post I've ever made anywhere will eventually be linked directly to me through some kind of smart algorithm. The reality today is if you want it hidden, don't do it, or hope no one ever has a reason to care if you did it.

<comment><USER23> That's an incredibly naive and short sighted view to take. What if one day, some activity that you now openly partake in, is condemned or made illegal and all people who partake in it are rounded up?

That might sound paranoid but history is replete with examples of oppressive regimes who captured, tortured and/or killed people they deemed subversive, immoral or unwanted.

One recent example that's perhaps not a cliche is Uganda, where very oppressive anti-gay laws are being passed and people in power are agitating for the death sentence for homosexuals.

What if gay Ugandan people followed your example and lived their whole lives openly on the internet?

<comment><USER24> Come, come, surely this would never be a concern. Don't ruin the poor kid's delusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Something that's not entirely clear to me from the article: is this how Google's new indoor maps stuff works? If so, can someone reconcile that what's described is a way for the infrastructure to track the handsets, that the handsets are still anonymous, and that the maps run on the handset (so unless I'm missing a link, the system must be passing data to the handset).

<comment><USER6> Google's new indoor maps stuff is implemented at the map layer. They don't have the infrastructure in place to track your wifi from a location's sensors and then communicate that back to the phone. It's just whatever physical- location technology is already built into your phone (typically some combination of GPS, cellular, and a list of what wifi access points are available), plus an indoor floorplan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Listening nodes? Bah. <http://nearbuysystems.com> does it without listening nodes - just an existing wireless infrastructure.

Privacy implications? Indeed. That's why it's implemented as an opt-in guest wifi network. Can't do that with a listening node either.

</comment><comment><USER25> Another startup in this space is Euclid: [http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-11/euclid- anal...](http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-11/euclid-analytics- tracks-shoppers-smartphones)

Founder started Urchin, which Google acquired and turned into Google Analytics.

<comment><USER26> also <http://www.viewsy.com/>

They are in startup bootcamp

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Navizon's system can determine where you are, but not necessarily who you are, since all it sees is a Wi-Fi radio."

Maybe they can't find out WHO you are, but they can certainly find out where you live: wigle.net

Apple and Google may also have their own reverse SSID geolocation service, so there's really nothing stopping Navizon from finding out where you live.

Furthermore, they can use Kismet (or any other such tool) to find the SSIDs that your phone is searching for -- and if you, for example, enable WiFi at work AND at home -- they can also deduce where you work.

I find the service to be pretty creepy, personally.

<comment><USER28> Your phone doesn't usually broadcast an SSID. Your home router does. What you've linked to isn't the same thing as the article, unless you're carrying your router along with you everywhere.

<comment><USER29> Even if we believe that our data is anonymous in one way or another the reality is that there are teams everyday working on de-anonymizing data. If you look at dozens of posted articles online referencing the restructuring of anonymous data you will realize that what appears to be anonymous on the surface might not be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I almost never have WiFi on with my current phone, it causes my battery to run dry at about 5pm. With my previous phone, the wifi was almost always on though, as the impact to battery life was minimal.

</comment><comment><USER31> This would be great with an opt-in/synchronize step to help find your friends at huge conferences.

Edit: Also, I just realized that this could be fantastic for meeting up with someone (especially in NYC). You just pick some general area to meet up in and when the other (perpetually late) person shows up they'll know right where to find you. You could even mix in the google maps API and get an ETA for their arrival!

This is something I would pay a monthly fee for.

</comment><comment><USER32> Only if you bring it with you.

</comment><comment><USER33> I built an almost identical system this past year as my EE capstone project. The accuracy of these systems is limited by environmental factors (large metal structural/aesthetic features of a building) which can be corrected to a certain extent, but it would still be trivial to avoid being tracked by using a directional antenna.

</comment><comment><USER34> Doesn't the iPhone only look for wlan networks once you start using it? At least, this has been my experience in the past: after returning to my base station, when I unlock it (turn on the screen), it takes a few seconds until the network indicator changes to wlan.

If true, this issue is quite overrated, at least on Apple devices.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have a fundamental problem with the phrase

"Most of us leave Wi-Fi on by default, in part because our phones chastise us when we don't."

I enjoy having more than 8 or 9 hours of battery life, WiFi is carefully turned on and off. Heck my phone came with a giant WiFi toggle switch on the home screen.

</comment><comment><USER36> One thing that's not clear: Must the target device be connected to a particular wi-fi network, or can devices even be tracked while wi-fi is on, but not connected (or connected to a different network)?

<comment><USER37> It's not the actual connection itself that matters. If your phone ever transmits a packet, it can be detected and associated with your phone's radio id.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> How would one go about setting this up in their own house? Privacy concerns aside, I can think a some cool uses for this (more finely-grained location based reminders for instance).

<comment><USER10> Doing the reverse might be easier. In Android you can see several access points and their strength. You can trilaterate or record fingerprints.

And it works anywhere where there is at least one or two visible wifis.

No special infrastructure needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Get a Windows Phone - it will ask every time it does everything if you want. It's "opt out" by default which is more than I can say for Android or iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you have a GSM phone, anyone could already track your every move.

<http://youtu.be/ZrbatnnRxFc>

</comment><comment><USER41> As far as I know, WiFi triangulation indoors is only good to an accuracy of about 10m, depending on configuration of the building.

<comment><USER6> Technically, you don't usually do wifi "triangulation". With triangulation, you measure direction - not something most wifi sensors and antennas are capable of. You'll use trilateration, which involves distance (you have a signal strength measurement) and turning that into circles.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateration>

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> i use llama on my android devices to turn on wifi only in places where it knows and turn it off else where. saves power too that way.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER43> Can it track you when you're turning wifi off?</comment>


Goldman Sachs Just Says 'Vice President' to Be Polite - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-04/goldman-sachs-just-says-vice-president-to-be-polite

<comment><USER2> My main take-away is that Goldman-Sachs will do anything to fool their customers and dodge any responsibility.

Does Goldman-Sachs still have customers? I can't imagine how ill-informed you'd have to be to subject yourself to their antics.</comment>


Steve Jobs – iPhone Introduction (2007) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8 <comment><USER2> The No Phone is also revolutionary phone. Watch their tedx talk. [http://www.thenophone.com/](http://www.thenophone.com/)</comment>


The #nosyntax movement - <AUTHOR> http://dev.mikamai.com/post/88964553749/the-nosyntax-movement

<comment><USER2> i dont get the connection between the visual representation of my code and the actual content of the code. Seems a bit esoteric.

<comment><AUTHOR> The connection is that while coding you get the contents through a visual representation, it's the same connection between any content and the medium through which comes to you.</comment></comment>


Team Foundation Server vs. Subversion - <AUTHOR> http://thecodeconnection.com/2010/06/25/team-foundation-server-vs-subversion-an-objective-comparison/

<comment><USER2> Having used both for a couple of years each (not at the same time) I'd have to say that TFS is the more frustrating of the two. So long as you're on a fast corporate network and in Visual Studio it's ok. The moment you try to edit a file outside VS you get problems. Say you're comparing two files in a comparison tool, the files will be readonly. You can overwrite but TFS doesn't know that you've changed that file so you have to manually check it out. Sometimes devs forget to do this.

Another bug bear is the Pending Changes list in VS is cached so if you have two instances of VS open things can get out of date and confusing.

And try opening your solution when you're off the network. Dialogs start opening everywhere. Assuming you click the right things you'll be ok... until you go back to the office. Then you'll have to prompt it to go back online and wait while it figures out what you changed.

I've tried explaining to people who've only ever used VSS and TFS that things don't have to be this way. But they tend to imply that source control is just complex and it's not the tool's fault.

By contrast, within a week of using SVN the tool faded into the background and I rarely thought about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work for a Microsoft shop, and we're considering changing to a new version control system.

I'd really like to see articles like this one that compare TFS and distributed version control systems like Git and Mercurial. Anyone know of anything relevant?</comment>


Strace - The Sysadmin's Microscope (2010)  - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/strace_the_sysadmin_s_microscope

<comment><USER2> strace is fantastic. Since it captures the detail of (nearly) all interactions between the process and the outside world, you can use it to answer many questions.

Why isn't this process invocation picking up my changed lib file? (strace, see if the changed file is being opened)

What are the exact http req/responses being made during the problem? (strace server or proxy with large -s value to see all read/write/sendmsg/recvmsg etc)

This tool fails when run as user X, probably a perms problem but which file? (strace, look for EPERM failures, probably to open())

Which /proc files are necessary to the operation of tool X (useful when checking what will and won't run in a sandbox like dotcloud)?

Main restrictions that I know of(in practice only the first is sometimes a problem to me):

\- http/ssl hides the buffer info from 'strace -s'. Another good reason for ssl offloading :-) \- IO can occur via memory reads/writes after mmap(), which strace can't see

ltrace is a pretty nice complement too (trace inside dynamically loaded libs).

</comment><comment><USER3> Strace is excellent for anything crossing the syscall boundary. Often though, we want to see interactions across library boundaries.

A handy addition to the warrior's toolkit: <http://linux.die.net/man/1/ltrace> !

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually this tool is not only for Sysadmin's - it is very helpful for developers. I know there are other tools like gdb, etc. But if you have to use (calling from your program) other programs, or if the library that you use does something strange, then strace is a shortcut.

From this article I learned that strace can be called to analyse an already running process (-p).

<comment><USER5> It's possible to pass up to 32 -p arguments. For example, tracing multiple apache worker processes:

        strace `ps -C httpd -o pid= |xargs -Ix echo -n '-p x '`

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always been trying to find a program that will parse the strace output and create a call graph showing which programs call which programs and how long they run for.

Has anyone seen anything like that? I think I've searched pretty extensively.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're on a BSD descendant check out dtrace instead - it's got a small learning curve but it's an unbelievably powerful tracer.

<comment><USER8> Dtrace is originally from Solaris. FreeBSD (and possibly other BSDs) also has ktrace, which has been around a long time and has a learning curve the same as strace, but is not as powerful as dtrace.</comment></comment>


A Textbook Evolutionary Story About Moths and Bats Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/textbook-evolutionary-story-wrong/600295/ <comment><USER2> I take moths' hearing as evidence for Cretaceous echolocators. Other insects? Pterosaurs? Birds? Flying mammals that were not bats? Proto-crypto-bats? Could be any of them, or several. Most terrestrial species disappeared, so most of the interesting ones did.

It is amazing to be able to deduce the past existence of creatures that left no physical trace.

<comment><USER3> > It is amazing to be able to deduce the past existence of creatures that left > no physical trace.

Well, unless they didn't have a past existence

Try not to pat yourself on the back too hard

<comment><USER2> I didn't say it was amazing to do it. It is amazing that it is possible to do it. You could too, if you were ... someone else. Too bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently was a (sophisticated) just so story ... [http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/](http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/)

</comment><comment><USER5> To be so gleeful in its disdain for a couple of goofy mistakes, TFA misuses the language in such a way as to perpetuate a similar sort of mistake. "So bees invented butterflies?" "...moths then transformed their existing ears..." Yuck. Sure, it's just metaphor, but this sort of metaphor has historically caused a lot of confusion about evolution. Intent is not a feature of natural selection. Atlantic readers have a hard enough time with this as it is; they certainly don't need to read this pseudo-creationist garbage.

<comment><USER2> Ed Yong is among the greatest writers on nature. If you have a problem with him, you may be assured the problem is you.

Intent is neither a feature of insect behavior, as we understand intent. Yet we happily talk about bees seeking flowers. Language is always analogical. When it involves birds and bees (or moths) we just notice it more.

<comment><USER5> The problem is not mine. I have studied this material enough not to be confused by confusing writing. I wouldn't recommend this article to a junior- high student, however.

[EDIT:] Actually I don't recommend it to you either. Just above this thread you're on about being "able to deduce the former existence of creatures that left no physical trace." Seriously? Hearing implies echolocation by predators? I can hear; so can many other animals. Is echolocation really that common? How would echolocation itself evolve in the absence of hearing?

<comment><USER2> The claim is that, by the evidence, moths had ultrasonic hearing 28 million years before bats' own echolocation developed; and that some moths in environments without bats have since adapted to lower ranges. We must presume paleontologists can recognize the frequency range sensitivity of these structures from their preserved physical shape.

In what way would hearing not sensitive to frequencies that appear in the environment be adaptive? The existence of hearing adapted to ultrasonics implies the existence of something to produce ultrasonics. It doesn't tell you what those producers were, just that detecting them was important to successful moth reproduction.

One possibility would be the moths themselves making sounds. But why would they lose such a capacity?

It is possible they had to evolve to stop making the sounds to avoid attracting the interest of bats, but thousands of species all dropping it, even in places where there are no bats, is not plausible.

The best alternative consistent with what we know is that the original insectivorous producers of ultrasonic noise are now extinct, and that bats later evolved into a similar niche.

There are other possibilities that must be eliminated, through careful research, before we can be confident of late-Cretaceous echolocating insectivores.

<comment><USER5> TFA does not contain that evidence; the most straightforward reading contradicts it directly. Don't pay such close attention to Jayne Yack's _" All of those ears, as far as we know, are tuned to ultrasound, and therefore most likely respond to bats."_ "as far as we know" is doing a lot of work in that proposition, because actually no one has done any of the research that would be required to show that any of the nine distinct ear evolutions were initially targeted at ultrasound. Later in that same paragraph, Jesse Barber more sensibly indicates, _" It seems likely that ears evolved for that reason: to survey the world."_ The following paragraph begins thus: _" When echolocating bats arrived in that world, moths then transformed their existing ears into specialized sonar detectors, by shifting their range toward higher frequencies."_

One might have expected one of "the greatest writers on nature" not to have so confused his ardent fan.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Vlog about how to GraphQL with TypeScript - <AUTHOR> https://stackofthefuture.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/aexol/stackofthefuture.com](https://github.com/aexol/stackofthefuture.com)

Here is the repo. If you want to see how to make good gatsby structure for Vlog hosting

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, I am starting a video blog about technologies rooting from GraphQL and how you can make use of them to make your stack better, faster and stronger.</comment>


A Gnome, Debian Based Tablets from Purism - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/librem-11-a-2-in-1-to-protect-your-digital-life#/ <comment><USER2> Love it, and would buy one ... at half the price.

<comment><AUTHOR> CTO of Purism here.

We have 10" which is the affordable option (4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, Intel Atom Quad Core).

We know that prices are a bit high, but to maintain some supply chain stability we currently have to go this way. Once we would hit bigger numbers of orders, things and prices change quite a bit.</comment></comment>


The Dangers of DNA Testing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/opinion/the-dangers-of-dna-testing.html <comment><USER4> This is one of my favorite pet peeves: a smart person comes out wearing a lab coat[1] and holding a clipboard. They make a claim, and one of two things happen.

Firstly, news reporters with little understanding of the subject matter try to explain it to the masses, and the results are disastrous. (Not to mention, the drive for academia to publish papers that prove the hypothesis.) Little needs to be said here.

The second is that I frequently see my peers latch onto any PDF they can download that supports their position. "Look, look! The data shows I'm right! And this man with a PhD supports my conclusion! (Of course I haven't _read_ the report, but that's not important. What _is_ important is my pet issue!)" Prosecutors using sloppy lab work to get convictions and computer algorithms deciding bail bonds are just end results.

We need to put the brakes on the empiricism train. It's useful, but only to a certain point. Reason eventually needs to take over. If your argument lives and dies by the next PDF or Machine Learning model, you need to find a new argument, or bolster your argument with reason.

1 - [https://xkcd.com/699](https://xkcd.com/699)

(Meta argument: I'm reading a report about a paper someone published, and latching onto the report because it supports my conclusion that people will believe anything a "scientist" says! I'm victim to my own problems!)

<comment><USER5> > We need to put the brakes on the empiricism train. It's useful, but only to > a certain point.

We need to foster a deeper understanding of how empiricism actually works, what its limitations are, and the difficult and often lengthy process through which varying degrees of certainty are obtained and adjusted over time.

I also think it is important to spread the value of grounded skepticism (including of one's own knowledge) and the power of freely admitting mistakes.

Obviously, none of this is easy. But it is worthwhile and I think small improvements will have a large impact through ripple effects over time.

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, in regards to empiricism.

<comment><USER6> Few people who haven't done a variety of masters or PhD level research really understand how there are only degrees of "knowing" something.

Teaching the scientific method early on, and really getting to the heart of what it means to stay unsure about things, is something the education system could do a better job of, but it's no small task.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since Sessions ended an inquiry into obvious junk science being used in courtrooms (which itself seemed to be moving pretty slowly given the scale of the problem), my prediction is that nobody will do anything whatsoever about this finding.

<comment><USER8> Every defending lawyer will be waving this news article over their head ...

<comment><USER9> Does it matter? If it's accepted science then courts are loathe to just start throwing it out even when there is very good evidence it's junk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Link to open access publication: [https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(18)30248-5/fu...](https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973\(18\)30248-5/fulltext)

Link to more detailed article: [https://www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/08/nist- publishes-land...](https://www.forensicmag.com/news/2018/08/nist-publishes- landmark-mix13-dna-study)

<comment><USER11> I can't understunderstand why the OP article didn't at least cite the paper.

I guess the quote works as a kind of content-based addressing, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >> The good news is that there are methods to reanalyze old DNA mixture data using computer programs that can help analysts correct errors, without any new lab testing. In fact, one lesson from the study is that while only seven of the 108 labs in the study properly excluded the innocent profile, one of them used such a program (TrueAllele by Cybergenetics).

>> (...)

>> In fact, we have shown that this is possible. Working with Cybergenetics analysts and Innocence Network organizations in four states, our Boise State University laboratory has re-examined a few select cases and already persuaded courts to overturn a conviction in New Mexico, two in Indiana and two in Montana. We have also helped identify a new suspect in a 23-year-old murder.

This leaves a bad taste. Have I just read an advert for a proprietary piece of software, masquerading as an article?

</comment><comment><USER13> It's shocking to me that something so critical to the criminal justice system is not more tightly regulated nor monitored continuously for sensitivity/specificity.

<comment><USER9> Given courts have ruled drug dogs don't need to be tested for accuracy or to make sure they're not influenced by their handlers this isn't very surprising.

Seems like the more I learn about the system the more of a scam it seems.

Speaking of which Serial season 3 just started which covers this kind of stuff, more in the small than a grand 'Thing X is the problem we want solved that will make things much better'.

<comment><USER14> I don't quite follow. Why would drug dogs need to be tested for accuracy? Is the indication of a dog accepted somewhere as evidence?

I have been assuming that dogs give false positives every now and then, and there's a search for some actual evidence based on that indication, which everyone knows can be a false positive.

<comment><USER15> When the dog's accuracy can't be tested, then a search based on the dog giving an indication of "There are drugs here" is no different then a search based on a magic 8-ball giving an indication of "There are drugs here".

 _Every_ time this technique leads to a search that is used to secure a conviction, it erodes your rights, as a non-criminal, against arbitrary search and seizure.

<comment><USER14> There's a difference in the way people see this here in Europe, because here a "probable cause" is not needed for searching for drugs. Particularly at the border controls, everyone is subject to searches.

(Same applies for e.g. DUI testing on the roads; the police has the right to take alcohol test of any driver, without anyone looking like they're driving badly.)

Any arbitrary seizure, if only based on dog indication, is of course a horrible miscarriage of justice.

<comment><USER15> Borders are civil liberty free zones, by design. As are warzones, places that have declared martial law, and prisons.

DUI testing is different. In many jurisdictions you do not have to submit to it, if you are fine with losing your driving privileges - which is not a criminal penalty.

I'm not super pleased about it, but there is typically a clear line - <USER2> voluntary behavior voids your liberties. Involuntary behavior generally should not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are many, many examples of DNA testing being unreliable because of HOW it is done (for example: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable- doubt/480747/) ) and yet the general public still sees it as infallible.

It's extremely important for these kinds of studies to get more publicity, for the courts to start to understand the limitations, and most importantly for the labs that do the tests to start to be held accountable. The standards from a scientific standpoint are truly deplorable.

</comment><comment><USER17> I know this doesn't help the folks in prison without any resources, but during a trial, can't a defendant ask for any DNA test to be rerun by a private lab at their expense?

<comment><USER18> Even if that is an option, and the results come back favorable to the defendant, they still don't have a great situation. Now there will be two experts coming in and saying different things to the jury. The details that might explain those differences are likely beyond what can be adequately explained to a jury during a trial.

But the defendant themselves paid one of the experts, so...

<comment><USER19> Decades ago, I served on a jury where we had an expert witness for defence and an expert witness for prosecution. We, the jury, made a decision to ignore both expert witnesses as they each had a different opinion, please note the word "opinion".

I do not know with what regard, under US jurisdictions, the evidence provided by "expert" witnesses is treated, but at the time, we were told by the presiding judge to treat it as opinion by an "expert" and not as direct evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article gets the timeline of Jackson's case completely wrong:

[https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/dwayne- jackson/](https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/dwayne-jackson/)

This more detailed account states the exoneration happened _years_ after the plea bargain release; the eff up discovery did not cause him to be released.

So the real impact on this poor man's life was thus significantly higher. Imagine trying to get anything worthwhile happen in life with a criminal conviction...

</comment><comment><USER21> If we can't trust witness testimonies, lie-detectors, and now DNA results, what are we supposed to use?

<comment><USER22> It should be made clear that _most_ DNA evidence is quite reliable, provided basic standard procedures are employed. I.e. as long as you don't switch samples or otherwise mess up, the results are very robust.

The particular issue here is the mixed samples. The basic approach of DNA fingerprinting is to look at a suite of variable markers which, taken together, form a unique set of alleles that can positively identify an individual. It's easy to see how a mixed sample can pose a problem: if you have two contributors and 20 loci analyzed, that's over a million permutations to consider, assuming all loci are different for those samples. Making an affirmative match in this situation is much more difficult! Not only must your statistics be much stronger (to offset the permutation complexity), but you must make far more assumptions about the sample than before. Namely, you must estimate the number of contributors to - and the relative proportions of - <USER3> sample via various heuristics to arrive at a statistical metric of match reliability.

It's kinda amazing that it can be done at all, but for smaller numbers of contributors, it's not that bad. The classic example is a sample that contains DNA from both the perpetrator and the victim; such 2-contributor situations seem to be well understood at this point.

The main issue for reliability is when there are a large number of contributors, and particularly when very sensitive assays are used. Increasing sensitivity means you have to rely more upon amplification, and the exponential nature of PCR makes it very easy for minor contributions to be out-competed.

Basically, not all DNA evidence is equal, and it's important to distinguish between more and less reliable methods. Unfortunately the vagaries of legal precedent are often have an outsize influence on what is accepted in court. The apparent reluctance by the NIST to report their findings is really what is most concerning here, not the tests _per se_.

<comment><USER23> Even if the actual labwork is flawless, there are still the issues of DNA contamination where your DNA is spread around on objects and persons you touch. And this problem just gets worse the more sensitive the detection methods are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "It is uncomfortable to read the study's authors praising labs for their careful work when they get things right, but offering sophomoric excuses for them when they get things wrong."

But not surprising.... they want to continue to work in the field, after all !

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't clickbait?

"The Dangers of testing DNA _mixtures_ " should be the title

</comment><comment><USER26> And justice for all. Technology can be horrifically negative when in the wrong hands.

</comment><comment><USER16> Some articles are so important that they don't belong behind paywalls. I believe this is one of them. The NYT's ombudsman should help develop a policy to determine when that should occur.

<comment><USER27> Isn't that why we have scihub?</comment></comment>


Growth Hacking Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneurs.my/growth-hacking-tools/?hn <comment><USER2> It's a nice list of tools, altough I still oppose to the term 'Growth Hacking' (I wrote a blog post about this that caught quite a lot of flak on HN).

What I would like to read about is how you would use these tools in a clever way, and to what results. I mean, just using Geckoboard, although admittingly awesome, doesn't make you a growth hacker, right? Growth hacking to me is about using data and combining tools in a clever way.

EDIT: I'm seeing a bare HTML page too, BTW.

<comment><USER3> I missed the original HN discussion but did look up your blog and read the post.

I see your frustration, but as someone who has been exploring the digital marketing space (well outside of Silicon Valley in Cleveland, Ohio), I can say that your assumption that marketers "know" about things like A/B testing might be a bit presumptuous. I put "know" in quotes to differentiate between "knowing" as in having heard of it, and "knowing" as in fully understanding it. I recently had a an accomplished and successful traditional marketing person tell me that A/B tests on his website were off-limits, like they were toxic voodoo. I understood the basis of his fears ("we can't afford to lose customers because of an A/B test") but they were totally unreasonable.

I've also seen a sort of clumsy bum-rush into the digital marketing career space. I think lots of people realize the shift to this pace and it's now attracting swarms of people who come from non-technical backgrounds. My personal beliefs (which may be selfish due to my background), is that the winners in this frenzy will be the "growth hackers", as in the people who understand both marketing and hacking. For this purpose, I think hacking means people who look at system and the furthest level back that they can, figure out how the internals of the system work, and then use that information to get what they want out of the system. You don't necessarily have to be able to program (you certainly have to be able to communicate what you want to a programmer though, as you can't do things at scale without some programming help), but programmers typically tend to have the mentality of making systems work in their advantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice article, great recommendations. Proper instrumentation and aggregate metrics are essential, but its also impt to know the user on an individual basis- intercom is the only one on this list designed to help do that. If I was writing this article I'd include some funnel tools on mobile too: tapstream, flurry, and paid marketing, like adstage.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is it me or others are also able to see a non-CSS page?

<comment><USER6> The site uses a CDN which is returning only errors for all the static files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> the design on this site is half backed. i can't seem to load any images</comment>