Grd – A CSS grid framework using Flexbox in 512 bytes gzipped - <AUTHOR> https://1000ch.github.io/grd/ <comment><USER2> I genuinely don't understand CSS 'grid systems' in a world of border-box and flex by default.

If you want to put things beside each other, make them whatever widths you want and have a flex row.

What do 'grid systems' add apart from visual classes in HTML and negative margin hacks?

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I used to use grid systems, but being able to wholeheartedly embrace flexbox and border-box has meant that I really don't need to use them these days. Want to do percentage width and fill the rest of the container? Easy- peasy. Want to not specify specific widths but make one thing bigger than another in a relative way, that adapts to the viewport powerfully? No problems.

Hell, the only reason I use Bootstrap is for it's buttons and forms, etc. which nowadays I've replaced with PureCSS; and the best part about PureCSS is that I can use the bits I want and ignore the rest. Bootstrap can also do that, but requires a preprocessor like Sass or Less (v4 and v3 respectively).

<comment><USER4> Not really. You can customise Bootstrap online and download the compiled CSS:

[http://getbootstrap.com/customize/](http://getbootstrap.com/customize/)

Just untick the boxes for the stuff you don't want, and hey, Bob's your uncle. No Less or Sass required.

<comment><USER3> Sure! But using Bootstrap as a dependecy via "npm" makes that a bit more annoying; and PureCSS does that out of the box via that route, which is great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is ... confusing.

a) The concept of a typographic grid is a print layout design tool fundamentally unsuitable for coding flexible component-based layouts on today's web (it probably always was, but talking about a "grid" can give designers an air of technical mystique they quite enjoy ;)

b) Flexbox was invented to move beyond the grid. We don't want or need a grid anymore.

c) It takes less than 1 day's effort to learn the vanilla CSS flexbox API and you can re-create this "grid" if you really need it with a few lines of plain CSS. No framework dependencies, other developers don't have to learn the framework, and no polluting your markup with global utility classes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can class names begin with a hyphen followed by a number?

This SO answer says [1]:

> a name must begin with an underscore (_), a hyphen (-), or a letter(a–z), > followed by any number of hyphens, underscores, letters, or numbers. There > is a catch: if the first character is a hyphen, the second character must be > a letter or underscore, and the name must be at least 2 characters long.

[1]: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/449000](http://stackoverflow.com/a/449000)

Which references the CSS Grammar spec [2].

[2]: [http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/grammar.html#scanner](http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/grammar.html#scanner)

<comment><USER7> I think the best reference would be the actual (main) spec since the grammar spec says it is kind of a "superset" of the actual specification, i.e. not always strict enough. Identifiers are specified here: [https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC- CSS2-20110607/syndata.html#va...](https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC- CSS2-20110607/syndata.html#value-def-identifier) (two hyphens at the start are also not allowed, in contrary to the "SO answer" cited).

<comment><USER8> That answer clearly states that -- is not allowed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I will make a flexbox framework with 100 bytes gzipped that contains one thing: display: flex. Wait.. flex.io is already gone? Nvm.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks nice and simple!

I've been enjoying Lost ([https://github.com/peterramsing/lost](https://github.com/peterramsing/lost)) with PostCSS for grids recently - it has Flexbox support which works well and keeps grid class names out of my markup.

<comment><USER11> Thanks. I'm working on something new. Should be done this weekend. Stay tuned.

Re: this post

Grd doesn't do anything interesting at all. Everyone is blindly obsessed with flexbox. Grd doesn't even concern itself with gutters.

Here's something I cooked up in 5 minutes that does more with less code: [http://codepen.io/corysimmons/pen/eZgZzz?editors=1100](http://codepen.io/corysimmons/pen/eZgZzz?editors=1100)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Without being able to change amount of elements per row depending on viewport width I don't see this picking up.

<comment><USER13> Good point. I actually don't understand its behaviour in regard to viewport width. Also, there are actually no media queries used in the CSS file.

<comment><USER14> Pretty trivial to extend it.

<comment><USER15> Pretty trivial to write it all from scratch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps my CSS is rusty and not keeping up with the new syntax but I need to know what with that "\" syntax?

       .Grid.\-stretch  { align-items: stretch; }

<comment><USER17> I thought classes starting with an hyphen are reserved for browser vendors[1]. Maybe this changed since the last time I checked the spec.

[1] = [https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#vendor- keywords](https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#vendor-keywords)

<comment><USER18> That's for properties and keywords, not for class names.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like it. It'd be easier to play with the demo if there was some more space beneath it.

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems to defeat the idea of flexbox. Grid systems were needed for old CSS, but with the powers of flexbox, we better off using it directly then using it with a grid system, as the grid system will be limiting and will not give any significant comfort.

</comment><comment><USER21> This lib will only work on the latest browsers.

The source leverages calc for simple width percentages, so on android browser below 47 these values won't calculate at all: [http://caniuse.com/#feat=calc](http://caniuse.com/#feat=calc).

> Partial support in Android Browser 4.4 refers to the browser lacking the > ability to multiply and divide values.

Why wouldn't the author change this to:

.Cell.\\-1of12 { width: calc(100% * 3 / 12); }

to

.Cell.\\-1of12 { width: 25% ; }

It seems silly to go through the trouble of installing a lib when it gives you less browser support than flexbox itself.

<comment><USER22> The "dist" version has all this removed.

It's a pretty odd use for a preprocessor.

Each mixin is only used once (so why bother?) and the calcs are turned into percentages by the compiler (so why bother?)

<comment><USER23> Is there a way to work around this limitation?

I have a CSS code that looks like this for a good reason:

        left: calc(100% + 2em)

that I'd like it to be changed to support legacy stock Android browsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've developed a heuristic that any web project posted to HN that mentions its size in the headline is probably a half-assed copy of something with better documentation, developer-mindshare, browser-support, testing, bug fixing etc.

Size and therefore speed is important on the web, but it seems an easy mental trap to optimize it at the expense of the other important things.

</comment><comment><USER25> file size appears to me as a completely random metric to measure your code against. With the overhead associated with establishing a http connection, the actual byte-size is most likely of little importance. In fact, if this goes over TCP/IP (Which HTTP usually does), isn't there a frame size of some 1500 bytes?

</comment><comment><USER26> Ever ever since I found out IE10 and IE11 have several big issues with Flexbox [1], I've been avoiding using it in production.

[1]: [http://caniuse.com/#search=flexbox](http://caniuse.com/#search=flexbox)

</comment><comment><USER8> Or you could just use tables for tabular (another word for a grid) data and use native flexbox for other stuff. Besides, CSS Grids level 1 will be coming to browsers soon anyway.

</comment><comment><USER27> I get 'Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL' on Chromium Version 37.0.2062.120 Ubuntu 12.04 (281580) (64-bit)

The live demo doesn't work for me

<comment><USER28> Your old browser version doesn't support template literals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm fine with the "this tiny codebase is DRY" justification (though how hard is it to be DRY with 37 lines...? DRY in the sense that it proves DRY-ness is a concept of computer science??? DRY in the sense that it conceptually overlaps with what other developers/programmers in the field are describing in their systems? DRY in that it appeals to a handful of niche programmers?), I'm fine with the package management justification (because it makes continuous integration possible with upgrades); I'm fine with the "I don't need to be a Pointer-dexter Programmer to write software". The problem is the "cute name" justification, or the idea this is a "good practice in the honored tradition of DRY".

The only problem here is that "who cares" if it is a "cute name". This isn't really DRY in a non-trivial sense. I mean, yet another grid system that calls grid-like things "grids". Yergh! Go read Brian Cantwell Smith's paper on "semiotic alchemy". More practically, I would say that all the points about filesize and what not are sadly irrelevant as true sources of anger. I honestly see this as no different as someone getting angry with someone else because they bought a foreign part to put in an American car. More puffery!

We have 7 "big" problems in CSS today:

        Global Namespaces,
        Dependencies,
        Dead Code Elimination,
        Minification,
        Sharing Constants,
        Non-deterministic Resolution,
        Isolation.

What happened to the pursuit of truth? Alright. You put a framework on your résumé? But are you a computer scientist? Are you defending an idea? Or simply leveraging an old one?

We take and depend on a lot of code today. But now we are taking and depending on higher order concepts or principles to give the illusion of pursuit... of something.

This is a "grid system" only in name insofar as it surely is detached from the idea of why grid systems were invented, mostly assuredly, to solve problems.

The "filesize" problem of CSS is like the "filesize" problem of Bitcoin. It's just that nobody really likes CSS or knows they can build Turing Machines in it, so they hate you for it. Whereas in Bitcoin, it gets you a seed round to test yr vaporware. At least these little CSS publications don't cost society _that_ much, I guess..

Typically when I venture down this path of "system building" in CSS land, I use Organic CSS[0] because it promotes fun, thinking, creativity, and gives me a scientific scheme within which to treat those 7 problems listed above.

Does this grid framework solve any of those problems listed above? Is it even concerned with them? Are devshops aching to refactor to the next tiniest grid system? Are we really looking to shave off submilliseconds from our HTTP requests? I mean, we have HTTP/2... so do those submilliseconds really matter these days?

[0]: [http://krasimir.github.io/organic- css/](http://krasimir.github.io/organic-css/)

<comment><USER8> Are you sure you're in the right place, spammer?

<comment><USER29> Sup, Qt. How u iz?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We will be moving to this immediately

</comment><comment><USER31> My tagline would be -

er mah GRD, it's amazing!

</comment><comment><USER32> The attitude in this thread is pure shit.

You DO NOT NEED to use bower or npm to install this, you can easily find the source and bring it in to your project if you want to use this. Npm does provide you with a way to upgrade this without digging around, but you don't have to use it, so stfu, go find your file on the Internet, copy it to your css directory.

A reason a flex grid could be cool, it provides you a standard across your application. When you one-off every time you need to have elements behave in a grid-like fashion, you run a much higher risk of ending up with inconsistencies. Unless you yourself write some code that reliably makes things behave like a grid, hey that's called a grid.

I get that there are a lot of tools available, but this recent attitude of just slamming people because they created something that isn't aligned with your ideals is not healthy or progressive. There is no implication that because this exists anyone else has to use it. It's just code someone wrote and happened to end up here. Let it be.

<comment><USER33> Your attitude is infantile.

There is a metastasis of so-called _tools_ in the web-dev world nowadays. Setting up a moderate C project is way easier and less tools-involved than setting up a HTML-CSS thingy following the fashion of today. This one project in particular sports upwards of ten files to distribute what's worth a half page of CSS.

If there's a library that I use across all my projects, then I just subscribe to its syndication (mostly VCS RSS feeds for me). And then I fetch it if the changes are of my interest, or there are bugfixes. All these other tools are completely superfluous. How many hours are lost in your shop setting these pieces of crap up instead of just downloading the file and putting it in your assets directory? The whole web dev business of today is a big stupid mess of people who have no clue what they're doing.

<comment><USER34> Relax with the name-calling. Is it really unfathomable that people work differently, and that some people find value in tools you don't use? I completely understand not wanting to use them, but the presumption that they are completely useless cruft that people only use because they're idiots who don't know what they're doing is truly condescending, and closes your mind to learning new things. There are real benefits to be had from frontend package management. And real problems. Don't begrudge other developers for evaluating them for their own uses and making a different choice than you did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I came here to see really cool comments on an interesting project and I see hostility.

This is why I don't hang out with developers

<comment><USER36> I find myself making negative comments more than I would like. But these happen to be about points that are the most interesting to discuss. The resulting discussion is very useful. What am I to say about things I like? +1 adds nothing to a discussion.

<comment><USER37> There's a way of criticizing that still honors—or at least doesn't trample—the creative spirit in the work being criticized. That's what we're going for here. Substantive criticism is helpful because it adds information. Snarky dismissals merely puff up the criticizer. As long as that's not your intent, your comments are likely to be fine.

<comment><USER36> Definitely. I would like to think that what I call negative can also be called substantive criticism.

Where does this recent comment of mine fall? It is snarky but isn't it also substantive? I guess I could have left out the snark.

"I love it. We had servers, then we had clouds, and now we have personal clouds. Uh, isn't that a server?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38>
        Syntax error at line 109 while loading: unexpected character: U+0060
           grid.className = `Grid ${align.value}

</comment><comment><USER39> Web design today: NPM or Bower installation for a 37 line CSS file. When will this insanity end?

The framework itself looks handy and simple enough, but there's probably already about 10 other flexbox layout frameworks out there that works just as good too. Here's another one: [http://gridlex.devlint.fr/](http://gridlex.devlint.fr/)

<comment><USER40> What's wrong with that? It's a dependency. What else do you want to do, just load it in a `link` tag? Then here you go:

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/1000ch/grd/gh- pages/dist/g...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/1000ch/grd/gh- pages/dist/grd.css)

I'm honestly not seeing what is there to complain about.

<comment><USER41> That I shouldn't need to install NPM or Bower to download a fucking half a Kb of CSS is what is the complain.

It's a clear sign of people with no clue about proper software engineering, which is glaring in today's front end world where dependencies and tools have gone amok to manage mere hundreds lines of CSS or Javascript.

Just provide a download link to the min file and be done with it.

<comment><USER42> Wow, check your anger and your prejudice. Yes, the site could do with a clear link to the source, but most software engineers are familiar with the 'github- link-in-top-right-corner' pattern, so it shouldn't be a problem even if you're ideologically opposed to using more robust alternatives.

<comment><USER43> I see anger but I'm struggling to find "prejudice" here.

<comment><USER22> "All these bloody young people don't respect my JAVA Enterprise BSServiceFactoryFactory experience".

Similar to the prejudice that every high-level programmer from so many idiot low-level programmers who think because they mess about with pointers all day they are "real" programmers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The demo is broken for me.

Why would anyone even want anything like it?

E: Nice to see again how childish HN is, downvoting when someone points out that the thing is broken and asks a serious question. This is why I originally left this place.

<comment><USER45> The demo works fine for me in Chrome. Maybe you would have received a better response if you included how the demo is broken, which browser you are using, and what you see.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> nice

</comment><comment><USER47> I wish there was gentlewomen^H^H^H^H^Hfolks agreement to use minified size for library size comparison, not gzipped size, because minified size better tells how much there are code to read/understand & parse/execute, while gzipped size tells how much there are bytes to transfer, and the bottleneck is generally the former.

<comment><USER48> Just say gentleman's agreement. It's okay to use a real phrase.

<comment><USER47> Thanks sir, but I prefer gender neutral wording. (Note to self: humor, do not use.)

<comment><USER49> Not only is it OK to use a real phrase like "gentleman's agreement", it _communicates better_. People will more easily understand what you mean, and they won't be distracted when you attempt to be gender-neutral by calling attention to gender.

<comment><USER47> The above is all true but only because gender-neutral words are not yet used widely enough, and the only way to change that is to systemically prefer gender-neutral words. Isn't it part of hacker mentality that one should fix broken things and one should not be afraid of change?

(I guess this is largely culture related thing, but e.g. among my peers (high educated 30s Europeans) gender-biased words actually cause more distraction.)

<comment><USER50> Your affectation of the old terminal-style backspacing joke is way more distracting than "gentleman's agreement" could ever have been.

And anyway, I think you'd have been better off just saying, "I wish we could all agree...."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How does Facebook disable the browser's integrated Developer Tools? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21692646/how-does-facebook-disable-the-browsers-integrated-developer-tools <comment><USER2> Non-webdev here. Why did the Chrome team _ever_ decide that developer access to the raw console though the DOM-like window API was a good idea?

This seems like it was initially granted external access for some reason, especially since blink is meant to be a clean room implementation of webkit.

<comment><USER3> > blink is meant to be a clean room implementation of webkit.

No, blink was a _fork_ of webkit, taking webkit code and clearing out a bunch of stuff that wasn't need for blink. It was not a clean-room reimplementation.

<comment><USER2> My bad. (Not keeping great track of the architectures used in the engines used in browsers).

My overarching questions stands, however.</comment></comment></comment>


G2A pays Factorio developer $40k over illegally obtained game keys - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2020/5/20/21265275/g2a-confirms-it-sold-stolen-game-keys <comment><USER2> G2A is, and has always been, a black market for software. They list Windows 10 for $27 [0], McAfee for $4 [1], among many other things [2]. They sponsor professional esports teams to add legitimacy to their brand [3].

[0]: [https://www.g2a.com/microsoft-windows-10-pro-microsoft- key-g...](https://www.g2a.com/microsoft-windows-10-pro-microsoft-key- global-i10000083916004)

[1]: [https://www.g2a.com/mcafee-antivirus-pc-1-device-1-year- mcaf...](https://www.g2a.com/mcafee-antivirus-pc-1-device-1-year-mcafee-key- global-i10000178790001)

[2]: [https://www.g2a.com/category/software-c5](https://www.g2a.com/category/software-c5)

[3]: [https://navi.gg/en/read/text/232-navi-prolongs-the- partnersh...](https://navi.gg/en/read/text/232-navi-prolongs-the-partnership- with-cs-go-players) (Note the logos on the uniforms)

<comment><USER3> Why do you say it's a black market? Reselling of license keys is legal within the EU. Granted the hundreds of keys mentioned in the article were originally stolen, therefore illegal to sell but it seems they're taking steps to combat those, including honoring the 10x agreement with the developers.

Having quickly googled it, I've seen much criticism about their sale of grey market keys (keys sold cheaper to specific markets being sold to other markets) but those are legal. Many of the other criticisms are because some users are selling stolen keys, which puts g2a at the same level as Amazon or Ebay.

<comment><USER4> The stolen key system (legit keys bought with stolen CCs) has been how G2A keeps their prices low.

I don't think this has been a mystery to G2A and they've been at it for years / not been responsive to developers who have contacted them about it ...

<comment><USER5> How is that different than someone selling products on eBay or Amazon that were purchased with stolen cards?

<comment><USER6> It's not, but that doesn't make it legal.

<comment><USER7> It also doesn't make G2A "A black market for software".

G2A is fundamentally a consumer empowering type of market/organization, businesses who sell keys do not want their completely legitimately purchased keys resold, and if you don't think they are going to stoop to painting the people who enable that as horrible monsters, you have ignored the entire history of markets and PR.

G2A has a standing offer to pay devs 10x what any fraudulently obtained keys cost them, and they are making good on that offer here, the fact they are still being treated like some kind of mafia-esque organization in these comments says a lot about the power of PR.

Remember when the RIAA was coming out about the evils of used CDs and was asking congress to make their resale illegal?

We are at that point right now with digital goods, with the majority of people cheering on this blatantly anti-consumer bullshit and painting those that enable fighting it as scumbags

<comment><USER8> That standing offer is no longer a standing offer now that they've proven that they are re-selling stolen keys.

Now they simply (and appropriately) offer to repay proven fraudulent keys and chargeback fees.

G2A doesn't get much good press because many people empathize with indy games devs, and prior to this finding G2A loudly and broadly claimed that there were not stolen keys being sold through their storefront.

<comment><USER7> Do you think Ebay is free of stolen goods and illegal credit card transactions? G2A works exactly like Ebay does, and I don't see much hand wringing about how we need to shut down the scum at Ebay, for the children.

<comment><USER9> So you think because sometimes ebay listings are stolen goods that G2A selling stolen goods is fine, gotcha. Seriously what is your point here.

<comment><USER7> Its not fine, but its also completely impossible for G2A and ebay to fully avoid, because both are marketplaces.

What matters is how they address it, and that is being completely ignored in these comments in favor of vague moralizing about the evils of consumer choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> See the second part of this blog post[1] from 2019 for more context.

In a nutshell, fraudsters buy keys from the official Factorio store with stolen credit cards. They then sell these keys on G2A and Factorio gets charged back (+fees) when the real owners of the credit cards report the transactions as fraudulent.

[1] [https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303)

<comment><USER11> These keys are effectively serial numbers, not blinded tokens, right? Why don't the original sellers just revoke ones that were obtained through credit card fraud?

<comment><USER12> How does that get the devs any of their money back?

<comment><USER11> I don't know what you mean. Someone who wanted a key would have to buy one that wasn't fraudulently obtained, thus supporting the developer. The seller in fraudulent transaction would still have to eat the chargeback fee, but it would be a better overall result than now where the fraudster profits. Eventually they would do this quick enough that it would become pointless to attempt the fraud, thus reducing the chargebacks.

<comment><USER13> The fraudster profits regardless of whether the key is revoked or not, because they sell the key to some sucker before the fraud is discovered. The fraud is discovered when somebody looks at their credit card statement and notices the unexpected charge, so the game developer has a very limited ability to revoke fraudulently obtained keys more quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _G2A told Polygon at the time that it intended to use either > PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KMPG or Deloitte to perform the > audit. Unfortunately, according to a blog post issued on Wednesday, G2A > couldn't come to terms with those large firms and just did the audit > themselves._

I wonder what the story is there, and I doubt those are the only companies capable of auditing.

<comment><USER15> The total value of keys stolen was $4k and the settlement was $40k. The big 4 audit firms won't do a custom audit operation for that kind of price.

It only really takes someone with a bit of technical expertise who both parties can trust. In this case you could probably find some enthusiast to do an excellent job for free. If Wube and G2A were able to agree the process was fair, that also seems good enough here - they don't need to satisfy a regulator or a tax authority, which are the main purposes of audits.

<comment><USER14> $4k per the one game they looked at, not $4k total, right?

<comment><USER15> Only one developer, who only develops one game, applied for the audit/refund process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> all the "factorio friday facts" (blog title) leading up to the offer to audit and the 10x settlement

[https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-145](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-145)

[https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-171](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-171)

[https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303)

</comment><comment><USER17> Just curious, how do these illegitimate keys get obtained to begin with? Is it some kind of payment fraud where keys are obtained through fraud and the payments then get reversed? If so why don't the keys get invalidated when the associated payment is disputed?

<comment><USER18> A couple of ways I've seen are:

Pretending to be an "influencer" so you get free press keys

Buying keys in a region with low regional pricing then reselling them in a higher region

Buying a bunch of keys during a sale, then reselling them a couple of months after the game is no longer on sale

<comment><USER3> All of those are completely above water, legally speaking. There's even a term for that: arbitrage.

<comment><USER19> The first is probably Fraud by False Representation if you do it in England and Wales. ("Made a false representation, dishonestly, knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading, with intent to make a gain for himself or another, to cause loss to another or to expose another to risk of loss.")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just stared playing Mindustry [1] after someone on HN recommended it a few days ago and I'm hooked. My understanding is that it's roughly a Factorio clone, which I haven't played. Should I go play the original? Glad the developer got what they were owed here.

[1] [https://mindustrygame.github.io](https://mindustrygame.github.io)

<comment><USER21> Don't play Factorio if you have other responsibilities such as family, friends, work or hobbies.

<comment><USER22> I avoided Factorio for years because it sounded like the sort of thing I'd get addicted to. At one point about a month ago, I saw it here and decided to give it a try.

I barely slept for the next two weeks, I played something like 100 hours in that time, and kept going to bed at 7 am.

Luckily, I never played again after launching the missile, it's kind of lost its appeal after I saw the full tech tree and there was nothing else to research.

<comment><USER23> > the full tech tree

Thanks to modding, such a thing does not exist.

Bob's & Angel's is the most popular big mod. Krastorio2 is a recent 'vanilla+' offering that I've been enjoying a lot recently. The 'familiar but different' feel is very compelling. There are loads of smaller mods, but I've always like the modpack approach a la Minecraft.

It's noteworthy that Wube has unofficially supported the Krastorio2 modders. It demonstrates their commitment to the community, and was just a great decision all around.

<comment><USER22> Oh huh, I'll install that, thank you. I like things that add new functionality, but I'm not very excited about mods that just split the existing tech tree into more/harder steps. Do these mods add new functionality, or just make things like circuit types more numerous and expensive?

<comment><USER24> Depends on what you define as new functionality. They can have things like warehouses (huge chests), mini factories ([https://mods.factorio.com/mods/MagmaMcFry/Factorissimo2](https://mods.factorio.com/mods/MagmaMcFry/Factorissimo2)), by-products that you need to manage (more complex versions of uranium/oil processing), new equipment (like early game buildbots or huge late game inventories) etc.

<comment><USER22> Thank you, those all sound interesting. I installed a Nanobots mod and the game was twice as enjoyable, it really should have that built-in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "G2A couldn't come to terms with those large firms and just did the audit themselves"

That's not an audit, it's just deep introspection

<comment><USER26> Deep introspection is free... audits cost $100k+

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Black/gray market aside, the G2A "shield" cancellation process is the epitome of dark patterns.

[https://imgur.com/a/ql0iC](https://imgur.com/a/ql0iC)

Terrible company.

</comment><comment><USER28> Please can someone explain to me this: Why cant game developers just make a key retroactively invalid if it was found to be stolen?

<comment><USER29> They could, but it wont hurt the person who purchases the codes with a stolen credit card or the reseller who already offloaded the stolen goods. It just hurts the people who unwittingly bought the stolen keys.

<comment><USER28> Perhaps but they wont make that same mistake again right? At least they would never buy anything from g2a again

<comment><USER12> Usually they blame the developer and then go buy someone else's games on G2A

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> exciting! i wonder if this will set a precedent going forward for any other software impacted by G2A's very grey area tactics .i do believe there could be a marketplace which facilitates swapping keys for other keys, setting aside any monetary value and basing it on a persons perceived value of the game they would like to play.

</comment><comment><USER31> The thing is the developer already knew they were stolen and resold. So this is likely just a tiny sample of what might be much higher numbers that go undetected. The burden of proof in their model is basically on the developers.

<comment><USER15> The developer knows which keys have been stolen _from the developer_ , i.e. ones it has allowed to be used, but hasn't received revenue for, possibly because of a credit card chargeback.

It doesn't account for, e.g. having your laptop stolen with the games installed on it, or charged-back keys that were never used. But the developer knows about much more than "a tiny sample" of the thefts that actually affect it.</comment></comment>


C++ = ++C - <AUTHOR> http://the-brown-dragon.com/c++isnotc.htm

<comment><USER2> Um, the title is missing an important "!" as in "!=".

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn! You're right. But I can't correct it now.</comment></comment>


People are pooping more than ever on the streets of San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-human-poop-problem-2019-4 <comment><USER3> The city of San Francisco provides homeless people with $520/month in cash, via an ATM card that refills on the 1st of the month.

They give away $24 million a year in cash.

It's a genuinely good idea to provide assistance to the homeless, but it should be in the form of Care Not Cash and given away equally across the state. Otherwise, you are funding a drug demand epidemic and likely creating incentives for people with drug problems from around the Bay Area to move here for the cash.

I filed a FOIA with the city to get data on the total cash given away.

[http://www.disclosures.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/CAAP-d...](http://www.disclosures.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/CAAP-data-for-sunshine-request- March-2019-final-003.xlsx)

[http://www.disclosures.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/CAPI-d...](http://www.disclosures.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/CAPI-data-for-sunshine-request- March-2019-final-003.xlsx)

<comment><USER4> I wonder what drug prices are like on the first and second. And robberies of homeless people. And robberies of everyone else towards the end of the month.

Would at least make better sense to direct-pay rent for housing to the landlord and then stagger the remaining cash for everything else on a weekly basis on a different day of the week.

<comment><USER5> Police officer told me it's $12-$20/dose of meth. Didn't verify.

<comment><USER6> My friend is a cop in an area that deals with a lot of meth and opioid issues. I asked him this and his answer was that it's usually in easy multiples. $15, $20, $25 etc. I suppose this makes sense, given it's an all cash business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a general theory related to this this article. Disenfranchised people do not take care of the society around them. Rightfully so. If my society doesn't seem to give a shit about me, why should I give a shit about it? If this theory holds true, then graffiti, vandalism, pooping on the streets, and so on, are all symptoms of disenfranchisement. Conversely, go to a neighborhood of homeowners, and look at how well-kept everything generally is. You can even compare it to a neighborhood of renters. There's a noticeable difference between homeowner and renter neighborhoods. And it's not an income level thing. We can control the renter vs. owner neighborhood comparison for income level.

My general theory is that, if you want a well-ordered society, distribute ownership more.

<comment><USER8> > There's a noticeable difference between homeowner and renter neighborhoods. > And it's not an income level thing.

I'm actually not sure of this, and it comes from living in the Bay Area. Over the last 8 years, we've seen a large increase in the number of high-income families who are renting, largely because of our screwed-up property markets where a condo that rents for $3K/month might have a PITA of $8K/month if you buy it. We're even starting to get the phenomena of millionaire renters, people who could pass the accredited investor test and yet still don't own their own home.

And I've noticed that when rental areas gentrify, they get nicer. The apartments are more well-kept; there's less junk on streets and balconies; less loitering; nice shops spring up with clean (but often sterile or artificial) interiors.

I think it really is about the money. When richer tenants move in, landlords and property managers have more money for repairs & landscaping. The tenants may not be able to afford a home, but they can certainly afford someone to cart away their couch. They spend more money in the local area, which means that shop owners have more disposable income to hire people for cleaning & repairs.

<comment><USER7> I think my comment about controlling for income level stands. We need to compare your gentrified renting neighborhood to a homeowner neighborhood at the same income level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pooping is pretty high up on the hierarchy of needs. Higher than social norms. People are going to poop, sleep, eat, etc wether or not a dignified way to perform these functions is available. Solution: provide a dignified way to perform life necessities.

<comment><USER10> Here's what I don't understand. I live in DC. There's plenty of homeless people. I see them every day. But there's very little pooping in the street. Likewise in NYC. Homeless people? Sure. Poop in the street? Not so much.

Neither place, in my experience, has an abundance of public bathrooms. There's almost none that are truly public, like a building specifically with a bathroom for the public to use. Most fast food places and coffee shops will have a lock on the door with a code so you have to buy something.

So why is it just San Francisco that has so many people pooping in the streets?

<comment><USER11> One theory is that the abundance of corner store plastic bags served street people as disposable poop receptacles. With the bag ban the street poop increased.

<comment><USER12> The graph in the article shows a pretty steady upward trend in the number of poop reports. There's no real spike corresponding to the bag ban.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That chart tells the tale. It's quite astounding how it's climbed from ~5,500 incidents in 2011 to ~28,000 in 2018. Keep in mind this is _reported_ incidents.

It's like it's been normalized. No joke. In a residential (western) neighborhood (i.e. not SOMA) within a month I saw evidence of human feces twice [it's not like I'm out and about all day long]. Once on a set of steps, the other someone squatting behind some bushes. It's out of hand [seeing brown streaked tissue is another indicator]. Ridiculous.

Props to the chartmakers for reminding me of the Brown Zune.

<comment><USER14> Is it easier to report now? Would not be surprised if somewhere between 2011 and 2018, an app was released that lets you quickly report human shit on the sidewalk.

<comment><USER15> It is certainly easier to report now. The 311 mobile app for San Francisco launched in 2013. "SnapCrap," a 3rd party app focused on poop, launched in 2018.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just build the damn public toilets everywhere, make them free and clean and almost nobody but a small number of the craziest people will poop at the streets.

If we had to choose just a single thing a state should solve this is it - <USER2> most fundamental and unconditional yet simple need everybody has - a way to defecate comfortably whenever and wherever and in a city they are, regardless to how much money they have. The only need for every human that is more basic is breathing. It's ridiculous it still isn't done in a well-developed country in the 21-st century.

<comment><USER17> Even private toilets are disgusting when they service that population.

I'd like to see you push a mentally ill person from pooping into the street into the heroine-needle ridden prostitution hub of a public toilet.

Hell, I see the prostitution happen in front of city hall, where there is a childrens playground in open daylight!

<comment><USER11> The slave hysteria and general illiberal views by the government shut down the web sites that allowed professionals control over their business. Pros became independent and prostitution was moved inside.

Now a girl has to hustle on the street where it is dangerous.

<comment><USER18> Do people seriously hustle like that on the streets of SF? Like there's a special street corner people know about, and you just pull up in your car and demonstrate your financial credibility? I would think there's much more stuff happening on dating apps.

<comment><USER19> There's a corner two blocks from my apartment in SF where I regularly see women hustling. I've even been approached on the sidewalk in Union Square, which is an area heavily trafficked by tourists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If one thing is shown in this article, it's that brown should be used more frequently in charts.

<comment><USER21> Don't fool around - use the brown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It looks like the homeless population has remained fairly steady over the same period of time that reported poop incidents has quintupled. That leads to two likely conclusions: Either people are reporting it more often than before (Has it become easier to report such incidents?) or more homeless are deciding (as much as it can be called a decision) to poop publicly, maybe a further symbol of spite for a society that has left them behind?

I suppose there's also the possibility that homeless have been under counted, but to do so by to such a degree seems unlikely.

<comment><USER23> I would imagine that it's a mix. A rise in reports (thanks to the availability of the 311 mobile app and such), as well as a rise in incidents. I don't have much to back up the rise in incidents (besides everyone's general feeling that things have gotten worse on the homeless front, and maybe something to do with the opioid crisis), but it certainly feels that way anecdotally

<comment><USER24> As another anecdote, I've not noticed an increase in human waste over the last few years, but I have noticed an increase in discussions about reporting it.

Another possible cause of the rise (with no evidence to support) could be demographics of the homeless population. I imagine propensity to poop in public is correlated with other behaviors that make it difficult to get off the street. If SF is getting people off the street slightly slower than new homeless people are being added to the population, and the set of people being reintegrated are less likely than the median to poop in public, over time we'd expect to see a slowly growing homeless population that is increasingly likely to poop on the street.

There may also be a matter of changing norms; if there's already poop on the street, adding some more (vs making the trek to a public restroom that may be unsafe) isn't as unappealing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a modest proposal to end this problem.

There are too many homeless in San Francisco.

Additionally, California has too few wolves.

I propose that we release wolves into the streets of San Francisco once per month.

Only the strong will be able to evade the wolves and the weak and sick will be eaten.

This will lower the homeless population will simultaneously helping the wolf population rebound to record numbers.

<comment><USER26> I don't have enough points to downvote you... this is why people hate techies, you view the displaced as a separate species altogether, they are just like you and your family, likely without the same upbringing and privileges

Edit: Thanks guys I understand the proposal is a joke, it's just sick and callous. So all the people riffing on this joke are making nuanced social commentary as well with their analysis of homeless fighting abilities?

<comment><USER27> This is a sarcastic reference to a famous essay published by Jonathan Swift. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal))

<comment><USER28> It might be more directly a reference to this:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the- loop/wp/2015/03/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the- loop/wp/2015/03/05/rep-don-young-wolves-would-solve-homelessness/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Meanwhile:

[https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/10/18304717/shadow-housing- sf-p...](https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/10/18304717/shadow-housing-sf-park- supervisors-vote-reject-nimby)

San Francisco can either have housing, or it can have homelessness.

</comment><comment><USER30> This challenge is more or less equivalent to the problem of how to make public restrooms broadly available that are either difficult to abuse or that people don't abuse.

Even people who are on the fringes of society because they're difficult or mentally ill or just get a kick out of making things a little bit worse where they can as a fuck you to people for whom things are going better.

It'd be a benefit to everyone, especially people who are on the fringes for other reasons, but really anyone who's ever needed a place to do their business if you can figure this out and really want a change-the-world challenge.

</comment><comment><USER31> How has no one mentioned the plastic bag bans of 2012 (for SF) and 2017 (for CA)? The homeless use to defecate in plastic bags and throw them away. Now that option is entire unavailable to them. Additionally, I read that diseases like Hepatitis are on the rise, partly due to the increased exposure to other peoples' poop.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think that what's lost in some of this is that there are not enough private bathrooms in the city. Most stores don't have public bathrooms anymore, largely because of the rise of serial ADA litigation. In California, if your bathroom does not meet a fairly long list of very specific accessibility requirements, you can be sued by a disabled person, and it can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. There are a number of people in California that make their living driving around visiting businesses looking for violations and then suing them.

The response from many, many California businesses is to just close their bathrooms to the public. This means fewer places for homeless people to use the bathroom. This causes homeless people to go to the fewer and fewer available bathrooms. Since homeless people often smell, and may make a mess in the bathroom, without necessarily buying anything, the increased traffic to the remaining bathrooms causes even more bathroom closures.

Combine this with the SFPD's non enforcement of public urination and defecation laws, and general non enforcement of minor crimes, particularly if the perpetrator is homeless, it's inevitable that you will have poop all over the sidewalk.

We need more bathrooms, and we need to start enforcing the law against homeless people. If there is a reasonable place to use the bathroom, and not using it will get you arrested, the problem will go away.

Next up is getting the drugs out of the SF city jail. Many ex-addicts say that they got clean when they hit rock bottom, got arrested, and had no choice but to kick in jail. In SF though, you can get drugs in jail, so one of the only positive things about going to jail is eliminated.

</comment><comment><USER4> Soooo, build bathrooms and make them free (as in beer)?

<comment><USER33> They have some of those throughout the city. However, they require attendants to be on site during operation because people shoot up drugs, prostitute themselves, or sleep in them.

The solution will require much more than some free-to-use restrooms.

<comment><USER34> You know something, we already have police patrolling the streets, and even if it were only open 16 hours a day, that's still 16 hours of availability.

So really, we just don't have enough, and I don't think anyone really cares if people are actually shooting up drugs in a bathroom. That's better than doing it in playgrounds or on park trails and leaving the needles strewn around.

It isn't that we can't. It completely makes sense to open up more public restrooms. We are simply choosing not to and making excuses for our choices. "The solution" is nothing. If you want people living in the streets to take a dump somewhere other than just the streets, give them a place to actually do it. Make them common. Make them regular. Make them staffed. Make them clean and well plumbed. Make them high throughout so any member of the public can use them. And even add biohazard collection bins if you feel it is necessary.

<comment><USER35> Or provide safe injection sites so junkies have somewhere to go.

Our society's attitude is "if you don't pay taxes, you don't deserve help." That's so morally wrong I can't even explain it without going red in the face, but that's the situation we're in.

<comment><USER36> San Francisco alone is spending $50k per homeless person in San Francisco, on top of state and federal benefits. Are you going red in the face because we aren't spending $100k? If $100k doesn't solve the problem should we spend $200k? How much?

<comment><USER37> That's a stupid stat that's obviously wrong and offensive to everyone who works on these issues in SF, I can't imagine why people keep parroting it.

If you spend $100k and lift 9/10 people out of homelessness, that terrible math shows you spent $100k per homeless person.

<comment><USER11> The amount if money spent is excessive because it is not working. If we spent 10% more would it help? If we spent 10% less would it hurt?

<comment><USER37> Which has literally nothing to do with the "dollars per homeless person spent"

Think about it, if there was a threshold and somehow spending $1 more per year reduced the number of homeless by 50%, that metric would get _worse_.

It's fine to make the argument that the outcomes are bad but it's lazy and ignorant to divide two unrelated numbers and declare yourself outraged.

Spend some time working with the thousands of underpaid and overworked social/case workers and volunteers in SF if only to get a sense of the scale of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The problem is partially in the way American cities structured. They are either too urban (San Francisco, NYC) or suburban (perhaps Chicago is the right balance, with its alleys where someone can quietly poop). Many soviet and European cities are structured in different way - spots of high and very high density separated by greenery, where a homeless person can safely poop, without creating problems for the neighborhood's dwellers.

<comment><USER39> People defecating in a public park or green space is creating problems.

Telling people to poop behind a bush next to the street is not a solution for peopling defecating on the street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> SF created a "Poop Patrol" a few months ago...

[https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Set- to-R...](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Set-to-Roll-Out- the-Poop-Patrol-490874121.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> SF seems to have become a shithole

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a solvable problem, but I don't think anyone is approaching it from a sufficiently removed perspective.

Up front, yes, we need to be compassionate to these people (and they _are_ people) and remember that if you're posting on HN odds are you're fortunate enough to extend a helping hand once in a while.

But we cannot sacrifice the city's quality of life by enabling behaviors that endanger these people and others. That's what we're doing right now. Explicitly. There's no "how do we engineer our way out of this problem" by way of designing some new novel public bathroom. Reinventing the urinal isn't a solution to this - it isn't even a bandaid. What's worse, more public bathrooms seems extremely likely to encourage a spiral of dangerous behavior to an increasing degree. We'd just move it from the streets and concentrate it in public spaces that are no longer really public, but rather are just bio- hazardous dorms for the homeless and addicted. Elsewhere in this thread, someone noted that SF essentially already has a pseudo-UBI program for the homeless. This seems patently absurd to me. Forget about this being a literal cash transfer to drug dealers, giving an addict cash is actually worse than just giving them drugs - now they have to go out and score, endangering themselves and very likely others around them.

So what is to be done? First we have to be honest. The overwhelming majority of these people are no longer "down on their luck". They're addicts, with severe mental health issues and no amount of "nudges" will make them change their behavior. We should start with diverting all this money that goes to nebulous initiatives like "housing" and these cash give-aways into funding legitimate facilities staffed with case workers, doctors, job trainers, and police.

And then we should make vagrancy illegal.

I don't say this lightly, as I've had a family member die from opioid addiction. But so many of these people have lost their own agency. They no longer have the ability to care for themselves. If the state doesn't step in, they will be next on the gurney - and everyone here knows it. You know it when you walk past the guy shooting up on the sidewalk on the way home from work. You know it when you see the woman with that "look" holding a sign that says "7 months pregnant, terrified, anything will help". We can stand idle and watch this happen, like we have for so many years. Or we can swallow our pride and realize that this system we've set up out of "compassion" is fundamentally broken and is at its root enabling severe problems - and end it.

</comment><comment><USER42> They're shitting on the sidewalks of L.A. too, right downtown in front of restaurants.

Meanwhile, any company that opts to set up shop in San Francisco at this point is issuing a big FU to employees and investors. Why would you do this to people? Talk about squandering a ton of money for squalor.

</comment><comment><USER43> It seems there's an opportunity for additional employment there.

The waste is a problem, cleaning and disposing is an undesirable task.

All that's left is to make that task pay adequately to motivate potential employees.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't live in SF, I don't visit SF. I can't afford SF.

I don't give a shit.</comment>


Ask HN: How do users read lists? (fixed) - <AUTHOR>

Please help me with this quick user test: http://www.solidifyapp.com/p/113
It's just 1 click!
Results will be published here on HN. <comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for participating.

This little test shows that the best direction for sorting multi-column list items is vertical.

90% of respondents clicked on the vertical second item in this 2 column list, 10% clicked on the horizontal second item.

This result is in line with the telephone book argument and common sense approach of human eye movement (top to bottom).

<http://www.twitter.com/michelkusters>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable > <http://www.solidifyapp.com/p/113></comment>


Model predicts civilization will soon collapse - <AUTHOR> http://www.policymic.com/articles/85541/nasa-study-concludes-when-civilization-will-end-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us

<comment><USER2> I read something like this, and wonder, "ok, maybe I can't solve all society's problems myself, what can I do to survive such an upheaval?" Any suggestions?

<comment><USER3> live in the first world, close to good water sourced and read those forums of survival enthiasts. some selected skill sets are always demanded</comment></comment>


IRC for Hackrepreneurs. - <AUTHOR>

Question, Is there an IRC channel for entrepreneurs and hackers in Silicon Valley?<p>PS: I just made this word up (Hackrepreneur) -  Entre->Hack. <comment> saiko-chriskun #startups @ irc.freenode.net

<comment><USER2> I just logged on there and saw some pretty bad power flaunting / judgment by an op. Doesn't seem like the most open-minded or helpful community so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment pal. I see what you mean, I have been too __*ing frustrated with similar situations too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. register hackrepreneur.com 2\. write a node.js / mongodb irc client 3\. submit to hackernews 4\. ??? 5\. DESTROY THE INTERNET FAST

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Great suggestion pal.</comment></comment>


Apple is 10 years behind Microsoft on security, expert says - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/26/apple-is-10-years-behind-microsoft-on-security-expert-says/ <comment><USER2> There's two areas where Microsoft have at least some advantage over Apple:

1\. The NT kernel has a very sophisticated security model, and in the past few years MS have actually started to take advantage of it rather than shipping with a promiscuous default policy. Darwin's security mechanism is less unified, though the default Unix-y policies have been an advantage for a long time.

2\. The secure lifecycle effort. MS have really gotten very serious about thinking about security all the time. They still have decades of cruft to clean up, but ... so does Apple.</comment>


Facebook to Pay $19 Billion for WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914204579393452029288302?mod=Tech_newsreel_1

<comment><USER2> Really? Maybe you should post this to Hacker News. Or to news.ycombinator.com. Hurry.

</comment><comment><USER3> are you dense? this has already been posted 523432 times</comment>


The NoPhone Air: the least advanced NoPhone ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenophone.com/collections/featuredproducts/products/the-nophone-air <comment><USER2> This is like that app on iPhone which costed some $1000 which shows a red badge and nothing else, to show that you are rich! And few people even bought it!</comment>


Hotspots for Obama (or Romney) - <AUTHOR> http://hotspotsforobama.com/hn

<comment><USER2> I like HackerNews to be a supportive environment for startups, but this raises some questions.

Publishers trying to make an honest buck will dislike this. So will cafe customers that just want coffee and wifi and not your political positions, and the privacy conscious who now have their browsing data being sent off to an anonymous third party.

And that's putting the security question aside. (If these guys got hacked, they could very easily harvest your bank and email passwords; I'd be more trusting if they're weren't also using an anonymous whois proxy.)

The best businesses find win-wins (Airbnb is good for travelers and real- estate owners) -- but I only see one win here.

Edit: If this company ends up expanding available public wifi hotspots by rewriting some ads and providing some revenue back to the wifi provider, that could be a win-win for customers and cafes and could be a real hit.

<comment><USER3> > Publishers trying to make an honest buck will dislike this.

Publishers most likely won't know this is happening.

> Cafe customers that just want coffee and wifi and not your political > convictions will dislike this.

It is up to the cafe owner whether they want to do this, or whether they want to put a political sign on their windows for that matter.

> The privacy conscious who now have their browsing data being sent off to an > anonymous third party will dislike this.

All advertising networks sends browsing data to third parties. Whether it is this one or some other one doesn't seem that big a deal.

<comment><USER4> >It is up to the cafe owner whether they want to do this, or whether they want to put a political sign on their windows for that matter.

His point wasn't about whether or not the owners could or could not support a candidate, it was whether or not they should support a candidate.

You're absolutely right, it is up to the owners. And this seems to be pretty cool. But most coffee shop owners (which seems to be the target) will not want to alienate part of their already small group of customers.

<comment><USER5> This may come off as a joke, but dead serious:

It seems you have never gone to get coffee in San Francisco.

<comment><USER4> Well there are always going to be exceptions to the case. I would also assume there are a greater number of people going to coffee shops in San Fransisco than there are in other cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not going to pass judgment on the ethics or usefulness of this app, so I thought I would try some constructive criticism.

1\. The top-right page curl to switch between Romney and Obama has mismatched alt-text.

2\. Instead of being partisan, maybe you would want a "HotspotsForAmerica" that would just remind people to vote for the candidate of their choice, instead of telling people who they should vote for.

<comment><USER7> >I'm not going to pass judgment on the ethics or usefulness of this app... >2\. Instead of being partisan, maybe you would want a >"HotspotsForAmerica" that would just remind people to vote >for the candidate of their choice, instead of telling people >who they should vote for.

I'm not going to criticize this comment but ...

<comment><USER6> I was contrasting my feedback with the "this is a horrible thing to do" comments that popped up before mine. But, yeah, point taken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the tackiest possible way to do this (who hasn't already seen every political ad 50 times?), not to mention the extreme inpropriety of asking for a user's router password.

Far easier, and more tasteful: rename your SSID. It's the digital equivalent of a sign on your lawn.

</comment><comment><USER9> How does this work? They have an android app. I guess that connects to your router to change your DNS. (which then resolves their IP for some ad hosts). But how does it set their DNS in your router? Is there a standard API for that? Or did they make a scraper-app for lots of routers?

</comment><comment><USER10> Why is everybody expending so much effort to support the Obama+Romney campaign? Isn't it pretty clear that they're going to win?

<comment><USER11> The "they're identical" meme flies in the face of reality. Compare Antonin Scalia with Sonya Sotomayor and tell me Obama and Romney don't have significant differences that'll affect the country as a whole.

<comment><USER12> I often hear people use this argument, but I'm not sure I buy it. Won't the Justices just wait until a President of their preferred ideology is in power before retiring?

Justice Ginsburg is only 79 -- both John Paul Stevens and Oliver Wendell Holmes retired when they were 90.

Edit: It looks like Ginsburg has expressed her desire to retire at 82 (in 2015), so unless she changes her mind, it will matter.

<comment><USER13> Ginsburg was treated for pancreatic cancer three years ago.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/st...](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/story?id=6813420&page=1#.UImvrbR9ndk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On first read I thought this implied it would _add_ Obamads to my browsing experience, but looking more deeply, it just replaces other ads with Obama. Neat idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would love for Barack to win, but this is just dirty. Who's going to pay for web advertising anymore if any malicious DNS in the middle just feels entitled to hijack them for its own purposes?

<comment><USER16> Who's going to pay for web advertising anymore if just anybody can install a browser extension able to block ads? We should boycott Firefox.

What kind of world is this where I can't fund companies by learning about the best kind of paper towels or being retargeted about a product I already bought?

I recently saw an interesting thought about the state of piracy, and it being a symptom of a flawed business model. What's to say advertising in its current state is the future of Internet business models?

If enough users don't want to see the current kind of ads, don't they become far less effective?

<comment><USER15> My issue with it is that it's silent. Unless there is some landing page that tells every new MAC address once "Listen, some content is being replaced", they are SILENTLY manipulating peoples' web traffic and presenting it as canonical. That rubs me the wrong way.

<comment><USER16> Ad providers already silently notice context and provide relevant ads (manipulating the eventual result of your page load). Isn't that just as creepy? (especially when it happens inside e.g. Gmail)

<comment><USER17> No, because in that case I am getting exactly what I expect. An ad from an ad network that the site I am visiting chose to use. That is not unexpected 3rd party manipulation.

Would you be okay with me going into coffee shops and running a NewsTweek node on their wifi that swapped out all the advertisements with ones that I could get paid for? Of course you would not, and not merely because I was not the operator of the hotspot.

<comment><USER18> The mere existence of a NewsTweek shows how you should really not have high expectations about traffic going over open wifi.

Do you honestly think changing advertisements is the worst case for a mitm device?

<comment><USER17> Do you honestly think I was suggesting that such a use is the worst case for a mitm device?......

Once again however, it seems we are in a situation where people on HN do not recognize that there are two distinct meanings of "expect" (for the remainder of this post, the second will be emphasized). Consider the following:

      A parent of a teenager in highschool finds their child watching
      TV instead of studying for an exam.  The parent shakes their head
      and says, *"I expect you will do well on that exam tomorrow!"*.
      They expect the child to do well on the exam, but they would be a
      fool to *expect* the child to do well on the exam.

A user of public wifi can expect their wifi traffic to not be tampered with, but they would be fools to _expect_ that.

...Now, back to the actual point at hand, _in reality_ , tampering with public wifi traffic, not merely logging/dissecting it, is fairly rare. There is no reason to fault non-technical users _(the majority of society!)_ for having _technically_ unfounded _expectations_. Their _expectations_ may be foolish (in this case, there is little doubt of that), but that does not give technically inclined members of society a license to prey on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Add Jill Stein please.

<comment><USER19> And given the political character of HN probably a lot of people here are voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate.

<comment><USER20> Socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and vowed to stop the drone killings. The only reason not to vote for him is the whole "3rd party" thing (not that that will stop me).

<comment><USER21> Another reason could be those of us who support a national healthcare system (though I generally like Johnson's non-economic views).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there a geolocation map of all of the hotspots that have supported either candidate? I would assume that would be more interesting than the configuration to a lot of people.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you change your vote based on a hotspot name, I'd like to ask you not to vote.

Or drive or be around children for that matter - because you are dangerously ignorant.</comment>


Ask HN: How to see a total amount of Bitcoin which was accepted by a wallet? - <AUTHOR> Let's assume that some BTC wallet has following transaction history:
2015: received 3 BTC
2016: received 1 BTC
2017: received 1 BTC
2018: sent 1 BTC
2019: received 2 BTC
In this case the number is 7 BTC
Do you know any online service which can do such sort of calculations? <comment><USER2> Step 1, go here [https://www.blockchain.com/explorer](https://www.blockchain.com/explorer)

Step 2, in search type in the address you want to check transaction history for. In this example I typed in "Bitcoin Address" in google and copy/pasted the first one I found. 1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX

Step 3, Click on BTC address (unless you want to check the BCH) and you will get [https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMD...](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX)

Now if someone has a wallet and is constantly changing addresses with each transaction, that is something that I am unfamiliar with as I don't buy/hide stuff online with BTC.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Brazilian Conservation Group: Conserve 1 flush/day by peeing in shower - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/conservation-by-urination/

<comment><USER2> I thought everyone did that...</comment>


SQLite Foreign Key Support (arriving in 3.6.19) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sqlite.org/draft/foreignkeys.html

<comment><USER2> why oh why would that be needed? It seems to me that in a venn diagram of applications that need FK constraints and applications that use SQLite there should be almost no overlap.

<comment><USER3> That _need_ FK?

Nobody _needs_ FK: Anything you can implement with FK, you can implement with tedium, code duplication and transactions.

Having FK in SQLite means less tedium, less code duplication, and/or fewer transactions.

I can't imagine why anyone would be upset about this: It's easy to remove with a single `-DSQLITE_OMIT_FOREIGN_KEY` if you need the smaller code size.

<comment><USER4> You would implement those rules in code anyway as ideally data consistency rules in the database such as foreign keys or check constraints should be a "last line of defence".

Besides architectural reasons, the practical reason behind that is that it is very hard to figure out what went wrong based on a database error you get when you violate a constraint. It is a lot easier to detect things like that in code and not allow them to propagate into the database in the first place.

Note that I'm definitely not saying that database constraints are not important, I think they are very important and I use them whenever I can, all I'm saying is database constraints in themselves are not really enough.</comment></comment></comment>


The AWS Start-Up Tour - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/startupproject/ <comment><USER2> It turns out you need a US-based credit card to use Amazon Payments, by the way..</comment>


Sierra PDF Problems Get Worse in 10.12.2 - <AUTHOR> http://tidbits.com/article/16966 <comment><USER2> Preview used to be a really great app. Similarly, Mac OS used to be a pretty great operating system.

And then...

> "... Apple re-organized its software engineering department so there's no > longer a dedicated Mac operating system team. There is now just one team, > and most of the engineers are iOS first, giving the people working on the > iPhone and iPad more power."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how- apple...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-apple- alienated-mac-loyalists)

The new PDF editing solution is to fumble around with our fat fingers on a clunky oversized iPhone named "iPad Pro" , hooray.

By the way, when was the last time you heard something positive about the Mac, Mac OS, or the Apple effort with the platform?

<comment><USER3> When I worked at Apple in the early 2000s, I used to wander over to IL2 for Core Graphics meetings and occasional chats with some of the brilliant engineers working there. John Calhoun, a former Mac game developer, had total responsibility for the Preview app for a time. He was happy as a clam working on Preview and he seemed very proud of his work. As I recall, Preview back then was rock solid.

<comment><USER4> Yep, the opposite of Collective Code Ownership.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple machines have been producing vaguely corrupt PDF's for years. I've had downstream Linux tools print messages like 'this pdf is broken. Please complain to the developers of the software that created it: <apple library name>.'

Also, figures often render as black boxes on other machines (it embeds figures with alpha channels where it shouldn't), and so on.

Still running 10.11 on my laptop, but I noticed that the pdfs are super blurry on cinema displays. If you use the mouse to drag the image, it renders nicely with proper subpixel hinting. When you release the mouse button, it does a second antialiasing pass or something, blurring the edges of the fonts. This doesn't seem to matter much one way or another on retina displays, fwiw.

<comment><USER6> > Still running 10.11 on my laptop, but I noticed that the pdfs are super > blurry on cinema displays. If you use the mouse to drag the image, it > renders nicely with proper subpixel hinting. When you release the mouse > button, it does a second antialiasing pass or something, blurring the edges > of the fonts. This doesn't seem to matter much one way or another on retina > displays, fwiw.

Sierra's Preview.app appears to at least mostly fix that regression... apparently at the cost of breaking everything else, but at least PDFs are legible for viewing now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A more subtle bug: go to page broke. Before the update, going to page 100 in a textbook would consistently get you to the page labeled 100. Now it takes you to the hundredth physical page, which thanks to the cover, toc, etc. is probably not where you wanted to go.

Not a huge deal, but just another thing it used to do better than the competition and now doesn't.

<comment><USER8> > _Before the update, going to page 100 in a textbook would consistently get > you to the page labeled 100. Now it takes you to the hundredth physical > page, which thanks to the cover, toc, etc. is probably not where you wanted > to go._

Goto page has never worked reliably for me, even prior to the update.

<comment><USER9> I don't have the details in front of me, but I believe it is dependent on how the PDF is created. IIRC, page numbers must be somehow indicated to the PDF reader client.

<comment><USER10> Correct; a PDF can indicate an arbitrary page number for every physical page. Stupid PDF readers navigate in physical pages; more sophisticated readers use indicated pages, even when taking user input (go to page _Intro-6_ ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> PDF support often regresses. The most common problem is forgetting the last page read in one PDF if you open 1, 2, or 3 other PDFs. Early Kindles would remember the last page read in each PDF. The latest Kindle only remembers it for the last PDF. iBooks remembers it for 3. Foxit is 3. I can almost see the hardcoded `history[3]` in their software.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was and am a heavy Skim user ([http://skim- app.sourceforge.net/](http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/)) -- on Macs, I've found it to be a quick and snappy alternative to Preview or Acrobat for reading and marking PDFs. 10.12 broke the UI for text annotations (the bugs mainly had to do with on-screen refresh). While 10.12.2 partially fixed these problems, it introduced others.

Here's one: open any pdf in Preview in 10.12.2, choose the Rectangular Selection tool, and try to copy a rectangle from your PDF. On my own machines running 10.12.2 as well as the couple machines I've tried in the Apple Store, inevitably this leads the whole page to go blank. AFAIK the file is not affected, it's purely a UI thing, but bugs like this make the software very annoying to use at the very least.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting! Using our fuzzer, we found several PDF crashing Preview in Sierra. For instance, this one [1], which is also crashing Chrome and evince.

[1]: [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=670524](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=670524)

</comment><comment><USER14> Preview has always crashed / hung occasionally for me, on random PDFs. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it just locks.

Apple is putting their money into iOS development. And in breaking things in OSX which previously used to work...

<comment><USER15> Yeah. I remember the times prior to 2007 when OS X had zero problems.

<comment><USER16> I hope that's sarcasm. There have been problems with macOS (OS X at the time) all the way back to public beta including sluggishness pre-Intel transition.

It was (and still is) a great OS to use - but to pretend that pre 2007 existed a time where everything was perfect and no problems existed is absurd.

<comment><USER17> I agree, although my anecdotal experience after a decade of using Macs full time (and a few years part time before that) is that I've seen a lot more bugs and problems since Apple switched to a yearly release cycle.

Yosemite was by far the worst macOS version I've ever used. I'm pretty happy with El Capitan though and I won't upgrade until I really need to.

<comment><USER15>
      > lot more bugs and problems since Apple switched to a yearly
      > release cycle.

The theory that I subscribe to, is that now there is less time for the version to mature. Previously a version of OS X lasted long enough for the bugs to be ironed out and people usually remember the last version they have worked with, not the 10.XX.0 release.

<comment><USER17> I've stopped upgrading to major macOS versions until _at least_ 6 months have passed if not 1 year (when the following major version is released).

This has worked more or less ok for me with the major exception of Yosemite. Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion were the most stable and polished versions I've used.

<comment><USER18> I think this is now the safest way to proceed. When I used Windows I wouldn't upgrade to the new version until the first or second service package.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Preview also now hangs forever converting most .ps files, where previous versions worked a-ok :(

In fact, i haven't found a single .ps file it didn't hang on so far, but maybe i'm unlucky.

(so, basically, when i go to open an older paper, i have to go kill preview, run the paper through distiller, and then load it in something that isn't a disaster once i realize preview is also highly broken for pdfs anyway)

<comment><USER20> Could you clarify what "forever" means in this case? (I'm sure you meant you timed out on the operation. I'm just curious how long you gave it.)

And out of curiosity, was the CPU busy or idle during the long-running conversion step?

<comment><USER21> "Forever" likely means it takes a really long time to do the conversion. In my case the CPU was busy. It's also really prone to failure, even for simple PS with just text no graphics, such as the kind of PS generated by groff(1) on man pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really hope someone at Apple is like "you know what, I'm done. This is getting ridiculous let's make a concerted effort to make the mac awesome." Because the people who work on it care I promise you it's just someone isn't thinking and saying "this isn't up to the proper standard yet." So I hope 2017 is he mac's year.

</comment><comment><USER23> They must have changed their CMYC to RGB conversion algorithm as well. CMYC colors now look different in Preview compared to when rendered in Acrobat Reader or using Ghostscript

<comment><USER24> Could you post a screenshot?

I've had this complain (and bug filled) for a long time. They changed it a few years ago, blacks are completely washed out.

But I haven't yet had the inclination to install Sierra.

<comment><USER23> Here you go [https://gist.github.com/felixhageloh/37c4d091f4e40c4d19fa83c...](https://gist.github.com/felixhageloh/37c4d091f4e40c4d19fa83c094cf0ca9)

And you are right - this started pre Sierra already (can't remember which version)

<comment><USER24> Interesting, it's squashing the whites in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've encountered several dangerous PDF rendering bugs in Sierra. Vastly incorrect colors on only some embedded images/vectors (in a design/profile/identity guide no less!), blurry/lowres rendering that randomly comes and goes as you scroll, or huge white areas/blank pages that fill in and then disappears as you zoom in and out. This is really bad.

</comment><comment><USER26> To reiterate what I've said before: I hope that after a last gasp of pseudo- innovation/rewrites-for-marketings-sake that the tech industry can figure out how to become a more incremental, polish and improve culture, more akin to craftsmen than randian heros.

It goes to the very heart of the industry, though: our self conception, so it would be a very hard transition.

<comment><USER8> First, this was not about marketing (wasn't even advertised or meant to be known): it is about using a new common lib for PDF between iOS and macOS.

Second, the rampant rewrites are as much an issue in FOSS projects as they are in the industry (and in fact Microsoft for one, besides introducing the occasional new API has been careful with backwards compatibility to the point of paranoia).

<comment><USER26> Agree entirely: it is rampant across the entire industry. Look at Angular2. (But then, on the other hand, look at VIM or Emacs. Hmmm.)

Again, I think it is a deep problem, involving the self conception of the tech world (not only the marketing departments, although there is mixes with self interest.)

<comment><USER8> It's also in the physical world, and there it stems from companies wanting to sell disposable crap instead of long lasting products and form factors, so they have more repeat sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I hate to gratuitously disrespect a whole company like that, but how can you mess PDF when you're Apple? There's most likely an ISO specification document minutely describing the structure of a PDF document. Apple has the money, the talent, hordes of customers depending on good PDF support but they're failing at this.

</comment><comment><USER28> One more anecdote: I distribute a macOS app that uses PDF icons in an embedded WebView. Used to work fine, but since 10.12, scrolling the page up and down quickly crashes the app. My radar was closed as duplicate. I was hoping that this would be addressed in 10.12.2...

</comment><comment><USER29> My decision to stick with Yosemite is once again vindicated. I actually wouldn't mind upgrading to El Capitan, but the app store refuses to let me download it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I ended up replacing Preview with PDFExpert because I was really annoyed with the way that Preview apparently stopped pre-loading/caching pages (at least I think this is why pages are blurry for a moment each time you go backwards or forwards to a new one). It was pretty pricy, but I'm really happy with it.

</comment><comment><USER31> This bothers me. What's a good alternative for a medical student on a paltry budget (so preferably free)?

I still use Skim from time to time but the comment annotation UI being broken in 10.12 was a deal-breaker.

<comment><USER32> Foxit is great on Windows, but it seems like their Mac and Linux versions are both pretty limited by comparison. Still could check it out, though! (I got rid of my mac a few months ago and only ever used Preview when I had it, so I cant comment on its quality any more than that.)</comment></comment>


Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191754-cold-fusion-reactor-verified-by-third-party-researchers-seems-to-have-1-million-times-the-energy-density-of-gasoline <comment><USER2> Pretty old article isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is an update from October, but I'm curious what has happened since then. (Through some feedly glitch this appeared as a /. post from today?)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to find a new home for my old startup? - <AUTHOR>

In December 2008 I started Twollars with a co-founder. We had a great run and learned an incredible amount, especially about building communities (it was amazing to see how people around the world gathered offline around our vision).
After 6 months my co-founder returned to his consulting company (he was working part-time, I was doing it full-time). I then had to make the decision to build a real team and get funding or quit (until then it was mainly me doing a lot of the work, and some freelancers we hired). At the time there were some seed-stage investors that approached me since startups built on Twitter were the hype. I had made the commitment to continue my education in several months and was about to move. I decided it would be unfair to raise funding for an idea where the startup founder can't be working full-time and there isn't a team in place yet.
I spent from September onwards focussing on my education and my new social life. Since March I founded a new startup, that has a great team and is in the education sector (which is allowing me to benefit from the environment I am in). We're having a great time and all the lessons learned from Twollars are being put to good use.
Twollars has been dormant since September 2009, traffic has slowly gone to almost nihil and I can't help to find it an incredible waste.
I have been an HN member for over 2 years and have always found the answers here incredibly insightful, therefore I come for advice here. What is the best way to find a new home for my old startup?
I hope the answers to this question can help others who are in a similar situation.
Thank you,
Eiso
p.s. If you want to here more about the idea to answer specifically in relation to Twollars, this interview with Robert Scoble explains it the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYBORr8nl3Y <comment><USER2> Hey Eiso,

So yeah what I am about to say here assumes that "find a new home" = reinvent the idea/ Breathe new life into it.

You know there is a saying about how one doesn't pour new wine into old bottles.. they put it in new ones! Even so, I think that what you guys did when twitter startups began to heat up was awesome! It was an opportunity and you took advantage of it. However.. I think the general problem here is that your missing the vitality incentive factor.. aired with a chicken and egg problem (the whole brands advertising won't really happen with out the people.. then in turn the charities won't get anything.)

So the solution is simple.. It all comes down to what you believe in. Whatever it is that you believe in for this.. the idea needs to mature to give proper incentives for people to take part.. also it should have ample virality included (you had that going with the @twollars thing.) problem is i don't think people may have clearly understood why they were doing it.. and then furthermore.. how much are the charities getting for the effort of tweeting that out.

What I think about the way things should have worked out is something to the tune of.. Business --> Users --> Charities instead of your current model deal (Users <\--- Business --> Charity).. which also looks kind fuzzy it should be easier to grasp.

So my point is if it were something like Businesses sponsor the process with their products (like free service/software/products) let's say per month.. then users pay to be part of the process.. in which their money goes to charities. then at the end of every cycle users win products from the businesses that participated. Now the only thing left would be to find out a systematic way to get twollars involved for instance you can have a set number of charities that are in the event for that month.. in which different prizes are available from the business sponsors and one could @twollars to a specific charity to spread awareness? to be honest the most difficult part of it seems to be the implementation of the @twollars making that meaningful devoid of money/incentive will be difficult..

Furthermore you have to give incentive giving out more twollars.. it just does'nt seem convincing enough to me unless you add some means of tracking twollar karma on your website through various means and then using the karma (gained by spreading awarness/activity/positivity) to get rewards from the business sponsors.

/end wall of text

What exactly where you thinking about?

</comment><comment><USER3> relevant link: <http://twollars.com/></comment>


GPS and ADS-B Problems Cause Cancelled Flights - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2019/06/09/gps-and-ads-b-problems-cause-cancelled-flights/ <comment><USER2> Maybe somebody can help me understand... I thought ADS-B wasn't yet the main positionning tool for ATC, that it rather was a backup for secondary radars through Mode S. I don't understand yet why you'd ground any aircraft with a fully working, reliable, independent-from-GPS-jamming-or-spoofing Mode S /radar/ transponder ?</comment>


Twitter Will Get Its Own Data Center  - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/04/16/twiter-will-get-its-own-data-center/

<comment><USER2> My understanding is that this is, in a word, wrong.

Equinix, Switch and Data, TelX, perhaps. Leaving managed services, perhaps. Building their own, no.

<comment><USER3> Right, this is a mis-nomer. They're going from a managed service to leasing a datacenter or leasing space (several rooms) within a datacenter. Facebook went from leased space, to leased datacenters to building their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Only a thousand tweets(writes) a second. I found that interesting. So their entire infrastructure exists for propagation and search.</comment>