Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a Fail, It's a Feature - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/opinion/sunday/facebook-ad-scandal.html <comment><USER2> I find it all to be the same. Email spam. Robocalls. Phone scammers. The entire online advertising industry. It's all a vile poison that wastes time, effort, and money.

But worst of all, there's no incentive to fix it.

Most cases of bad actors on platforms are already a violation of the terms of service. But until it starts to affect the platform provider financially, everyone will keep funneling money in to the problem. The bad actors pay for the ads, they pay for the phone numbers, they pay for Internet access, and thus it's too easy to look the other way.

Then the providers come to us, the victims of the crimes whose time is wasted, whose lives are scammed. They say it's too big a problem, and gosh darn it they just can't do anything. They have their pockets turned inside out and shrug at us like we're supposed to believe them. But it doesn't affect them, it affects us, and they've never cared about us, just our money.

<comment><USER3> There are incentives to fix it. Some of us pay for things rather than have ad supported content, and as a result see far fewer adverts than ever before. Music, TV and news are now paid for and no adverts are seen (with an ad blocker sorting the rest rather than paying the content providers directly sadly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The main problem with Facebook is "too much tailored advertisements".

You can even use this advertisements to deanonymize data. And that's extremely-dangerous. If you want a list of people from an ideology, or minority, or whatever. You can send an ad targeted to that people, in the city that you are interested in. But the ad is for getting some free, unrelated to your motives, sample product. People will send you their name and address without even knowing that they saw your ad only because they are part of that minority/ideology/...

You can also, and it has already been done, target undecided people in an election. This is nothing new, but the precision and scope has increased drastically. And usually you only need a few percentage points in one state to swing an election. The money that could buy you half a percentage point, now is going to buy you a lot more.

Facebook offers a great feature for ad companies to be able to specifically target people, but it is dangerous for society as a whole. I think that the GDPR ([http://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html](http://www.eugdpr.org/key- changes.html)) is a good step in the right direction. But probably it is not enough.

The article misses completely the point. Moving the subject from "privacy" to "antisemitism".

<comment><USER5> In general, I don't see a problem with targeted ads. For consumers, I think it is a positive. I want to be made aware of products that I will actually like. Even for political issues, I want to be put in touch with the candidates and organizations and events I care about.

The only real problem I can think of is when these targeted ads are used as a way to lie to one set of targeted people while saying something completely different to another set.

<comment><USER6> Just targeting you at that level by definition means invading your privacy to the extent you may not want, or want to control and can't. Just to name a few things: 3rd party cookies, whatever data is mine-able from your profiles, your interactions, your use of the social network platform itself, on mobile, your email, your searches, information from your interaction graph, not to mention everything you might do in real life that ends up online in some way..

All of this to serve better ads is at the cost of your privacy, everyone's privacy. You can actually find things you might be interested in just fine by searching for them instead of seeing some ad twice that you might be interested in. Serving better ads requires more data on consumers and once the treadmill starts, there is no getting off unless as a consumer you decide to take back control. This is why ad-blockers are as big as they are.

This isn't some externality either, what happened in the election is the externality. To the extent that Facebook interactions fed and influenced the election, it was because better ad targeting; and more consumer time on the site, which helps better ad targeting is the business model. So, I agree with the article very much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bias in reporting, HN and comments in general make it difficult to identify extent of problem. We see tonnes of articles and comments supporting them, that FB advt. is waste of money with mostly bots and spams. But we also see articles and comments about dangers of precision ads on FB. Which side is exaggerating, and what's the truth?

<comment><USER8> Both can be true simultaneously. Precision ads can be immoral and creepy and still not actually work.

However I don't believe the "precision ads don't work" hype. I've noticed a dramatic increase in the quality and relevance of ads in the last few years, even as I mostly stopped using Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Google. Amid all these bot scandals, I would still be shocked to dind that hyper-precision targeting is ineffective without adblockers and such.

Crying out "ads don't even work!" is just a desperate attempt by anti-ad people (like me) to find some indication tha the ad emperor has no clothes.

<comment><USER9> > _Both can be true simultaneously. Precision ads can be immoral and creepy > and still not actually work._

And both _are_ true in the cases people most often complain about. I buy a camera and then get to see ads for cameras everywhere. That's both precise and _completely ineffective_. Basically, the smarts are is in the targeting side, the dumbness is in choosing what ad to show...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Facebook directly employs only about 20,658 people — roughly one employee per 100,000 users._

Slightly OT, where does the 2b monthly active user statistics come from and how was it measured? I could only find Facebook self reported stats and it is not clear what do they mean by users, and most articles seem to use user/account/person interchangeably.

<comment><USER11> FB measure's "Active Users" is someone who logs in and uses Facebook in that time period. That seems a relatively honest metric and I haven't seen any substantial criticism of it (unlike FB's video metrics).

OTOH Twitter's definition of an "Active User" is laughable: _an account must simply follow 30 other Twitter accounts and must also be followed by one-third of the accounts it follows to qualify as an active user._

[1] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/08/monthly-active- use...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/08/monthly-active-users-maus- how-do-facebook-twitter.aspx)</comment></comment>


Paris climate deal: Trump announces US will withdraw - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40127326 <comment><USER2> According to this video and based on the UN model, the Paris Climate Agreements would have extremely little effect overall (0,023%) and, I would guess, would cause much financial hurt: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47bNzLj5E_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47bNzLj5E_Q)</comment>


Ask HN: Test Engineer Interview - <AUTHOR> Hi, I am currently going for an interview for position as test engineer at software company. What should I prepare for the interview? since I am new to this position actually. Also, are there any resources to learn about test engineer? <comment><USER2> While I'm sceptical of the ISTQB certification as such (I'm certified, nobody ever cared), I agree with ahoka that the syllabus offers you a very useful guideline to understand the field of testing, especially the nuances and tradeoffs involved.

Go through it, and think about things like the seven testing principles.

If I were to interview you, I'd also throw a whiteboard-ish test at you: I'd pose a problem to you (say, I'd explain a function) and ask you to find test cases.

It's been my observation that this kind of exercise is pretty good at separating the wheat from the chaff: I could see who dares to ask questions, I could see who systematically walks the problem space, I could see who even thinks of testing not just the functional requirements, but also the non- functional ones. Most importantly, I could use this as a way into a discussion, and see how people carry themselves in such a (vaguely work-like) situation.

I suspect the interviews I conducted were on the more rigorous side, so you might be spared whiteboard tests, but in any case it can't hurt to to try and exercise actually creating and reasoning about test cases.

Also, it can't hurt to find out about the testing tools they use. Either you can find them outright, or you can at least make educated guesses about what they use based on the technologies they build their product on. Actually trying them out would be asking too much, but at least get a feel for what their purposes and limitations are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a standard in systematically walking problem space? or should doing it in my way?

<comment><USER2> > Is there a standard in systematically walking problem space? or should doing > it in my way?

Yes and no.

An important idea is to principally check corner cases, where potential errors lurk.

What the corner cases are depends on the system under test, of course.

There are a few rules of thumb, such as if there are limits to the input, check around the limits (e.g. if your function under test expects a month as its input, do the obvious thing of checking month 1, 12, 0, 13, Null, "foo"). Or if your function takes a list, use the (0, 1, infinity) rule: try with the empty list, a list with one entry, and a list with "infinite" (in practice: very very many) entries. Etc.

But you also should try to get an understanding for the SUT, to find corner cases that are less obvious or cookie-cutter.

And have opinions on how efficient/throrough your test suite should be: does the function under test just provide decoration, or does it make life-and- death decisions? The effort invested in testing them would certainly differ based on this assessment.

Again, the ISTQB syllabus provides helpful guidance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can prepare using ISQTB materials: [https://www.istqb.org/downloads/syllabi/foundation-level- syl...](https://www.istqb.org/downloads/syllabi/foundation-level- syllabus.html)

I have never worked as a test engineer but as far as I know most large companies use the ISTQB certification, and it covers most of the basic test know-how.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you, starting reading this materials

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Test Engineer is a broad term. I would look at the job description and prepare accordingly. Here are some things you should look into: \- Types of testing: white/black box, functional vs non-functional, API testing, browser-based testing \- If you are asked to write test points for a function/form etc. make sure you cover positive, negative, edge cases, upper/lower limit etc.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand about white/black box testing, functional vs non functional. But I am confused on covering positive, negative, egde cases part, could you please explain this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Test engineer: Basically, you're interviewing to perform QA. On the job, you may "engineer" a lot of automated tests.

(Sometimes this isn't clear, because at the beginning of our careers a lot of us want to be developers.)

<comment><USER6> Maybe there are still companies out there that do the defunct record-actions- and-replay approach to automation, but luckily my experience was just as heavy on the engineering side as any of the software engineering work I've done since I "switched". You just don't get as much respect from the software engineer crowd because building CRUD APIs using web frameworks is considered engineering and building an automation framework from scratch is considered QA.

Sorry if I came off on the offensive, just didn't like seeing "engineer" in quotes.

<comment><USER7> Word! The level of respect that a developer shows towards test and reliability engineering is also a great way to identify skill and experience.</comment></comment></comment>


A black conservative Christian pastor of an evangelical megachurch has vowed to take over Microsoft. - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/16/wmicro116.xml <comment><USER2> If this buyout really happens, I suspect share holders will be really happy. The price has got to go up due to increased demand, and they can all rest easy knowing that the people with the majority share in the company are not actually going to sell it.</comment>


GameBoy Programming Manual  - robert-boehnke http://www.scribd.com/doc/39999184/GameBoy-Programming-Manual <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe i missed something, but the options are: Login with facebook or Pay Us.

>>To download this document you must become a Premium Reader<<

EDIT:

[http://www.romhacking.net/documents/544/](http://www.romhacking.net/documents/544/)

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=GameBoy+Progr...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=GameBoy+Programming+Manual)

<comment><USER2> This post seems to have been inspired by a comment I made yesterday with the original PDF ( ´_ゝ`)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6119347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6119347)

[http://chrisantonellis.com/files/gameboy/gb-programming- manu...](http://chrisantonellis.com/files/gameboy/gb-programming-manual.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can hardly understand anything in that doc. I'm a decent-enough iOS programmer from a LAMP and design background. It makes me wonder if in 20 years people like me will look back at the iOS programming guide and be equally confused. As programming gets abstracted out, put into frameworks and simplified at the user-level it's sure to go even more visual.

<comment><USER4> I like that you said you are an "iOS programmer" that's the problem with programming today. you are not a programmer. if you were a programmer, you would be able to make sense of that document. so to answer your question, 20 years from now, programmers of that era will be able to make look at iOS programming docs and understand it, meanwhile "20 year future language programmers" won't. I say this because I learned gameboy programming in my first year of college (1997) by learning z80 and reading gameboy programming text files that were probably around 5 pages. that low level programming, till today serves me well.

<comment><USER5> Truly spoken like someone who has never written iOS programs. Some iOS programs are actually truly inspiring and I know of many people who haven't gotten into that market because it's too competitive (programming wise).

FWIW, I know my x86 assembly and am not an iOS programmer. But I have huge respect for good iOS programmers. Some of those apps are phenomenal.

<comment><USER6> He's not claiming that someone who programs for iOS is a bad programmer. At all.

He's claiming that people who _identify_ themselves as an "iOS programmer", rather than just a "programmer", aren't really programmers. A "programmer" might be able to write inspiring stuff for iOS, but they haven't pigeon-holed themselfs into being an "iOS programmer"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Back when I was teaching English in Japan, I stayed up late hacking on Game Boy code to keep that part of my brain active. It was during that time that I really realized that I wanted to work in software, or at least something with some creative output.

I didn't use any of this though, I found a Japanese book on the GBDK C compiler. It's still available here: [http://gbdk.sourceforge.net/](http://gbdk.sourceforge.net/) and there are more resources here: [http://devrs.com/gb/software.php#assemble](http://devrs.com/gb/software.php#assemble)

I've thought since then that working on a simple machine like that is a great way to learn the fundamentals of computer science.

<comment><USER8> As I understand CS, it deals a lot with Data structure construction and management.

In my school, we began with high-level functional languages and it's only after 3 years of programming than we discovered low level programming and could write a Kernel.

Can you explain how a RISC assembly language can help you learn CS ?

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if I define CS that narrowly, but anyway I was working with the C compiler, not the asm code. It was a good learning tool for me because of the simple output and the slow processor, which meant that I didn't need to worry much about the graphics and that poorly performing code was immediately, painfully noticeable. There were plenty of data structures to work with sprites, characters, screens, etc.

My CS course (in the late 90s) kind of went the other way. One of the earliest courses was one that taught how a cpu operates -- what a register is, what the accumulator is, etc. There was no actually programming, just working through the steps of what the computer does to perform a given operation. After that there were a number of directions to go in.

<comment><USER8> Aw right, I missed the C compiler point.

> I'm not sure if I define CS that narrowly

I mostly wanted to bold the data structure manipulation, something you wouldn't see when manipulating directly the assembly code.

<comment><USER9> You'll manipulate data structures in assembly if you need to. Graphing algorithms are everywhere; and, they require some sort of data structure.

You would be amazed what crazy and complex things were written to create some of the older games you know and enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't know that GB consoles didn't have a flat memory model. That was horrible to program with x86/DOS and must have sucked even more on a tiny hand-held.

<comment><USER11> x86/DOS actually was much nicer than most consoles, as it had a 20 bit address space. All memory in the machine could be addressed, even if you had to juggle NEAR and FAR pointers.

The 8/16-bit consoles could only address 64k, which was to be used for program, data, VRAM and memory-mapped I/O. So you were forced to partition your code and data in 8k or 16k banks and manually swap them in and out. If bank 1 was swapped in, there was no way to access bank 2...

<comment> g-rex The NES had 32K addressable RAM...while some behemoths like Castlevania 3 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_III:_Dracula%27s_Cu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_III:_Dracula%27s_Curse)) had 256K of program code to fit in that little box. Every game company solved this problem differently, it seems: [http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Mapper](http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Mapper)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for the manual. =]

I know it's not an official manual but it's worth mentioning: GBA Tonc - [http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/toc.htm](http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/toc.htm)

PDF download: [http://www.coranac.com/files/tonc.pdf](http://www.coranac.com/files/tonc.pdf)

<comment><USER13> I've really been wanting to get into GBA programming. I really would like to buy a cart to be able to develop directly on my DS ( I thought I would be able to find one in Akiba, but they seem a bit impossible to find in person, and all the online stores I've seen seem mega shady)

<comment><USER14> Practically speaking, most of your iteration will be on emulators anyway, so don't let not having a cart stop you from getting started. GBA programming is a ton of fun!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So if i understand this correctly, you can only write in the screen buffer using a character of 8x8 pixels.

<comment><USER15> Right - everything has to be a sprite. That way you can represent the screen with something like 360 (20x18) sprites, instead of 23040 (160x144)) pixels. The sprites are also done by blitting hardware, the Z80 CPU presumably couldn't update a 160x144 screen at a playable framerate if it had to update pixel by pixel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's always interesting to see game console programming. On a similar note tonc [http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/](http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/) is a great intro to homebrew GBA programming.

</comment><comment><USER17> This cribsheet was very handy when I was writing a Z80 emulator.

[http://www.otakunozoku.com/nintendo-gameboy- cribsheet/](http://www.otakunozoku.com/nintendo-gameboy-cribsheet/)

</comment><comment><USER18> from the manual:

"2\. CPU 2.1 OVERVIEW OF CPU FEATURES The CPUs of DMG and CGB are ICs customized for DMG/CGB use, and have the following features. CPU Features Central to the 8-bit CPU are the following features, including an I/O port and timer. 127 x 8 bits of built-in RAM (working and stack)"

How much memory is needed today to make games that are only half entertaining?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course modern games use more memory as they are running on completely different platforms. Memory usage has nothing to do with entertainment level. A 8-bit Chess Game might be as entertaining to someone as is Call of Duty 26 to someone else.

(Game boy has 8192 bytes of working ram. 127x8 bits is only for stack)

<comment><USER11> And cartridges could have additional RAM for games that needed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> wow. My childhood dissected into something I can (to a marginal extent) comprehend. It's quite the fascinating reality check. It isn't _really_ magic after all.

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome find, this also helps to program for other devices that run the z80 processor (TI83 anyone?)! :-D

<comment><USER21> Not particularly... The game boy's processor is more like a i8080 than a z80. It lacks the second register set used for interrupt handling and the iX and iY registers and the super-sweet addressing mode they enable.

Game boy assemblers do use the z80 syntax rather than the crazy i8080 syntax, thankfully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's an amazing document, looking forward to read it.

</comment><comment><USER23> No jQuery plugin for app dev? :)

<comment><USER24> [http://imrannazar.com/GameBoy-Emulation-in- JavaScript:-The-C...](http://imrannazar.com/GameBoy-Emulation-in- JavaScript:-The-CPU)</comment></comment>


Whistleblowers will continue to leak state secrets, warns AP chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jun/26/associated-press-chief-whistleblowers

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how agencies can limit the amount of leaks, when their human employees with "secret knowledge" have moral conflict concerning their work and feel that they have nothing to lose. Is it too far away to even think about possibilities like extorting employees with things that could happen to their family members for example? North Korea comes to my mind as an extreme example - "escape and all your relatives are sent to torture camps". What are the preceding steps?

</comment><comment><USER2> Pretty much what he said. If you want to keep stuff secret, a very good way to do that is to _not_ give "top secret" access to _1 million_ people, and "classified" access to _5 million_ people.

Of course the only reason that has happened, is because the past 2 administrations have been a sick joke, and they only label it classified simply because they don't want people to find out about it, not because it's a real "threat to national security" if people were to read most of those documents.</comment>


The Wave that changed the world (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2017/03/17/the-wave-that-changed-history <comment><USER2> My Sociology teacher in high school did a much tamer version of this experiment when we were reading Lord of the Flies. As we read it chapter by chapter, he kept asking, "Does anyone believe in the Beast?" One kid finally said yes and he got all giddy, gave the kid a special seat by the front of the class and gave him a stuffed animal "beast" to hold.

As we read further and further he kept asking classmates? "Do you believe in the Beast?" He would give small things to the growing group, leave class 5 minutes early, some candy maybe, little things. But one by one the whole class joined the group, just as the true meaning of the Beast became apparent. Such an interesting lesson!

<comment><USER3> Personally, I've experienced a mix of extremes in both privilege and oppression.

While some people are really good, and some really evil, most of humanity has thos duality. They love you when you're successful, or for your popularity. But it's amazing how easily they can really turn their backs on you, even for no good reason.

There is an idea that: 'Nazis were regular people.' By some accounts the most common method of those millions who were murdered in the Killing Fields was by pick axe, to save bullets and money. The immediate reaction of that for me was the callousness, torture. But if you stop to think about it, how personal of a method is that? This was not just mass genocide, and it was not industrialized. It was carried out by masses of people with their own hands in a personalized way.

After my traumatic experiences with psychopathic cheating, abuse as an adult, now every time I hear or read of psychopathy happening today -- what is essentially just one group of people abusing, exploiting power over others for personal gain at the expense of others' liberties -- I think "Oh my God, we all need to wake up and do something." It feels like every day there is some new form of tyranny I learn about which is happening today, which is considered so ordinary that it is allowed to persist. Sometimes they are obvious evils, such as The Insulin Racket, Abu Ghraib or the Collateral Murder leaks, for example. But other times I see some of these group tyrannies have propaganda machine behind them which are not different from other forms of facism or tyrannical power structures, such as I think is the case with Big Pharma or Wall Street.

I think there is a crazy duality with humanity where we have abuse, tyranny always so close, and tolerated. We all know what it is -- that it is evil. We all hate it, and are ashamed of it. We always criticize it when it is at a distance, but then nobody is doing anything about it just as past generations did as well.

<comment><USER4> > We all hate it, and are ashamed of it. We always criticize it when it is at > a distance, but then nobody is doing anything about it just as past > generations did as well.

Standing up to tyranny requires critical mass. Even in moral opposition to tyranny it makes sense to wait until the right moment to take action as it needs to be powerful and coordinated. Someone has to be first taking a stand though in changing the world.

<comment><USER5> I would disagree and say that it's usually the individual dissenter who makes the biggest difference, and the ones who waited for the critical mass waited forever.

<comment><USER6> For sure the first dissenter makes the biggest difference, but only if they have a large following who already agrees with them and were just waiting for a spark. To dissent without a critical mass of support usually doesn't change much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's the teacher's riveting account, from 1972: [http://libcom.org/history/the-third-wave-1967-account-ron- jo...](http://libcom.org/history/the-third-wave-1967-account-ron-jones) (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2480260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2480260) from 2011, but only one comment there).

Here's the article from the school paper at the time, which includes details missing from the other articles, such as that the senior class staged a coup and kidnapped the teacher: [https://imgur.com/t/nazism/hXgrmKX](https://imgur.com/t/nazism/hXgrmKX). The timeline disagrees with the other articles too.

Can anybody find a previous discussion of this on HN? "Wave" and "third wave" are such overloaded terms.

<comment><USER8> I suspect the story have been adjusted and embellished afterwards in order to clearer teach the lesson it was supposed to. The students staging a coup and kidnapping the teacher sounds like a fun bit of roleplay which perhaps got out of hand, but doesn't really support the lesson that we all are easy victims of fascism.

Some other comments suggest the episode was "hushed down" because they never heard about it. It might also be that it wasn't as big as dramatic an episode in the first place, as it was later presented.

<comment><USER7> I was wondering the same thing. The contemporaneous report seems unlikely to have made up such dramatic facts. I wonder if the documentary covers the 'coup'.

Milgram had people who refused to push the buttons, of course. And the Stanford Prison Experiment has been critiqued severely in the last few years, to the point of accusations of fraud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's really strange to me that this story seems to be so unknown in the US. It's such an important and powerful lesson.

In contrast, I was educated in a European system, and in history class there was strong emphasis on the lessons of being subjected to or being on the brink of a fascist system. There are memorials to the Shoah and the Resistance in every town.

The US enjoyed the luxury of saying "it didn't happen here", but the education system at large really seems to have willfully ignored the lessons Europe has learned.

Hell, the movie about this was _german_!

<comment><USER7> The Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram experiments are well known in the US, and in the same space, so I don't think this generalization works. (Edit: Also the Asch conformity experiments.)

Edit: after reading the article, maybe there's a more interesting reason why this episode is less known: no one talked about it publicly for many years after it happened. "Silence is what happens when you feel shame."

Edit 2 — and then there's this: _" I'm not proud of the Wave, and I don't want to see it repeated," said Jones, who has turned down inquiries about how to re-enact the Wave from everyone from cult leader Jim Jones to a British television company wanting to turn the experiment into a reality show._ Say what? Jim Jones?

Edit 3: if the 1972 date on [http://libcom.org/history/the-third- wave-1967-account-ron-jo...](http://libcom.org/history/the-third- wave-1967-account-ron-jones) is accurate, then the OP is wrong that nobody talked about it publicly for over a decade.

<comment><USER10> I recall learning about this in high-school, which was in the Midwest in the early 1980's, so I don't know that it's as unknown in the U.S. as you say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow. In one short week this all happened and was defused by the teacher:

> _There is no such thing as a national youth movement called the Third Wave. > You have been used. Manipulated. Shoved by your own desires into the place > you now find yourself. You are no better or worse than the German Nazis we > have been studying_

And

> _Silence is what happens when you feel shame_

What I find particularly interesting is that the basic elements of what happened can be seen in all walks of life, even in tech. Eg. The 'gamification' that many products use, is very much like the 'follow our rules and you'll be rewarded', and the 'belief' in a central tenant becomes a central rule of authority. The marketing slogans used to gain groundswell are the same: an agenda to deepen one's commitment to the cause.

Even HN, with it's karma, @dang as our bodyguard, with YC as the central body. All down and up votes on this comment will prove the point that the secret police are here too, gauging my suitability to the cause.

So, a fantastic article that shows we all have natural tendencies to be sheep, but are all also wanting to be elitist sheep.

<comment><USER12> Please don't draw these kinds of false equivalences between normal behavior and authoritarianism, as it really muddies the waters and makes it easier for real authoritarians to take advantage. It's really unfair to compare dang to the secret police, when most of what he does is encourage polite debate. I've gotten real death threats from real fascists and I assure you HN mod staff are not fascists. (n.b. being intolerant of the intolerant is required for a tolerant society.)

Some of us have natural tendencies not to be sheep. I have walked out of rooms of twenty of my friends because what I thought they were doing was just going along with immoral cause. I've refused tasks at work because it wasn't appropriate. There are lots of artistic and revolutionary types, too. All it takes is standing up and a little guts.

<comment><USER11> Firstly, I have loads of respect for @dang and the community here. I think a slight misunderstanding occurred here. I made no claim to facist behaviours nor tendencies toward such: Just the claim that we all want to belong, that we all want to be seen, and that we also call others out for behaviour that doesn't match our view of the rules (such as this feedback).

I too walk away from immoral things... but that doesn't mean I'm not sheep like in other areas of my life (eg. blindly obeying a red traffic light when there's no one else on the road)

This is what the teacher was teaching the kids in the article: " _You are no better or worse than the German Nazis we have been studying_ "

<comment> frosted-flakes > blindly obeying a red traffic light when there's no one else on the road

It's funny how that is. I don't know _anybody_ who would run a stale red light in the middle of the night when noone else is around, including me. I'm sure it happens, but I'm also sure that it's rare. In the West, we've been conditioned to blindly obey traffic signals.

On the other hand, most of us have stretched the yellow into the red. What's the difference there? Running a stale red is blatant, but running a fresh red is justifiable because "it's just a few seconds!".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > "What was interesting during the Wave was that the very bright kids were > excluded and martialed out of the classroom by guards early on. That left > the middle group, who then felt empowered. That's probably what's happening > today in the United States. People who felt left out suddenly are in > control, and it feels good.

The topic of resistance to mass totalitarian movements is more relevant now than ever before. The article, like history, unfortunately paints a very bleak picture for the prospects.

In the classroom study, as in historical episodes, the deck was stacked against resisters from the start. They got the same reward for going along as successfully revolting:

> ... "He [the teacher] told us, 'If you're an active participant, I'll give > you an A; if you just go along with it, I'll give you a C; if you try a > revolution, I'll give you an F, but if your revolution succeeds, I'll give > you an A.'

In other words, resistance requires values that transcend immediate rewards and punishments. The path of greatest reward/effort lies in going along to get along, and most people will take it without thinking too much.

Beyond that, successful revolutionaries need a great deal of skill to avoid detection. The unskilled "bright" students were caught and banished early, and I don't doubt that those doing the banishing felt very good about that.

Only two students mounted a noteworthy resistance effort:

> Out of all the students, only two actively resisted -- sophomores Alyssa > Hess and Sherry Tousley. On the final day, Hess stood up in class and urged > her classmates not to attend the rally. Tousley resisted from the start. > Tousley was one of Jones' top students who had been banished from class > early on for questioning the movement's purpose. She anonymously launched an > anti-Wave resistance group, "The Breakers." In the documentary "Lesson > Plan," she said her father drove her to Cubberley before school hours so she > could hang anti-Wave posters up high in the halls so students couldn't tear > them down. Until the making of the documentary 40 years later, not a single > person -- except her father -- knew Tousley was the sole person behind the > resistance group.

Hess's stand at the end of class, although brave, had little effect. Worse, it couldn't be repeated. This is unfortunately the fate of most resisters because it takes a lot of skill to mess with the steamroller and survive.

Tousley's effort was much more interesting in that she was able to work on a recurring basis in a way that avoided detection.

<comment><USER14> > The topic of resistance to mass totalitarian movements is more relevant now > than ever before.

Especially since we seem to have bimodal totalitarian impulses. Two opposing cultures, both of whom seem content primarily existing to reject the other.

I hope both cultures learn how to live with each other, tolerating dissent, before ignoring civil norms (i.e. escalating bigotry, violence) starts becoming attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This must have been a strong ispiration for the aptly named "The Wave" (2008), although I couldn't find any reference either side.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/)

<comment><USER16> The book is so well known in many countries as it's part of the standard curriculum (I had to read it when I was 16), so I think the German film makers felt it needed no particular references to the story. It's right next to Animal Farm, Brave New World, and 1984.

See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film)#Differenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_\(2008_film\)#Differences_from_the_1981_film)

<comment><USER17> Perhaps, Lord of The Flies is somewhere on that shelf, as well. Gosh I should go back and read all those again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is the bright side to community, order and the rest of it? Every ww2 and excessively tribal story ends badly and we need to be reminded of that.

But we always have moments in history when tribalism comes back and we will in the future. How can we use this to our advantage? Last time it came up we made some good advances in the understanding of human perception & consciousness. Can we use this power for good?

<comment><USER19> The good side of community, order and obedience to authority are the entire civilized world and all the goodies within it. Hospitals, electricity, cozy homes that stay cold in the summer and hot in the winter. Without the human tendency to group up and follow leaders nothing works and little gets done. Sometimes this habit goes wrong on us, and results in lynch mobs or Nazism. But overall it's still one of our greatest strengths as a species, and we need to be aware of its failure modes rather than rejecting the whole idea outright. Cooperation is one of the animal world's superpowers.

<comment><USER20> Everything you mention can be born out of individualism, not just by blind conformity and having any fixed social structure.

<comment><USER21> >>> Everything you mention can be born out of individualism, not just by blind conformity and having any fixed social structure.

Can it really? I feel like this would require further discussion and is not as obvious as you seem to think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm intrigued by the fact that parents didn't get involved. In the early 70s my brother's social studies teacher must have heard about this guy because he did a similar thing in his classroom. As I remember it my mother flipped her shit and started making calls. She was having none of it.

</comment><comment><USER23> The suprising part is that they apparently didn't spend any class time talking it over after it happened?

</comment><comment><USER24> This talked like it is yesterday. It is now. I have the same question to china

and why even out of the totalitarian system and lived in USA those chinese student still work for and like a country that not allow this and that. No democracy. No google and all privacy. No individual. And have the-education camp. And of course forcing the whole HK to revolt.

Why the Chinese can live in china?

</comment><comment><USER25> There's even an exceptionally good German movie about this entire phenomenon (it was discovered first in Germany): Die Welle (The Wave)

</comment><comment><USER26> The third wave sounds pretty similar to the way schools (and many other organizations) often work anyway: strict enforcement of social status and arbitrary rules, strict codes for speech, dress, and behavior, encouragement of informers, public shaming and punishment, and an overall emphasis on groupthink and compliance.

</comment><comment><USER27> For those interested, "Lesson Plan", the documentary mentioned in the article, is streaming on Prime right now.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076KS3CCS](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076KS3CCS)

</comment><comment><USER28> It's a great story but it's almost certainly too good to be true. There were a whole lot of things along this vein showing how good people can be manipulated to put innocent people into gas chambers as part of the restoration of Germany as part of the 'free world'

The truth is that people aren't good, and a lot of them would love to put people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them to do it. No manipulation required. The Nazis were not evil geniuses that figured out how to twist the good intentions of people into evil ends. They were brutal, moronic sociopaths that allowed the natural hateful tendencies of people to flourish.

It's a dangerous myth to believe that democracy and freedom is the natural state of man and that chaos and destruction is the aberration. It's precisely the opposite.

Democracy and peace and freedom are states that one has to continuously work for and make sacrifices to sustain. The us is learning that the hard way right now.

It doesn't take a genius to destroy democracy. It just takes one hateful idiot in charge who allows and encourages hate and violence to flourish.

<comment><USER29> > The truth is that people aren't good, and a lot of them would love to put > people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them > to do it.

Is this a fact, or a theory?

If it's a fact, are you able to convince a very open minded person like me of it?

<comment><USER30> Fact.

All you need to do is look at the horrors of various "Ethnic/Communal Cleansing/Riots" etc. in various countries across the world. Eg. 1) Ethnic cleansing during breakup of Yugoslavia 2) Communal Riots in some of the countries of South Asia etc. In many cases it was literally neighbour-vs- neighbour all because the environment changed to expose and sanction to act on various fault lines eg. ethnic/linguistic/religious etc.

<comment><USER29> That does seem fairly reasonable, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Even though the entirety of the stories are completely different, I couldn't help but start to picture scenes from The Dead Poet Society while reading the article.

How does it go? Oh captain, my captain?

Edit: PS: I did watch DPS in school in the US, but just heard of the third wave here today.

</comment><comment><USER31> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire) is relevant</comment>


Show HN: Awsm.css – Simple CSS library for semantic HTML markup - <AUTHOR> https://igoradamenko.github.io/awsm.css/ <comment><AUTHOR> It would be great if community could write something about the lib. :c

In my imagination it can be good for doc pages, simple blogs etc. What do you say?</comment>


Immigrating to Silicon Valley: How I Got an L-1A Visa Without a Lawyer - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/immigrating-to-silicon-valley-how-i-got-an-l-1a-visa-without-a-lawyer/ <comment><USER2> Thanks so much for sharing this. IAAL, and I found it a well-written, informative, and accurate summary of the L-1A process.

I'd love to see a US immigration process that was so simple it could be 100% lawyer-free. Probably not in my lifetime though!

I especially enjoyed the emphasis on compiling good documentation, paying attention to detail, and figuring out what the immigration officer will be looking for, then tailoring the application to those priorities.

That's how lawyers do it, and he's right, it's not rocket science.

Also appreciate the link to the Startup Grind blog. New to me, and helpful.</comment>


A dose of hope (low dose rate radiation study) - <AUTHOR> http://www.frontline.in/stories/20120727291403700.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an overview of this paper: [http://web.mit.edu/engelward- lab/publications/2010_Engelward...](http://web.mit.edu/engelward- lab/publications/2010_Engelward_HP.pdf) which looks to be some pretty reasonable research.

As I've mentioned previously, one of the challenges of talking about radiation dangers is that we don't have a lot of data around what is 'safe' and what is 'dangerous.' Or even damaging. This paper suggests that we may be conservative by over 400x what is considered a 'safe' dosage of radiation.

Or put differently, all the land around the current Fukishima plant, and much of the land around Chernobyl may in fact be safe to live on. With the definition that the residual radiation present may produce no more risk than you'd get from regular background radiation.

I am really glad we've got people digging into these questions.</comment>


In new Waymo v. Uber order, judge pounds on Waymo - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/in-new-waymo-v-uber-order-judge-pounds-on-waymo/ <comment><USER2> "Pounds on Waymo" feels a bit editorialized. The overall feel is that the judge is saying that Otto isn't the liable party if what Waymo says is true...rather that either Uber or Levandowski himself is the liable party.

<comment><USER3> Got me to click

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the Judge Alsup's write up:

> Having made and benefitted from its strategic choice to not name Levandowski > as a defendant, Waymo may not renege and suggest that Otto Trucking—or any > other defendant—is somehow a stand-in for Levandowski, or that > misappropriation by Levandowski is somehow automatically transmogrified into > misrepresentation by Otto Trucking—or any other defendant—such that Waymo > need not separately prove the latter.

So, the issue in question is not naming Levandowski as a defendant. Any ideas on why would Waymo's lawyers do this?

<comment><USER5> As I understand it they had a contract with Levandowski saying that disputes had to be settled by arbitration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The judge in this case is pretty interesting. Here's a profile: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs- googl...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge- william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber)</comment>


Ask HN: Dealing with anxiety as a founder? - <AUTHOR>

In recent months there have been a lot of posts about leading a balanced life while founding a startup. Things along the lines of
- "Only work 40 a week!" - "Make time for friends, family, etc. outside of work!" - "Keep a healthy social life!" - "Get a lot of exercise!"
I understand the merit in those, and actually strive to do so myself. But as a founder (technical, at that) with anxiety issues I find I often struggle to do so--perhaps more than others.
Because of this, I worry a lot and can easily justify my 80+ hour weeks: "If I don't finish just this one more thing we won't make it!" It actually can be rather poisonous, as I can be anxious about the team I've built: "I hope Jim does X the right way or else we'll be in trouble..."
Any other founders with chronic anxiety have any advice on how to cope? I have previously (when I was younger, over 10 years ago at this point) been on medication for it and am considering it again. Anyone else medicate to handle it? How did has it gone? <comment><USER2> I assumed anxiety is the norm and not the exception?

I'm sure you've heard the term "rubber duck debugging"[1] - maybe you need something like that for your business? Someone, or something, that lets you say "nope, this really won't make a difference whether I finish it today or tomorrow."

Besides that, the main issues you've listed are things that everyone has to deal with. Need a healthy social life? Dedicate one or two nights a week as "work-free" nights. Need more exercise? Find something you can enjoy doing, and do it. During the nicer months, I'll walk five or ten miles around Boston with a pair of headphones. It's really healthy, but doesn't /feel/ like exercise. I also consider it necessary downtime from staring at an LCD screen.

For what it's worth, have you considered that working 80 hours a week is just a bad habit? The same thing as playing World of Warcraft 10 hours a day. They can both be equally consuming, stressful, and hard to break free of.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging>

</comment><comment><USER3> You seem to have a health issue that you should look into. Being an entrepreneur is stressing and is not for everybody. Don't do it unless you are confident in your ability to deal with it. It's not worth it becanse entrepreneurship is quite shitty in real life. Lots of work and stress for a small chance of return.

Now, realize that your success is mostly luck. So, work a normal schedule, plan your work week, and just hope for the best, but don't count on it.

Quitting a business because its too hard is nothing to be ashamed of. I have done it myself and am better off. Don't worry about things. You can always try another business.

</comment><comment><USER4> A few things:

-Have you shipped yet? If you're doing the what-if game, or bugging out about tiny details, I suggest doing an MVP first. Then use metrics to find out what really moves the meter in terms of revenue. Doing triage with your to-do list will help.

-If there are any startup meetups near you, I suggest going to some. It will help if you can find some peers to talk to. They've probably been where you are and can show you how they balance work/life.

-If it's really a problem and things get dark, see a psychiatrist.

</comment><comment><USER5> Relevant:

<http://www.startupsanonymo.us/>

Yesterday's discussion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5388219></comment>


St. Jude Heart Devices Vulnerable to Hacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/in-an-unorthodox-move-hacking-firm-teams-up-with-short-sellers <comment><USER2> Matt Levine wrote about this today [ [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-26/herbalife...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-26/herbalife- deals-and-blockchain-dreams) ]:

"One thing I wonder about is: Even if Block is right, why would you hack someone's pacemaker? It is just so ... mean. And complicated. Like, if you wanted to murder someone with a pacemaker, it seems like it would be easier to walk up to him and shoot him with a gun than to buy the hardware and develop the expertise to hack his pacemaker, get within hacking range, and then do it. Pacemaker-hacking does not seem like an optimal method if your goal is just regular murder. (Not legal advice!)

"I guess one reason to hack a pacemaker is financial: You could short a ton of St. Jude's stock, hack some of its pacemakers, kill some people and wait for the stock to crash. (This is again not legal advice, though it is a free plot for a financial thriller if anyone's working on one.) But if you are a hacker looking to make money by shorting St. Jude's stock, and you have figured out how to hack its pacemakers, actually going and murdering a bunch of people seems mean and unnecessary and really extremely illegal. You should just short the stock and then tell people that you can hack the pacemakers."

</comment><comment><USER3> Seeking to profit by short-selling a company's stock before revealing that their products have security vulnerabilities feels like a very grey ethical area to me.

I'm mildly surprised it doesn't fall under insider trading.

<comment><USER4> It's very interesting, and a complex moral issue.

On the one hand, responsible disclosure, and immediate patching would be the ideal way forwards.

However, with a company that has a history of neglecting security, and with such severe possible consequences, speaking the language only language that businesses understand is sometimes the only way to make them pay attention.

Had they gone the "responsible" route with a CERT disclosure, the vulnerability would have been published 45 days later, and would presumably be exploitable (as St Jude doesn't seem to prioritise fixes).

As it is, we get a brief media shitstorm, and hopefully companies paying more attention to product security as a result.

What I'd love to see is responsible disclosure with teeth. Someone like the FDA imposing severe penalties for failure to patch security flaws, and rewarding responsible hackers who find vulnerabilities. This means we avoid the nasty area of effective blackmail, whilst hopefully making it likely the 'good' guys find the vulnerabilities first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> paper: [http://d.muddywatersresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/...](http://d.muddywatersresearch.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/MW_STJ_08252016_2.pdf)</comment>


Newbie's Guide to Network/Internet Security? - <AUTHOR>

I know a little computer science and some high level programming languages. Can anyone point me to  some good books, articles, or websites to get started? <comment><USER2> I can really only speak to the "web/internet" side of this but <http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2010-Main> covers some good material.</comment>


How to use your own Docker Registry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.docker.io/2013/07/how-to-use-your-own-registry/

<comment><USER2> How does authentication work with Docker Registry? Can I set a HTTP Basic username/password on the server and the client?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no built-in authentication right now. But usually, since a gunicorn app is usually recommended to run behind a webserver (like nginx), I usually put it behind an nginx, then nginx does auth + ssl. [http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpAuthBasicModule](http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpAuthBasicModule)

Probably at some point it'll make sense to build built-in auth to have a user base in a database for instance.

<comment><USER2> So the client knows how to do authentication?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Docker implements client-side SSL and HTTP basic auth.</comment></comment></comment></comment>