Sadly, How Windows 10 Reveals Microsoft's Ethics Armageddon - <AUTHOR> http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001117.html <comment><USER2> Does P2P Windows updates really count as a question of ethics? I don't think so.

Any privacy options are quite clearly stated in the installation options, and they are in the settings menu in easy to find places.

Security is another issue, I'm not a fan of the OneDrive bitlocker key that MS automatically gets, or the Wifi Sense, but other than that I think MS has been quite transparent.

Considering that most privacy settings revolve around Cortana (i.e. the flagship feature for the OS), I don't see why people are getting their pants in a twist over it. For most people that pick the express installation, that will by default send all data to MS, their experience will be vastly improved.

For everyone else, you can switch the settings off, and for people who still have an issue generally use Linux (or OSX if they're that way inclined).

So really it isn't that MS thought you would say no to all their privacy questions. It's because Cortana doesn't function all that well if she's not able to send data to MS. Would it be nice if MS were more open in what exactly they were sending to their servers? Yes. So if that's the real problem, then don't question ethics, question their documentation.

<comment><USER3> I think the issue with the p2p is the Microsoft is leveraging consumer's paychecks to lower their server costs all without even reasonably informing the consumer, let alone asking for permission. This feature could end up charging those with data caps. When I use p2p program, be it some chat system or bittorrent, I make the choice to use it. I understand that I am using my resources to run an application. But Microsoft seems to be making that choice for me.

<comment><USER4> I have very little interest in Windows so I haven't really been following this, but game developers have been using P2P updates for almost a decade now. It's a good feature. Especially if you have everybody grabbing updates at roughly the same time (which is likely), this is going to free up congestion and make it work better for everyone (including ISPs!).

What kind of data sizes are we talking about here, though? And at what ratio does it seed to? Without knowing details like that, it's hard to tell if the user will really be negatively impacted in a practical sense. Like I said, the games I have played that have automatic updates all have this feature turned on by default and I've never heard anyone complain (except for NAT issues making the P2P updating not work ;-) ). Admittedly I'm not a gamer, so possibly I have a skewed perspective from the few games I have played.

<comment><USER5> I think it's pretty well-known, though, that game updates are delivered using P2P file-sharing. Like you, I'm definitely not a gamer (we've got a Nintendo Wii and an Xbox 360 but I've never played either of them and the last PC game I played was MS Flight Simulator for DOS, if memory serves) but even I'm aware of that -- and apparently you are too.

I think the bigger issue is not that they're using P2P to deliver updates (or the plethora of other things that Microsoft is doing with Windows 10), it's that it's all being done without the user's knowledge or -- more importantly -- their consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This hyperbolic drama has really gotten out of hand. Microsoft isn't doing anything with Windows 10 that Apple and Google haven't been doing for years on iOS and Android. Yet, because Apple and Google have become darlings of the industry, they are somehow not subject to the same moral outrage. But there is a more important reason why neither of Microsoft's competitors are receiving similar moral scrutiny over the exact same functionality: they're not doing anything wrong.

Microsoft has historically made some major missteps, moral and otherwise, but the insistence that they are somehow "ruining the world" by catching up to the functionality of their competitors is both ludicrous and ignorant. I suspect that the largest portion of public outrage comes from the desire to generate clicks, but I find that to be a genuine disservice to the industry.

Willful disinformation can only be destructive. It will never have a positive outcome, and nobody will ever applaud you for spreading it.

<comment><USER7> What I wonder is what happens down the road? After a year goes by, is MS going to start charging to keep the OS updated? Will users feel so locked in now that they've turned over so much data to MS that paying a monthly or yearly service fee would be easier than enduring the pain of learning a new OS? I'd love to see a glimpse of what the roadmap looks like down the road. If there remains a "free" version, I suspect MS users better get used to more targeted advertising thoughout the OS, not just in solitaire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This author is really on an anti MIcrosoft tear.

Her right to do so, but I don't agree with much of what she says.

Microsoft's data collection seems similar to what Google Now does. Sometimes I go on a privacy tear also but I just run a locked down Linux laptop for a while. I set my Windows 10 privacy settings. It took me less than a minute.

Also, P2P sharing of updates happens I think on local networks, at a company for instance.

<comment><USER9> The sources of distribution for p2p sharing can be configured in the settings panel.

Setting 1: "Download updates from multiple sources to get them more quickly?" \- yes \- no (choose one)

Setting 2: "Download apps and OS updates from Microsoft and..." \- PCs in my local network \- PCs in my local network and PCs on the Internet) (choose one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Ethics Armageddon"? Click baity?

<comment><USER11> I'm sure she's just talking about some hill. It's fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The only thing really bothering me atm is the forced automatic updates and the 'telemetry' you can't turn off unless you're an enterprise user. The continued dumbing down and integration of Windows Defender, or Security Essentials, or whatever they're calling it, is also an issue.

I'm mostly reserving judgement until someone does a proper analysis of all the privacy sensitive features and what is being sent back home.

<comment><USER5> Hopefully they learned from the NSA documents and are encrypting the "telemetry" they're sending back now -- though that will just make it that much harder to determine exactly what that "telemetry" contains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is it really still a thing to lash out at m$ft as the root of all evil? More importantly, is an article that calls p2p technology an 'ethical armaggedon' good for anything other than laughter?

</comment><comment><USER14> What I find most interesting is that Windows 10 seems to signal that MS has given up on deploying privacy as a marketing strategy. Either they have made a conscious and deliberate change of strategy (quite possible under Nadella's leadership), or the whole privacy strategy was never anything more than a temporary ruse, designed to distract people while MS went the full Google under the covers. The irony of the result is that it sounds like advertising is more insidious and pervasive in Windows 10 than it is on any operating system that Google ever shipped.

<comment><USER15> Microsoft has been going full Google for some time just as Google has been going full Microsoft. But, Microsoft has never beaten Google in anything they've tried. If anything, all of their attempts to battle Google have resulted is spectacular failures. The lack of privacy in Windows 10 is Microsoft finally acknowledging that Windows is the only thing they have left and they're going to do whatever they can to remain competitive against Google. They're now treating Windows 10 as their trojan horse to overwhelm you with their services. Unfortunately, this is also going to backfire. Microsoft is an enterprise software company. That's where they make the majority of their money from and they should stay focused on the enterprise because the consumer market has already made their choices.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps that's why they're doing things like this (enabling P2P delivery of updates by default). They're not worried about what the consumers think because those who would leave Windows for another platform over decisions like this have already left. The ones remaining are going to stick with Windows no matter what, so they might as well go ahead and (attempt to) slip in whatever they want -- the consequences will be minimal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And the FUD surrounding Windows 10 continues.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like Windows 10 so far, with the exception of all the crap that is hard, messy, nearly impossible or impossible to disable or uninstall.

I couldn't care less about Cortana, Xbox, or the myriad of other consumer junk that comes with it. I don't want any data going anywhere and the only connectivity to the Internet I want to see is through a browser, FTP client or telnet.

As a first exposure to Windows 10 --before considering it for the office-- I purchased two HP laptops for my kids and upgraded both to Windows 10.

At times uninstalling things felt like a game of whack-a-mole. You right click and "Uninstall" on the program list off the start menu and crap seems to come back to life. It took multiple passes to get rid of some items. Yet others required nuking them manually from the Programs directory.

Why can't I uninstall Xbox? I don't get it. The same is true of other features. I don't want anything that requires a login or an account with Microsoft to be available.

It actually didn't help that the laptops we got came with Windows 8.1. We should have cleaned them up first and then upgraded. The HP's came with a bunch of crap-ware already and it was hard to know exactly what belonged to Windows 10 and what was crap-ware that came with the computer. McAfee, of course. It seems like a virus that's everywhere.

Anyhow, not a rant but rather an expression of frustration at Microsoft. I know that the developer community or professional engineering users are grossly overshadowed by "civilian" users. However, it wouldn't have been too hard for them to allow us to very quickly reduce Windows 10 down to a clean and streamlined engineering workstation without all the bullshit, data leaks, crap-ware, etc.

When it comes time to upgrade our various workstations at the office it will have to be a very carefully planned transition with tweaked installation scripts to migrate or rebuild systems to Windows 10 without all the junk we don't want. Most of our systems have two or three monitors. I am eager to learn how well Windows 10 handles that.

The other peeve is this business of upgrades starting with Windows 7 and not Vista. We have a number of systems running Vista. It looks like we are going to have to upgrade to 7 first and then to 10.

Just in case anyone is curious: why Vista? Because when re-installing and re- licensing tens of thousands of dollars of engineering software on a workstation takes a month worth of work you don't upgrade operating systems on a whim. In fact, you almost always build a new machine with the new OS while work continues on the old machine and then transition the engineer onto the new system. Complex hardware, software, FPGA, mechanical design and CAM workstations have piles of software that takes a massive amount of time to install, update and configure. Not to mention OS, hardware and driver dependencies (for example, Solidworks).

Wondering if anyone on HN has used Paragon's tools for migration to new hardware:

[http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-professional/](http://www.paragon- software.com/home/hdm-professional/)

<comment><USER18> Or instead of getting all panicky you could just do what every enterprise does.

Run the various apps e.g XBox, monitor your firewall and simply block the requisite URLs.

<comment><USER19> > Run the various apps e.g XBox, monitor your firewall and simply block the > requisite URLs.

How do you guarantee that you've blocked all the URLs accessed by the application, and that they're not going to change with the next update?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wouldn't it be ironic if Windows 10 was the final straw that pushed Linux to the desktop?

<comment><USER21> That would never happen. The Linux desktop for the normal user is simply not going to happen with the current incumbents. If it does happen it'll be a new competitor because the current ones are not user friendly at all.

You can learn and figure many things out but once you run into any type of problem you have to go to terminal. Windows and Mac OS X do not rely on terminals so much. It's part of their better user experience.

<comment><USER22> Arguing that Windows and OSX have a "better" user experience is like arguing that cars with automatic transitions yield a "better" driving experience than cars with manual transmissions. In each case, the better interface is determined not by objective analysis but by the user's priorities.

Edit:

I assumed it went without mention that it is possible to do objective comparison of functional aspects of the system, but seeing as that's not what the parent was discussing, that's not what I responded to.

<comment><USER23> While a "better driver experience"is difficult to quantify, if you mean ease- of-use an automatic transmission is objectively better. Sure, you can argue that having a stick shift provides a subjectively more enjoyable experience, but an automatic transmission is less susceptible to errors and requires less attention from the driver.

<comment><USER24> you've given great examples as to why Windows does not compare favorably to an automatic transmission. thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I read the title too quickly as "Microsoft's Aesthetics Armageddon" and was disappointed that the article was not about inconsistent icon styles.

</comment><comment><USER26> "the ethical collapse that Windows 10 appears to represent for a once great company."

I kinda stopped reading there. The mere implication that Microsoft was ever an "ethical" company in any form is patently ridiculous. This is simply dyed in the wool Microsoft behaviour, totally expected and utterly unsurprising.

<comment><USER24> anyone downvoting you has clearly not read the Halloween Documents[0].

0\. [http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is utter drivel.

Where else would data collection practices be documented but in the Privacy Policy ? This is what every single company on the planet does.

P2P for updates will yes save Microsoft money but it also will save money for consumers and businesses. In the case of the latter massive amounts of money if they aren't centrally managing updates. It's a very useful feature that in no way compromises security or privacy.

Solitaire yes has ads but only for a new feature of the game. The existing features do not have ads. But the fact that they couldn't confirm this indicates that they haven't actually installed Windows 10. Which makes the entire article rather pointless no ?</comment>


White House could mandate free access to federally funded research papers - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/publishers-blast-rumored-ban-on-paywalls-for-federally-funded-research/ <comment><USER2> It's obscene that this isn't already the case. I don't necessarily object to the gov't handing out my tax dollars to so many people, but we damn well deserve some return on investment.</comment>


Amazon Web Services in Plain English (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-in-plain-english <comment><USER2> Hey, Author here. This is old and I haven't added some of the new services that AWS has released since I first wrote it.

Whenever this list comes up there's generally a group of people that dislike it for trying to be at least mildly humorous (The whole concept for it started with my developer friends and I joking about some of the names and how opaque they were, so not sure what I'm supposed to do).

There were a couple substantial edits I made to it where a few funny lines were cut in favor of better explaining what/how something worked.

I also started fleshing out some of the services with slightly more in-depth articles about them (such as this discussion of AWS Buckets where I compare Amazon's CTO to a character from 28 Days Later - [https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-s3-buckets-of- objects](https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-s3-buckets-of-objects)

I've sometimes thought that I should try and make it into an ebook or something, but there's always been something more interesting to work on. Thanks to everyone who has enjoyed it, shared it with their friends and hopefully took their first steps to messing around with AWS.

<comment><USER3> Just a suggestion here from someone who has enjoyed this. I don't think you should edit out the funny stuff. That gives it flavour. I think it can still easily function as a serious reference while keeping the humour.

<comment><USER4> Quite the contrary actually, it should have more humour.

<comment><USER5> Seconded :-D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really useful for a layman like me who doesn't have a lot of exposure to AWS.

Anything similiar for Azure? I would really like to understand the difference between the different types of app services, and especially how they relate to the project templates in Visual Studio.

<comment><USER2> [https://www.expeditedssl.com/azure-in-plain- english](https://www.expeditedssl.com/azure-in-plain-english)

<comment><USER7> Sadly that one try to be a little too funny.

For example: Express Route - "Should have been called Pretty good" that not really helpful. It should have been called "Azure MPLS" or "Azure direct connect"

<comment><USER8> I understood that as "that's already a pretty good name".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Calling S3 "FTP" is a bit misleading, I would have just called it "File Storage" and explained it along the lines of FTP instead.

<comment><USER10> I agree. Alternatively they should have never used a silly acronym "S3" and just stuck with the full name: "Simple Storage Service".

<comment><USER10> well there is a genuine need for a short url. But instead of aws.amazon.com/s3 I would say aws.amazon.com/storage would have been a good tradeoff, and similarly for the other services just use the dictionary word of the service. "AWS" already has "service" in the acronym, so no need to repeat "S" or "service" for every sub-service of "Amazon Web Services".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just discovered a bunch of interesting stuff that I had no idea AWS provided thanks to the cryptic names. Most notable is Elastic Beanstalk - had no idea that was a PaaS!

</comment><comment><USER12> GCP does not really need one of these. It is a lot easier to understand. The only time it gets confusing for people are the papers or projects they were based on (e.g. StackDriver, BigTable, etc).

</comment><comment><USER13> I would highly recommend this resource for further reading.

[https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws](https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws)

</comment><comment><USER14> Do we have the same for Microsoft products? Even as a developer, I can't understand half of what they're proposing. Like what the hell is Sharepoint anyway?

Or what is SAP?

<comment><USER15> Microsoft has never been understandable. I tried to find an overview of dot net on their site, when dot net was at 1.x and was going to cure world hunger, but I wasn't able to understand what they meant by the '.net platform'. Gave up after an hour.

<comment><USER16> .net been many things over the years and included many things. I guess if there was a definition at it's core (no pun intended) it's a managed code runtime with an associated set of libraries and framework to develop applications. But it's also a brand name for Microsoft development tools and frameworks. But it's very much not precise in how it's used by MS itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know who are the bunch of geniuses that come up with the names and decide upon what to use? World deserve to know about them.

<comment><USER18> Developers generally have problems in two areas: naming things, regex, and off by one errors.

<comment><USER17> Don't think Amazon would allow developers to name products or is it that their marketing team is just retired developers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's worth noting on the SES explanation it says:

>You could use it to send a newsletter if you wrote all the code, but that's not a great idea.

You actually can use a self hosted solution like Sendy to send marketing emails & newsletters via SES & only pay for the emails you send using SES

<comment><USER20> I recommend mailtrain for sending news letters

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Still wondering why AWS does not provide a solid PaaS solution like Heroku does (they are on AWS, though) - or am I just overlooking it? I would like to host a few node.js/Clojure apps but I don't want to have the hassle with virtual machines/IaaS.

<comment><USER2> ElasticBeanstalk is their PAAS-like solution. I still tend to build out things with Heroku as the central point and slot in AWS services as they make sense.

<comment><USER21> I looked at ElasticBeanstalk back then, and - frankly - to me it sounds like an overcomplicated PaaS product. If I understood it correctly, they basically "just" tie together a bunch of services for you. I was expecting something as simple as Heroku, actually.

<comment><USER22> I would encourage you to take another look at it. You are right in that it basically ties services together (mainly EC2 and RDS), but it does give you an option of starting and deploying a Ruby or Node.js project from the command line and taking care of all the details for you.

(In fact, you don't HAVE to tie services together that you don't need. If you have a separate RDS instance already that you want to use, you can tell your Elastic Beanstalk project to use that instead of creating a new one).

I use Elastic Beanstalk for all my projects now, and like how I can deploy from Git repositories so easily with a single command. Granted the interface isn't as easy as Heroku, but you have the bonus of added configurability in your apps.

<comment><USER21> That sounds indeed better than I thought. I will definitely give it try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks. <3 Can you also rewrite all tutorials please?

</comment><comment><USER24> NoSQL Parody: [https://youtu.be/fXc-QDJBXpw](https://youtu.be/fXc-QDJBXpw)

</comment><comment><USER25> It would be cool if someone did a similar thing for the Apache Big Data projects.

<comment><USER2> I was going to volunteer, but sheesh: [https://projects.apache.org/projects.html](https://projects.apache.org/projects.html)

<comment><USER26> The list of just "big data" projects is somewhat smaller

[https://projects.apache.org/projects.html?category#big- data](https://projects.apache.org/projects.html?category#big-data)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wonder what the vmware service on Amazon will be called - maybe Elastiware

</comment><comment><USER28> This is very annoying to read on my S6 in chrome 55.0.2883.91

</comment><comment><USER29> > Code Deploy > Should have been called: Not bad

The one service name that's self declared.

<comment><USER30> Judging by the Direct Connect one further down I think "Not Bad" was more of a comment on the name rather than a suggestion for another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> (2016)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10202286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10202286)

</comment><comment><USER32> Broken on mobile.

<comment><USER33> Looks good on my Nexus 5x -- I had to rotate the phone in landscape mode first though :)

<comment><USER34> Doesn't look good on my Google Pixel :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Someone needs to teach expeditedssl.com how to build a website in 2017 that can also be consumed on mobile without content being cut out.

</comment><comment><USER35> Machine Learning Should have been called Skynet

</comment><comment><USER36> Updoot, because I was thinking just the other day how absurd Amazon's naming scheme is. Did an engineer think of that sh#!? If Amazon was run by Musk instead of Besos, a harsh email would have been sent to the employees to cut that sh#! out.

Source: Acronyms seriously suck [https://twitter.com/davejohnson/status/602951117413216256](https://twitter.com/davejohnson/status/602951117413216256)

<comment><USER37> There's something particularly grating about your comment. From the 'updoot' to the fetishization of Elon Musk.

<comment><USER10> Actually the poster makes a good point about how when organizations excessively make acronyms, they can actually _hamper_ communication and efficiency. I read the link, and I think Elon Musk makes some great points, so I don't think the poster's praise of Elon Musk should be criticized as a "fetisization", and I don't think the poster deserves so many down votes.

Although to be honest, I did have to look up "updoot" in the Urban Dictionary :), so to be fair I should say unnecessary use of urban slang can also hamper communication.

<comment><USER33> The military uses acronyms heavily. The seem to be still in business.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NoSQL Needs Standards - <AUTHOR> http://www.dzone.com/links/infoworld_nosql_needs_standards.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Andy has a point there, but it is interesting to note that the whole "NoSQL" thing is really a misnomer in a sense... SQL is a pretty reasonable standardized query language... the bits of "normal databases" that the NoSQL guys seem to really care about having gotten rid of are schemas, referential integrity and (some) transactions.

This "movement" (if it deserves such an appellation) should probably be called "NoRDBMS", or "NoACID" instead.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Obligatory: <http://browsertoolkit.com/fault-tolerance.png></comment>


Can business schools teach entrepreneurship? - <AUTHOR> http://giffconstable.com/2010/02/can-business-schools-teach-entrepreneurship/

<comment><USER2> UMiami offers an entrepreneurship major. I feel like it's very targeted towards a small business owner for a local establishment ie- restaurant owner, services provider,etc. That's nice and all, but it's pretty limiting. I don't think you could teach guys like us how to do what we do in a classroom. I will say, it might be useful to have some type of crash course that focused on some of the more mundane things you'll need:

term sheet negotiations, basic accounting, legal docs stuff, interviewing skills, some public speaking (for conferences/demos),etc.

There's certainly a large world of entrepreneurship out there beyond the tech sector, but I bet there's some type of common ground that can be found.

<comment><USER3> I personally don't believe you'll ever teach entrepreneurship how people here at HN are interpreting it. We expect to take nothing but our time and hopefully one day sell it for millions.

Hackers are no different than writers (which I am), musicians and artists. We start with nothing, and produce something worth far more than the sum of its parts.

If you want an entrepreneurship course to tell if you have the material of a true entrepreneur then here's my suggestion: Find a way to throw 100g of shit at a fan (that is running) and have it not splatter.

Here's the grading breakdown; 1) If you get the shit through without it splattering or being cut, you've got the makings of a billionaire. 2) If you get the shit through with slicing, but no splattering, you've got the makings of a millionaire. 3) If the shit hits the fan and splatters, you might as well get a day job and hope you make 6-figures.

<comment><USER2> Create a fan with a hole in the center so you can throw the shit through it. The fan rotates around it- the center is just bigger and hollow rather than something fancy. The fan might be bigger, but the shit won't splatter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I would argue that if you really want to start a company, but don't feel > like you are ready, an MBA should be your _fallback_ position.

This was pretty much why I went to business school. Except I didn't think about it as my fallback position. I kind of thought of it as a way to ease myself between a cushy paycheck and the wild.

Overall, my conclusion is that business school is pretty useless for starting a business. Very few people start companies straight out of top business schools (too much money in taking job), and most of what you "learn" about entrepreneurship isn't actually all that useful. Sure I learned how to write a business plan, but I never actually needed that business plan once we got started (and we completely changed the idea within a month).</comment>


Python 3 adoption - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/640181/413bf119705332c7/ <comment><USER2> Acknowledging that I have obviously thought about it a lot less than this guy, my experience of switching to Py3 hasn't been that bad. I've been using Py3 exclusively for about 3 years now. Everything I want has been ported, except one or two packages which have Py3-compatible successors. I have been thoroughly enjoying the improvements of Python 3.

[http://caniusepython3.com](http://caniusepython3.com) 's count is misleading because it appears to include almost all packages hosted in PyPI. Many of these haven't been updated in many years and many were never very serious projects. [https://python3wos.appspot.com](https://python3wos.appspot.com) is much more fair, cataloging 200 widely-used Python libraries. Only 17 of these don't have a Python 3 version yet. I remember when 80% of that wall was red.

I use Arch. Arch shipped Python 3 as the default Python in 2011 iirc. It was bumpy for a while, but now I scarcely ever have problems with it. I think the most important step for Python 3's adoption is to get RHEL and Debian (and their respective downstreams) to promote Python 3 to the default. It's time; the old arguments that it's an inordinate amount of work to support Py3 as the default don't really hold anymore. RHEL and Debian have huge cultural influence by deeming a version "enterprise-ready" and making it default.

Here's to Python 3. We're on the cusp of killing off 2 for new development. Let's not backslide.

<comment><USER3> I do agree that if we see RHEL go to python3 as the default that would usher in major changes. However, Red Hat does not like to break backwards compatibility for its customers, and shipping python3 as the default would do that. This isn't an issue for Arch, as they do not rely on enterprise support contracts for their business model. However, this is part of the reason you don't see mission critical infrastructure running Arch. Also keep in mind that important operating system tools in rhel/fedora/etc rely on python, such as the yum package manager.

<comment><USER4> Fedora 22 is/was switching the default package manager to dnf over yum. Fedora 23 should have Python 3 as default (although /usr/bin/python will still point to python 2.x) [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default)

<comment><USER3> Interesting. The page you linked actually seems to suggest they are removing /usr/bin/python or symlinking it to python3. It's part of the scope section. As far as I understand, whatever /usr/bin/python points to is "the default", so I'm not sure how you could switch "the default" and still have /usr/bin/python point to 2.x. So anyway, if Fedora goes to python3 in 2 years (23 release?) then it would probably be at least 5 years before we see RHEL pick up those changes, especially if it includes a change to the package manager and Anaconda (the os installer), both of which are central to RHEL. My guess is that Red Hat are going to be very careful pulling these changes in for enterprise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Van Rossum suggested that someone create an informational PEP to start > working on the problem.

At this point it may require more leadership than an informational PEP. They let the community take their time adopting it, and it still doesn't feel like there is any rush to adoption. And that create a split in the community, fractured module dependencies, and 5 years later it still doesn't seem to have found majority support. And for what? Most users probably won't notice more than Unicode strings, a few syntax changes such as the print function, maybe the exception handling. It didn't change any of the language fundamentals, or address any common criticism of the language such as speed, concurrency or the type system. There are nice changes in Python 3 under the hood, but I'm starting to wonder if the cost was truly worth it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just yesterday I've deeply regretted installing Python3, because some build scripts (atom-shell, a fairly new project) failed badly. Things like that happend regularly. Right now I can only install both Python2 and Python3 and adjust my PATH variables, depending on what I want to do.

The Python community beeing so split and "backward-oriented" is really the main reason why I wouldn't consider Python, though I like many aspects of the language.</comment>


A Medieval British Anti-Counterfeiting System: Split Tally Sticks (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.core77.com/posts/67600/A-Medieval-British-Anti-Counterfeiting-System-Split-Tally-Sticks <comment><USER2> > Whomever first came up with the ripped-bill idea probably got the idea from > British split tally sticks.

Or another creative person came up with it independently.

We have better resources now, but I am skeptical that per capita creativity is any better now than it ever has been in human history.

<comment><USER3> There's a different logic to the tally stick anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I groan every time I read something along the lines of "before long, they began issuing additional receipts for gold even if they were not backed by a deposit. This came to be known as 'fractional reserves banking' – lending out far more money than one actually has on deposit – and the road to banking ruin was firmly in place."

That is not what "fractional reserves (sic) banking" is. What the author is describing is pure and simple fraud and nothing to do with the mechanics of fractional reserve banking. The goldsmiths were passing off paper certificates under false pretence that they correspond with real stored gold.

Fractional reserve banking is really simple: you gather up a pile of money by convincing others to deposit their money with you (although when the depositors are other banks and institutions such "deposits" are often structured as bonds); you RESERVE a fraction of gathered money (varies but usually between 6% and 15%) while lending out the rest. At no point does fractional reserve banking involve "lending out more than what you have on deposit".

<comment><USER3> > What the author is describing is pure and simple fraud ... The goldsmiths > were passing off paper certificates under false pretence that they > correspond with real stored gold.

Where there are no false pretences there is no fraud. From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate): _Banks may issue gold certificates for gold that is allocated (non-fungible) or unallocated (fungible or pooled). Unallocated gold certificates are a form of fractional-reserve banking and do not guarantee an equal exchange for metal in the event of a run on the issuing bank 's gold on deposit._

> you gather up a pile of money by convincing others to deposit their money > with you ... you RESERVE a fraction of gathered money ... while lending out > the rest.

If this were true then the only money in circulation would be that created by the Central Bank. Far from accurate.

<comment><USER4> > Where there are no false pretences there is no fraud

It most certainly would constitute fraud if a bank were to issue gold certificates for more gold than it had claim to - whether allocated or unallocated.

What happens during a bank run has no relevance here. A bank run isn't caused by a bank issuing more loans than it has borrowed itself. It's caused by the mismatch between the nature of a bank's liabilities and assets. Much of its liabilities have short terms or even worse - deposit accounts can be demanded from the bank at any time - while their assets which are generally loans which are generally fixed term or at least not recallable at will by the bank.

A bank with $1B worth of depositors money could in theory suffer a bank run even if it has only lent out $1m while holding the other $999m in it's vaults. No excess lending required is required for this to happen.

> If this were true then the only money in circulation would be that created > by the Central Bank. Far from accurate.

No, that's certainly not implied by the simple statement of fact that the amount of money a bank loans out is strictly less than the amount of money that the bank has borrowed from others, whether from depositors or other institutions.

The sum of the balances of deposit accounts in the banking system easily exceeds the amount of money created by central bank but that does not require banks to "lend out more than they've raised" \- it's a simply a result of simple arithmetic and the fact that loans exist in the system.

<comment><USER3> Suppose you are a goldsmith and someone makes a deposit with you of two bars of gold, for which you give them two certificates. Now the regulator demands you keep 50% of your assets in gold. According to your way of thinking there is just one way to proceed: lend out one gold bar and stick the resulting IOU in its place on the asset side of your balance sheet. But suppose your would- be-debtor really wanted a larger amount, and in addition thinks she can pay her suppliers in your certificates as easily as in gold. Then you might hang on to the gold, write out two certificates for her and put the resulting IOU against them on the asset side of your balance sheet. Either way the regulator's demands have been met and you remain fully legal and solvent.

<comment><USER5> To add in both sides of the balance sheet in this example:

Balance sheet, ignoring Capital (Assets = Liabilities + Capital).

In your example:

Before IOU lending, the goldmith's balance sheet is: 2 Gold (asset); 2 Gold- equivalent Deposit Certificates (liabilities). 100% backed deposits.

Lending 1 Gold: 1 Gold (asset), 1 Gold-loan (asset); 2 Gold-equivalent Deposit Certificates (liabilities). 50% backed deposits, as the regulator asks for. That sounds like a Liquidity Coverage Ratio though, not a capital requirement (as above, ignoring Capital for this).

Lending 0 Gold, 2 Gold-like Notes: 2 Gold (asset), 2 Gold-like Notes (asset); 2 Gold-equivalent Deposit Certificates (liability), double-entry required for 2 Gold-like Commercial Paper/Note/Bond Certificates issued (liabilities). As 50% is the LCR, within regulator requirements.

Issuing more than 2 Gold-like notes, outside the LCR.

Just adding, to make it clear balance sheets always need to balance, I find this makes clarity much.. well, clearer.

<comment><USER4> Yes this is a very good way to think about it.

I've had this argument many times - it's seems the web has endless sources erroneously "explaining" how retail banking works that has convinced people that there is shenanigans involved in retail banking. Generally they mix up M2 money supply with retail bank operations. It's very difficult to convince people that they are wrong in this regard as they become convinced they've been let into some huge Matrix-like secret of how the financial system operates and tend to savour such knowledge (wow - money doesn't really exist!!) even in defiance of reasonableness or logic.

<comment><USER3> I find both zhte415's comments in support of my argument that your initial contention was wrong. It's very strange that you interpret them otherwise. To quote you:

> What the author is describing is pure and simple fraud ... The goldsmiths > were passing off paper certificates under false pretence that they > correspond with real stored gold. ... At no point does fractional reserve > banking involve "lending out more than what you have on deposit".

Yet that is exactly what happens in the second hypothetical course of action I described. Are we now agreed that it is fine?

I will concede that this hastily written statement of mine was ill-thought- through: "If this were true then the only money in circulation would be that created by the Central Bank." I cannot edit it now.

<comment><USER4> zhte415 comment covers two cases: lending out no gold and lending out one unit of gold. I don't see it supporting your argument that a bank can loan out more gold than it has borrowed.

The reason I welcome zhte415's comment is that thinking in terms of balance sheets usually clarifies things (as noted in the comment).

For example, the top 5 biggest retail banks in the US hold between 20%-40% more in deposits than they have issued loans individually as well as in aggregate. Don't you think that if retail banks worked in the way you are claiming - i.e. raising $X in deposits but issuing >$X in loans that there would be some example of this happening? For at least one bank in the US? It just doesn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Didn't notice it in the article, but I believe this is also the source of the term 'short end of the stick' (the foil that was held by the debtor was often shorter than the stock.)

</comment><comment><USER7> On the dollar bills: I've always wondered how the "rip it in half" strategy works in practice given that getting it precisely right is hard and presumably the person with 50+% can cash in for full face value (see [https://www.bep.gov/resources/faqs.html](https://www.bep.gov/resources/faqs.html)). Did people really do this?

<comment><USER8> I doubt banks would take 52% notes... So if it's "around" 50%, both pieces are probably worthless.

And writing this it occurred to me: the way to tear it well is the way you do with a piece of paper: fold it in half aligning the corners, make a good crease, and tear slowly...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> An early example of debt monetization. The article fails to mention that taxes were payable in these tally sticks, thereby creating a market for these pieces of wood.

Here's a more in-depth article

[https://glintpay.com/money-en_us/how-equating-wood-with- gold...](https://glintpay.com/money-en_us/how-equating-wood-with-gold-left- englands-citizens-short-changed/)

"However, the reality was that the vaults soon contained more wooden sticks than gold and the King soon began to issue tally sticks as he pleased."

Anti-counterfeiting is a somewhat laughable turn of phrase in this context.

"Overnight the Kings' tally sticks reverted back to their real worth: firewood. The Kings' creditors, the goldsmiths and their customers had "drawn the short end of the stick" (the origin of a still used expression)."

</comment><comment><USER10> A 8-minute video on the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DkyahZplFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DkyahZplFo)

(Modern History TV)

</comment><comment><USER11> I really loved the history lesson. Being a history nerd I wonder why I never stumbled upon this.

Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER12> What I don't understand is - if the two parts of the tally stick presented don't match, what do you do then? How do you resolve that? How do you know which party is the one in error?

<comment><USER13> Since you can't undo a cut, the one with the fewest cuts would be the legitimate one.

<comment><USER12> > the one with the fewest cuts would be the legitimate one

How's that? If I throw away my old half, split a new one, and add fewer cuts to it, you'd apparently assume it was the legitimate one, but it wouldn't be.

<comment><USER14> If you make a new one it will be fairly obvious that it doesn't match the original sticks after looking at the grain

<comment><USER12> > that it doesn't match the original sticks

Lol but which is the original?

That's the point.

If you have two that don't match you don't know which one is the legitimate one you just know that they don't match and at least one is not legitimate.

<comment><USER15> It doesn't matter which one is the original. The creditor has a stick with the debtor's imprint or mark on it of some kind. That's enough. Presenting a false stick as the debtor doesn't undo the existence of the creditor's stiick, and is essentially claiming that you have ___both_ __debts.

Otherwise you, as the debtor, could just throw your stick away, claim the creditor's is false, and be done with it.

<comment><USER12> If the debtor claims the creditor's stick is fraudulent how is that resolved? The tally stick doesn't solve this problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tools do you use to do GPU pooling - thd-ai At my work we have three servers with four GPU's each at the moment and we're soon getting a fourth one. The problem we have now is that when we want to do experiments, we choose a server, download the datasets that are needed and then we perform the experiments. Recently we've run into some problems as some people have downloaded multiple GB's of data on one server and once they're ready to do the experiments all the GPU's will be used on that machine. At the same time on other servers there are GPU's being idle.<p>What is being done now is just copying all your data from one server to the other (which might take days) and then hope you can use a GPU. Clearly this is not scaleable and we are interested to know if there are any ways to make a GPU pool where you can launch a job and the system also takes care of data management. Any links to tutorials are much appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> You have a small cluster and you need cluster software for that. Look into Slurm ([https://slurm.schedmd.com/](https://slurm.schedmd.com/)) which is pretty standard in HPC world. It allows you to manage ressources (like your individual GPUs), schedule jobs, copy codes and data to the particular machine when the job starts, and much more. It is pretty customizable.

Having said that, of course a shared filesystem (NFS, better something like [https://www.beegfs.io/](https://www.beegfs.io/) or [https://ceph.com/ceph- storage/file-system/](https://ceph.com/ceph-storage/file-system/)) together with a good network interconnect (Infiniband cards are expensive but worth their money if you transfer a lot of data) can save a lot of headache.

<comment> thd-ai Hi thanks for your reply! Will definitely take a look at the links you've provided!</comment></comment>


How parchment is made - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n16/mary-wellesley/short-cuts <comment><USER2> The UK parliament only recently stopped using vellum to record it's acts[0]. The damage this would do to the firm in the article was chief as a reason to carry on using it.

An aside: I often wonder when it is the case that the laws of England are so inacessible, how can anyone reasonably be expected to follow the said laws?

[0][https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Sum...](https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7451)

<comment><USER3> > The damage this would do to the firm in the article was chief as a reason to > carry on using it.

And that's largely why the US government keeps minting 1 cent coins. It costs the US government over $50 million per year to mint pennies, not to mention the wasted time counting and transporting the things. The zinc lobby is a large part of the reason they're still produced, there's no practical reason for them any more and a lot of countries have removed their lowest denomination coins.

<comment><USER4> Ya Canada got rid of pennies a few years ago. I see the uselessness of them, but I kind of miss them. Plus, it's a little odd being charged a different price if you use debit or credit than if you use cash. I know it's only a few cents but it still feels weird. Though i suppose when you find a penny now it's extra lucky. Though strangely, i've probably found more American pennies in my change than Canadian ones in recent times. I had one automated machine give me some instead of dimes recently...that was somewhat disappointing...

I dunno there's just something about your money having a physical representation down to the lowest used value in general business. Though, as far as I know, it actually cost more to produce pennies than they were actually worth.

So many things feel less tangible now than when i was young I guess it's inevitable money would go that way too, but it's still a weird feeling. I remember the days when using a debit card was a strange thing to do and many places didn't accept anything but cash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Before I read Tim Harford's excellent "50 things..." book [1] I had no idea how parchment was made. What struck me most was that to make books available to the general public, the invention of the printing press may have been less important than the (re)invention of paper: for a bible on parchment one needed 500 sheep!

[1]: [http://timharford.com/books/50things/](http://timharford.com/books/50things/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Video of the process: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SpLPFaRd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SpLPFaRd0)

</comment><comment><USER7> paper > parchment

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFExEEUvlDk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFExEEUvlDk)</comment>


Blogopy. Use your scanner to blog - <AUTHOR> http://mr.gy/blogopy/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am currently starting out as a freelance developer and consultant. So this is a concept/prototype for my portfolio.

I am really in love with the duality of the system (analogue media with digital distribution).

Let me hear what you think! :)

PS: Obviously missing: RSS feed.</comment>


Show HN: Illustrator starts coding; my retina-ready scrolling storybook, Peaches - <AUTHOR> http://gwil.co/peaches

<comment><USER2> Very cool, bravo. Awesome graphics and great narration as well.</comment>


Arunima Sinha, first Indian amputee to scale Mt. Everest - <AUTHOR> http://ibnlive.in.com/news/arunima-sinha-becomes-first-indian-amputee-to-scale-mt-everest/393126-3.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I found her story both sad and yet inspiring. In that how much strength it'd take to gather and come back high after your dream of life, or rather entire normal life, has been taken away.

Wanted to salute this woman!</comment>


What is "modern" programming? - <AUTHOR> http://lemire.me/blog/2017/07/15/what-is-modern-programming/ <comment><USER2> Modern programming is more than just the tool chain and package management. To me modern programming is more the wider adoption of concepts borrowed from languages like Haskell: like pattern matching and safer null checks (like Maybe or Option types). It also includes easy to use coroutines or a good concurrency story. Programming with new languages comes with more compile time checking and linting, less chances to make simple stupid typo-like errors that take hours to debug. The formatting and package management are all part of this of course.

I don't really hear people call vim or emacs old fashioned too much anymore. There are a lot of new vim and neovim and spacemacs users out there.

The social aspects of coding are very nice too. It's so great to be able to search GitHub for code to see how other people solved a similar problem to one I might be having.

<comment><USER3> > Programming with new languages comes with more compile time checking and > linting, less chances to make simple stupid typo-like errors that take hours > to debug.

Most of the "old languages" did not have this problem. This was a product of the 90s when people built a bunch of stuff really fast without stopping to think about whether what they were building was really a good idea.

So, it's a couple of decades later, but that part of the 90s spirit is still in full force today, but there are many many more programmers. The logical conclusion is that the garbage dump being built today is way worse than the garbage dump built in the past, and that should scare you if you think typo debugging was bad.

<comment><USER4> These kids can't see the forest for the trees.

All the software is getting slower and more incomprehensible, and they _think_ it's getting better.

P.S: Voting on HN does nothing to change anyone's mind. If you don't _reply_ , you're basically just saying "nuh uh!".

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the fact that you are getting downvoted is proof that the average HN voter does not understand software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is much more about tools and processes than modern programming.

There is no such thing as modern programming since the fundamental principles of what is considered "good" programming are largely unchanged for the past 40 years.

Been an engineer for 25 years now, and so far I have not seen any fundamental changes in programming itself. This blog post also is a testament to that, as it just talks about things surrounding programming and mixes that with a few principles.

<comment><USER6> "Been an engineer for 25 years now, and so far I have not seen any fundamental changes in programming itself."

It's pretty surprising and to me a little disappointing how much programming has stayed the same. There is just much more tooling.

<comment><USER5> Which in the end is actually a nice thing because that means the guiding principles were right.

Tooling is just driven by one of the primary attributes an engineer should have: an abundance of lazyness that strives to find solutions for the long run.

<comment><USER7> Just the mainstream programming not changing that much does not mean that the guiding principles were right, it just means that the original ideas of computers and programming worked well enough to sustain themselves and win and maintain the place of mainstream way of automating things with computers.

Once conventions are set and basic computer systems (platforms) get built, building anything new will most probably be done in the same paradigm, even if there is a better way of doing things.

Consider the C language, which was very successful and today is a mainstream language via which we develop and control vast majority of computer systems. Programming in C today is, I think, very similar to programming in C when it was introduced. Would you say, considering the experience of those decades, that we use C because the principles of C were right? Or did we just get stuck with it because it was good enough in 70's and now it's too hard to detach ourselves from it?

<comment><USER5> I think you are mixing up things here. I am talking about principles on how to solve tasks in programming, you are talking about differences in programming languages.

But the thing is: what is right in programming was the same in C 40 years ago and is exactly still the same if you use Erlang. And it is also the reason why many old programs still work because previous generations applied the basic principles much more diligent than we do (because there is the next NodeJS around the corer, etc. _smirking_ )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hold the opinion that formatting should not be a part of source code, I should rather be held in a separate style sheet. Source code should then contain only logic. Tha way I can set my editor to tabs, my coworker can set it to spaces and none of that ends up in the source code - the source just says that there's a block of blank space and the Style sheet tells the editor/IDE how to present it.

In a similar way, things like braces placement (or no braces like in Python) or capitalisation can be kept out of source code and in a style sheet.

(That way, I'll never have to dig through white space and formatting changes in git logs any more to find actual changes to the code.)

<comment><USER9> For some reason, I find this idea extremely disturbing; almost dystopian. To me, the sentence "a program is a text file" is one of the first axioms of computer technology.

<comment><USER10> But—only in very metaphorical ways is a program a text file.

<comment><USER9> How is that metaphorical at all? In all current languages, you write programs precisely by writing text files.

<comment><USER11> Strictly speaking though, the text itself isn't a program, it's the input to a program (a compiler) that produces an actual program. On the other hand, this definition seems a little pedantic and you could even argue that the binary produced by the compiler isn't a program either, that a program consists entirely of its behavior.

<comment><USER12> Generally, this is not correct - compiling is not the only way to "translate" a program into an executable form: there are direct interpreters for many programming languages.

<comment><USER11> I never said compiling was the only way, just that "translation" (as you put it) is in fact necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing about "modern" software development that I find striking is that the process seems to have largely jettisoned user testing. That is, testing performed by humans, usually by teams of testers. Maybe that's still a thing and I just don't see it, but I also don't see nearly as many job ads for testers as I used to, and those seem to be exclusively at BigCorps. Back in the day (let's call that pre-2000 as an estimate), in the places I worked we'd never dream of releasing something to the public that the test team had not beat the crap out of in their own sweet way, and even the smallest of companies had at least one full-time tester on board. I realize that automated testing has become extremely popular but I've always been skeptical that it could replace user testing in effectiveness and have viewed the two approaches as complimentary. This doesn't seem to be the majority view now, I get the feeling that the "modern" opinion is "if the test can't be automated, fuck it, it's not worth doing" ... essentially the coders won, the testers have finally been vanquished! How about at your company?

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems to me that official language-integrated package managers are a hallmark of contemporary programming.

They are kinda sorta realising the dream of pervasive code reuse. In a low- friction buffet style.

<comment><USER15> This is definitely a modern thing but I think it's a bad thing, or at least a move in the wrong direction.

Language-specific package managers tie you into a single language. It's hard to use multiple languages in a project, even when that would make sense, or to migrate to a new language.

You end up needing a separate layer on top of the language's package system. Big projects like Unity have their own package managers and build systems.

I think it would be much better to have a generic package system that can be used for everything, and a generic build system that can be used for everything.

Admittedly, existing generic package managers and build systems aren't very good! So maybe this is a bad idea and it's just too hard, or maybe there's some key insight or advance we're missing.

I think Google's build system Bazel is along the right lines. Unashamedly aiming for 100% correctness, so it's really reliable and therefore usable for all build tasks.

<comment><USER16> It's interesting that you mention Bazel. Do any of Google's large public projects use it? Android has Repo, Chromium has depot_tools, and Fuchsia has jiri.

Fuchsia has its own IDL [0], which is used to generate bindings for C, C++, Dart, Go, and Rust.

It's not perfect, but I'd say Webpack [1] is worth mentioning. You define loaders and it crawls your dependency graph. When you reference assets in code they get built, copied to the output folder, and all references updated.

[0] [https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fidl/](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fidl/)

[1] [https://webpack.js.org](https://webpack.js.org)

<comment><USER15> Google uses Bazel (or Blaze, which it's based on) for almost all their proprietary code, at least.

Their big open source projects, Android and Chrome and now Fuchsia, seem to have very different coding cultures from the rest of Google. I've used both repo and depot_tools a bit and both are pretty bad -- very thin and leaky abstractions on top of the source control system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _All programming languages should force upon the users a unique code format._

I'm fine with this, as long as it's my code format style.

</comment><comment><USER18> TP7 is 800KB top: IDE, compiler and other utils. That thing has floating windows AND ascii shaded windows. How ridiculous.

<comment><USER19> Just checked my copy of TurboC++, which is a single 867kB EXE (how does that work on a 640k system?)

<comment><USER20> Overlays? - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlay_(programming)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlay_\(programming\))

I used to use Turbo C++ 3.0 (I think it was? - this was 1993) and overlays was one of the touted features, though I never used it.

<comment><USER21> I recalled the acronym "VROOM" being associated with Borland's tools of this era, with the "OM" part meaning "Overlay Manager/Management"; a bit of searching yielded[1]:

      What is the VROOM in the Borland Turbo C++ ?
      9/14/94 3:53 PM

      Hi!
      I very need information about usage VROOM
      in the Borland Turbo C++ or Borland C++.
      Thanks. Alex.

      VROOM is their overlay manager.  That is,
      it allows you to write programs which execute
      in a conventional DOS memory (aka 640K) which
      is smaller than the size of the compiled program.
      For example, on a machine with 550K available
      conventional DOS memory, you can run a program
      1Mb large.
      [...]

[1] [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ptZPc...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ptZPcsR69QJ:https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.std.c%252B%252B/tFGw0zfKfdY+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe we are getting better at programming but we still suck at delivering computing artifacts to end users. Who here has tried to ship a Ruby or Python application to desktop or even server users? Was the experience "modern"? We might as well be shipping punch cards.

<comment><USER23> Steam's ok, itch.io is great. Do you vendor in your appp's prerequisites?

<comment><USER22> You have to vendor. There is no other way. Or you pay the cost of vendoring at deploy time by having to pull in all the third party dependencies anyway. Whenever I rely on the end user or the platform to fill in the blanks I always regret it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I disagree with a number of points in the article, but a particularly questionable claim, which is common in recent years, is that version control is new/modern:

Version control. Twenty years ago, it made sense to write your code on your desktop and send the new code (as patches) by email. But this only makes sense when the pace of collaboration is slow. Today, this would be insane. Anything less than Git is backward. Note that even Microsoft builds Windows using Git today.

Version control has been in widespread use for over forty (40) years. SCCS (Source Code Control System) was released in 1972 -- forty-five, yes forty- five (45) years ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System)

The widely (and still) used Revision Control System (RCS) was released in 1982 -- 35 years ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System)

Concurrent Versions System (CVS) was released in 1990 as a networked extension to RCS -- twenty-seven (27) years ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Versions_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_Versions_System)

The Subversion version control system was released in 2000, seventeen (17) years ago and was in widespread use years before Git. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion)

There are, of course, many other version control systems dating back decades in many cases: Perforce, Mercurial, Visual SourceSafe, and others.

Version control has been in widespread use at many companies and organizations at least since the 1980s and has been in widespread use in many open source projects specifically for decades. Many open source or free software projects used CVS or SVN or other version control systems before Git or still do.

There is nothing new or modern about version control. It has been standard practice in software development for over thirty years.

<comment><USER13> I was going to comment on this as well. Even in the mid-90s the companies I worked for used PVCS.

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

Not long thereafter Visual SourceSafe got traction in my workplaces. Then along came CVS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This article is not about programming, but software development in regards of tooling.

<comment><USER26> In particular, software development by medium-to-large teams engaging in fairly fine-grained collaboration.

I can see why the students he mentions are not necessarily buying this stuff.

<comment><USER15> You have to know this stuff to be a useful programmer, though. (Or at least, it's very tough to be useful if you don't.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the first time I see this package description format. The leading de- indented dots make me nervous.

That being said, I agree with the idea that things have changed a lot and tooling has become a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER28> '70s modern programming: mostly imperative, unstructured

'80s " " : mostly structured

'90s " " : mostly OOP

'00s " " : OOP, garbage collected

'10s " " : dynamic scripting languages

2017: multi-paradigm

</comment><comment><USER29> What I saw was a mix of waterfall and iterative processes.

The package managers on language level changed much.

Also I have the feeling that MVC, MVVM, MVP etc. is over and it's Components all the way.

<comment><USER30> Wait, you use components without a model layer?

Just because the people who invented flux didn't know the word "model" doesn't mean it's a new pattern :-)

<comment><USER26> React without flux/redux/whatever and state distributed though the component tree instead is a thing. It's not the right solution for every problem, anything like, but with a bit of thought about where it makes sense to keep the state, it can work pretty well and components which know how to fetch their own data can sometimes be easier to reuse in other contexts than, e.g., components from a full-on redux application.

See also, Relay (or om.next) with "co-located queries" for a declarative take on this.

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure how you'd write an application without a data model? If you take a look at the first figure here:

[http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/mvc/mvc- index.html](http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/mvc/mvc-index.html)

it's hard to see how react/flux isn't just dealing with the controller/view bit - perhaps in a better way - but it's still a bridge between the users mental model and the computers data model? And it's likely that the data model is at least somewhat complex, if it involves some kind of MVCC/ACID/transactions and/or data normalization?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Nit: Go's standard format command doesn't care about line length. Officially, there's no hard limit on line length.

</comment><comment><USER33> "modern" is a useful concept. Like fashion, it has to be something different every year.

<comment><USER34> One of the most annoying things about our industry. I would prefer to get to know a few technologies really well rather than keep chasing the latest new hotness. Unfortunately that is seen as stagnating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree with many points raised here.

Provide CLI tooling and you can build integrations with any editor! A while back Microsoft published Language Server Protocol [0]. I'm sure there must've been previous attempts achieve this, but I'm not aware of any that were widely successful. Meanwhile LSP seems to be gradually growing [1]. Having a common interface seems like such a sensible idea too! With that said, I think the software community has largely standardized on Unix. Is it unreasonable to expect OSs to implement a Unix-compatibility layer? Given that Windows is working towards that goal, is there any other major holdout?

Code formatters make tons of sense. It lets you shift the responsibility over to the computer. I think it should also be possible to have an editor visually format code in your own preferred style, while saving the output in the project's preferred style; although I haven't seen this implemented by any editor yet. In the web community, Prettier [2] has been growing increasingly popular. It currently supports JS, CSS, and GraphQL in many of their flavors (e.g. JSX, Flow, TypeScript, etc.); and there's ongoing discussion about supporting others like Markdown [3], and probably others which I haven't seen.

Dependency management is one of the big pain-points of dealing with older languages. I want to be able to pull in APIs that _correctly_ solve my problem without sacrificing cross-platform support. Sometimes I want to load multiple versions of a library. Setting up a working build environment shouldn't require multiple hours or days of work. As an example, I've wasted multiple _days_ over the last few months trying to build android for either my Pixel or Nexus 5X, using Ubuntu, and I haven't been successful. I can't count the number of times I've lost interest in projects because I couldn't get it to build after spending countless hours, sometimes _days_ , trying to setup a working environment. I have my fair share of criticisms of the web development community, but at least it's never a problem getting one of their projects to build.

Testing is important! I think this is something that Swift is doing well. They have a list of projects [4] which they automatically test against the development branch in order to understand the compatibility impact of their changes. With their latest set of breaking changes they also provided tools to help gradually migrate to the latest version [5]. I'll note I haven't worked on a serious production-ready Swift environment, so I don't know how effectively these tools work for a serious real-world projects.

Version control is a must, but I'd also suggest trying out more tools, rather than limiting yourself to git. I've used git professionally, and I can work with it without breaking anything. But plenty of its commands are needlessly confusing and quirky, and it's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Relevant XKCD [5]. I've had cases where I shot myself in the foot and Time Machine's file history was the only thing that saved me. Fossil [6] is a really nifty alternative, written by the creator of SQLite. It's much friendlier, and it includes an issue tracker and wiki! I've been happily using it for some of my personal projects. It's not the right tool for every problem, but it never hurts to try out something new.

[0] [https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server- protocol](https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol)

[1] [http://langserver.org](http://langserver.org)

[2] [https://prettier.io](https://prettier.io)

[3] [https://github.com/prettier/prettier/issues/2444](https://github.com/prettier/prettier/issues/2444)

[4] [https://swift.org/source-compatibility/](https://swift.org/source- compatibility/)

[5] [https://xkcd.com/1597/](https://xkcd.com/1597/)

[6] [http://fossil-scm.org](http://fossil-scm.org)

</comment><comment><USER35> I agree that package managers and a standard code format are useful. The rest of the things he mentions are a matter of preference. The tone and attitude of the author are simply insufferable. I'd hate for someone so opinionated about unimportant shit to be on my team, I can tell you that much from experience.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://www.dsprobotics.com/applications.html](http://www.dsprobotics.com/applications.html)

[https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synt...](https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synths/reaktor-6/)

[http://rawkes.com/articles/an-introduction-to-noflo-and- flow...](http://rawkes.com/articles/an-introduction-to-noflo-and-flow-based- programming)

Please. Stop. Typing.

How much of your coding is spent on syntax, structure, and scope - jobs that the computer often does _much better than you_? What benefit is there in typing out the same loops and so on over and over and making people _read_ your code in order to figure out what the structure should _look_ like?

The reason people drew flowcharts by hand and then typed out programs was because the computers couldn't interpret complex diagrammatic programming in real time back in the 70s. This has changed, but people are still typing and think that color-coding and autocomplete are pretty snazzy features in a modern IDE.

<comment><USER19> Typing with autocomplete and syntax advice is _much_ faster than manipulating diagrams. And you can diff the text with your existing source control tools.

This is why AutoCad has a command line.

<comment><USER36> A great example of only considering your own needs and not those who will be maintaining the code alter. Yes, typing is fast and easy, but it's also locking everyone into a dead development path. That's why so many people in the creative industries have moved on from it.</comment></comment></comment>


TESLONDA: The Tesla/Honda Powered by Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/teslonda-tesla-honda-powered-raspberry-pi/ <comment><USER2> This is so cool. If I had money, a shop and no job I would build this kind of stuff all day long. What a blast.</comment>


Ask HN: Have the YC Spring Hackathon Invites Been Sent? - <AUTHOR> Just wanted to check <comment><USER2> Based on [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444522](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444522) they were sent yesterday.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html <comment><USER2> This is historic news in the basic income community. Elon Musk is for universal basic income!

BTW, here's an article about what he's talking about in regards to AI and the need for basic income: [https://medium.com/basic-income/deep-learning-is- going-to-te...](https://medium.com/basic-income/deep-learning-is-going-to- teach-us-all-the-lesson-of-our-lives-jobs-are-for-machines-7c6442e37a49)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see that going over very well in the US. We're very much a TANSTAAFL society. More likely, if a robot takes your job here, well, you're just out of a job.

</comment><comment><USER4> it's funny he has plenty of money, yet he doesn't seem to have more leisure time. Personally, I see AI progressing much faster than robotics.</comment>


Show HN: Wishy.gift – Shareable wishlists that help friends plan your gifts - <AUTHOR> https://wishy.gift/ <comment><AUTHOR> Creator of the web app here!

We struggle a bit to find one good sentence that describes what makes Wishy.gift unique, so here goes: First off, you make a wishlist and add items to it. When you've done that, you get a unique url that you give to those who should get access to your list. They can then check off items in your list, and add their own suggestions, both of which is only visible to those you've shared the list with.

That way, you (hopefully) get better gifts, and less duplicates.</comment>


LibreSilicon: Decentralizing semiconductor manufacturing [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9410-libresilicon <comment><USER2> I applaud this effort, and there are a lot of things that don't need the newest node like analog and silicon photonics that will do just fine with an ancient process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Attended this talk. I especially liked the fact they try to make it process- independent.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm greatly delighted by the news that they managed to keep things going.

I was very sceptical at first when I met David a year ago. Given that he is much more cleanly shaved now, I assume things finally turned for the better for them.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are lots of superfund sites around Silicon Valley. Does he cover pollution? It seems like more accountability for pollution is a benefit of centralization.

<comment><USER6> This DIY home semiconductor manufacturer: [https://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Semiconductor- Manufact...](https://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Semiconductor- Manufacturing/) used a rust stain remover which is 2% hydrofluoric acid. I am amazed that they sell such ridiculously dangerous chemicals to the general public!

<comment><USER7> How else will you make body barrels?

<comment><USER8> Fun fact, Breaking Bad very carefully gets all the science in the crime wrong in subtle ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We also need a proper tooling for ASIC and FPGA chip design, see the efforts of SymbiFlow [1].

[1] [http://symbiflow.github.io/](http://symbiflow.github.io/)

<comment><USER10> Looks cute, but I am not sure, that my boss at big Corp wants to use this. Personally I feel too lazy to use other tools than vendor provided ones for my hobby projects in my spare time.

<comment><USER11> Inform your boss about the cost savings in licensing and benefits in recruitment.

<comment><USER10> We have here exclusive agreement for licensing, so couple hundred bucks mean nothing for big Corp. The bigger problem is a new exotic tool in the big Corp's ecosystem. Good luck hiring somebody with knowledge of this tool and porting decades developed projects there. First FPGA project of the company decides about tools and chip vendor for the next century.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This could reduce the cost of making silicon chips, and make it easier as well.

</comment><comment><USER13> soon we'll have libreworld

<comment><USER14> [https://libreplanet.org/2018/](https://libreplanet.org/2018/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is "decentralization" the buzzword that'll try to overtake "neural networks"?

<comment><USER16> Same way "centralization" took over from "logistic regression".</comment></comment>


Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with reading in Siberia - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/21/arctic-temperature-record-siberia/ <comment><USER2> Alaska had it's hottest ever recorded summer in 2019 [1] and for quite a few years they've been significantly above average.

It's been said the Arctic is the canary in the coalmine for climate change. Once more of the glaciers and permafrost melt more of suns heat energy will be absorbed rather than reflected, and climate change will accelerate.

[1] [https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/high- tem...](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/high-temperatures- smash-all-time-records-alaska-early-july-2019)

[https://www.ktva.com/story/40990489/anchorage-officially- saw...](https://www.ktva.com/story/40990489/anchorage-officially-saw-the- hottest-and-driest-summer-on-record)

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2019-07-alaska-shatters-temperature- la...](https://phys.org/news/2019-07-alaska-shatters-temperature-largest- city.html)

<comment><USER3> Of particular worry is accelerated methane release from peat bogs in the thawing permafrost, creating a positive feedback loop (with potentially irreversible consequences) [1] [2].

We're rapidly running out of runway to mitigate the worst of climate change.

I dread to think how many joules of energy it's going to take for us to stop emitting carbon, but also sequester that released since the Industrial Age began. I suppose there is some consolation in that enough sunlight hits the Earth in an hour to power humanity for a year, so the clean energy is there for the taking. It's just going to take decades of sunlight to step back down the carbon curve [3]. Such is the cost of burning ancient sunlight.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions)

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

[3][https://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf](https://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I think that permafrost loss being accelerated and the affect it has had on overall temps is concerning. I wonder what man-made acceleration of permafrost loss like the hydraulic mining has speed up this process that has been taking place since 2013 and I think we are seeing the results. Sad really.

<comment> blaser-waffle The clathrate gun has fired. Things are going to be worse than just "sad".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And meanwhile, as the north sea becomes navigable, Japan and Russia invest in new Arctic oil extraction projects. [https://www.ft.com/content/df288d08-1c14-11ea-9186-7348c2f18...](https://www.ft.com/content/df288d08-1c14-11ea-9186-7348c2f183af)

[https://www.globalforestwatch.org/](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/) is a useful site to get a sense of the size and progression of fires in Siberia.

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't find confirmation to this in Russian news, which strongly suggests that this is fake news. If such a record were set, it would beat the +37.3C record set in 1988.

Note that the article says "if verified", which you should read as, "we just published this without verifying".

Here's apparently where everyone is getting this from: [http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=24266](http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=24266)

Don't know about you, but to me the site does not look very credible. Other sources (such as [http://www.hmn.ru/index.php?index=8&value=24166](http://www.hmn.ru/index.php?index=8&value=24166)) suggest the temperature got up to 36C that day.

<comment><USER7> >I can't find confirmation to this in Russian news, which strongly suggests that this is fake news.

Why?

<comment><USER6> Because Verkhoyansk is in Russia and this supposedly happened 2 days ago there. Someone would have written about it.

<comment><USER8> A quick Google for "weather Verkhoyans" says that todays temperature is 29c/84f

<comment><USER9> I also couldn't find 38 °C on this map (german):

[https://kachelmannwetter.com/de/messwerte/nordasien/temperat...](https://kachelmannwetter.com/de/messwerte/nordasien/temperatur/20200620-1200z.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Proposes To Ban Sponsored Status Updates - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/facebook-proposes-to-ban-sponsored-status-updates/ <comment><USER2> I am not sure if this would ever really become a problem but I wonder if once less technologically savvy users begin to use Facebook more if there will be a growth of apps that post spam to a users status. Such as some ice-cream flavor app that an unaware user added and then it starts updating the users status without their permission. It's totally a violation of the Platform TOS, but if someone can get away with making such apps and make a profit form it they probably would.</comment>


Show HN: Mock Interview Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.interviewat.com/prep-service-special-offer <comment><AUTHOR> I was on track to have this paid service offering launched in the coming weeks, but the economic uncertainty brought on by COVID caused me to rethink the go to market plan.

I iterated quickly on something I could offer to those in need now and in the coming weeks. This is one way I can give back.

If you have been impacted and will be, or is already scheduled to, interviewing soon, I want to help. If you know someone for whom this would be helpful, please share.

Any and all feedback welcome.</comment>


Russia to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark ships if it joins NATO shield - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/22/us-denmark-russia-idUSKBN0MI0ML20150322

<comment><USER2> The title is missing the word _" shield"_ at the end — as in _" if it joins NATO shield"_.

Denmark is one of the founding members of NATO.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes – HN limits the length of the title

<comment><USER2> I did not know that. Thank you for editing.</comment></comment></comment>


This is what Apple should tell you when you lose your iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/this-is-what-apple-should-tell-you-when-you-lose-your-iphone-8f07cf73cf82#.j5n1lsqmv <comment><USER2> Previous discussion (200+ comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12222135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12222135)

<comment><USER3> Previous previous discussion discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12988291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12988291)

<comment><USER4> Now 1/4th of the comments here refer to the _previous discussions_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Apple should really do is a lot more: 1: register the moment that the phone was last held by the owner 2: provide continuous tracking data to the owner 3: take photos periodically, including if medical information is accessed 4: email the user with a standard "so you have lost your phone" message 5: add the phone to blacklists on every telco it has a relationship with 6: report the loss to police 7: send information to the owner and police as soon as that phone accesses any network. Etc.

<comment><USER6> Remote detonate if not recovered within 24 hours.

<comment><USER7> Everyone has the ability to remotely wipe their phone, as long as it's connected to the network. If it's not connected to the network, then not even Apple can do anything (assuming they don't make some sort of dead man's switch, which is a terrible default feature for all sorts of reasons...)

As a user, I prefer having the option to decide how sensitive and/or valuable the data on my phone is, what the circumstances of losing my phone are, and how long I'm willing to wait to get it back.

You were out of the country, without Internet access for a while, you have un- synced vacation photos and not much else on the phone, and there's a strong possibility you misplaced it? There's probably not a reason to ever wipe the phone.

You had secret company data on your phone, without a passcode, and it was ripped out of your hands? Can't wipe it fast enough.

While Apple should offer users advice, I wouldn't want them to ever take action (filing police reports, taking photos, etc.) without my explicit consent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately, I think a ton of people today still would not know the difference between a "green URL" and an unencrypted URL, or the fact that "find-iphone-location.com" is phishy.

I used to work at a large, competent tech company whose 401k plan was managed on a URL similar to "accessmy401k.com" \-- it seemed similarly phishy to me but apparently enough people thought it was a good idea that this financial institution decided to make it their online portal to actual 401ks. I often see my less savvy friends going to places like "cheap-christmas-lights.net" when they want cheap Christmas lights.

I appreciate what the big browsers do when it comes to showing secure connections and highlighting the domain in certain cases, which is pretty much as far as we allow them to go in order to stay in control of our own browsing experiences, but part of me wishes it were a little bit more explicit. There are for sure potential drawbacks... when my Mom said she was booking tickets on "CheapOAir.com" I immediately thought it was a scammy site, but it's actually legit. But a browser (especially a browser on an iPhone?) should be able to see you're at "find-iphone-location.com" and maybe just assist the user a little bit by saying "Hey, just so you know, this is not a legitimate Apple/iPhone service" automatically.

<comment><USER9> Browsers do have mechanisms for filtering out known phishing (or malware) sites (e.g. Google's Safe Browsing (used by Chrome, Firefox and (IIRC) Safari), Microsoft's SmartScreen). Guessing based on the domain (without having any actual phishing reports or something like that) would probably lead to _tons_ of false positives, which would both annoy users and desensitize them, so most people would click through the warning.

EV certificates can be a solution for some cases - knowing that "Apple, Inc. [US]" is actually operating the site you're looking at is worth _something_ \- but it isn't particularly meaningful in other cases - knowing that "CheapOAir, Ltd. [US]" actually operates "CheapOAir.com" doesn't mean much, they could still scam you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would say my bigger security takeaway from this is never use Medical ID!

</comment><comment><USER11> I've noticed that spear phishing attacks have become quite a bit more sophisticated lately. This is a good example of it, but I've gotten emails supposedly from Stripe, my bank (not a common one that would suggest a mass attack), my credit card company, all quite convincing. At first glance I was fooled, but thankfully figured them out before giving away my accounts. I've since become more vigilant of course.

In none of these cases did my email provider figure out that the sender was malicious.

<comment><USER12> this is why i never read email

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Agree with everything the author said.

I'll also go further and say you should be using a password manager, so even if you do end up getting scammed out of a login, they can't easily compromise your other accounts (obviously this depends on the kind of account being scammed).

Use a password manager and 2FA whenever possible!

<comment><USER14> A password manager with autofill will also help you avoid getting scammed in the first place. You may not notice that the domain is weird or the page is unsecured, but your autofilling password manager will. Of course, you need to listen to it when it says so, rather than trying to work around it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this a repost? I feel that I've read this already, quite a while ago.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would suspect that they needed your credentials so that they could get around the activation lock so that they can sell your phone...

</comment><comment><USER17> How do they get phone number and email address?

<comment><USER18> He speculates at the end of the article that they used the medical identify feature and then Googled him (he apparently has a relatively unique name).</comment></comment>


Proving Cantor's Theorem in Clojure Using LaTTe - <AUTHOR> https://nextjournal.com/zampino/latte-cantor <comment><USER2> This was my very first experiment with LaTTe ([https://github.com/latte- central/LaTTe](https://github.com/latte-central/LaTTe)) and with proof assistants in general. You can remix the short article in nextjournal (using the invite code _curryon2018_ ) to start playing around with LaTTe proofs.

This is also a nice explanation of the lambda calculus involved [https://latte- central.github.io/LaTTe/102_Lambda_the_ultimat...](https://latte- central.github.io/LaTTe/102_Lambda_the_ultimate.html), still I couldn't find exactly how LaTTe relates to the (I assume) more popular Coq, except both being based on the calculus of constructions. Anyone with some insights?

<comment><USER2> You can sign up for a nextjournal account using the invite code _curryon2018_ and remix the article.</comment></comment>


Burning Man for the 1% - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/02/further-future-festival-burning-man-tech-elite-eric-schmidt <comment><USER2> for some reason there are more comments on the newer submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617002)

</comment><comment><USER3> Gross gross gross.</comment>


Why we don't have comments enabled; The TechCrunch comment crisis - <AUTHOR> http://codesketch.com/2010/10/why-we-dont-have-comments-enabled-the-techcrunch-comment-crisis/

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of the comments on TechCrunch are really nasty. I wonder why they aren't more proactive in cleaning that up.

</comment><comment><USER2> MG is a sort of troll, himself. He invites comments like that. I don't mean this as a personal attack but his articles are sometimes inflammatory and a lot of times come across as simple Apple ass-kissing.</comment>


More thoughts on the state of HTML5 audio, codec wars, and the politics - <AUTHOR> http://www.scirra.com/blog/46/more-on-html5-audio-codecs-and-politics

<comment><USER2> Chrome and Firefox both support Ogg? Good enough for me!

And if enough people use Ogg (and leave IE users in the dust) then IE won't have any choice but to accept defeat on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> About 60% of the web is good enough for you? Some of us want to try and reach everyone.

<comment><USER2> Do you really think the other 40% are gamers? Because that would be my market. I'm guessing most gamers are already using Firefox, Chrome or both.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know IE9 has the fastest and best canvas for gaming, right?</comment></comment></comment></comment>