What Is NASA for? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/mysteries_of_the_universe/2014/02/nasa_s_mission_its_search_for_meaning_has_limited_its_science_and_damaged.html <comment><USER2> I'm not much of an economist but isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009? Some quick checks of the Wikipedia pages for both budgets show that US military spending dwarfs NASA spending. I'm curious why this article seems to think that NASA is "too expensive," and needs to justify such a cost.

The European aristocracy fueled explorations far and wide, killed many more people, and now a large percentage of humans travel around the world daily. If we sent more people to space far and wide would it not follow the same pattern if something eventually came of it? I'm not sure that anyone knew the early explorers would come back with boats filled with gold and precious resources but perhaps we will come back with ships filled with rare elements, minerals and gasses.

I found this article to be rather pessimistic. I realize that military spending is a necessity so long as our geo-political situation continues to remain unstable. However it seems to my uneducated view of the subject that the US could cut a good fraction of its military spending, continue to dominate in conventional warfare and reduce the cost of space exploration greatly in the long term.

Maybe someone who knows more about it can enlighten me. I, like many, get wide-eyed when I think of space and dream, hopelessly, of one day experiencing it for myself.

<comment><USER3> >isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009?

It's a pittance, but, it's what we get to spend on space programs; and we're spending it on _NASA_. I'm glad to see a criticism that isn't criticism of what we think NASA'a mission is, but instead a criticism of how NASA executes that mission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a kind of ridiculous article. It entirely ignores NASA's Earth Science work, which gets the largest allocation of science funding in the FY2014 budget (almost $2B).

Caveat: I work with a team of NASA & contractor Earth scientists. I think they'd all tell you they don't need to go search for a justification; justifications are self-evident. Here's one: Maintain the climate record.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps my memory is wrong, or the emphasis less that I recall, but I remember fundamental change in NASA's direction in the late 90s or early 2000s that explicitly focused NASA's work on Earth.

Some of this was a result of remote sensing tech coming into it's golden age, some as a result of climate change needs, and a lot was a result of NASA needing to find a source of funding.

But I can't find anything extensive about that on the web at this moment.

<comment><USER6> Earth Science is only 10% of NASA's budget.

From NASA's 2014 budget request (in millions of dollars):

[http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estim...](http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estimates-508.pdf)

       Science               5,017.8
       Aeronautics             565.7
       Space Technology        742.6
       Exploration           3,915.5
       Space Operations      3,882.9
       Education                94.2
       Cross Agency Support  2,850.3
      </comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=
       Total Request        17,715.4

To break down "Science":

      Earth Science              1,846.1
      Planetary Science          1,217.5
      Astrophysics                 642.3
      James Webb Space Telescope   658.2
      Heliophysics                 653.7

By comparison, most of the "Exploration" budget is spent on the development of the Space Launch System -- which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states. Just the SLS alone is bigger than the Earth Science budget.

<comment><USER7> > which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it > is designed to spread money among the states

I thought it was because the project was invented in the Senate version of the NASA budget, where Senate staffers made up arbitrary requirements for its design and functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that the following comment I wrote on an analogous story a while ago helps to frame this in a better context:

""" I have been obsessed with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs since childhood and I've read the first hand accounts of astronauts, flight directors, engineers, administrators, and journalists covering the programs. What has consistently struck me is that although the programs were marketed - if you may - along the lines of their exciting thrust into the unknown, the programs were executed based upon a cold rational calculus that extended sabre rattling and the grounds of engagement beyond the surface of our planet.

Yes, for me it might be one of the greatest achievements of humanity, but for the people paying for the show all of that work was for one thing and one thing only; to claim the high ground swiftly and decisively before the enemy. For anyone with the ability to put a capsule into orbit and to retrieve it, also possessed the ability to spy on the other party, safely launch and drop a nuclear warhead into the other party's major cities, and one-up the enemy in a show of technical prowess and strength - something that would persuade those on the fence to pick the right side if it were. That's what these programs were sadly all about and that's why they were ended once the high ground was decisively seized.

The reason why there isn't an Apollo-esque or Manhattan-esque thrust towards landing on Mars is because there is no substantial tactical, economic, or political advantage to be gained from the act. Sure in the long term there will be amazing pay-offs if we open up the solar system and expand outwards, but right now in the minds of the people who are actually cutting the cheques that pay-off is too distant, too abstract, too foolhardy, and too unsettling to justify any kind of support.

Now some people choose to rue the cause behind our current Earth-bound civilization, but I think this is actually a good thing. It ensures that when we do manage to find a way to reach out to the stars we will do it for the right reasons and our exploration will continue from one frontier to another because of that fact. """

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483)

<comment><USER9> On a side note: Why do you quote """this way"""?

<comment><USER8> I got the idea from python and I use repeating double quotes ( " ) or chevrons ( > ) to demarcate the quoted text without spoiling the quotes within the text. It just feels cleaner in a way.

<comment><USER10> The pretentiousness of HN amazes me. It's incorrect syntax, mind you; Python isn't English.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure if your "pretentious" comment was directed at todayiamme or not. If so:

If the idea of triple-quotes holds utility, what does it matter if it's "improper syntax" or not? I find your need to squabble over quotation styles pretentious.

<comment><USER12> Well, I think the idea that one can deform natural language at will to conform to usage in code, and that this is somehow analytically superior is what strikes people as pretentious. Natural language is rather more complex than artificial language. The inability to understand what rules it has and deal with its ambiguities is simply a failure.

I don't personally care, unless it's in a context where the expectation is that the language will be, well, "normal." I just thought I'd tease out what I think is being the criticism.

In any event, this is a matter of punctuation, not syntax. As for nesting quotations, you want to alternate between single and double quotation marks. It's pretty rare that we go beyond two levels of nested direct quotations in English, so it's rarely ambiguous.

<comment><USER11> I agree with the sentiment that natural language is not something to be manipulated at-will for any old reason, but I don't see how somebody's preference for code-style disambiguation is either pretentious or a failure. I think it did what it needed to do, and provided the post with the author's own sort of "flair". I didn't actually know for sure what the quotes were there to do in the first place, but it doesn't really matter. Perhaps that was _my_ failing.

The poster explained their preference for the triple-quotes in a clear and completely non-inflammatory way, and then got shit on for being pretentious. I don't find that to be acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> See also: "A Rocket To Nowhere" by Maciej Cegłowski. [http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm](http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm)

      Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle
      was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was
      such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits,
      where air resistance and debris would limit the useful
      lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both
      a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of
      missions would require people to assist in deploying a
      large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled
      so that it could not land on autopilot? ① Why go through
      all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has
      no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick?
      Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then
      rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide
      most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal
      protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield?
      And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection,
      why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket,
      where things will fall on it during launch?

<comment><USER14> The space shuttle was (too) many things to (too) many people. Mediocrity by committee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As negative as the article sounds, I agree with the overall premise. With the same amount of money that's currently being sucked into their manned program, infinitely more and better scientific endeavors can be funded. Imagine not only having a mars rover, but an entire robotic base on mars that could possibly fuel itself and send out dozens of missions with air-and-land-based drones. Or perhaps the same on Venus or Titan, or even better equipment for monitoring Earth. Far-fetched, sure, but with the kind of budget the manned program is pulling in, I believe things like that are possible.

With that said, I'm OK with us still having a space station with people in it, because it keeps the engines of the national space machine greased. It won't be long before the United States is faced with a new contender for Global Superpower, and space will definitely become the place to be. If you want to control the land, you must control the sea, and if you want to control the sea, you must control space. As our military becomes more and more drone- heavy, I wouldn't be surprised if Space Command drastically increases its scope and reach as an organization. Its much faster to control a drone across the world in real time from space than it is from Virginia.

Couple military need with the new blood of private contractors (spaceX and its like), I believe space will be a big deal once again in a few decades.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. To me, humans in space is mildly interesting, but the data from robotic missions to the outer planets and Mars as well as from the various space telescopes is nothing less than fascinating.

And when you start comparing the relative costs, it seems like a no brainer. For the budget required to sustain manned spaceflight in its relatively trivial form, you could launch a space telescope, two Mars missions, an outer- planet mission, a comet mission, an asteroid mission, and a Sun mission, all robotic, every year. There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the public. The inevitable failed missions would just be blips on the radar, and technical progress on the exploratory robots would go faster than ever.

Over the decades launch and return technology will improve, especially as private industry gets more involved in space travel, and once we have cheaper and more reliable ways to get into space, gradually it may make more and more sense for humans to return and live there (or it won't, which is okay, too).

<comment><USER17> > There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the > public

There would be no stories. No machine can tell you how it feels to be there. If, ultimately, the goal is to send people, then we should send people. Of course, we should send machines until we are sure it's safe to send people, but we can't forget why we are doing it.

We (rightfully) complain NASA does too little with the money they have while military spending is orders of magnitude larger. And, as long as that money is used to fund fighters such as the F-35 (good luck for those who'll fly it) and the F-22 (is that O2 problem fixed?), there will be very little benefit from there except fat military contractors.

BTW, those are the same companies that feed on NASA.

<comment><USER18> Why wouldn't there be stories? Haven't Hubble and the Mars missions gotten a lot of stories? At least in my media bubble, they've gotten much more attention than the order-of-magnitude more expensive ISS. If the unmanned space program got as much funding as the manned space program gets today, I think it would generate far more news and interest.

I'm not sure manned versus unmanned is the right distinction to make for media attention, though. More important is whether a mission is TV-ready (like a manned moon landing), or not (like an unmanned Mars landing where after landing we spend six months calibrating each instrument one at a time, before rolling forward six inches).

Right now, science is barely on the radar of the manned mission planners. While for unmanned missions, science is the highest priority. If this were only tweaked slightly, and media appeal made another priority for unmanned missions, then I think you could get cost-effective unmanned missions that are both media- and science-friendly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a great essay...it illuminates the interplay between science, politics, idealism, and human endeavor better than most things I've read that bemoan the underfunding of NASA: Human-based missions are unfeasible if we want to expand space exploration....yet the public can't get behind robot- missions, and thus, the lack of funding and interest.

This conflict mimics the technological dichotomy in the rest of society...how can we continue to value human contributions when computers can do things so much more efficiently and accurately? My opinion is that there are plenty of things that require a "human-in-the-middle" for the forseeable future, earthside. But in space, it's much harder to justify, based on the plain physics of sending a human into space.

</comment><comment><USER20> Tl;dr: NASA was only incidentally about science, it was cover for funding military/geopolitical goals. Once those goals (moon, shuttle) were achieved, NASA's risks and costs are exceedingly hard to justify.

<comment><USER21> NASA was founded as a guise for science in the light of a cold war power play. There are several quotes even from Kennedy saying that the Space Race was a diplomatic framing of ICBM missile building and testing.

What NASA does accomplish is economic growth of America as a whole. What most people don't realize is very dollar given to NASA roughly translates to 2-4 dollars of GDP growth of American research, development, and manufacturing.

Really one of the most direct ways of the US Government putting additional money in the hands of the American is NASA's budget strangely.

<comment><USER22> Except no, you can't go and spout numbers about GDP growth ratios without considering the opportunity costs of not having NASA's employees work in other sectors.

<comment><USER21> I'm talking about government spending to money actually being used in the economy. In which NASA is largely the best program.

On a person by person level yes there is likely some wasted talent at NASA, and their skills could be put to better use else where. But doing a micro- economic analysis of every 1 person's case over 300,000 employes and 18,000 contractors would be very time consuming then making boarder macro economic statements. Also remember micro-economics are wrong about certain things, macro-economics are wrong about things in general.

<comment><USER23> " _300,000 employees and 18,000 contractors_ "

Assuming you're talking about the '60's, it's the other way around. If you're talking about today, it's still the other way around but the number of contractors is much smaller.

<comment><USER21> Those numbers are taken from NASA itself, they have links to the size of their operations nasapeople.nasa.gov

<comment><USER23> Do you mean this: [https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi- bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_act...](https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi- bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAABgNNr_f942m2PQWuDQBCF~8yOaS9hdlTUgwd1DRHamEahZ6NjCTFuUFOaf981KYTSzu7wHm__gV2ryJdFme~STIXjpAfO1BMQHSShS5TK2I89x~NXsYt24AfKd4Mg8mLHMM~WvJtGu2S9jcp1CLSqdT9xPxnX6q7hAdwYHOyrE4OtFttBt4eOgTC57HlcgKsMea7qY~XBv9F3PRxbPdQz~LM245YqkmWSbzZpUmZGotc0~Ae14rewRRQSEaVEIQQKFwWhmI8QUdcZOD2dO31lHgGDvDeBukxXI0DtPP0yP2m4MfaFq082kADygWwDsATaAwX3QD4C8afk7c7m~qBbP_obQJNj2A%3D%3D)

(Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!)

I don't have a good source for the number of contractors, other than wikipedia. (...which cites [http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm](http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm). Huh.)

<comment><USER6> > _(Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!)_

Aha! Now we know where NASA's IT budget went -- to IBM.

IBM specializes in making sure that you spend your full IT budget each year, so that upper management isn't tempted to cut it next year.

<comment><USER21> Yes but IBM also makes very damn reliable mainframes, also z-series can emulate system360's, which NASA had quiet a few of (the last one wasn't decommissioned until 2010). So likely to maintain payroll or tax data they kept IBM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Rather than make the argument that human spaceflight is worthless because robots can do science better, I'd like to see someone make the (implied, underlying) argument that space programs should be primarily about basic scientific research, rather than all the other things assorted people seem to want them to be about (jobs, national prestige, technological spin-offs, exploiting space for economic or military purposes, off-world colonization for human survival, etc).

</comment><comment><USER25> There is one thing I know for certain: all of life, including humans, are going to use up resources available to it until they are gone. We like to think we will eventually reach a point of awareness about the importance of sustainability and live a low-impact life; respecting each other, the environment, and the entire biosphere.

We all accept the importance of this message; few of us are able or willing to make the necessary changes. How many of us use a computer for 8+ hours a day?

NASA, and any space program or company trying to develop the necessary technologies to reach orbit and live in space, are doing us a great favor. There is going to be a point when we need resources outside of Earth. This includes water, places to grow food, metals, etc. It also includes going into orbit and conducting Earth Science research to help us use our current resources more efficiently. An exploding human population and desire to give everyone a fighting chance at a happy life require that we reach outside of our atmosphere.

To say that NASA is no longer justified seems ignorant. That being said, as a government agency, there is a lot of wasted money at NASA. Obviously this is changing as they keep giving away private contracts (which is generally good).

</comment><comment><USER26> The real irony of the article isn't the truth of what it says, but what it doesn't say -- no politician wants to vote for a change in NASA's status. Killing NASA lurks just below killing Social Security in the politically untouchable sweepstakes.

This may all seem trivial ten or twenty years from now, when private enterprise has taken over 90% of what NASA does -- a process that's already begun.

<comment><USER27> "Bread and circuses" calls are heard from millenia ago. Killing NASA is so hard perhaps because it's a pretty good circus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Whether you agree with this article or not, it makes no difference. NASA is an extremely small portion of the US budget. If you want to cut waste, look at defense spending. It's OK to spend a small fraction of available money on research. NASA is changing. Most of it's work is now down by private contractors.

There are ~60 launches scheduled for this year ([http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/](http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/)). Most are launching communication satellites, some are ISS resupply missions, and others are for research. China is developing a space station and private space companies are doing well. Year over year the amount of launches has been increasing and there is no reason to believe this trend won't continue, with or without NASA. NASA has served a great purpose, and it may or may not continue to do so. Calling it a tragedy seems loaded and misguided.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't get the fascination with manned space flight. To me it's such an obvious waste of money. I find the robots we send to space a million times more fascinating.

<comment><USER29> Let me get this straight: sending a man to the moon was an obvious waste of money?

<comment><USER30> Without the context of cold war one-upmanship, almost certainly. What did landing on the moon actually give us? A slightly better understanding of early earth geology perhaps? It was mostly an excercise in building national pride and sticking it to the Soviets. In that role, it was effective.

Spaceflight has contributed very, very little technology to earth. The reality is that anything we fly into space is already generations behind the equivalent earth technology.

Put it another way: What were the obvious benefits of the Apollo program?

<comment><USER31> Freeze drying is one of many it seems.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin- off_technologies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies)

What were the direct benefits of Amundsen's expedition to the south pole? Is exploration a waist even if its results are less than stellar? I would say that by its nature, exploration is a hard thing to waste money on. Necessity is the mother of invention and nothing provides necessity like pushing the envelope. For example, look at the picture that accompanies this article. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm)

<comment><USER30> Optimisation algorithms are used widely in all sorts of industries. That antenna was used in 2006. If you read the "History" section of the GA article you linked it talks about developments made since the fifties. Certainly it has space applications, but the technology wasn't developed for space uses. The photo was probably used because space is interesting to people and because NASA photos are in the public domain.

You can't simply say that all exploration gives value for money. With finite resources, we have to direct spending to where it will result in the most benefit. Funding of human spaceflight means that there's less funding available elsewhere. I'm not familiar with who funded Amundsen's expedition, but I'd imagine that it cost a lot less than the trip to the moon did.

There has been innovative developments in the space industry. Some of those spin-off technologies are definitely valid (although the question of whether the return they provide given the absolutely huge R&D budget is worth it) but others are less so. Freeze drying was apparently initially developed in 1938, long before the space program. I find it hard to believe that, in the absence of a space program, nobody would have invented the portable vacuum cleaner.

There are benefits from a space program. Government R&D, when spent well, has a huge impact on technological progress (just look at the absolutely incredible technological step change that wars bring). What I think needs to end is the absolute idolisation of the space program. It's an investment, and one which has often shown a poor return.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> In Houston, there are a lot of folks that work over at JSC or are involved with NASA stuff. There is the reminder of better days, and of great things that could've been but never were.

It's really depressing to talk to experienced engineers (even if they're not NASA proper, but lend/leased from Lockheed or someone else) who are like "Yeah, we could build that, no question, but who will pay for it?"

It's even more depressing to talk to normal engineers at any meetup or hackathon, because there's the same sort of awe and mystique about NASA and what it could be doing, but also the tacit acknowledgement that the agency is fucked in the head--you usually end up with a bunch of Boomers old enough to remember when NASA actually did things that were cool.

The most frustrating thing is that the technology works and has been in production for half a century now, but the agency is unable or unwilling to fund manned missions to completion--and these questions of "Should we even put people in space? Why not robots lol?" could be rendered moot if somebody just cut a goddamn check. The people know this. The engineers know this. The astronauts know this. And yet, no check.

Worse still, you can't keep sending robots into space because nobody cares. Sure, a few people here or there who love ~=science=~ can appreciate the pursuit of knowledge for its own means, but for everyone else there needs to be a payoff. The only payoffs come, though, in either moving people off-planet to start colones or moving material back on-planet (which is fairly silly in its own way). If you don't do either of those things, then _no shit_ everyone would rather your funding go to aging Boomers or poor urban youths or starving hillbillies or students loans or fighting the war on drugs or any number of more immediate short-term pains our democracy faces.

At least we've got a few folks funding this privately--as for NASA, though, the best thing to do would be bow out of space all together and open-source and make public domain all of their research and patents.

</comment><comment><USER33> Go for the children. Go for the schools. Go for APPs and market NASA to kids that way. Engage schools by soliciting where to point a camera, where to send a rover. By allowing hundreds if not thousands of kids to vote/choose maybe they can interest them enough to get adults to wonder why Congress does not act.

in other words, they need a strong marketing division that can take the droll numbers of science and present it to schools and online that anyone can understand.

The get attached to some cereal boxes, cookies, and lunch boxes.

<comment><USER34> NASA has always gone for the children. There's massive cooperation between NASA and the public schools, all over the country. NASA has, also, always been trying to market themselves. Visit any tourist trap and it's all about spin- offs, and dreams, and here's why we're doing this ... over and over and over, the same spiel.

Years ago I wondered why they were constantly trying to remind and justify the whys of their existence; now it's pretty clear.

When I was ~ 11 years old, my 5th grade classroom in rural Texas received some tomato seeds which had been exposed to space, and -- for science! -- I and other classmates grew some in our backyards and we reported back about how these plants grew vs normal ones. Many other classes did the same thing at the time.

Oh, by the way ... that was 24 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just look here [https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog](https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog)

NASA does quite a bit of Earth Science and Aeronautics

</comment><comment><USER36> Cost should never be an issue since NASA is an arm of the federal government. Have the Federal Reserve fund NASA directly. Double the budget. Hire STEM majors. Pay them well. NASA's achievements should only be limited by technical capabilities. Leave finance out of it.

</comment><comment><USER37> What is Slate.com for?

</comment><comment><USER38> Science.</comment>


What We Actually Know About Software Development, and Why We Believe It's True - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/9270320 <comment><USER2> Greg Wilson video from 6 years ago. Not a new one, as I had hoped.</comment>


Turns Out, 85% of the World Likes "Contact Me".  Even Though You Don't - <AUTHOR> http://saastr.com/2014/10/23/turns-out-85-of-the-world-likes-contact-me-even-though-you-dont/ <comment><USER2> I enjoyed reading this but don't get people to create new accounts just to shill and upvote your submission. You'll be banned pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> You nailed it!

</comment><comment><USER4> A great post in the best SaaS blog</comment>


Gavin Andresen's commit access to Bitcoin revoked, hacking suspected - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/727078284345917441 <comment><USER2> This looks like a political statement, not like a serious security measure. "No sane person would say the things this guy is saying, so he must have been hacked." Like the Soviet Union where political opponents would be declared to be insane to silence them.

What damage are they afraid he will do with commit access? Wouldn't it be better to wait for him to commit so they can see what the "hacker" is trying to accomplish?

<comment><USER3> > What damage are they afraid he will do with commit access?

A lot of people run Bitcoin Core directly from the github repo without checking the git commit signatures; someone who pushed a backdoored commit to that repo could easily steal funds.

<comment><USER4> > A lot of people run Bitcoin Core directly from the github repo without > checking the git commit signatures

What? Why?

<comment><USER3> Same reason people do curl | sudo bash

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FYI, turns out he was not hacked: [https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2plygg)

<comment><USER6> You would think that Satoshi, who has been in hiding for so long, would have a fully planned reveal. He/she has had a long time to plan. As long as Satoshi is not outed unintentionally, I would think he/she would have a long list of lawyers and accountants. Roughly 1 million btc could be 400 million in assets. That's a heck of a lot of capital to be dealing with reporters directly.

<comment><USER7> His interview with BBC suggests he was outed against his desires and before he had settled tax questions with the ATO.

<comment><USER8> Having access to more critical data / keys / and so on, if he really planned to go out, there would be better ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apparently the "verification" shell script that Craig supplied had a deliberate typo which made signature check step worthless: [https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2poy67)

<comment><USER10> What this means is still unclear but it's not looking good for Craig Wright being Satoshi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm as interested in the Satoshi/Wright drama as the next bored geek, but...

...come on, this is just getting silly. Nobody _really_ thinks Gavin was hacked, do they?

</comment><comment><USER12> It's worth noting Gavin and Peter don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the future direction of Bitcoin. I sense a hint of glee in this tweet.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Core devs have been waiting for a chance to cut off Gavin's commit access. This was just an excuse. I'm not defending Gavin. At this point it looks like he was fooled but taking away his commit access was a political move. Commits are public and reversible so there is no security emergency. Of anything this is a strike against the credibility of the Core devs.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sorry I have not been following what has been going on, can somebody catch me up with a TL;DR?

<comment><USER14> Australian dude publishes fake proof he's the famous inventor of bitcoin:

* [http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-signif...](http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-significance/) * [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hflr3/craig_wrigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4hflr3/craig_wrights_signature_is_worthless/)

High-profile Bitcoin dev Gavin Andresen inexplicably supports the fraudster: [http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi](http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi)

<comment><USER15> It looks unlikely but is there any actual evidence that he is not Satoshi?

<comment><USER11> There is circumstantial evidence that he isn't Satoshi, eg, he doesn't sound like Satoshi sounded, he doesn't act in ways congruent with Satoshi's actions, he doesn't seem to share goals with Satoshi's actions, he doesn't seem to have knowledge Satoshi had, etc.

On the other hand, it's absolutely possible that Wright _is_ Satoshi, and is simply engaging in an elaborate hoax in which Satoshi does a great job of pretending to be someone else who is doing a bad job of pretending to be Satoshi. It could be!

This is the bitcoin equivalent of Last Thursdayism ([http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism)) and much like the original, it's impossible to disprove.

Bottom line though: The real Satoshi could trivially prove he was Satoshi if he wanted to; Wright has not. Either 1) he's not Satoshi, or 2) he doesn't want to prove that he is Satoshi. Given that he spoke to the BBC in an apparent attempt to prove he is Satoshi, we can provisionally rule out option 2, leaving option 1:

He's not Satoshi.

<comment><USER16> This is my first time hearing of Last Thursdayism. Thank you for making my head spin before 10am

<comment><USER17> RationalWiki: The first hit is always free ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For those that do own or trade Bitcoin, how did you acquire them? Mining? Buy them out-right using a linked bank account on Coinbase (or some other marketplace)? Received them in-trade from someone?

<comment><USER19> I have a regular scheduled buy on coinbase. I just use it as a second savings account that has _waaaaay_ better returns than my actual savings account over the past year.

<comment><USER18> And do you trust them linking to your bank account to perform the withdrawal? I've never dealt with Coinbase before.

<comment><USER20> At least in Europe, fraudulent direct debit withdrawals are a lot more damaging to the company performing them than to the person whose money was taken -- the latter can undo the transaction and the former might lose the right to do any (legit or not) direct debits plus bad press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are so many theories on what is happening, let me propose yet another. Satoshi Nakamoto is akin to the Dread Pirate Roberts. Who knows how many Satoshi's there have been? Some may have died, some may have lost interest, but the torch continues to burn, and must be passed on.

</comment><comment><USER22> Allowing any single person be able to push a commit to something as important at Bitcoin sounds dangerous.

<comment><USER23> There's more to it than that. Bitcoin has many eyes watching the commits so a commit from a bad actor wouldn't get very far.

Secondly the devs come to some form of consensus and Gitian build is created and signed. [https://gitian.org/](https://gitian.org/).

Thirdly, the miners decide whether to build the blockchain based on the newer version of the software.

<comment><USER22> Do you know how Bitcoin insures the code reviews are done and there's not bias in the review process?

<comment><USER24> In theory they only do merges and everything has to go through a pull request.

Probably with this required status checks feature: [https://help.github.com/articles/enabling-required-status- ch...](https://help.github.com/articles/enabling-required-status-checks/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Relevant: [http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt- as...](http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as-nation- realizes-money-2912)

</comment><comment><USER26> Bitcoin is just a soap opera that keeps on giving... it's fantastic how much credibility something can keep loosing and loosing.

<comment><USER27> Why laugh at someone's failure? They're trying to pull off a very different power structure. It has political issues they clearly haven't worked out, but how much time in the grand scheme have they had to do so compared to the standard ones?

<comment><USER28> Well, because, frankly speaking, they're trying to pull off a very different power structure without getting buy-in from everyone involved.

Green U.S. money? At least, at the end of the election cycle, I can cast a vote for someone who will appoint a Fed chair I like. There's some tenuous link from the decision-makers back to me, an American voter.

The bitcoin people? They just said "here it is, oh and also we call all the shots, kthxbye". What if there's some feature of the new power structure I don't like? Where can I seek redress? Ask a bitcoin advocate, and what you get is crickets.

A new power structure should be _more_ inclusive of people's voices, not less.

So, in this case, I welcome the failure.

<comment><USER29> With bitcoin, the election cycle is always happening. Every single block miners decide which rules they want to enforce, and which proposals they want to signal support for. You want to support 2 MB blocks? Run Bitcoin Classic, or point your mining software toward a pool that supports it. You want to support segwit? Run Core 0.12.1. Ultimately, the _market_ decides what becomes of bitcoin, not some unaccountable, unelected bureaucrat.

Also, with bitcoin, all interaction is completely voluntary. There are no legal tender laws or taxation propping up the value of the currency.

> So, in this case, I welcome the failure.

I wouldn't hold your breath. Bitcoin has been through many incidents that are far worse than this, and it's only come out stronger for it.

<comment><USER28> That's not an election. That's not voting.

And you and the other guy are illustrating _really well_ what I mean about the bitcoiner anti-democratic point of view.

Running a piece of software isn't voting, and isn't "power to the people," but you guys get so stuck up on this wordplay about how running the software is the real, authentic "voting" that you really kinda miss the boat there.

So, well done with that.

<comment><USER30> So what does a real authentic vote look like to you, in a decentralized system?

Who calls for the vote? Who counts them? Who is allowed to vote? Who isn't? Who proposes ideas for a vote?

When the pool of people who understand what Bitcoin is gets totally overwhelmed by people who don't, what keeps really stupid decisions from being made?

When people vote for something that isn't already coded, who is responsible for coding it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like how Satoshi is a kind of genius God in some people's eyes. Explaining what he would do in a situation, as though it is written in gospel somewhere.

<comment><USER32> That's because Bitcoin's value is entirely belief based (you can't do anything useful with a Bitcoin if nobody else believes it has value), so the whole thing is much closer to a religion than anything based on reason and logic.

<comment><USER33> What kind of currency do you accept for your work? Is it reason and logic based or a fiat "belief based" currency?

<comment><USER34> I'll take a bite. A currency that is backed by a powerful and stable state.

A state that enforces nearly constant but low inflation; a process by which money has to be invested and flow into an economic system in order to have a shot keeping the same value.

I bought 7BTC in April-May 2011 when they were at 7EUR each, during one of the first press-coverage booms. Private key is currently in a cupboard on my old laptop; And precisely because Bitcoin has not inflation, they're staying there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber Loses London License over Concerns for Rider Safety - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/uber-denied-new-license-by-london-s-transport-regulator <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21626837)

<comment><USER3> Not a dupe, a completely different news site (Bloomberg v. BBC).

<comment><USER2> I believe it's still technically a dupe. In the past, the mods here decided to merge comments on articles reporting the same event.

<comment><USER3> It's not a merge, unfortunately, it's an eclipsing of perspectives not lucky enough to be the first.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


You are not a gadget, progress is not a widget - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2010/02/you-are-not-gadget-progress-is-not.html

<comment><USER2> My most positive takeaway from the book is that there is still a lot of room to create new social interaction models for the internet. It doesn't have to stay fragmentary and relatively meaningless, as in status updates.

The dangers Lanier describes in the new Internet represent opportunity for the person that can turn them on their head and figure out cool ways to promote individual expression.

The most negative takeaway is that the Web 2.0 medium is altering what we remember how to say. We start writing things so they can be Googled, or so they can be read by all our facebook friends. He definitely touched a nerve here.

</comment><comment><USER3> _"'In a quarter century, when the digital revolution has made great progress and computer chips are millions of times faster than they are now, humanity will finally win the prize of being able to write a new encyclopedia and a new version of UNIX!' It would have sounded utterly pathetic."_

No, pathetic is sitting on your own ass, reducing the last 25 years to Wikipedia and Linux while dismissing even those, and implicitly demanding that everyone produce something for you that's _cooler_.

You want something cooler because nobody's even really trying? _Make it._

</comment><comment><USER4> the most important book about the internet in a decade. and the internet is about a decade old really. so this must be the most important book ever.</comment>


Bette Graham, the inventor and founder of Liquid Paper (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nerdette/status/1139536401094053889 <comment><USER3> Scroll down, there's more to Ms. Nesmith-Graham than "my kid was one of the Monkees; and, yeah, I invented Liquid Paper". She also did some ground- breaking stuff in the way she ran her business. Worth a skim, or perhaps even an in-depth read.

<comment><USER4> More importantly, Mike Nesmith is the producer of one of the great all time punk movies Repo Man. [https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0087995/](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0087995/)

<comment><USER5> As well as being the founder of what became MTV and one of the originators of the music video.

<comment> mark-r Considering that the Monkees TV show was mostly one big music video, that should have been no surprise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read this and it's kinda cool, but, good grief, this is _NOT_ something that should be subject to Twitter character limits. It should be a blog post, a web page, or _ANYTHING_ that is more document focused.

But, I guess people won't read anything else anymore.

<comment><USER3> More so subject to Twitter cropped image previews on mobile (maybe desktop, too?). Want to see the picture? Click the preview, like it's 1998 or something. And this has a lot of pictures.

But I quibble: yes, it's a horrible format for such a thing. But I guess the people have spoken:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/nerdette/status/11406772597890457...](https://mobile.twitter.com/nerdette/status/1140677259789045760)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Her kid turned out to be a total "Monkee" though. ;)

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

<comment> mark-r That's one of those totally worthless pieces of trivia that you can never forget. It works much better if you learn it in the opposite order though - <USER2> used to watch the Monkees as a kid, and was fascinated when I learned Michael Nesmith's mother invented Liquid Paper. It also helps that I'm old enough to remember what Liquid Paper was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've known about Bette since I was a kid in the `60s. Can't say I know anymore than what was given in the Twitter thread but my mother and grandmother used to talk about her with their friends.

I didn't know Mike Nesmith is her son. That was a surprise.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here is the same thread in a vastly more readable format:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1139536401094053889.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1139536401094053889.html)

Maybe this should be the type of link used for submissions to HN.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for this, it was really helpful, when looking at it this way it's clear to see how inspiring this story is!</comment></comment>


Japan Localization - <AUTHOR> http://yachtclubgames.com/2016/07/japan-localization/ <comment><USER2> > rice balls

isn't there one japanese style of food that legend says was cooked initially on a shovel? teppanyaki maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> People have used folding shovels as a novelty-way of cooking food, though perhaps it was also an impromptu cooking utensil in historical military campaigns: [http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/07/06/how-to-cook- steak-o...](http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/07/06/how-to-cook-steak-on-a- shovel-video/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Suggest related video games played by others - <AUTHOR> https://www.thegamefox.net/game-suggestion <comment><AUTHOR> The data is based on played games from the Twitch API. This means popular games are more likely to be shown at the top. However there may be a gem at the last pages or if you combine multiple games.</comment>


Malware-Ridden Laptop Auction Bids Top $1M - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48364204 <comment><USER2> ridiculous. also:

"If you want to save a million dollars, you could connect a laptop to the internet without antivirus software and security patches and leave it a few days for a similar infestation,"

thats a bit of a stretch, ive had systems running ancient unpatched OS with no AV at all and still had no infections with standard use, maybe its the case if youre regularly trawling dodgy porn and torrent sites but doubtful that youd pick up much from regular browsing and usage let alone just connecting it to the internet for a few days</comment>


What was your darkest hour like? - <AUTHOR>

I've been a freelancer for, like, 5 years. And during that time, I've always dreamed about starting my own "web 2.0" thing (that's what got me here in the first place). However, lately, things are going in a totally different direction. The business is slow, I'm out of cash and I'm considering getting a job. I've hoped that day will never come, but right now, I have my email client open (actually it's another Firefox tab :) with what should become a job application. Still I just can't seem to be able to do it yet.<p>Have you ever been in a situation like "thank god I didn't get a day job back then"? If so, how did you manage to get back on track? Is there a silver bullet? <comment><USER2> My darkest hour certainly had nothing to do with job woes.

No offense, but if this is your darkest hour, you need to be living a much wider spectrum of human experience!

<comment><USER3> That's a cheap shot although you made me laugh. But let's for a moment assume that one person's walk in the woods can be another person's nightmare. (Especially if they're really dark, creepy woods - but I digress).

Job hunting is stressful even at the best of times. And this is certainly not the best of times. On top of that, you are considering a possibly necessary major shift in direction in your career and lifestyle so that adds to the stress of this. The process of searching for a job has a bearing on so many aspects of who we are that some people can be so paralyzed by the thought of it that they will stay in the same job for years to avoid searching for a new job (points finger at self). I sympathize with your situation. Getting support from those close to you as well as trying to participate in enjoyable activities that help you to maintain your sanity are likely to help you get through this without feeling too overwhelmed. Whatever direction you choose, when you emerge at the other end of the tunnel you are likely to wonder what you were so worried about. Best of luck.

<comment><USER4> It didn't come across to me as a cheap shot - I think it's literally true. Stuff that would have been extremely discouraging to me 5-10 years ago simply bounces right off me now. Based on this, I know that stuff I worry about right now isn't going to seem like a big deal as I get older. The best technique I know for making this process work is to continually do new things and challenge myself. Some of it may be painful at the time, but once you've come through it, you'll be surprised at the confidence you gain.

The only thing I know of that works against this process is sliding back into the "safe" realm in order to avoid having to deal with the problem at hand. This becomes a repeating pattern and you end up being much less capable of achieving challenging things.

It sounds to me like the problem is less one of motivation and more of vision. What is it exactly that you want to do? If you need to answer that question, I recommend changing contexts dramatically. Go travel for awhile, try moving to a new town, etc. Once you know what you want, little things like money and wondering how you're going to survive matter surprisingly less than you think they would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My darkest hour was moving from Chicago to Rhode Island with my credit cards maxed out, collections people calling all the time, and desperately needing a change in my life. We had $50 bucks to our name, and it had to last us two weeks until I got my first pay check.

So, we arrived in Rhode Island on Thursday, my new job started on Monday. Tuesday, the union I'd just joined voted to strike, and by Friday I had a pink slip and lost the job that I'd moved 1000 miles for.

I smelled the pink slip coming the day I started the job, so I was hustling to find a new gig, any gig I could get my hands on.

I was actually able to scare up a job the following week. I was making twice as much money as the job I'd moved for, and for a much better company. It was a miserable couple of weeks, though. We survived on a package of spaghetti someone had sent us for a house warming gift.

We did the check cashing service because we couldn't open a bank account. We had to borrow money to pay rent. But, it worked out.

When the chips are down, you do what you have to do. If you're just not willing to get a 9-5, things probably aren't that bad for you yet. When things are bad enough, you'll do what you have to do to pay the bills. You won't have any choice.

Also, you never know what direction unexpected decisions may take you. Things may well work out better than you expected at a 9-5.

</comment><comment><USER6> Keep your head up. There are lots of dark hours when you pour your everything into something. It's true of girl/boyfriends. It's true of jobs. It's true of your family.

Business is slow for everyone. It's is a dark hour for the world. As a nation, we have lost courage. Don't lose yours.

If you run out of cash, it's okay. Lot's of companies run out of cash. How many banks are closing right now? How many companies are bankrupt? How many companies are unable to pay their employees? Be glad you are not in debt. You are ahead of many. You are out of cash. Many are out of cash _and_ credit.

It's okay to go back to work. It is okay to build a cv and send it out. Take the time to find a good company where you can learn and bring the skills back to your business. You can keep running it while you work. It isn't going away. Longevity has value. How many companies stuck it out through the last dot- bomb?

Learn from any mistakes you have made that brought you to this dark hour. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are many tunnels.

Keep your head up. Be proud of how far you have come. Many don't even begin the journey. Life is long. You will have many failures enroute to your final destination.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a lot of comments here saying that you need to "get some perspective", but I recently got into the exact same situation, and have had some of the most terrible months of my life.

Before this year, I had never been turned down for any job I interviewed for. Now, I'm getting rejection after rejection, and it's shattered the confidence that I could apply my skills to benefit society, and generally made me feel worthless. The thought of being broke doesn't keep me awake at night, but thinking that I might be useless does.

It was painful having to send out my first job application (because I'd gotten every other job through my network), and my confidence was so low that I applied for jobs that were way below my skill level. Not getting them made me feel even worse, and I quickly got into a downward cycle.

After a couple of months, though, my initial panic started easing, and I've had a chance to get a better perspective on work and life. I've found that I can stretch out my money a lot farther than I imagined. People are a lot more willing to help me out than I thought. Instead of using the downtime to worry, I can spend it learning new things. And, most importantly, I've learned that it will take patience to wait for the really worthwhile opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, my situation is exactly like this. I guess I relied on my network too heavily. Now I'm just about to start applying for jobs way below (what I thought to be) my level. That's really confidence-shattering. I hope everything's going to be OK for both of us :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're truly out of money, it will soon change from "thank god I didn't get a day job" to "thank god someone gave me a day job."

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, that may turn out to be very true :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's probably when I lived with my parents when I was four in Ukraine. My father's salary was delayed by months, I don't think my mother worked, we were poor and I was ALWAYS hungry.

One of the brightest moments of my life was when my uncle brought us two big sticks of sausage. The smell of sausage, how it combines meat, onions, some kind of sauce and a bunch of other ingredients.. sausage still rocks.

Another turning point was when I was a bit older (six?) and my mother gave me chicken soup. The problem was that I ate too fucking much of it and for probably the first time in my life that I can remember my mother said: Stop, that's too much soup, you'll feel sick, little guy. I was really surprised -- how could anyone ever eat too much? Is that humanly possible? Soon after that, our finances were going upward and I began to battle another problem: obesity.

And of course, I still have some food disorders, even ten years later :)

</comment><comment><USER10> if your darkest hour is going from your ideal work situation to working a 9-5, you might need some perspective.

<comment><USER11> That's exactly what he asked for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Tough people last but tough times don't"

If you have to get a job to pay the bills, do so. See it as a detour to your dreams, rather than a permanent change in direction. You can always quit and start your business again. Maybe you'll meet a co-founder at your new job.

I've had several dark hours. At the time they seem like the end of everything. It's just your dreams dying that make you sad. You can have new dreams, where everthing is shinier and better. Dreams are the most renewable resource.

</comment><comment><USER13> Go read "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis. Despite the rather crass title, there's a lot of great entrepreneurial nuggets in there, including one of my favorite stories of all time, where he's burning furniture for heat in his dilapidated apartment in the back of a sweatshop, trying to get his publishing company going. His girlfriend tries to get him to take one of the job offers on the table, and he almost relents because he knows that she'll leave if he doesn't. He doesn't, she does, and eventually he succeeds.

If you want to start a company, don't take a job, and don't continue doing freelance. Just start something. Here's a fantastic comment by pj on the subject:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625644>

Just keep walking.

<comment><USER14> On the other hand, once you start digging a hole, you have that much farther to go to get on top. I dug my hole deeper for about 5 years, and while I'm still not sure I had a better option at the time, I sure am glad that I can fill in that hole with a regular job/contract for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was in a similar situation in 2000 and ended up in a job I really enjoyed for 2 years. It was at a startup with a cool boss who let me more or less make my own hours as long as I was getting the company work done. I'm still good friends with some of the people I worked with then, and the experience I gained helped me out a lot in my career.

When I left the job, it was to get back into running my own small company, and have been self-employed ever since.

I obviously don't know all the details of your situation but maybe you'll be lucky like I was and be able to turn this into an opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER16> It took 5 years before my start-up started paying off the debt I had accumulated.

There were a couple of "dark" times where I decided to give up and get a job. But I messed up the interview each time. It's like my heart knew it wasn't right and I bombed. Maybe it gave me clarity about what I needed to be doing.

When you're stuck, it's hard to guess if a change is right. Though, if you start down a path, it might be easier to know if you are going in the right direction.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have had MANY hours that were far darker than having to _look for a job_. Please don't whine about your darkest hour/ struggle unless you have lived through a war, famine, or disease, as I can assure you everyone here has had the same or close to the same problem you have now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know many people here had the same problem. I just wanted to know what they did and what happened next.

(OK, I whined a little bit as well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's wrong with getting a job ? As far as I am concerned..one doesn't get any extra points for being self employed. Often times you need to work in teams to get stuff done especially in a startup. I'd rather be impressed by one's work and creativity than by his ego :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've rarely had any problems working on (competent) teams (on the contrary, it's nothing but a pleasure), it's almost always "the man" who is the problem :)

Do you have a job yourself? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Getting pulled out of school in 3rd grade with mom who had mental illness, driving down to florida, living in car for 1 month, utilizing hotel showers because workers felt sorry for u, moving into an all womans homeless shelter for 3 months. -- Starving for a week after my dad went on a hooker/crack binge.

<comment><USER20> Okay, you win. Thread ends here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If your freelance experience will set you up to get a good job, then you're not in a bad place. Most jobs available early on (e.g. out of college) suck; some jobs available later on are great. If you learn from and enjoy the people you work with, get interesting projects, and are respected, having a paid job isn't so bad.

My darkest hour was when I moved under undesirable circumstances, developed a serious health problem, lost my job, and broke up with my girlfriend in the space of 3 months, while the economy/job market was falling apart but before it started making the news (spring 2008). What was it like? Well, it ended.</comment>


Why the maker of Roomba vacuums is getting out of the warbot business - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/02/11/irobot-maker-of-roomba-vacuums-is-getting-out-of-the-warbot-business-where-it-all-began/ <comment><USER2> It's annoying that the article doesn't actually explain _why_ they are getting out of the 'warbot business'.

'The big buys are over' does not explain why it is a good time to sell the division. If it's true, then it would be a terrible time to sell off a division since you'd get very little money for it. Presumably Arlington Capital Partners think that it is a good business to be getting into, even with the associated chaos and confusion that's inevitable when a company sells off a division of itself.

IMO it's also unlikely to be a reputation issue either - not many people know that Roomba also sells to the military, and besides, their robots aren't exactly killbots, they are saving the lives of their users. If anything, it should be a positive role.

Perhaps it is because the company wants a single focus? But even then, if a division of your business is large enough to sell and survive on its own, then you should also be able to keep it and run it separately from your house- cleaning division, with no downsides.

The shared research and development of both divisions must be an advantage, but the news article doesn't even mention that selling the division would lose these advantages.

So tell us again, Washington Post, why is the maker of Roomba vacuums getting out of the warbot business?

<comment><USER3> The Pentagon may want to buy something they are against on ethical grounds.

<comment><USER4> I think it is _far_ more likely that the problem is that the Pentagon _doesn 't_ want to buy enough platforms -- weaponized or not -- to make the market worth their time. Better to sell off 1/16 of the business for some free cash flow and focus on the larger consumer market. After all, iRobot began as a DARPA contractor and already experimented with weaponized remote platforms; they aren't averse to making tools for war, they just obviously don't see enough cash in it.

<comment><USER5> This is what I am getting from the article but seems very short sighted... Working on development and R&D with the government is more likely to enable IRobot to be competitive in the real robotics industry that is finally springing up in the next decade or ao

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ex Army Bomb Technician (EOD) here, now doing enterprise java / intranet stuff. Disclosure: I also used to work for one of iRobots competitors, Roboteam.

My speculation is that they also sold because they lost a 25 million dollar contract to Roboteam. It's a 7 year contract to the airforce for 200+ robots. IMHO, unless more services drop out of the joint robotics program, as the airforce did, it will likely be the last large government robotics contract for a very long time.

<comment><USER6> Just to give further explanation to everyone commenting on the 'warbot' phrase... The robots iRobot makes for use in war, are designed to save lives. Not take them. They saved my life, as well as the lives of several coworkers, on many occasions. They are designed to dismantle IEDs or road side bombs as you may know them. The number one killer in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If I can send a $150,000 piece of equipment down range to handle an IED with a skilled operator at the controls, instead of risking human life to make the route / area safe for passing friendly troops, local nationals, or coalition troops, instead of risking my life... I'm going to it every single time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how many people would not want to work for a company also producing warbots. I certainly wouldn't, but I'm not sure how common this sentiment is.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure that some people dislike any military connection, but the "warbots" that iRobot was making weren't Dalek-like monsters like the term suggests but rather robots to find mines, aid in search and rescue operations, and things like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One other thing to consider is the cost of doing defence business. The ITAR is no joke and puts a large amount of process and overhead on development and company operations. If the defence business a small part of your overall revenue, it might just not be worth it to deal with it, especially with defence contracts "drying up".

</comment><comment><USER10> I have a feeling that the market will actually expand dramatically, as the costs of the tech underlying 'ruggedized' versions start to fall along with the consumer models.

However, the buyers in the expanding market won't necessarily be nation states, but instead local law enforcement (eg. SWATs), security companies, and PMCs.

As such, the split off division will likely be a nice acquisition for a company already serving one or more of those markets.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's good to see this happen. In this day and age i think all of us and especially scientists should be more morally conscious about the ethical implications of their work and not sell themselves when their research and tech are financed by war money or when their work becomes intellectual property of companies that deal in war. It's a double edged sword I know, but it's such a great shame. End rant.

</comment><comment><USER12> If a ban on autonomous weapons is negotiated, there won't be much of a market for military robots. Real mules are much cheaper than robot mules.

Autonomous vehicles are another matter, but robots that walk have limited use cases.

<comment><USER13> Maybe right now but not forever. Mass production makes things cheaper. Mules (and horses) were abandoned decades ago (almost a century now!) in favor of tractors. Because tractors were cheaper.

You have to feed a mule even when you don't need it. You have to house it in a climate-controlled building. You have to clean up after it. You have to medicate it, raise it for years until its useful, bury it when it dies.

No, animals are vastly more expensive propositions. Especially in a war zone.

<comment><USER12> I'm not convinced. Fuel and electric power are hideously expensive in a war zone. Even if the robot cost only thousands of dollars, running it will cost tens to hundreds of thousands.

<comment><USER13> A delicate mule is that times 10. Farmers turned to machines because they were vastly easier to maintain and use. Hay, oats, water .. all harder to ship than gasoline or diesel. All temperature-sensitive and can spoil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The guys were making bomb disposal robots not predator drones I don't think activists had any effect on their prospect, and could we please stop calling them "warbots"?

Selling of a chunk of your company for a short term cash flow might be a good reason.

However there might be a more straight forward one as working with the military isn't easy or cheap, they are your most picky costumer and unlike people who order Roomba's from Amazon actually know how to formulate contracts and keep you honest.

Military contracts come with years of support and services and while they can be very lucrative they also can have a very negative effect on the company as a whole.

When you sell something to the military you are usually bound by a contract to continue supporting that product for say 10 years.

This means that during these 10 years you can't discontinue that product or have to keep a large stockpile of replacement units and parts and more importantly keep the in-house knowledge required to support it which means keeping the personnel who were involved with the project originally or ensuring that every bit of the knowledge is transferred this isn't cheap and in the tech industry isn't easy.

Military contract pretty much mean that you have to magically increase the average employee retention period for more or less the duration of the contract, in many other cases the contract might actually force you to transfer some knowledge and skills to sub-contractors that would provide the global service the military might require which means some of your IP can leak.

There's a good reason why so many companies are either 100% dedicated to the defense industry (and many of those burn out quite quickly because of how demanding those contracts are) or have their defense oriented subsidiary very well isolated from the main corporate entity.

That's because when you sell to the military it might actually restrict the potential market as the contract might specify exclusivity or give the DOD oversight on all your future deals (to prevent technology transfer to non- friendly actors), when you are a tech company that can be an issue because quite often there will be quite a bit of lateral technology sharing across the company (one of the additional reasons why big corporations tend to keep their military subsidiaries very separated).

Which now could mean you are restricting your commercial products from being sold as they now might require a DOD oversight as well; a possible example in iRobot's case might be that the same algorithm that allows your Roomba to detect objects such as cats and babies is the same algorithm that is used by their commercial bomb disposal robots to detect road side IED's so now the DOD might either force them to modify it sufficiently or restrict sales of the Roomba's to "friendly" nations.

Dumping their military/leo department in some one else's lap releases them from most of the commitments, protects their future IP from oversight and gives them a short term cash influx that they might need. Trying to find some ideological reasoning behind this is just silly.</comment>


Real-Time Animation Tool for Unity - <AUTHOR> https://gumroad.com/l/BJGxn <comment><AUTHOR> Looking for feedback on copy / pricing from HN!</comment>


A Bug and a Crash - <AUTHOR> https://around.com/ariane.html <comment><AUTHOR> Repost but a good one, methinks.. Isn't this line as relevant as ever?

 _" There is no life today without software," says Frank Lanza, an executive vice president of the American rocket maker Lockheed Martin. "The world would probably just collapse."_</comment>


Ask HN: What does traffic to example.com look like? - mkr-hn I couldn't find any kind of traffic report from searching. <comment><AUTHOR> W3.org used to have up to 130M (!) requests per day for HTML DTDs [1], probably mostly from poorly written spiders traversing all the links they managed to find the crawled HTML pages, or clients validating schemas without any caching of DTDs.

Would be indeed interesting to get reliable info about how example.com looks in comparison.

[1] [http://www.w3.org/blog/systeam/2008/02/08/w3c_s_excessive_dt...](http://www.w3.org/blog/systeam/2008/02/08/w3c_s_excessive_dtd_traffic/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Backlinks[1],[2],[3] and rankings[4] might be interesting to some people as well.

[1][https://ahrefs.com/site- explorer/overview/subdomains/?target...](https://ahrefs.com/site- explorer/overview/subdomains/?target=example.com) [2][http://www.majesticseo.com/reports/site- explorer?q=example.c...](http://www.majesticseo.com/reports/site- explorer?q=example.com&oq=example.com&IndexDataSource=F) [3][http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=example.com](http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=example.com) [4][http://www.semrush.com/info/example.com+(by+organic)](http://www.semrush.com/info/example.com+\(by+organic\))

<comment><USER3> 6.8M backlinks - woah.

<comment><USER4> Well, most of those are low-quality links. That must explain why I never see example.com come up in my Google searches.

<comment><USER2> There's no content that could be ranked. [https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aexample.com](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aexample.com)

<comment><USER3> This.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The domain "example.com" is reserved for examples.

[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6761#section-6.5](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6761#section-6.5)

<comment> mkr-hn Something still serves pages and responds to requests. I want to know what the logs look like (in general). I hoped the person who administers it was an HN user.

<comment><USER5> $ nslookup example.com Server: 10.1.1.1 Address: 10.1.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer: Name: example.com Address: 18.104.22.168

$ whois 220.127.116.11 <snip>

      % Information related to '126.96.36.199 - 220.127.116.11'

      % Abuse contact for '126.96.36.199 - 22.214.171.124' is 'email@example.com'

      inetnum:        188.8.131.52 - 188.8.131.52
      netname:        EDGECAST-NETBLK-03
      descr:          NETBLK-03-EU-93-184-216-0-24
      country:        EU
      admin-c:        DS7892-RIPE
      tech-c:         DS7892-RIPE
      status:         ASSIGNED PA
      mnt-by:         MNT-EDGECAST
      source:         RIPE # Filtered

      person:         Derrick Sawyer
      address:        2850 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 200, Santa Monica CA 90405 USA
      phone:          +18773343236
      nic-hdl:        DS7892-RIPE
      source:         RIPE # Filtered
      mnt-by:         MNT-EDGECAST

That seems to be the person you'd want to ask.

<comment> mkr-hn I had two options:

1: Email them and ask for myself, and only myself.

2: See if I could cajole the admin out into the light for a potentially interesting public discussion.

<comment><USER5> Well you got my up-vote. ;)

The trouble is, the edgecast.com Content Distribution Network (CDN) is owned by Verizon. In theory, the `nslookup example.com` command should fail with NXDOMAIN (Non-eXisting Domain) error, but on _some_ networks like Verizon, the bastards are actually resolving it even though the IETF and IANA specs say it should never resolve at all. For notes, Verizon does transparent redirection of DNS requests on their network so you actually can't use anything other than their DNS servers, but this case is just odd.

EDIT: I originally wrote `whois` rather than `nslookup` --heck, whois doesn't have that error code. It's early/late, and it seems hn user "vertex-four" below is right about the "example.com" domain always being registered to IANA, but as far as I remember, it should never resolve to an IP address. Need sleep.

<comment> vertex-four > In theory, the `whois example.com` command should fail with NXDOMAIN (Non- > eXisting Domain) error

Huh? No, it shouldn't. Example domains are, according to the RFC, permanently registered to IANA, although not through the "normal channels" (I suppose they don't have to pay for them).

example.com and other example domains resolve correctly wherever you are. They are not treated specially in any way (or shouldn't be, according to the RFC) aside from that they're permanently registered to IANA and that application developers should understand that they're example domains. The RFC does not prevent IANA from running any services on example domains, and they choose to run an HTTP server.

<comment><USER5> You're right about the "example.com" and similar domains always being registered to IANA, and I even did a brain-fade on whois/nslookup in my comment, but as far as I remember, the example domains are never supposed to resolve to an IP? I'll look at this again after I get some sleep.

<comment><USER6> They used not to resolve in the far past. Apparently they decided otherwise later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Compete.com has them at 155k a month. Now, having worked at Compete in the past, I usually found their traffic estimate to be off by 75-100% due to the lack of international data (and coordinating with publishers/looking at their Google Analytics data). Compete also can't capture mobile usage which could account for up to 50% of a domain like this.

So I'd estimate it at 600k/month. 150k x 2 = 300k, and then 50% coming from mobile that isn't measures = 600k.

Just a data point....Similarweb estimate could be better.

<comment><USER8> This would make sense for a website that actually has content people want. Traffic to example.com surely wouldn't be intentional or repeated, and certainly not the result of an end user typing "example.com" into the address bar.

<comment><USER7> Why? Why wouldn't people type in example.com?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ~2M visits a month, 60% direct and 30% referral. [http://www.similarweb.com/website/example.com](http://www.similarweb.com/website/example.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> Archive.org has copies of this from 2002 with some variation over time [https://web.archive.org/web/20020120142510/http://example.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20020120142510/http://example.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Based on what the other comments suggest, does the page look the same to everyone?

Here's what it looks like for me: [https://gist.github.com/jaxbot/a11d55ddaa12901162e5](https://gist.github.com/jaxbot/a11d55ddaa12901162e5)

<comment><USER12> Same here on multiple browsers. In case you're interested in what it's running : [http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://example.c...](http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://example.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The [https://example.com/](https://example.com/) site has a certificate valid for many interesting domains. Unfortunately, none of them are example.com. I guess it's because of the Edgecast CDN?

</comment><comment><USER14> It's pretty high according to Alexa:

Global Rank: 9,789 / United States: 9,622

[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/example.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/example.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't @example.com email addresses get a ton of mail as well?

<comment><USER16> The domain doesn't publish a MX record, and the A record fallback isn't accepting connections on port 25. So no; while there's probably a lot of it that people try to send, none of it arrives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It would be interesting to see how much traffic localhost.com gets too :)

<comment><USER18> Not an answer, but I just checked localhost.com to see what is there. 302 redirect to google.

<comment><USER19> Apparently it's actually owned by Google..?

IP Address 126.96.36.199 - 131 other sites hosted on this server IP Location United States - California - Mountain View - Google Inc. ASN United States AS15169 GOOGLE - Google Inc.,US (registered Mar 30, 2000)</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub`s CEO loves Bitbucket - bitbucket-lover https://github.com/defunkt <comment><AUTHOR> I'm guessing someone used his public git email to commit as him ? [https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-commits- linked-t...](https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-commits-linked-to- the-wrong-user/#commits-are-linked-to-another-user)</comment>


An Introduction to x86_64 Assembly Language - <AUTHOR> http://hackeradam17.com/2014/03/18/an-introduction-to-x86_64-assembly-language/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a great start, but it's lacking something that every assembly programming resource that I've ever come across lacks too:

 _How can I experiment?_

How do I go from instructions in a text file, to compiling, to getting input in some form? What programs do I use (on Linux)? What commands do I run? What are fun projects that are worthwhile doing with assembly?

Beyond that, what are good applications of assembly in general? Where should I use it in my day-to-day development projects? Where can I read about best practices? Where can I find good examples of x86_64 assembly programming?

It's really easy to merely describe the instructions, the registers, the mapping from compiled procedural languages - but I feel like that information is superficial so long as you don't tell us how to apply it.

<comment><USER3> You might like the assembly tutorial I am writing: [https://plus.google.com/111794994501300143213/posts/9gxSUZMJ...](https://plus.google.com/111794994501300143213/posts/9gxSUZMJUF2)

It's focused on actually doing rather than how stuff works. In order to succinctly be able to present this, I had to choose a target platform, which unfortunately seems not to be the one that you prefer.

My tutorial targets OS X, and there is great similarity between coding assembly on OS X and Linux. The tutorial does not spend much time pointing out these similarities, and you unfortunately don't get sensible error messages if you make mistakes. Never the less, you might want to try :)

<comment><USER4> It would be cool if someone made a VM for development only, on which you could run x86_64 assembly, and get sensible error messages.

<comment><USER5> Qemu comes pretty close. You can dump register and memory values, crashes outputs useful dumps, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a great resource, and the following is not a criticism, but an observation.

What I've found with most assembly language textbooks and online resources is that while the basics get covered well enough, the fundamental knowledge base is often skimmed over, as are the many assumptions and conventions that are made in how the CPU is supposed to work.

I first learned 8086 assembler from Peter Norton's book ([http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Nortons-Assembly-Language- Book/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Nortons-Assembly-Language- Book/dp/0136619010)), and more than any other resource, that taught me about how things actually work. It goes beyond just knowing the registers and the mnemonics and explains in a fantastically clear way all the implicit work that's going on behind the scenes, even in assembly code. From the stack to data segments and direct video control, I learned more about how computers work from this book than from my entire college Computer Science program. And I didn't even have an assembler to actually try any of the code at the time I read it.

I'm not sure if the book would still hold up from a practical perspective, as it does focus very much on MS-DOS-specific interrupts. So what I wonder is... is there a similar resource available today for learning what's going on behind the scenes in the modern 64-bit CPU on modern OSes?

<comment><USER7> [http://www.agner.org/optimize/#manuals](http://www.agner.org/optimize/#manuals)

[http://ref.x86asm.net/](http://ref.x86asm.net/)

[http://www.sandpile.org/](http://www.sandpile.org/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110713081927/http://siyobik.in...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110713081927/http://siyobik.info/main/reference) (anyone know of a mirror? this was nice)

<comment><USER8> > anyone know of a mirror?

[http://siyobik.info.gf/main/reference/](http://siyobik.info.gf/main/reference/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Sure, there are some applications in which we may need to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of our programs, but in this day and age you'll be hard pressed to come any where close to the code optimizations made by modern compilers._

Does anyone who regularly writes assembly really believe that it's difficult to write better code than a modern compiler? This isn't my experience at all. Instead, I'd say that with just a handful of tricks and a dozen hours practice you can speed up just about anything a compiler generates. The issue is not that it's hard to beat a modern compiler, but that it's rarely worthwhile.

It's almost as if there is some compiler-writers-protection-racket out there that threatens anyone who doesn't bow to the powers of the modern compiler. The wonder isn't that they generate perfect code (by and large, they don't), but that they can optimize as well as they do without introducing bugs left and right. The relative rarity of compiler bugs is the impressive part, not the speed of the code generated.

<comment><USER10> I think the same thing too; I've seen a _lot_ of horrible compiler output, far more than good or even "novice Asm programmer" level. Maybe the fact that compilers default to optimisations _disabled_ (and generate horribly redundant code), and a lot of binaries that are released seem to get compiled this way, has something to do with it.

> It's almost as if there is some compiler-writers-protection-racket out there > that threatens anyone who doesn't bow to the powers of the modern compiler.

A lot of it seems to come from the "religious belief in abstraction" that is prevalent among academics; the belief that somehow, a "higher level" solution is always better.

> The wonder isn't that they generate perfect code (by and large, they don't), > but that they can optimize as well as they do without introducing bugs left > and right.

It's not so surprising when you consider that compilers are just following patterns/transformations when they generate or optimise code, and these patterns are designed to be very general so they work for all cases, even when they're not the most efficient way to do it in some of these cases. When a human is writing the Asm there is (or should be - otherwise you'd be better off just using a compiler) a higher level of thought, a different process, one that may be more prone to errors but one that also shows some form of _creativity_ \- thinking about the specific application and, understanding that, applying a transformation/pattern that is only applicable in that case to improve the generated code.

Size optimisation is also another area where even a novice Asm programmer can very easily beat a compiler due to this general/specific pattern-ness divide. From what I've seen, compilers start with often overly-general code-generating patterns to produce initially unoptimised output, and then attempt to remove unnecessary instructions; while a human would not have this generality - because the human knows more about the specific problem - and the "first-cut" of code he/she writes is already more specific than the compiler's.

(Not that I'm against compilers in general - I would very much like them to generate better code, but for that to happen there is likely going to have to be large changes in how they're written and how the whole process of compilation is thought of. Trying to make a compiler "think" like a human is a good first step...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> After learning 6502 assembly when I was a teenager, I was floored by the beauty and straightforward cleanliness of the 68000 used by Macs and then the similar assembly of the VAX.

x86_64 is just plain ugly. While I admire the backward compatibility, it's sad that this nasty-looking architecture won out. I'm really glad that the compiler handles it.

<comment><USER10> If you start from 8080/Z80 and work your way up, you will have a very different perspective. 16-bit (and especially 32-bit) x86 looks quite regular if you see it in the right way; although IMHO the 64-bit extension wasn't designed as well as the move to 32-bit.

<comment><USER12> I did Z80 back in the day and I think x86 is a mess, ever since 286 at the very least. It's absolutely terrible. Not just because of the ASM itself but because of the whole OS/computing paradigm it grew with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am trying to develop a JIT for array processing [1]. Here are some resources I found useful so far

* Dr Paul Carter's tutorial [2]

* Intel processor reference [3]

* C ABI standard [4]

[1] [https://github.com/wedesoft/aiscm](https://github.com/wedesoft/aiscm)

[2] [http://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm/](http://www.drpaulcarter.com/pcasm/)

[3] [http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/architectu...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/architectures- software-developer-manuals.html)

[4] [http://www.sco.com/developers/devspecs/abi386-4.pdf](http://www.sco.com/developers/devspecs/abi386-4.pdf)

<comment><USER14> You might find these interesting.

[https://code.google.com/p/vfuncs/](https://code.google.com/p/vfuncs/)

[http://terralang.org/](http://terralang.org/)

[https://github.com/halide/Halide](https://github.com/halide/Halide)

<comment><USER13> Cheers for that.

Yes, especially Halide looks interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> i always thought the art of assembly is the de facto bible [1]

personally i had all these books and never really cared too much about them in the end is was having a c compiler and a good disassembler - ida at that time - that made me learn it.

here's the free copy of ida 5 [2]. i think it doesn't do 64 bit, but it's good enough, and works perfectly fine in wine on both osx and linux. you can always use biew/hiew/olly etc, or more recently hopper, but i think for learning ida is still hands down the best choice

do a string copy see what it does. make a function notice how it always starts with

        push ebp
        mov ebp, esp
        ...
        pop ebp
        ret

make a switch statement, see what it compiles too(ida annotates it beautifully).

i commend the author for what he's doing. a little improvement would be to reduce some of the text, and add some more examples, and some guidance on how to experiment.

another sidenote is that the code is basically the same as simple c code. c++ code even doing simple things, depending on what you link, and compile in, can be terribly confusing for a newbie to look at.

[1] [http://portal.aauj.edu/portal_resources/downloads/programmin...](http://portal.aauj.edu/portal_resources/downloads/programming/assembly_language32bit_edition.pdf)

[2] [https://www.hex- rays.com/products/ida/support/download_freew...](https://www.hex- rays.com/products/ida/support/download_freeware.shtml)

<comment><USER16> The first AoA book was good. The rest, with the HLA crap in it, is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This could be of interest to someone: [http://www.pentesteracademy.com/course?id=7](http://www.pentesteracademy.com/course?id=7)

<comment><USER18> infoseckid: that looks like a very hard to find and thus great find. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Learning Assembly language has been on my list of "want to do" for a long time now but as I have never had a need for it professionally I kept putting it off. I actually have time for myself now and outside of learning to cook properly and cycle a lot I would really like to finally tick this off my bucket list. The problem is I am not too sure where to actually start. I want something that starts from the bottom and teaches me about the CPU and goes on from there. I know what a register for example but I don't _know_ what a register is if you understand?

So is there a book or web resources that is really a beginners guide to assembly? I understand x86 is not the nicest place to start but I have an x86 CPU in my laptop and not much else so it is a better place to start that anywhere else really. Anyone got any advice?

NB: My background is very high level languages such as JavaScript and Python and not much lower level. A bit of C++ back in the 90s but that knowledge is long gone.

<comment><USER20> "Programming from the Ground Up" (linked from a couple of other posts) has exactly what you want. There's no need to learn C first - it becomes obvious how memory and pointers work when you're actually doing it. It's a lot easier than people make out, just give it a go.

<comment><USER19> Many thanks! Checking it out now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Are there any books available that someone could recommend for me to go down this route, specifically for hand crafting assembly routines inside my C++ programs. (note I'm currently only compiling for 32 bit). It's something of interest to me, but I've never gotten around to it. I'm comfortable with ARM assembly, and have a solid enough understanding to proceed, but the references I've come across so far go as far as "here's how to embed a simple ASM snipped inside your code, now you know how to do it" and then skip to "copy and paste for specific routine". I'd like some exercises for in between stages, for stuff that might actually be worthwhile doing.

<comment><USER9> If you are using GCC and Linux, you might find "Programming from the Ground Up" to be a useful resource: ftp://gnu.mirrors.pair.com/savannah/pgubook/ProgrammingGroundUp-1-0-booksize.pdf

You may find Agner Fog's Optimization series helpful too: [http://www.agner.org/optimize/](http://www.agner.org/optimize/)

Check out every volume, as each has very useful information tucked away. For example, "Calling Conventions" is great for understanding how C++ and assembly interfaces should work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Read this book, it's basically only hacking C code with assembly. [http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-The-Art-Exploitation- Edition/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-The-Art-Exploitation- Edition/dp/1593271441) It also covers topics such as TCP sockets and the likes. If you ever want to become a real hacker it's your best starting point.

And the world was never the same again.

</comment><comment><USER23> Another Relevant book: ftp://gnu.mirrors.pair.com/savannah/pgubook/ProgrammingGroundUp-1-0-booksize.pdf

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice write up Adam. Just thought I would mention that your usage of former/latter is backwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh! Just when you think you've found all the editing mistakes :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Big props to Creel ( What's a Creel? ) , I encourage you work through his video tutorials if at all interested in x64

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0C5C980A28FEE68D](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0C5C980A28FEE68D)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> From seeing some of the suggestions here I think I will extend this with two more articles:

1) Some more detail about how the low level of the computer actually works 2) A more "beginner friendly" guide to getting started in programming assembly.

</comment><comment><USER26> Reading the examples is a little clunky because I have to scroll up to the dictionary every time I see a word I don't remember from skimming the list. Which is often.

</comment><comment><USER27> I enjoy the 68k tutorial: [http://mrjester.hapisan.com/04_MC68/Index.html](http://mrjester.hapisan.com/04_MC68/Index.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's nice to see the "correct" order of the registers being used. (The reason for this ordering is in the realm of trivia questions.)

<comment><USER28> Do you mean "correct" as in that's the absolute right order (as in math) or as in that's the original intel syntax?

My first programming language was mc68k assembler where the "correct" order of registers is the opposite.

<comment><USER10> It's the order they occur in the encoding: A, C, D, B.

68k has numerical, not named registers, and they're in the same order as the encoding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is great. I'm all for something that gets people into assembly. It seems to be a lost art these days.

</comment><comment><USER30> Lots more examples would be very helpful.</comment>


Researchers [kinda] create portable black hole - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091015/full/news.2009.1007.html?s=news_rss <comment><USER2> Besides possible applications to solar power, what else can this do?</comment>


3D Touch: Beyond Peek and Pop - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/produkt-blog/3d-force-touch-beyond-peek-pop-c448edc2b1f5#.cb7le2r1w <comment><USER2> One interesting thing he brought up is that as a developer, you can't develop as if everyone is using a 3D Touch device, because they aren't so you just add some enhancements to your product for the 6S(+) users.

This means among other things, it will be easier for Apple to abandon the idea if it ends up not being worth it, since it is such a small part of the UX of the devices, or even replace it with some other mode of interaction.

<comment><USER3> I still get the occasional app update adding support for Touch ID. So I think with hardware features like these, the full potential won't be completely realized until these devices are a few years old and it's near impossible to come across someone that doesn't have that feature on their model of iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first video really impressed me. It genuinely looks like he is depressing a 3D button into the screen. I was pretty skeptical of the name "3D Touch" at first, but that video sells the idea better than Apple did.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be neat to adjust how fast a video is scrubbed using 3D Touch (I have a 6, so have no idea if the Photos app does this already).

</comment><comment><USER6> That last video could make for an interesting small game.</comment>