Bill Gates buys land in Arizona to build 'smart city' - <AUTHOR> http://www.kgw.com/news/bill-gates-buys-big-chunk-of-land-in-arizona-to-build-smart-city/491135744 <comment><USER2> Reading more about Disney's EPCOT is quite inspiring and almost felt ahead of its time. We Americans should experiment more and build towns and cities under a different set of assumptions other than cars and gasoline. Why hasn't the past half century been filled with at least trying new things? What happened to _laboratories of democracy_?

Although I admit I have a _slight_ repulsion to the thought of a few billionaires being able to wield almost complete autonomy, and assuredly the tech billionaires have a vested interest to build these cities such that the inhabitants depend on their technology (e.g. what would happen if Google built a city, and look how convenient it is that the ISP is Google Fiber, with Google self-driving cars servicing the roads, etc.).

In any case, I wish any effort to re-think how we build towns and cities the best of luck, because it feels like to me we've been grasping this (failing) strategy of car-addiction for far too long now, and it's draining our society financially, environmentally, and socially.

<comment><USER3> Disney was never really interested in democracy. His admiration for fascism is pretty well-documented. He even escorted the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl around Hollywood:

[https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/walt-the- quas...](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/walt-the-quasi-nazi- the-fascist-history-of-disney.html)

Epcot was to be organized around more or less the same principles as European fascism.

Holding up his plans (or those of Gates) without questioning the fundamental morality of the vast inequality of wealth and power they represent is how America went so far off the rails in the first place.

<comment><USER4> > America went so far off the rails

Huh? It was always an owners republic, like Rome before.

For the 2.0 version they upped the advertising budget.

<comment><USER5> Not a 2.0 version. The was "New Rome" or Constantinople, it was 2.0. What is Rome 3.0 is undecided[1], but I believe that in any case Rome 3.0 now is deep in the history. Deeper that Columbus and discovering of America. Though Mussolini renewed idea with fascist Italy as a Third Rome. So, I believe, that Rome 4.0 is the least version number applicable.

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

<comment><USER6> One thing I will give the Roman's, they went out and fought their own wars. No bones spurs there.

<comment><USER7> Actually, towards the end the Romans were hiring mercenaries, many of them foreign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _One of Bill Gates ' investment firms has spent $80 million to kickstart the development of a brand-new community in the far West Valley.

The large plot of land is about 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix off I-10 near Tonopah.

The proposed community, made up of close to 25,000 acres of land, is called Belmont. According to Belmont Partners, a real estate investment group based in Arizona, the goal is to turn the land into its own "smart city." _

Belmont Partners seem to be pushing the "smart city" angle but they are not one of the aforementioned _Bill Gates ' investment firm_. So it's only second hand knowledge?

Much more toned down story on the land acquisition here:

[http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/real- estate/catherine-r...](http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/real- estate/catherine-reagor/2017/11/08/bill-gates-cascade-invests-belmont-real- estate-development-near-phoenix/842280001/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've recently been considering exactly the opposite. A place where I can take a 'technology vacation'. Perhaps extended. Most HNers probably couldn't comprehend a world without Internet-connected wireless computers, but in that time, one could actually think for hours about a single idea, concept, design, desire or plan without interruption. Or one could just read a book cover to cover. Sure, just 'turn your smartphone off', but just knowing that so much information is flowing through it and that something you may 'need to know' might transpire while you've got it powered off makes it a bit like withdrawal.

Let's build a 'quiet place' we can share with friends and family that is completely unplugged, with one landline phone downstairs in the hall, a newspaper on the porch in the morning, and a library full of books we've always meant to read....

It would be like re-charging your brain from the attenuation of interruption.

<comment><USER10> It's a very good idea, the restorative effects on taking a break from modern life has been practiced a long time in Scandinavia. Both my brother and my father has tech intensive stressful jobs in healthcare and keeps their minds by hiking, cycling, skiing and kayaking. These types of activities or relationship with nature does have a term called friluftsliv.

Personally I think the effects are similar to meditation when you are on a long hike.

[https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness- resources/blogs...](https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness- resources/blogs/how-friluftsliv-can-help-you-reconnect-with-nature)

<comment><USER11> I have a hard time doing these things without a car. Being able to reach a nature site/park/recreation area on public transit with a huge group of people makes it feel like just an extension of the city and city life. You're surrounded by a mob of people with their phone cameras out, even if you don't have yours.

How do countries without mass car ownership pull this off?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing that I haven't seen discussed, but I think is something that _may_ be a factor in the site selection, is the future of online presence.

Specifically, I think it's plausible that advancements in VR over the next 20 years will drastically enhance the ability of people to work remotely; I believe that was one of the justifications provided by Facebook for their purchase of Oculus, and may also be one of the reasons behind Microsoft's push into "Mixed Reality".

A major factor for housing desirability currently is its physical proximity to jobs (SF, NYC, etc.); this could be a way to hedge a bet against that trend. And at $80M, it's really not a huge investment in the grand scheme of things. The biggest question is if VR can bridge the "uncanny valley" of video chat and other current technologies, and make virtual interaction/communication as seamless as in-person communication (or at least, within some acceptable margin).

If you're going to be sitting in what's essentially an air-conditioned VR cocoon for 8-10 hours a day, it probably doesn't matter where that's located, provided that the infrastructure is good. Since infrastructure seems to be one of the stated priorities, it could serve as a prototype for a "virtual outpost".

<comment><USER13> The VR problem is latency. We _should_ be able to get sense/computation/display down to the 10-15ms required, but distance introduces additional latency, due to _c_. If a ns is roughly a foot, 15ms is 15000 feet, gives a theoretical maximum diameter (not radius) for remote "city limits".

<comment><USER14> > The VR problem is latency. We _should_ be able to get > sense/computation/display down to the 10-15ms required, but distance > introduces additional latency, due to _c_. If a ns is roughly a foot, 15ms > is 15000 feet, gives a theoretical maximum diameter (not radius) for remote > "city limits".

Wow, the VR problem is _latency_? Have you ever had a real-time conversation with anyone outside your hemisphere? If 15ms is 15,000 feet then 1/0.015 = 66 times that should be the speed of light, i.e. 300,000 km/s. Does that (66 x 15,000 ft = 300,000 km) seem even vaguely in the right ballpark to you?

You're off by a factor of 1000. It's 15 microseconds, not milliseconds. And incidentally, this might be a good excuse to go travel outside the country and meet people from elsewhere on the planet... you never know what you might learn about the world around you.

<comment><USER13> You're being somewhat uncharitable of an off-the-cuff milli/micro error, and going on to make incorrect personal assumptions.

<comment><USER15> I thought your 15ms comment was correct. It is 16ms motion to photon latency. Why microseconds?

<comment><USER16> 15ms is correct (or even wildly optimistic) for VR on account of hardware buffering for GPU throughput / input filtering for stability, etc., LCD reaction times, and other local software and hardware stuff.

The part that's not correct is 15ms ~ 15,000 feet @ c:

      15ns ~ 15 ft
      15us ~ 15,000 ft
      15ms ~ 15,000,000 ft

1ns ~ 0.9836 ft per [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+light+*+1+nan...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+light+*+1+nanosecond+in+feet)

Some other fun figures: [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+circumference](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+circumference)

      Light travel time t in vacuum from t = x/c: | 134 ms (milliseconds)
      Light travel time t in an optical fiber t = 1.48x/c: | 198 ms (milliseconds)

You wouldn't want to wait for a camera to turn in response to head movement at these distances, but we're already warping buffers in VR to reduce apparent latency - to hide it better for head rotations. You wouldn't want to try and directly control twitchy aircraft or race cars with this kind of latency, but this is still under e.g. throttle response times on a modern car, and you've probably dealt with worse round trip ping times for online gaming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd call it "smart," but not in the technical sense.

First, the Central Arizona Project borders to the north, providing good access to water _before_ it reaches Phoenix.

Second, it would have access to some of the best solar energy concentrations per meter squared of anywhere on the planet including the Sahara Desert. Agua Caliente is just to the southwest, north of I-8.

Third, close proximity to 345-500 kva transmission lines just to its west and presumably access to the main natural gas pipelines that run through on their way to Phoenix.

Fourth, open access to I-10 running from L.A. to Jacksonville, FL. and the added bonus of the I-11 corridor which is just getting started to the east (the 303) intending to run from Mexico to Canada.

Fifth, a clean slate land-wise to build whatever you'd like.

This is a carefully crafted, well researched, and for anyone who's been to the west valley lately, easily envisioned, project to be completed over the next fifteen years.

Interesting idea Bill.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always been infinitely curious about how Walt Disney's original vision for Epcot would've turned out. I'll be watching this with interest.

<comment><USER19> Celebration, Florida?

 _Disney CEO Michael Eisner took an especially keen interest in the development of the new town in the early days, encouraging the executives at Disney Development Company to "make history" and develop a town worthy of the Disney brand and legacy that extended to Walt Disney's vision of an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT)._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida)

<comment><USER20> I'm literally typing this from Celebration, FL, where I live. Disney doesn't own the place, they just put forth the planning. They do retain some land in the area through various sub-companies, though.

<comment><USER21> Do you enjoy living there overall? My wife and I have talked about moving there sometimes. We have two boys 4 and 6 and like the idea of a close knit community, walking to parks, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Odd that there's no mention of mass transit for a sustainable city, just a new freeway connecting it to Phoenix.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I'm curious whether land use/transportation model will be urbanist or more the suburban sprawl typical of the region.

America is flooded with the latter (particularly for younger cities), not many with the former.

<comment><USER22> Yeah it will be interesting to see how it plays out. It also doesn't mention anything about clean energy now that I look at it again. If it's just a Phoenix suburb but with really good fiber internet, lenient self-driving car laws, and a bunch of software contracts for the city & county offices, that doesn't seem very interesting.

Another thing I just realized is that in my mind a big part of a new experimental "smart city" would be lots of dense, walkable and bike-able, mixed use neighborhoods (and public transit which also kind of requires areas around stations to be walkable). But it's way too hot to be outside for much of the year in that part of the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I felt like Amazon should do this with their new headquarters. I'm sure the cost is too high, but instead of making one of our crowded cities even worse they could try building a city/suburb. Build it 45 minutes outside of a current city so you could still rely on airports and other necessities until you could build your own. With global warming, I probably wouldn't have chosen Arizona though.

<comment><USER25> I was thinking about this the other day at work (at Amazon) - there would be such an incredible array of opportunities by starting to build a city from scratch. I think it would be really different from cities that we know today and there would be a big opportunity to experiment with urban planning.

But anyways - I doubt this is even minutely likely. Cool thought experiment nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Everyone here is so optimistic; no one is talking about a dystopia in which one man owns everything. Obviously planned experimental cities ala Disney are cool, and interesting to think about, and perhaps beneficial, but it's worth playing devil's advocate anyway.

We used to have butchers and bakers and vegetable-sellers and dry goods stores, then we had supermarkets, and they employed cashiers and truck-drivers and shelf-stockers.

Now we've got supermarkets with self-checkouts, robot price checkers, soon shelf stockers, and sooner still self-driving trucks. One guy owns the warehouse, the supermarket, and the trucks, and employs, essentially, no one.

Now, imagine a city owned by one man, you rent your house from him, buy from his stores, work in his factory, and let his cars drive you around.

Just because things could work out well doesn't mean they will.

<comment><USER27> Irvine is the closest thing to this that I can imagine in the modern-day US. Seems to be working out...

<comment><USER26> There have been benevolent dictators, it does not mean subsequent dictators will also be? Should we not be wary?

<comment><USER28> As long as people are free to leave, I wouldn't worry about it. If Gates' plans include a large wall, or making it into a single employer 'company town' type thing, that might be an issue.

<comment><USER26> Being legally free to leave may not mean you're also financially free to do so. In a hypothetical designed dystopia, your wages and employment would be such that you couldn't afford to leave the machine that makes the designer rich.

For example, you wouldn't make enough to save more than $5/week, the rest would have been spent on food and power and rent. So, if you missed a weeks work you'd miss a weeks rent. You'd have nothing in the bank to travel to an out-of-town interview.

Just a theory I don't expect to happen any time soon, but an interesting thought exercise when a billionaire buys a town.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Building a city in one the most inhospitable parts of the country? Seriously, is it going to be underground?

Bobby wasn't kidding when he said Phoenix was "A Monument To Man's Arrogance. He might as well picked a site on the face of the sun.

<comment><USER30> Phoenix is glorious 4 months of the year, tolerable another 4 and downright nasty the remaining 4.

Pretty much like many Northern states but with the seasons reversed.

(Give me heat over snow and slush any day of the year.)

<comment><USER31> The thing about snow and slush is that they both contain _water._

Lacking water, much of Arizona is not naturally suitable for large-scale human habitation. People can live there in great numbers today only because enormous quantities of industrial effort have been expended to bring water there from the Colorado River (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project)).

Lots of other Western communities pull their water from the Colorado too, though -- so many that the river is effectively "over-subscribed," meaning people are pulling more water out of it than nature is putting in. Current projections are that its water levels will drop so low as to provoke serious crises in the communities that depend on it sometime in the 2020s.

Until then, though, enjoy the sunshine!

<comment><USER30> Not all of Phoenix's water comes from the Colorado (and in fact not most of it I don't believe).

Phoenix is sometimes called "Valley of the Sun". Well, it's not in the mountains, (there are some low mountains around I guess but not really "mountains"). It's called a valley because it's a river valley at the con-flux of several smaller rivers (the Gila, the Salt). Granted these are kind of dry most of the time but water flows underground also. So there are a lot of wells. And water comes from rain and snow melt in the mountains to the north.

To your point though it still isn't sustainable at growing population levels. My understanding that much of the well water used is from rain that fell during the last ice age. That's why they call it Phoenix probably. One day it will burn up.

But this is a futuristic city on the outskirts. Presumably it will have a sustainable water supply created with cosmic zeolith ions, heavy duty science and good karma :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For those who don't want a giant photo of Bill Gates because the link is to the mobile version:

[http://www.kgw.com/news/bill-gates-buys-big-chunk-of-land- in...](http://www.kgw.com/news/bill-gates-buys-big-chunk-of-land-in-arizona- to-build-smart-city/491135744)

</comment><comment><USER33> Fantastic. If someone can figure out a better way to implement the constantly dug up and paved infrastructure, early childhood education, and basic services of the modern economy (electricity, internet, water, sewer and maybe gas) that would help everyone in every city.

</comment><comment><USER34> Funny coincidence, but this is the same region where Paolo Soleri founded Arcosanti [1], another attempt at a utopian city.

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

<comment><USER35> Sorta. Arcosanti is north of Phoenix, half way to Flagstaff. Belmont is west of Phoenix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Did anyone else just have a flashback to Transcendence?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_%282014_film%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_%282014_film%29)

</comment><comment><USER37> Ok, and what's the plan for water? Harvest the monsoon?

<comment> jay-anderson [https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservices/resourcesconservation/...](https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservices/resourcesconservation/drought- information/climatechange/water-supply-q-a) \- Phoenix has pretty good water management. That said more water conservation measures in general would be good for the southwest.

</comment></comment><comment> wav-part More informative and most likely original source article : [https://brewaz.com/hot-news/bill-gates-entity- invests-80-mil...](https://brewaz.com/hot-news/bill-gates-entity- invests-80-million-to-buy-controlling-interest-in-belmont-project/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh and some other rich guy (crown Prince of Saudi Arabia) announced NEOM, a plan for a sustainable, connected and automated city in which he will invest 500 BILLIONS (not a typo, Google it). Of which 93 are scheduled for R&D in a fund comanaged with Softbank.

But yes, this bill gates thing is nice too...

</comment><comment><USER39> "The large plot of land is about 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix off I-10 near Tonopah."

More like Smart Exurb?

<comment><USER23> See, as an urbanist, I still think this could be cool if they included a rail link to downtown Phoenix in the design. But that's, uh, probably not realistic, which means freeways, which means the town itself will probably just use the typical suburban sprawl model typical of Phoenix and its suburbs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's no longer enough to build some buildings; now they have to be "smart" somehow.

It's like my headphones that promise me to "take you places", but my travel agency -- which actually takes me to places -- promises me to "take you into your dreams."

</comment><comment><USER41> How much ever we talk about the engineering and technological aspects of this. I think this project still warrants a discussion into the intricacies of the human psychology that goes behind a city/township. Basically, the UI/UX of this whole project.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sun City is another planned community in Arizona.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City,_Arizona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City,_Arizona)

</comment><comment><USER43> Would love to read an interview about the decision making process. I'm especially interested if sustainability factored in, given Arizona's relationship with water resources.

<comment><USER44> They have some of the best solar irradiance.

Free energy would solve any water problems.

<comment><USER45> > Free energy would solve any water problems.

Oh really now? I had no idea we could pull water out of our ass for any number of people at any time with free energy!

<comment><USER4> > pull water out of our ass

Feasible, but out of thin air is easier and less disturbing. Places in Arizona seem to have around 40 or 50% average air humidity.

And air conditioners are good at getting water out of air.

<comment><USER45> Frankly, I had no idea the humidity was that high in Arizona! Color me impressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Wouldn't have been better if he just gaved money to upgrade a city? Yeah, a lot of bureaucracy but look to other "planned" smart cities! Millions of wasted moneys in some ghost towns, not to mention the ecological effects it has. I'm disappointed in Bill Gates. I though he was better than this. Sure if it's a just a little town it might work and get some profit out of it but i though he was more of a philanthropist, now at his age.

<comment><USER47> So you don't think he's aware of previous attempts?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Smart city ... no traffic, affordable houses, public transit

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't want to live in a smart city not built on foss. The surveillance and other dystopian issues that are going to come from someone like Gates making a smart city send shivers up my spine. I do wonder though, now he is being more philanthropic, if he would consider allowing his city to be more foss friendly at least, or is he still married to the MS platform? My guess would say the latter but I don't know that.

</comment><comment><USER49> The decision to do this in Arizona seems odd out the gate. Depending on water from the Colorado is immediately net negative sustainable.

<comment><USER50> It's a "smart city", not a sustainable city. Not the same thing. From the article:

      Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine
      that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers,
      new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs

<comment><USER49> I would argue you can't call something smart if it isn't sustainable.

<comment><USER50> Ok, but that's not really how anyone is currently using the phrase "smart _____". Smart watches are usually not solar powered. Neither are smart phones. Neither are smart homes. Neither is your smart TV. You get the idea.

How about if we have sustainable cities, smart cities, and "intelligent cities", the last of which encompasses the previous two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Not a lot of information in the article. And apparently Ron Schott didn't realize Biosphere 2 was pretty technological :-).

I wish however he would also consider how we can build a village that has a reasonably self sustained ecosystem so that people who no longer can function in a "tech city" would have a place to live that would be supportive.

</comment><comment><USER52> Could this be Gates undoing? There is so much variables that can rack up costs, let alone red tapes and fraudsters

<comment><USER30> 1) Bill Gates has been around the block a time or two. He's not a fool by any stretch of imagination.

2) It would take and awfully lot of red tape and fraudsters to undo what he has amassed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Interesting & unique -- lots of thoughts go through my mind. I'm very curious to hear what transportation model/thinking, (if any[thing unique]), is used. It's not something I'm aware of him weighing in on (ie hyperloop vs rail vs autonomous, etc).

</comment><comment><USER54> Would be great if he decides to forgo the capital appreciation, with a lease only policy. If this is successful, speculation in property is the disease we'd like to avoid.

Otherwise we'd get another property bubble and inflated costs soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER55> _Ronald Schott, executive emeritus at the Arizona Technology Council, says the land Gates ' company purchased is in a good spot, in part due to the proposed I-11 freeway, which would run right through Belmont and connect to Las Vegas._

That sentence is such a grandiosely engineered testament to everything that's wrong with urban planning in the US.

Bill Gates has done excellent things (after Windows). And this _executive emeritus_ (aka pensioner) isn't connected to the project, and his point, if interpreted with good will, isn't actually wrong. But still: could there be anything more uninspiring than that sentence?

</comment><comment><USER44> Sidewalk Labs is making Toronto a smart city, and Amazon is presumably going to develop a second HQ. three investment opportunities, folks

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't know if he's using this as a proof of concept or if he actually plans on making a functioning city. If it's the latter, I doubt it'll succeed.

Ideas for "utopian" planned cities have existed for centuries (Like Walt Disney's original vision for Epcot) but they almost never get built. If they do, they end up being not much more than a novelty before becoming abandoned.

<comment><USER57> Disagree. Master planned communities are nothing new. This is the same thing, just with some "celebrity" behind it and 21st century features. I expect to see more and more of this.

<comment><USER35> Brazil's capital, Brasilia, is a massive master planned city.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> If there's fiber optic internet with no caps, i'm sold.

<comment><USER59> That exists in lots of cities already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Walt Disney World 2.0?

</comment><comment><USER61> It would be swell if folks in this thread could stop pretending Bill Gates is a moron. I mean seriously, I swear folks with no real experience feel the need to chime in and pretend their ignorance is as good as everyone else's intelligence.

<comment><USER62> I guess you start seeing what he's done to education in the U.S, and you make your own judgment.

<comment><USER63> It doesn't mean he is dumb. It just mean his agenda is not to help people but personal gain.

Gates has been engaged in a massive PR campaign on a lot of websites to gain some kind of stairway to heaven for a few years now.

You'll find than, while in the 90' we all were strongly shocked by how he managed a company so powerful, and yet engaged in lying, cheating and corrupting institutions.

But today you have many supporters claiming he is an awesome person with all his humanitarian work, publicized by social media with quite precise targeting. It seems you can get away with hitting somebody in the face and stealing his money if you come back later with pictures of all the cats you are saving.

So no. Not dumb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Non-mobile link: [http://www.kgw.com/news/bill-gates-buys-big-chunk-of-land- in...](http://www.kgw.com/news/bill-gates-buys-big-chunk-of-land-in-arizona- to-build-smart-city/491135744)

<comment><USER65> Thanks, we've updated it from [http://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/news/bill- gates-buys-big-c...](http://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/news/bill-gates-buys- big-chunk-of-land-in-arizona-to-build-smart-city/491135744).

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> In Arizona? They're off to a bad start.

<comment><USER67> How so? They don't have to worry about snow, land is reasonably cheap. Not much water but this isn't a farm.

<comment><USER66> Even in the current state, it's not sustainable due to the water situation. Arizona is already fighting with Nevada and Southern California over the water supply of a single lake.

And it's only going to get worse.

<comment><USER68> No longer[1].

[1] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From- Po...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to- Potable)

<comment><USER69> This isn't something that will be solved with technology. Water treatment plants already turn poop into water. Unsurprisingly, Phoenix AZ has one of the highest levels in the world of toilet paper particulates in the water, due to how much treated water is reused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Tony Stark already did this.

</comment><comment><USER71> Is it going to spy on its citizens with all the 'smart' devices? Given Microsoft's record of protecting user privacy I guess I probably won't be wanting to move there very soon.</comment>


Show HN: Datasets on Demand - <AUTHOR> http://www.whiterabbitai.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> It is dataset on demand. There is no listing of datasets. One just requests one and it is made, cleaned, and delivered.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't see any datasets</comment>


Ask HN: Are there CS masters in EU/USA still offering substancial financial aid? - <AUTHOR>

Mainly from EU and USA. I doubt there's one in the case of latter. But still, there might be that I don't know. There is DAAD, Erasmus etc but usually the amount of education loan breaks the desire and forces to get into maximum paying job that one can get.
The school/university/course doesn't have to ace those rankings. It ought to be decent though, respected and with academic and non-academic culture. <comment><USER2> MSc degrees in Europe are significantly cheaper than in the US. I think some countries don't charge any tuition fees at all, so if you take this into account, you can probably live with the relative scarcity of financial aid. Post-graduate education in Germany at public universities is usually free. There normally is some kind of administrative fee, which often includes free travel on public transport, but the total cost is much lower than what you'd have to pay for a regular ticket for public transport otherwise. Overall, it's a very good deal. Of course, the question is whether a MSc in CS will lead to a higher-paying job, especially when taking opportunity costs into account.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the question actually. I don't want to stay back and that stops me from taking a huge education loan. I actually plan to return to my country and join academics.

There were places like Sweden but tuition for non-EU students is longer free.

Anyway EU looks like my best chance.</comment></comment>


Earth dodged a massive magnetic eruption from Sun that could have wreaked havoc - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Earth-dodged-a-massive-magnetic-eruption-from-Sun-that-could-have-wreaked-havoc/articleshow/32305688.cms

<comment><USER2> Somewhat less melodramatic space.com article about it: [http://www.space.com/17103-sun-eruption-fastest-solar- plasma...](http://www.space.com/17103-sun-eruption-fastest-solar-plasma- cloud.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> _One Second After_ is a novel describing the possible outcome of such an event [1]. It's a pretty good read.

 _Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future...and our end._

[1] [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4922079-one-second- after](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4922079-one-second-after) (note that the synopsis given is wrong, I think. I recall that the event in the book was from a war, but simply unexplained because the normal folks had no way of knowing what the source of the EMP was.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I got few questions:

Do we have any kind of recovery plan from this? As I understand almost all electronics would be deep fried, including machinery used in factories that make electronics we need to replace.

Would impact be localized to part of the planet facing sun?

What kind of shielding would be required on most sensitive infrastructure to protect it?

How deep data center would need to be to avoid data on hard drives being wiped?

<comment><USER5> 1\. It depends on who "we" are. For almost everybody, it would be a non-event but for the hype in the media. Electronics would not be deep fried. Some damage would occur to satellites, but few would be permanently affected.

2\. "Impact" would be from the sun. The magnetic effect can wrap around the earth to some extent.

3\. Most "infrastructure" would require no shielding. The atmosphere does a good job, except for certain circumstances.

4\. No hard drives would come close to being wiped by the CME, even it was directed at earth.

This CME was rated about 80 nanoTesla. The "Carrington Event" of 1859 was about 50 percent stronger. This CME is notable primarily because of its speed, not its size or destructive potential (except when used for selling newspapers).

<comment><USER6> A non-event, but for the minor annoyance of:

 _Impacts would be felt on interdependent infrastructures, with, for example, potable water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in about 12-24 hours; and immediate or eventual loss of heating /air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, transportation, fuel resupply, and so on. Kappenman stated that the effects on these interdependent infrastructures could persist for multiple years, with a potential for significant societal impacts and with economic costs that could be measurable in the several-trillion-dollars-per-year range._ [http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12507&page=77](http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12507&page=77)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > good fortune prevailed on the blue planet which was placed on the other side > of the sun at the time.

> Had the eruption come nine days earlier, it would have hit Earth

Wait, the year is 18 days long now?

<comment><USER8> The sun rotates! Every 25 days. [http://www.windows2universe.org/sun/Solar_interior/Sun_layer...](http://www.windows2universe.org/sun/Solar_interior/Sun_layers/differential_rotation.html)

<comment><USER7> Oh, I see, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "… could have _wrought_ …"

</comment><comment><USER10> Hypothetically, what could be done to reduce the impact?

<comment><USER11> Well, hypothetically: unplug everything on that side of the planet right before it hits, especially the main power lines.

<comment><USER12> I like how damn near every article can have a related XKCD comic ...

[https://xkcd.com/509/](https://xkcd.com/509/)

<comment><USER13> A common misconception. Ha, try finding that one...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r What is the projection angle or area of one of these storms? I'd guess that the vast majority miss Earth.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend once. I said, "I avoid accidents while driving all the time." He replied, "you avoid an infinite number of accidents!" I guess similarly, the earth avoids an infinite number of interstellar events?

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how many would die because freezers and microwaves stopped functioning.

<comment><USER16> It's not just that; transportation and production would be affected as well.

The trucks that move food and the tractors that plant it would stop working just the same as the freezers and microwaves. In addition, payment networks would be dead so you'd be left with the cash in your pocket and no way to get more. Not hard to see how quickly society would start to collapse at that point.

<comment><USER17> You have low standards for society if you it would crumble that quickly.

Granted there would be some chaos, but I really don't think people would so rapidly 'devolve'.

<comment><USER18> I propose that GP is closer to the truth than you may believe. All of the modern logistical systems in place (in the US) are based on embedded controls. Train switching is hugely important for freight, and there hasn't been an 18-wheeler manufactured in the last 15 years (at least) without electronic engine and braking controls. Those together are the lifeblood of American logistics. If these control systems are simultaneously borked and not repaired/replaced, grocery stores would show empty shelf sections within weeks and would have to adjust their business models quickly to stay open.

Industrial food machinery would be likely disabled by anything strong enough to affect logistical systems. No more pasteurized milk from automated systems, there goes >80% of supply. Anything not driven by a belt or shaft would be taken out. That means that the farming machines in use today which allow a farmer to produce orders of magnitude more food than a century ago "may" work, depending on how they're controlled. Most modern systems have electronic controls of ancillary systems, but many farmers can get around that sort of thing in a pinch.

Also, anyone on life support would die. Anyone requiring dialysis would likely die. Hospitals would have power from generators, but their power distribution and control systems would be fried. Doctors are able to use modern knowledge but have to look everything up in books. Digital patient records are inaccessible. Medicine supplies are restricted to what is on hand, which likely amounts to less than a month's stock. This is due to logistics, but also to the control systems in place at pharma manufacturing plants being fried.

This is just food and medicine. All programmers who can't hardware hack become farmers and traffic control officers until power comes back, which could take time considering the machinery to make modern transformers has digital controls.

This assumes that factories have inadequate EMF shielding, which is the premise of the situation.

<comment><USER17> Does this assumption also include the other half of the World ignoring the affected? You raise some excellent points, but I think for chaos levels to reach society-crumbling status, it'd need to stop the whole World.

Then absolutely, it would be devastating and the resulting power-struggle when trying to maintain order within so many ranks of authority throughout various Governments would end in disaster.

However, if the other half of the World is relatively unscathed, I don't think they would _let_ the other half just fall into oblivion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You would think that after 5.5 billion years of playing, the Sun would know that it needs to lead its targets when shooting.

<comment><USER20> You don't need to be accurate shooting a fish in a barrel, you just need to be patient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A heuristic to mitigate this problem: decentralization. Decentralize power production. Decentralize food production. Decentralize communication networks. Decentralize manufacturing.

Decentralize also creates robust systems which will make it easier to recover from such an event.</comment>


Show HN: Raspberry Pi (auto) Flickr uploader - <AUTHOR> https://ebalsa.org/ebalsa/hacks/raspberry-pi-auto-flickr-uploader/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool; it does one thing well and it's short and sweet. Nice!

Do you have a strategy for handling duplicates? What happens if I (accidentally) plug in the same USB drive twice?</comment>


Ask HN: Does GPT-3 generated texts follows Benford's law? - <AUTHOR> As in title, i was wondering if it will be possible to detect a GPT-3 generated blog post by the fact that it might not respect Benford's law for word frequency. I did try to do this myself using as sample the article that tricked people here on HN https://adolos.substack.com/p/feeling-unproductive-maybe-you-should and it actually seems to have a weird word frequency pattern compared with other human generated articles, but i'm not so sure of my findings even because the sample is quite small in order to get to a conclusion. Is this makes sense? I would be nice if someone could help me figure it out. <comment><USER2> Benford's law doesn't apply to word occurrences. Analyzing word frequencies (1-grams) genereally don't work because it overlooks the order of words. Shuffling the words of this comment doesn't affect 1-gram frequencies yet turns it into gibberish.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting thinking. People have fairly predictable / individual word usage patterns and modes. GPT-3 is trained on the words of a whole lot more than one person, so that would probably skew a word frequency analysis quite a lot - even on a paragraph by paragraph basis.</comment>


Buy Jason Sadler's Last Name - <AUTHOR> https://buymylastname.com/

<comment><USER2> Idea: keep buying the jason<currentlastname>.com domain. On Dec 12 sell back the domain to Jason for a quick profit.

</comment><comment><USER3> This will backfire so badly if a porn site wins... Also too bad he didn't do this during the Presidential campaign. He could have been Jason Romney or something.

<comment><USER4> "It cannot contain profanity, pornography, or otherwise be abusive or offensive." -"2. Rules about Changing Jason's Last Name", <https://buymylastname.com/terms/></comment></comment>


Adafruit Learning System (v2.0) - <AUTHOR> http://learn.adafruit.com/

<comment><USER2> Poorly titled post, is this a Flora announcement or just a link to the product in general? Reading the page, the content fails to clearly address why this is better than their previous gen "wearable" board, the Lilypad. From what I could find, this board has greater specs.

Grumbles aside, glad to see the Arduino ecosystem thriving. No doubt this will surface in some Kickstarter projects in the near future (if it hasn't already).

<comment><AUTHOR> Look beyond the front page -- it's an entire webapp dedicated to hardware hacking tutorials.</comment></comment>


Help HN: Today I Just Became Homeless & I Need Your Help - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, I am a UI designer/front-end developer, I worked for many high profile startups and fortune 500s, but for some reason in the past couple of months I lost my job, and all my side gigs. To add to this I was working on couple of startups before the job I recently had, those startups made me lose every last penny I had saved up. I don't have immediate family to help me out, grew up without my parents in boarding schools. I really need someone's help here in finding a job ASAP so I can pay for a place to stay at. I will give you a serious discount for the first month or 2 of working together. If you are interested email me at email@example.com and I will give you all my personal info and portfolio.
Thank you HN you are awesome!
Edit: I am located in Los Angeles <comment><USER2> Hey, if you are interested in relocating to the SF Bay Area, contact me on the Chez JJ contact page: <http://chezjj.com/contact>

We've taken more than our share of residents who come to Silicon Valley without much of a plan and found free-lance gigs or full time work by staying with us. A bunch of startups also been housed in our hacker house network.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish you luck, but there are warning flags in your appeal.

Do you have someone to talk to about the "some reason" that your other leads/gigs/contacts have gone cold?

<comment><USER4> In my experience a couple of really good freelance gigs can be enough to cause all of these problems. The problem is there aren't enough hours in the day and so if a project starts getting behind you work at it harder, forego things like marketing yourself (because you can't commit anyway to anyone else) and pretty soon your presence is down. It's a painful lesson and I have been through it. When you combine this with a sluggish economy, what might have been a moderately painful lesson before can be quite devastating.

I do, however, agree with the recommendation to talk to other freelancers, etc because this really helps with the learning curves of this sort.

<comment><USER5> exactly this, if you're a lone worker it becomes so easy to be consumed by a project and forget about the things that bring in work after the project has ended.

<comment><USER4> Its not just this. The time that happened to me, the project got behind and so I made the mistake of putting the customer as the top priority and dedicating more and more hours to try to get things back on schedule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sent you an email. Hacker bunk beds/couches off airbnb are super cheap here in silicon valley and I always need enough graphics work to help you make that amount any time, heh.

</comment><comment><USER7> Where are you located and why can't you post the link right here for your LinkedIn/Github?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry I feel uncomfortable about this situation and didn't want to show who I was publicly. if you email me at the above email I will gladly give you more info about me.

<comment><USER8> Sent you an email for a job opening at my company. I'll pay for an AirBnb place for a week or so and i can find some more people to help chip in. You'll be back on your feet in no time.

<comment><USER9> I know this is not the kind of stuff we are supposed to post on HN, but: you are a good man. Kudos.

<comment><USER10> Doing what others will find reason not to is just as valuable to post. We're governed as much by, and with our hearts as our minds. Those who don't get this and belittle this and those who do have narrow views through which they see and experience themselves, and through that narrow view, others.

Life is short, and it's a small world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Poster previously requested help after death, coma, physical rehabilitation, and drug abuse.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2312566>

<comment><USER12> To clarify: he requested advice on HN once. His request included a description of his history, including all the above-entioned points.

I read this comment to mean "he asked for help finding work four times, with four different reasons" until I clicked through the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't offer work, but I am happy just to chat if you are having a hard time and need someone to talk to, my email & XMPP details are in my profile :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow. Looking forward to updates about the response you've gotten and your improved situation (hopefully).

</comment><comment><USER15> If you pass along your info to me, I'll be happy to ask around to some of my prospective/current clients. See profile - good luck!

</comment><comment><USER16> My company is hiring UI/UX Designers. Feel free to send me a link to your info. See my profile.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't have anything to offer atm other than a sincere wish that you find something that makes you happy and sustains your financial needs. I'm sure you'll find something soon-- hang in there!

</comment><comment><USER18> First, I know someone who's in a similar situation. Second, email sent!

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are interested in Miami, I have a few companies hiring UX right now. email me your portfolio, might be able to throw some freelance stuff your way immediately.

</comment><comment><USER20> I make iPhone apps, interested in drawing UI? Experience? Please send me past examples: <http://giacomoballi.com>

</comment><comment><USER21> Have you found a job yet? I can probably get you some side work or at the very least shoot you a little dinero as a temporary solution, email me at firstname.lastname@example.com - Donovan Dikaio

</comment><comment><USER22> what are your skills? working for high profile startups and fortune 500s means nothing. you could have been a janitor. i mean, google, ibm do have janitors right?

</comment><comment><USER23> being in LA, i think you'd have a hard time getting any help. seems like you may be a fit for SF.

<comment><USER24> being from LA, why do you think this? (not challenging you, just wondering)</comment></comment>


A new definition of technical debt - <AUTHOR> https://blog.georgovassilis.com/2018/12/18/technical-debt/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Technical debt is the amount of work needed to decrease the total cost of a product". The piece discusses various aspect of the new vs. the classical definition. TD depends on context, on the lifespan of a product and is quantifiable.</comment>


David Bowie and the autistic child he helped - <AUTHOR> https://www.tor.com/2017/10/09/at-labyrinth-screening-30-years-ago-david-bowie-helps-a-little-boy-with-his-invisible-mask/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have deliberately not linked to the original because the original is utterly unreadable on my phone. The link to the original is there if you want it.</comment>


Apple's security vulnerability and Level's first response - <AUTHOR> http://blog.levelmoney.com/post/77928818018/apples-security-vulnerability-and-levels-first

<comment><USER2> This seems reasonable (and is certainly much better than doing nothing), but it seems like you could have an even more comprehensive solution by just replacing usage of the system SSL/TLS with usage of SSL/TLS against a copy of OpenSSL shipped with the app, no?

I haven't done any iOS dev, so perhaps this isn't feasible, but that puts responsibility for and control of the security of your app entirely in your own hands; is there a reason that it wouldn't be desirable to go that route?</comment>


Internet Hall of Fame - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Hall_of_Fame

<comment><USER2> I was surprised not to find Jarkko Oikarninen[0] on that list. As the author of the first instant-messaging network[1], Jarkko paved the way for much of how we communicate today.

      [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarkko_Oikarinen
      [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat</comment>


Suspended Amazon sellers are being stifled by an email glitch as holidays loom - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/07/suspended-amazon-sellers-stifled-by-email-glitch-as-holidays-loom.html <comment><USER2> Good luck getting reinstated when it is working.

I lost a good business a few years back because Amazon refused to respond to me (aside from automated bots) and sided with a scam artist (that I think now was a competitor) that complained and kept my item. Even after I bent over backwards to help them.

Amazon kept almost $50,000 of my money for 3 months and it nearly bankrupted me.

I learned my lesson: never build a business on a third-party platform.

<comment><USER3> Same happened to me on a larger scale and I was forced to take legal action against the complainant.

The article hints at it, but it's hard to be prepared for the reality that major brands will file complaints against sellers without a shred of evidence until you've actually experienced it.</comment></comment>


Why Amazon pulled 1984 off users' Kindles - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501227

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

Amazon says that that the books in question were added to its catalog using the company's self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. And it says it will no longer delete books in this manner.

 _When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances._

<comment><USER2> _"We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances."_

I would prefer "We are changing our systems so that in the future we can not remove books from customers' devices in any circumstances."

<comment><USER3> I'd prefer "We are adjusting our software in such a way that it is impossible for us to remove books from our customers' devices".

I don't know that I'd trust the statement after the text-to-speech functionality _adjustments_ on some titles, but it would be a start.

Hey, it's software with compulsory updates via an uncontrollable backchannel. I was _furious_ when I first read about this situation, despite not owning a Kindle (for this precise reason), but I understand the position that Amazon was in.

Hopefully they vet their third parties better, or hopefully copyright law changes in such a way that it is actually _possible_ to vet copyright owners better. Or maybe we just lose the classics because it's too difficult to figure out which heir or organization owns the intellectual property they didn't produce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is fucking scary. No one ever considers that this kind of thing is possible, or doesn't believe that anyone would let it happen. Sure, the deletion was fairly innocent this time, but it does not bode well for the future.

</comment><comment><USER5> FWIW, I keep the wireless on my Kindle off unless I need it on for some purpose. The battery lasts forever that way, and Amazon can't delete my stuff either.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1986? Is that a sequel to 1984 that I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER7> There's an old Sinclair Spectrum game called 1994 - ten years after. I don't think it has much to do with the novel 1984 though.

[http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/1994-ten-years- aft...](http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/1994-ten-years-after)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who cares? Honestly, does it matter? If you bought a car and it turned out it was stolen and the police took it without giving you anything in return, would you say "Ok, no prob, I wouldn't want a stolen car! Thanks!" Of course not.

Amazon should pay back the cost of the book AND give free access to a legal version to anyone who bought the other one.

<comment><USER9> _If you bought a car and it turned out it was stolen and the police took it without giving you anything in return, would you say "Ok..."?_

In point of fact, you'd say nothing at all. You'd hire a lawyer to speak for you. Because you're at very serious risk of being charged with felonious possession of stolen property:

[http://definitions.uslegal.com/p/possession-of-stolen- proper...](http://definitions.uslegal.com/p/possession-of-stolen-property/)

Note the last sentence:

 _A person who is innocently is possession of stolen goods will not be guilty of a crime, but generally, the goods will be returned to the owner._

So, from what I can tell, even if you are found to be completely innocent of any crime, when it turns out that your car is stolen property the police will still come and take it away very suddenly without asking your permission, and they won't give you anything in return. That's exactly how it works.

I presume you're then free to sue the shady used-car dealer who sold it to you. But if that dealer turns out to be bankrupt because he already spent all your money on crack, I believe you are out of luck.

This Amazon situation is so shocking not because it's without precedent, but because it never used to make financial sense to treat a stolen copyright just as you would treat a stolen car. (And, after the P.R. repercussions of this move are played out, it may not make any financial sense in the future, either. ;)

<comment><USER3> "This Amazon situation is so shocking not because it's without precedent, but because it never used to make financial sense to treat a stolen copyright just as you would treat a stolen car. (And, after the P.R. repercussions of this move are played out, it may not make any financial sense in the future, either. ;)"

Precisely. It's not a stolen car, it's a technicality of overly complex copyright law that resulted in a bunch of paying customers having something removed from a device that they thought was as safe as their bookshelf.

Scale is important here. If I purchased a ten dollar book from Barnes and Noble that was later determined to be part of a hijacking of a delivery truck, they wouldn't go through the trouble. Paper is cheep, books are stolen and you'll sell more.

On one hand you have the scale of distribution that is much greater than what could be attained by jacking a delivery truck. On the other hand you have a pile of customers that have just discovered that they don't actually have any guarantees that the things they purchased on their Kindle are going to continue to be there when they wake up in the morning.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think when technology makes certain laws enforceable, it's missing the point to complain about the technology (as people have been doing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Equilibrium anyone?</comment>


Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/syrian-group-hacks-washington-post-web-site/2013/08/15/4e60d952-05bd-11e3-88d6-d5795fab4637_story.html <comment><USER2> So many media sites have a ton of javascript widgets: ad networks serving third-party ads serving third-party tracking scripts, recommendation tools, analytics, etc. It really increases the attack surface.

How do publishers know that the scripts that go on their pages are safe?

<comment><USER3> Publishers should use AdSafe[1], which is a system for sandboxing widgets. AdSafe provides widget authors an API for access object properties and the DOM, as well as a static check to ensure that widgets are using this API properly. Given that the static check passes, and the library implementing the API is correct, then your widget is properly sandboxed and attacks like that can't happen. Check out the AdSafety paper[2] for more details about the extent to which AdSafe has been verified.

Disclosure: I'm an author on the paper.

EDIT: Here's a great talk by Arjun on AdSafety: [https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix- security-11/adsafet...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix- security-11/adsafety-type-based-verification-javascript-sandboxing)

[1]: [http://www.adsafe.org/](http://www.adsafe.org/)

[2]: [http://cs.brown.edu/research/plt/dl/adsafety/v1](http://cs.brown.edu/research/plt/dl/adsafety/v1)

<comment><USER4> AFAIK, there was nothing vulnerable in the widget itself: the hackers accessed Outbrain's admin panel, and changed the content of their recommended links to point to their website instead.

The hackers posted screenshots of accessing the admin panel: [http://mashable.com/2013/08/15/outbrain- hacked/](http://mashable.com/2013/08/15/outbrain-hacked/)

<comment><USER3> What was reported[1] was that certain stories were redirecting users to the SEA's site. This implies that they weren't just rewriting recommended links, but were changing the code of the widgets, which resulted in that behavior.

[1]: [http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/08/washington- post-...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/08/washington-post- hacked-170594.html)

<comment><USER4> Ah, you're right. This screenshot actually shows the HTML they injected: [http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA4LzE1L2E1L3RpbWVzY...](http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA4LzE1L2E1L3RpbWVzYWZmZWN0Ljg0OWQ0LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/ac8169ff/d19/times- affected-outbrain-admin-panel.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So if the most common way these hacker "groups" actually "hack" websites are through phishing attacks. How do protect against phishing attacks in a way that will stop them. Obviously educating Martha the secretary to not click links in emails from people she doesn't know isnt working.

How can we make phishing attacks less successful or remove these attack style altogether. 9 times out of 10 when I hear about some major hack its because of phishing.

<comment><USER6> In your contrived story: why did you choose a woman? and why did you pick on a secretary?

the undercurrents of misogyny is depressing.

<comment><USER7> I'm not entirely convinced this was misogynist.

Right now, I'm trying to think of jobs for a news provider that wouldn't require tech savvy. "Secretary" is the only one that comes to mind. Secretaries are stereotypically women.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So what are best guesses here? Weeks of surveillance and social engineering or a 0-day/unpatched software?

I just feel like these sites should be getting scanned daily by all kinds of frameworks like metasploit so unpatched known vuln seems unlikely.

More likely is exploiting the employees with spear phishing or social engineering, or 0day. And of those three I'd have to lean towards 0day, if it truly was Syrians that did it.

And if they got socialflow at almost the same time I'm betting they were using something in common.

Though considering the post claims an employee account was hacked through phishing, maybe they had shared accounts for columnists or something.

<comment><USER9> You need insight into how these kind of sites are run to understand how attacks typically work on them.

Backend: lots of technology feeding them content and sending their content out other places. App servers, content sinks, message buses, databases, FTP'd stories, etc etc. Nobody ever attacks these because you have to have some kind of basic reconnaissance on what they do and how they do it. And they're not very secure because of the low visibility. But if you do know how most news sites get their content, there's some fun holes to play with.

Frontend: SQL injection, misconfigured services, bad firewalls, shared or easily-guessed accounts. You don't need anything fancy most of the time. There is no Security Czar making sure everything is secure on the frontend. There's supposed to be, but their lack of authority or motivation prevents them from really trying to secure everything in a big-picture way.

Development: The site is constantly being developed, and not always by the same staff. Sometimes a new guy who writes really shitty code will push something to production which is clearly hazardous to security. It gets through code review and policies and procedures because everyone's busy trying to get real work done. Often these holes go unnoticed for years.

Third-party content: There is nothing ensuring content you're getting from a 3rd party is what you expect it to be. If it's not being served by your servers, it's subject to attack. Often sites get taken down not because of attack, but because an ad network is timing out, causing the page to stop being loaded, effectively DoSing the page. SLAs mitigate this to a small extent by encouraging the 3rd party not to lose money to their customers by being hacked.

Phishing: This will work 90% of the time. Professional pen-testers have agreements not to phish or social engineer their targets more than a certain amount, because it almost always works; there's not much need to test it. But keep in mind that if this were Syrians, their lack of mastery of English could present a problem. Maybe it'd only work 60% of the time in this case.

 _" I just feel like these sites should be getting scanned daily"_: Nope. The vast majority of sites don't get constantly hammered by attackers looking for a way in, because 99% of the attacks seen on large-traffic sites are trivial automated things like botnets, which try one or two common holes across millions of sites. Even the most basic security measures prevent these.

Real, targeted attacks are rare, and often get lost in the noise of constant botnet barrage. There just aren't a whole lot of SEA's out there trying to take over every single website. Usually when they do try, they succeed, in some fashion or another; if they were to do this to every popular website on the internet, it would take them months or years to get around to it all. And they probably have day jobs.

The very last attack that works is a 0-day. It's called a 0-day because (typically) it is patched a day or two after it's announced, and they are rare. If you have one, you don't use it just to attack one news site.

<comment><USER10> > The vast majority of sites don't get constantly hammered by attackers > looking for a way in

I find that hard to believe really.

Even just my residential connections honeypot is stuffed with people trying to do obscenely stupid things. There's people installing botnet clients, trying to find databases, you name it. I get a connect every couple of hours, and there's absolutely nothing else interesting about the IP address other than the single open port. Funnily enough, most of them fall into the "Chinese hacker" stereotype, about 90% of the connections I've logged geolocate there.

I can't imagine what a large companies SSH logs must look like.

<comment><USER9> Your expectations are based on a completely different scenario. A honeypot is designed to attract attackers, and is designed with bad security in mind. No corporate network runs SSH in the open. There's no need.

What a corporate network needs is to provide remote access to specific services based on who is authorized. A VPN is the way to accomplish this. It would be stupid to allow SSH access to everyone (including hackers) when only a handful of authorized administrators would even have SSH accounts, much less do anything on the box. You keep it behind the VPN and only allow specific users access. It reduces the attack surface, creates audit trails, simplifies revoking network access, etc. This is security 101.

<comment><USER10> > A honeypot is designed to attract attackers, and is designed with bad > security in mind.

I wouldn't say that. You'd be very hard pressed to find a production server without SSH, if not on the default port. I'm doing absolutely nothing to draw attention to myself, so it stands to reason that somebody who is (say, running a large website) would draw a lot more probes and "hacked" logins.

> amongst them not running SSH in the open

Moving SSH to a different port is the usual "fix" I see, which does next to nothing really. There's very little in terms of attacks against sshd, and none when you disable password based authentication. Having an open port is not an issue unto itself, unless you used an older Debian to generate your keys.

<comment><USER11> Moving SSH to a different port does nothing if your system is being specifically targeted, but it stops 99% of drive-by bots. Not that they do much anyway but it at least stops them from showing up in your logs.

<comment><USER10> Just out of interest I tried running on 22 and a very high random port, as you said significantly less, though not no attempts. I think it's a false sense of security more than anything.

<comment><USER12> Security through obscurity is generally frowned upon.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but in combination with good practice, it doesn't hurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In an ironic twist, the Syrian Electronic Army's website wins a Pulitzer for investigative reporting; Jeff Bezos replaces entire editorial staff with six hackers and a shell script.

</comment><comment><USER14> Washington post also posted another good article about the hackers:

"The Post just got hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. Here's who they are."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/08/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/08/15/the-post-just-got-hacked-by-the-syrian-electronic-army- heres-who-they-are/)

<comment><USER15> _Recently, security researchers say the group has also started to engage in more sophisticated attacks, including using Trojans and and targeting Voice over IP (VOIP) services. Those attacks and this week's Socialflow and Outbrain compromises suggest the SEA may just be getting started._

Fear mongering at its finest. These people aren't doing anything that isn't already being done by others.

I'm expecting a lot more "cyber warfare" and terrorism-related fear mongering in the following months. We already saw an increase in politicians complaining about Chinese cyber attacks, but the leaks put an end to that. Let's see who they'll focus on next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The "Syrian Electronic Army" is just rented Iranian hackers. They also have a large propaganda chorus you'll see in newspaper article comments just like Gaddafi did to give the illusion of popular support. They also steal citizen journalist videos of atrocities in Syria and then make up fake translations for them to paint the regime in the best light possible. Since most people never fact check anything they see on youtube largely this strategy works. It's too late when the Guardian or Al Jazeera reveal the true translation weeks later damage has already been done.

Shouldn't the Washington Post and other news agencies be running honeypots to catch these guys?

</comment><comment><USER17> This same group got socialflow yesterday - [http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/08/socialflow-hacked-new- yo...](http://www.ehackingnews.com/2013/08/socialflow-hacked-new-york- post.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> The comments at the bottom of the page are pretty funny.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there a coincidence with the Times being down yesterday and this??

<comment><USER20> It's a coincidence. NYT was not hacked yesterday.

<comment><USER21> Fox News was quick to point out it was hacked, though. Hacking! Cyberwar! Cyberterrorism! Fear!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So who did it? NSA with Chinese proxies?

</comment><comment><USER22> Simply because they are idiots.</comment>


One On One With A Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://shoptalkshow.com/episodes/special-one-one-hacker/

<comment><USER2> Very good interview, I'm glad he did it.

I wonder how well trained in fraud detection are the people who handle the calls/requests at hosts are. Also, why aren't hosts implementing something like 2-factor authentication, if they have your number on file it could be as simple as calling you back right?</comment>


Dilbert creator's Sock Puppet Scandal - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/life/scott_adams/index.html?story=%2Fent%2Ftv%2Ffeature%2F2011%2F04%2F19%2Fscott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal

<comment><USER2> Oh come on. Scandal? Really? It's a bunch of self-indulgent ppl arguing over semantics. Scott acted like an idiot and the ppl blowing this out of proportion are even bigger idiots.

</comment><comment><USER3> C Finke is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

</comment><comment><USER4> Scott Adams should act more like cfinke does and let other people say how amazing and humble he is rather than doing it himself. Yes sir, cfinke truly sets an amazing example to follow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Stopped reading here:

> Dilbert creator and sexist jackass who last month opined that "women are > treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and > the mentally handicapped are treated differently,"

This article takes stuff out of context.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's sad to see Adams behaving more similarly to Dogbert than Dilbert... but I suppose they're both alter-egos.</comment>


Color footage of London in 1927 - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/7638752#

<comment><AUTHOR> The music in the soundtrack was very ahead of its time.</comment>


Linux Kernel Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/93304/discuss <comment><USER2> What happened to make this updated? This was patched in March upstream, and it appears it made it into an Android patch release a couple of days ago.

[1] [http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.g...](http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=34b88a68f26a75e4fded796f1a49c40f82234b7d)

[2] [https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-10-01.html](https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-10-01.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-10-01.html...](https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-10-01.html#remote- code-execution-vulnerability-in-kernel-networking-subsystem)

Better URL that goes right to the appropriate section.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No. Stop it. I _don 't_ want to hear that we should be re-writing all of our systems code in Rust, or that Oberon and the Wirth family should have won, or that C is crap, and Linux should die, and be re-written, or that this wouldn't have happened if we had all just adopted the Lisp Machine.

We've all heard it already, we all know what you'll say. So skip the smug post, and go do something productive. Like writing a really cool piece of new code, or fixing a use-after-free, or posting something more insightful, or inventing a new type of shoelace that doesn't come untied until you want it to.

<comment><USER4> "The revolution will not be televised".

The beginning of the end of use-after-free, buffer overflows, stack smashers, et al will be when we as a community finally accept that C is a terrible language, impossible for ordinary humans to reason about, and must be abandoned. Only when we begin to accept that truth will we all get serious about moving away from it.

For many years the response has been that "C is fine" or some variant of "humans will be better programmers in the future" both of which are demonstrably false.

No one questions the wisdom of paramtaraizing SQL. No one questions the wisdom of not writing your own crypto. Yet despite the mountains of evidence, wasting billions (yes BILLIONS) of man-hours and dollars, and even lives lost there is still resistance to the idea that C needs to die ASAP.

So as long as there are posts like yours our job of educating and persuading isn't finished and that's extremely important if we have a hope of actually making this desperately needed change.

If you still doubt let me go ahead and make a prediction: before the end of the year there will be another RCE exploit in the Linux kernel discovered and a different one will be written, code-reviewed, and committed but not discovered until later (but within 5 years). I'm happy to put $1,000 on this wager.

<comment><USER5> Actually, it is still possible to use C as a higher than assembly target language for compilers.

<comment><USER6> While I'm really interested in this for making languages available everywhere (tm), basic things like signed integer overflow being undefined behavior make me question is C is fit for purpose even here.

<comment><USER7> Since you are generating the C code, you can generate the appropriate checks where needed to avoid such undefined behavior too.

<comment><USER6> Which is the one thing keeping it in the running.

The problem is this line of reasoning doesn't generally hold up when applied to C codebases (because in practice statistics catches up with you eventually) and C code generators, in effect, happen to contain an admittedly small but rather obfuscated C codebase.

Moreover, you must always include such checks - manually crashing on e.g. null pointers even if you'd be entirely satisfied with a segfault - just to avoid the optimizer potentially going apeshit on your code. Which can have... poor effects on program performance.

<comment><USER7> If you are writing a code generator, it all depends on the source language. If, for example, your source language doesn't have NULL pointers, then you don't have to waste cycles checking them in C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's my attempt at a constructive idea, inspired by all the preemptive C comments:

The l-k devs and the big commercial Linux vendors/users (Google, IBM, Red Hat, Amazon etc) should gang up and start offering big bounties for these. And simultaenously start doing subsystem rewrites in a memory-safe way prioritized by bugs found by bounty program (and other ways). If they're allergic to non-C languages, a safe C subset like SAFEcode or C0 could be used[1].

[1] I'm saying it's possible to have a memory safe C subset with current compiler technology, even though you can point out something missing from C0

<comment><USER9> Google already pays bounty for a lot of FOSS projects.

And if the bugs you find can be exploited in google products the bounty is _very_ high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What circumstances are needed for this to be exploitable? Wondering if iptables could mitigate for systems where upgrading the kernel is non-trivial.

<comment><USER11> Haven't looked at this too closely, but iptables are unlikely to help. The bug appears to be in the recvmmsg() syscall, which is where the packet leaves the kernel and enters the userspace. The syscall itself is not that widely used, only for some unusually optimized UDP servers, you are unlikely to have one running. But you can check with strace just to be sure.

<comment><USER12> [https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=[^_]recvmmsg\%28[^\%2...](https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=\[^_\]recvmmsg\\%28\[^\\%29\]&perpkg=1&page=1)

(Many of the results are for code like language runtimes and debugging tools that don't actually use recvmmsg() themselves)

<comment><USER13> Ouch, it's in chromium though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Website seems to be down. For those that are curious, it's CVE-2016-7117.

Mitre link: [https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-7117](https://cve.mitre.org/cgi- bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-7117)

<comment><USER12> The commit for the fix is more interesting.

[https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=34b88a68f26a75e4fded796f1a49c40f82234b7d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't the Linux kernel tested with a zeroing storage allocator?

<comment><USER12> Yes (actually, a poisoning allocator which is the moral equivalent).

This bug was found because a KASAN ( [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kasan.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kasan.txt) ) assertion triggered during fuzzing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This functionality appears to have been introduced in linux 2.6.33 with commit a2e272554 .

Looking at [http://vault.centos.org/6.8/updates/Source/SPackages/kernel-...](http://vault.centos.org/6.8/updates/Source/SPackages/kernel-2.6.32-642.4.2.el6.src.rpm) it looks like RedHat backported this function but has not applied the fix.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't get it, if this was fixed in March, which systems are compromised by this?

Do I need to worry about a fully upgraded ubuntu 14.04 with or without the Hardware Enablement Stack?

<comment><USER8> Due to the way Linux people handle security fixes, a lot of the time the code fix goes in at first, then people decide it's an exploitable vulnerability, and then they have an embargo period without public discussion so everyone[1] can release a security patch at the same time. So hopefully Ubuntu has a kernel update ready to be released and they will send it out just about now.

Unfortunately in this case Ubuntu's CVE tracker just shows "needs-triage" or "does not exist" for CVE-2016-7117.

[1] Well, most Linux systems don't get timely security patches, like most Android phones or most embedded/iot products, but you get the idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It seems that Linux distros are now releasing fixes:

\- Debian is prevalently _not_ vulnerable: [https://security- tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-7117](https://security- tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-7117) (except the "oldstable" release)

\- for Ubuntu, the situation is more complicated, as it depends on the actual kernel package installed: [https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2016/CVE-2...](https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2016/CVE-2016-7117.html) For the "linux" kernel package (prob the most common), the situation looks like this at the moment::

            Upstream:	released (4.6~rc1)
            Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin):	needed
            Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr):	released (3.13.0-86.130)
            Ubuntu Touch 15.04:	DNE
            Ubuntu Core 15.04:	pending (3.19.0-59.65)
            Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus):	released (4.4.0-22.39)
            Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak):	not-affected (4.4.0-22.39)

\- for CentOS/RHEL, my understanding is that fixed kernels have _not yet_ been released: [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2016-7117](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2016-7117)

</comment><comment><USER19> Just wait until torvalds wrote a new language. Publish it and made it as a new standard. Again.

</comment><comment><USER20> So what can one do about this? What amount of panic is appropriate?

<comment><USER21> Delpoyed boxes: ksplice / kpatch or run updates when available.

And consider mitigations at various tech stack layers.

<comment><USER22> I haven't found a way to patch a kernel with nontrivial modules without kernel restart. This makes the mechanism only useful to reduce system reboot times after a patch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Obligatory comment so nobody else has to: C is a terrible language for security and we must abandon it immediately. Anyone that uses it has clearly not heard of Go/Rust/Haskell. We should just abandon the Linux kernel and start from scratch. And we can unit test the shit out of it to avoid security vulnerabilities. Hasn't Heartbleed taught us anything? MongoDB is web scale. Ron Paul 2012.

<comment><USER24> Go, unlikely. It's safer but it has other problems. Haskell is great but it's runtime makes it hard (though not impossible) to use in kernel development.

Rust and ATS seem to be pretty well suited. With Rust getting more and more traction, maybe not all is lost :)

<comment><USER25> I have extremely hard time believing there can be a viable OS kernel project on Haskell. I mean, yeah, you probably can write OS kernel in Haskell, if you are determined enough. But I don't believe you can make it into a viable project. Rust - maybe, if you can get enough mindshare. Which is also a big if so far...

<comment><USER26> I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it.

Redox is a ground up OS, but I wonder if we shouldn't instead be taking more of an Oxidization approach where we rewrite more and more pieces of an existing OS in Rust piecemeal. This would add some overhead (programmatically not instructionwise) of a lot of context switches though between the C and the Rust code, which is to say it would be a little ugly for a while.

It might be cleaner to go after a microkernel to do this though, like L4 or rumprun.

<comment><USER25> > I think Rust has the mindshare, what it needs is people actually doing it.

That's kind of the opposite of having the mindshare, IMO :) Having the mindshare means people would be reaching for it when they need things done, not have to be dragged in, and there's a wide pool of people knowing it.

I'm pretty sure you can write OS kernel in almost any language that can be compiled into runnable code, and probably if you are really determined also in those that are compiled into bytecode. As I said, it's not the main issue.

Unless you are a titan of programming that can do an OS project all by yourself, or have more money than Google, you'll need random people to come to the project, pick up pieces and work on them. The question is, does Rust have pool of people wide enough so that probability of people wanting to work on _your_ project is higher than your needs?

C definitely has a huge pool. So do C++, Java, JS, Python and many other languages. Rust? I'm not sure it does so far. Maybe I'm wrong.

<comment><USER26> Remember, Rust is just a year old. There are already a few OS projects going in it. All the languages you mentioned are >10 years old.

I think for its age, the success it already enjoys is impressive.

<comment><USER25> It's not a criticism of the qualities of Rust. It's just an assessment of the current state of affairs. Maybe Rust will gain the mindshare in 3 years. We'll see. I personally think having something better than C but as ubiquitous and supported as C would be awesome. Is it Rust? We'll see in 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone post some of the details here or provide another link that has more details than The Register? securityfocus isn't loading for me.

<comment><USER28> I couldn't find anything, so I wrote some [https://blog.lizzie.io/notes-about- cve-2016-7117.html](https://blog.lizzie.io/notes-about-cve-2016-7117.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Programmers, hear me! It is true, what many of you have heard. The security experts have gathered an army and as I speak, that army is drawing nearer to our kernel.

Believe me when I say we have a difficult time ahead of us. But if we are to be prepared for it, we must first shed our fear of it. I stand here, before you now, truthfully unafraid. Why? Because I believe something you do not? No, I stand here without fear because I remember. I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me but because of the path that lies behind me. I remember that for many years we have fought these security guys. I remember that for many years they have sent their armies to destroy us, and after a life-time of war I remember that which matters most... C is still here! Today, let us send a message to that army. Tonight, let us shake this thread. Tonight, let us tremble these keyboards of silicon, steel, and plastic, let us be heard from low-level assembly to bloat-ware web applications. Tonight, let us make them remember, THIS IS LINUX AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID!</comment>


Barakah Nuclear Plant - <AUTHOR> https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/nuclear-gulf-experts-sound-alarm-uae-nuclear-reactors-200628194524692.html <comment><AUTHOR> An update on the construction and rationale of the Barakah nuclear power plant in UAE. Economic, environmental and political implications are discussed. Article is in Aljazeera and should be considered in the context of the current UAE Qatar relationship.</comment>


Augur decentralized prediction market open sources codebase - <AUTHOR>

We've now gotten all augur contracts on the live Ethereum testnet. All function calls have been tested (albeit naively, with more testing ongoing) and confirmed working. Our code is now open source, lots of documentation & a UI will be coming soon.<p>https://github.com/AugurProject/Augur-core <comment><USER2> Augur allows you to create any sort of predictive marketplace without counterparty risk. It utilizes Ethereum for its smart contracts and Bitcoin as a currency

</comment><comment><USER3> Shorter explanation: bet on anything using Bitcoin! :)</comment>


Ask HN: Best trick for your side project? - <AUTHOR> If you work on a side project, what has been the best tip / trick that you use that you are glad you had knowledge of?<p>In context, this could be a library, a devops practice, a traction process etc. <comment><USER2> build a landing page first. Helps focus the pitch and put yourself in customers shoes. If you can't hone your pitch to a question or exclamation, tag line and three benefits with a couple bullets each its going to be a hard sell. example, [http://www.bid2mow.com/](http://www.bid2mow.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

<comment><AUTHOR> I would also add

Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

and

Will It Fly by Patt Flynn</comment></comment>


The Machine Translation Equilibrium - <AUTHOR> http://translationparty.com/tp/

<comment><USER2> Sure it's funny, but it could be useful.

If we take a list of all found equilibrium expressions and have a human translator eliminate the ones that have different meanings in the source and destination languages, we'll have a list of phrases that can be transmitted safely through google translate.

A phrasebook like that would be worth a lot, to me at least. Two applications where a phrasebook might be good enough are tourism and freelance web development.

edit: Here's a great example "The problem is Internet Explorer 6 support." (assuming that means something vaguely similar in the Japanese version, of course)

</comment><comment><USER3> This was a popular-ish thing to do with AltaVista's Babelfish about (probably more than) 10 years ago. A friend used this back-and-forth technique to mix up song lyrics. A teacher did the same to generate bizarre text for class handouts.

A time-honored classic.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can we get a english<->russian version? (or any<->any)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just tried with "i am a boy but not a girl", never reaches equilibrium

<comment><USER2> Since machine translation doesn't work well at the moment, I don't think it's interesting when an example fails to reach equilibrium. I'm not sure what your point is here.

Additionally, I'm not sure your example, "i am a boy but not a girl", parses in English. Being a boy does not normally make one a girl, so wouldn't "...and not a girl" make more sense?

<comment><USER5> I know it is not grammatically correct. Was just experimenting for phrases which would not reach equilibrium.

The above mentioned phrase actually reaches an oscillatory state, which is kind of cool.</comment></comment></comment>