500k Bitcoins traded in 1h, Mt.Gox market hacked + crash - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=976&m=mtgoxUSD&k=&r=1&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=0&p=0&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&SubmitButton=Draw& <comment><USER3> From the mt.gox site:

      Huge Bitcoin sell off due to a compromised account - <USER2>

      The bitcoin will be back to around 17.5$/BTC after we rollback all trades that have happened after the huge Bitcoin sale that happened on June 20th near 3:00am (JST).

      Service should be back by June 20th 10:00am (JST, 01:00am GMT) with all the trades reversed and accounts available.

      One account with a lot of coins was compromised and whoever stole it (using a HK based IP to login) first sold all the coins in there, to buy those again just after, and then tried to withdraw the coins. The $1000/day withdraw limit was active for this account and the hacker could only get out with $1000 worth of coins.

      Apart from this no account was compromised, and nothing was lost. Due to the large impact this had on the Bitcoin market, we will rollback every trade which happened since the big sale, and ensure this account is secure before opening access again.

I'm interested in the fact that they can do a rollback... is that just a rollback of their transaction log? Are they buffering transactions for a significant period before submitting them back to the network?

<comment><USER4> [Update - 2:06 GMT] What we know and what is being done.

* It appears that someone who performs audits on our system and had read-only access to our database had their computer compromised. This allowed for someone to pull our database. The site was not compromised with a SQL injection as many are reporting, so in effect the site was not hacked.

* Two months ago we migrated from MD5 hashing to freeBSD MD5 salted hashing. The unsalted user accounts in the wild are ones that haven't been accessed in over 2 months and are considered idle. Once we are back up we will have implemented SHA-512 multi-iteration salted hashing and all users will be required to update to a new strong password.

* We have been working with Google to ensure any gmail accounts associated with Mt.Gox user accounts have been locked and need to be reverified.

* Mt.Gox will continue to be offline as we continue our investigation, at this time we are pushing it to 8:00am GMT.

* When Mt.Gox comes back online, we will be putting all users through a new security measure to authenticate the users. This will be a mix of matching the last IP address that accessed the account, verifying their email address, account name and old password. Users will then be prompted to enter in a new strong password.

* Once Mt.Gox is back online, trades 218869~222470 will be reverted.

[https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin- sell...](https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due- to-a-compromised-account-rollback)

<comment><USER5> "We have been working with Google to ensure any gmail accounts associated with Mt.Gox user accounts have been locked and need to be reverified."

Ah, that's why I had to change my password then.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I was also worried when I saw the suspicious activity flag had been tripped on my acct., but apparently that doesn't actually mean that anyone actually tried anything, just that our e-mails appeared in the list.

Luckily I never reuse passwords for important stuff like e-mail or anything that touches money...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's an alleged database dump of Mt Gox floating around... <https://twitter.com/#!/954/status/82531189705019392>

UPDATE: looks legit.

<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19543.0>

[https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin- sell...](https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due- to-a-compromised-account-rollback)

<comment><USER8> I can confirm that the alleged dump is the real deal.

Some passwords are md5 hashes, some are salted md5 hashes (utilizing the crypt[0] function). I did not log in for a long time and my password was still unsalted, so I assume that converting to salted passwords was done either automatically on login or on password changes.

0: [http://www.kernel.org/doc/man- pages/online/pages/man3/crypt....](http://www.kernel.org/doc/man- pages/online/pages/man3/crypt.3.html)

<comment><USER9> I hate to look down my nose at other programmers, because I understand that we all start somewhere, but if you are building a _financial exchange_ and you encrypted passwords using unsalted MD5 at any point in the history of your product, you have proven to me that you are learning as you go, and there is no way in hell I'd trust you with any significant sum of money.

<comment><USER10> Where do programmers learn about this stuff? Is it taught at schools? Can anyone recommend good books on proper security procedures?

<comment><USER11> A great place to start is "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier.

<http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html>

Edit: Note, this really barely scratches the surface for building secure software. AC says how to apply cryptographic primitives correctly. It won't teach you how to avoid vulnerabilities specific to particular application domains (like CSS, SQL injection, etc...).

<comment><USER12> That book is old, and though still basically correct, there's much better ways to learn about the practice of developing secure systems. I recommend "Cryptography Engineering" by Ferguson, Schneier, Kohno which is a more modern descendant of Schneier's AC.

<comment><USER11> Looks like I need to update my bookshelf. Thanks for the recommendation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A little bit explanation:

Mt.Gox is the biggest bitcoin market place by far. During the last 1h the whole volume of about 500k BTC was traded making the price drop from somewhere around $17 to virtually nothing.

Details are not available yet. It could have been a bug or an intrudor.

Rumors have it that someone with a huge wallet got hacked.

<+MagicalTux> someone with lots of coins did get hacked

MagicalTux is working on Mt.Gox

Also some other markets like btcex or tradehill are seeing problems and/or price drops.

Update: Mt.Gox have published an announcement:

[https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin- sell...](https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due- to-a-compromised-account-rollback)

<comment><USER13> I'm surprised that people with large amounts of bitcoin don't have better security measures. For that amount of money, I'd consider securing the private key in a safety deposit box. Probably several safety deposit boxes, actually.

<comment><USER7> They apparently had 500k BTC in their MtGox account, which is insane. Unless they were actively trading all of that they should have withdrawn from MtGox to the BitCoin network.

<comment><USER14> If they were Satoshi, they could be sitting on enough early-adopter bitcoins that 500k is relatively not insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was apparently on HN 14 hours ago:

 _Mtgox hacked database listed for sale (pastebin.com)_

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2670302>

pointed to: <http://pastebin.com/ui0nusuZ>

which says:

      I have hacked into mtgox database. Got a huge number of logins password combos.
      Mtgox has fixed the problem now. Too late, cause I've already got the data.

      Will sell the database for the right price.
      Send your offers to:
      email@example.com

<comment><USER16> Was he accepting BitCoins?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> i must admit i'm somewhat impressed how _fast_ the hackers and cheaters managed to take over bitcoin trading.

i think it's kind of cute. people hoped for an economy no government could control, and got exactly that: anarchy and a burning world.

<comment><USER18> Where is anarchy? What's burning?

Someone sold a huge amount of Bitcoins. The market acted accordingly. Expect a bounce back to the old exchange rate as soon as Mt. Gox is available again.

Of course it might be possible that the computer of the person who sold the Bitcoin was cracked. But that's not the fault of Bitcoin - if someone is not capable of taking care of the security of his local computer, it's better not to use a distributed currency where your money is basically stored inside a single file.

<comment><USER19> > Someone sold a huge amount of Bitcoins. The market acted accordingly.

It doesn't seem very free market to rollback the market and cancel all the free market trades that happened.

<comment><USER20> No, but that's also what would happen when the stock market behaves weirdly enough. It's a good thing, though, that stock markets and foreign exchanges have more trading volume; I'm starting to wonder what happens if a random blokes with a million actual USD wants to game the bitcoin like George Soros did it with the Swedish kroner.

<comment><USER21> Sorry for being off topic but do you have a link that explains how Soros games the kroner? Just out of genuine interest.

<comment><USER20> Actually the bigger event around it was the Black Friday in 1992: The Bank of England was hoping/pretending that the pound would stay strong against the FRG Mark, whereas Soros lent a massive amount of pound to other people. When the pound finally devalued, he could fulfill the lendings (at the cheaper pound price). The Swedish currency took similar damage.

Basically, governments trying to stabilize their currency are in danger of losses whenever they meet someone with even deeper pockets. In contrast, the Japanese government could out-trade Soros in the crash in 1987 and Soros had to pocket substantial losses.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy_of_Sweden#1992>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a little annoyed that MtGox effectively is bitcoin. I've been spending my mined coins on goods from various merchants and it has been working great. That's what bitcoin is designed to be, a currency. Recently there's so much speculation and people buying, holding and selling that so much focus has shifted away from the real use.

<comment><USER23> Mining was never supposed to be the primary means to obtain bitcoins. As long as people are still being paid salaries in other currencies, they'll need to use an exchange to buy bitcoins if you want them to participate. On the other side of the (bit)coin, do you suppose those merchants you're buying from can pay all of their suppliers in bitcoins? So they need the service of an exchange, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is an "I told you so" post, but not about bitcoin, about the current exchanges.

I haven't cashed out any bitcoins because the current exchanges are a fucking joke and I've said as much many times in the IRC channel and forums. Bitcoins will remain a novelty for people with lots of disposable income until it has a real money changing service linking it to other exchanges. I can not conceive of the level of folly it would take for me to put anything more than pocket money on one of the current exchanges.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Newest update:

Apparently someone got the whole user account database of Mt.Gox

I wont publish the link to it though for obvious reasons.

Quick analysis: the database is legit, it contains user id, username, email if set, and a bcrypt hash. The hashes seem salted with a global salt.

<comment><USER25> I don't think the db is public, it's being sold for a price.

<comment><USER26> It's public. I have the db loaded in mysql right now, and have confirmed its validity (my account is in there).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The entire account database was also leaked:

<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19543.0>

<comment><USER28> So it was... I confirmed my username is in there but at least passwords are hashed. Luckily, I never added an email address and used a different Username and pw than I do everywhere else. Gotta take precautions with bitcoin!

<comment><USER16> Doesn't look as if passwords were salted, though :-( (Edit: just read in another comment that there seems to have been a global salt)

<comment><USER29> They were hashed using the standard php crypt() method, it generates a salt for every password encrypted. I'm in that database and was able to generate the exact hash. Luckily I use one-time passwords with such things...

<comment><USER30> Wait. The effective exchange for bitcoins worldwide is using PHP internally? People are actually trusting this with thousands of dollars in cash?

<comment><USER31> I'm not even much of a PHP fan, but it seems like you're unaware of what _most_ people use. Including financial institutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If this was legitimate "dump" (by someone who obviously didn't care about the money), it was certainly the fastest crash of any known market ever.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened?

<http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc>

<comment><USER34> according to the guy running the exchange: user with 500k bitcoins was hacked (probably password bruteforce or csrf).

they'll probably reverse all transactions since then

<comment><USER35> Who is 'they'?

As far as I understood bitcoin, there is no authority. Nobody can do anything about a user having 500k of his coins hacked, and nobody can do anything about the market crash either.

<comment><USER36> as far as i know you're right. there is no infrastructure for rollbacks of any kind.

<comment><USER29> MtGox != Bitcoin. Transactions on bitcoin network cannot be undone, that is true; however, MtGox will undo the transactions inside their system (buys and sells within MtGox). The only thing that cannot be undone is the withdrawal of 80 stolen BTC from a MtGox account into Bitcoin network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anybody have a link to instructions for reading that kind of chart (or the name of the chart type)? I used to know, but it has been many years.

I suppose green bars means the price went up and red down, and the bar extends between the high and low price. But what does the chunk in the middle mean? And where can I see that 500k were traded?

<comment><USER37> EDIT: The below is wrong, see here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_chart>

The chunk in the middle is the price for the majority of trades, and the lighter bar is all trades, if I remember right.

<comment><USER38> The small bar indicates the range of prices during the time frame (for example, each bar could represent 15 minutes of trading on a 15 minute chart). The big bar shows the closing and opening prices for that time range. If the closing price is below the opening price the bar is red, and vice versa.

The red bar that shoots up from the bottom is the trading volume, and usually isn't covering up the bars so it looks strange. It just says a ton of BTC was sold in that time frame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like the looks of this chart of the crash, haven't seen that kind before: <http://leanback.eu/bitcoin/plots/20110619195756-mtgox.png> (found via @zedshaw on Twitter)

<comment><USER37> And Zed found it from me on Twitter, and I found it on this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2671576> (Just setting the record straight as Zed attributed it to me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Lower limit of $0 a bitcoin showing there, did someone really dump bitcoins at $0.01?

<comment><USER40> $0.01 is still a profit if you stole the coins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> So for someone who doesn't understand economics that much, what does this mean? Have bitcoins finally failed?

<comment><USER42> Not as such. As an example, Steve Jobs ownes 7% the shared of Disney. If tomorrow, he were to sell them all, no matter what the price, there might not be enough people to buy them all, so people who, for the laugh, said they'd buy Disney stock at $0.01 a share would eventually get the shares. Thus the stock price for Disney would drop to $0.01. A similar thing just happened to BitCoin, but rather than shares of Disney being traded, it was bitcoins.

<comment><USER43> This is the best explanation so far. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> <CorvusCorax> poor bot had a division by zero when trying to calculate the mt gox exchange rate

</comment><comment><USER45> Out of curiosity, how does the Mt.Gox hold the bitcoins. Do they have a bitcoin account for every user or do they hold all the bitcoins in their account and trades are only changes in their database?

<comment><USER46> The latter; in the block chain you can see a single address that holds over 400K BTC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm on record here as saying a few weeks ago that a BTC bank needs to be established.

I reiterate my position. A BTC bank needs to be established, with appropriate data protection features.

<comment><USER48> Sounds like a startup opportunity.

<comment><USER47> Absolutely. I wish I had enough time and security knowledge to do it.

A BTC bank will have to have some no-kidding competent security around it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The flash sale broke the price resistance chart: <http://mtgoxlive.com/orders>

</comment><comment><USER50> If the 500K Bitcoins sold are the total of the Bitcoins in all MtGox wallets, than Bitcoin is over.

Sample of one: I have for about 100 USD in Bitcoins at MtGox, if they got stolen today, I will leave the project.

<comment><USER35> I think the bitcoins belonged to a guy who had his wallet of 500k stolen some time around last week.

<comment><USER51> You're probably thinking of the guy who claimed he lost 25k bit coins (which at that moment was "worth" 500k USD). This was a trade of 500,000 bit coins.

<comment><USER35> Ahh yes, you're correct, I got confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting that on bitmarket.eu there are a lot of buy offers for 0.01€ suddenly. I wonder if those are already bots trying to automatically react to the mtgox price.

<comment><USER52> More likely, people trying to make bank when (not if) it happens again.

<comment><USER16> Ah, true, taking advantage of market glitches. I should add some positions for that, too :-)

<comment><USER52> The real question is if mtgox can actually reverse trades like they claim they're going to do as a result of this situation.

In a regulated exchange it's certainly possible. Is it possible with bitcoin? Once the block is away...it's away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> If you want to check if you've been Mt.Goxed I whipped up a little something for that

<http://mtgoxed.herokuapp.com/>

</comment><comment><USER54> If you feel like complaining, check Complainr: <http://complainr.syx.sk/>

Some people already started :)

</comment><comment><USER55> mtgox.com is offline. Did they shut trading down?

<comment><USER56> the site has been on and off for the past week or so. not intentional perse just busy servers as far as i can tell.

<comment><USER57> I was in the bitcoin forums and mt gox as this happened...they shut down afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I wanted to see if I could buy some on the cheap, but I wasn't already set up to do so. I would never take this currency seriously, but I'd be willing to put in a bit of money to speculate a bit.

I looked at bitmarket.eu but they have a manual verification process, which I'm sure would not complete until after the price recovers. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER59> haha

</comment><comment><USER60> We shouldn't be surprised by this. This monetary have no authority behind it.

<comment><USER60> What is the point of down votes without explanation?

<comment><USER61> You're being downvoted because you neither understand the Bitcoin system nor the mechanics of how Mt. Gox works, as evidenced by your post.

<comment><USER60> Sure, i don't understand it, neither the people who brought bitcoins.

<comment><USER13> And you're basing this statement on what evidence?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


You May Have to Wait to Borrow a New E-Book from the Library - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775150979/you-may-have-to-wait-to-borrow-a-new-e-book-from-the-library <comment><USER3> This isn't true for most small publishers and self-published books. Libraries can get lots of great books from these sources, but they usually don't.

Librarians complain it's too hard to find good books unless they buy them from the big publishers. Libraries even hire a company called Baker & Taylor to tell them what to buy -- B&T is a distributor that's deeply connected to big publishers and won't even handle most small publisher's books. When a small publisher tries to get library sales, usually librarians say it's too much work to evaluate their books. This doesn't of course always happen -- there are ways that small publishers can sell to libraries, but it is often too costly and difficult and I know of many small publishers who've just given up on doing business with libraries. It's a disservice to readers and authors who aren't in the big publisher system, but it's how libraries do business.

Now big publishers are starting to say, libraries are in competition with them. It's ridiculous - books become popular because of word of mouth, and libraries can be very helpful in this sort of "dandelion" marketing. So hopefully more authors will wise up and look for alternative publishing approaches. And maybe libraries will start actually looking for other sources of books, but, librarians are by and large a very traditional and hide-bound lot, especially when it comes to picking books, and probably will resist changing their approach no matter how badly the big publishers treat libraries.

<comment><USER4> This implies that librarians are able to filter through the vast troves of the endless self- or small-scale publishing stream. That is what big publishers and influential reviewers do for you when they push big names.

I have yet to find a way out of this rabbit hole because the modern publishing world is stacked with junk now that everyone can create printed and digital content.

Finding good original non-mainstream content on the internet is difficult enough as it is. There is no DuckDuckGo for books with sensible PageRank (yet).

<comment><USER5> My library accepts request forms from members and then evaluates the purchase. It doesn't seem like a stretch to accept waiting lists on books you don't have using a reference to them in a marketplace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've got no problem with waiting for a book. You're trading off immediate gratification for money. This is an acceptable value exchange for me.

E-book borrowing is so good these days. I walked down to the library, they reissued my card, I punched that into Libby and picked a book and it was on my Kindle. Now I just borrow. So good.

<comment><USER7> Christchurch in NZ is hooked up with Libby and a video service just recently. It's pretty great having a solid physical library with books for the toddler/baby and the digital for me. (though apparently I'm supposed to actually read physical paper books to encourage the youngins to read as well). As a student I'd be in the school library all the time, now as an adult with kids having the public library is amazing, so glad I didn't need to buy the 60+ books we've been through so far (they wouldn't be exposed to books..)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The skeuomorphic pretence of "checking out" a book cannot succeed, especially as users discover how easy Library Genesis is.

<comment><USER9> ...isn't that just piracy?

I'd much rather have public libraries come to a reasonable agreement with publishers.

<comment><USER10> Publishers will never give up on DRM, so I don't see a point in involving them. A modern day electronic library would look something like Bandcamp - <USER2> what you want for DRM free copy of the book. The whole raison d'etre of libraries is to keep physical books, but once you go digital, there's no point to making a difference between a shop and a library.

Perhaps the one concession I could make is to have the library provide a remote access system where you can log in and view books, but anything that manufactures digital scarcity is repugnant.

<comment><USER11> > Publishers will never give up on DRM

Says who? There are markets today where DRM-free content is widely available, such as recorded music. DRM-free ebooks are an interesting possibility especially for the "long tail" of content that normally would see very few sales or even go out of print entirely. We just have to make it clear that DRM-unencumbered content _is_ valuable to us, and we expect it.

<comment><USER12> Looking at tech publisher:

Oreilly tried selling drm free books. They gave up, and went subscription only (you can buy drm books of theirs through other services).

Manning still has drm free books (though they insert your name into each page, which is a neat trick)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Encrypted "borrowed" DRM books that self-destruct after a certain period of time (like many of those historic tech books on Internet Archive) are garbage and a waste of my time. I'll either borrow the real thing or steal a DRM-free ebook. The. End.

<comment><USER14> You can borrow them and decrypt and copy them the same way you do with DRMed e-books you buy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _Under the old rules, a large library system like New York 's or Chicago's > might have ordered hundreds of e-book copies. Now each system — large or > small — can buy only one when it goes on sale._

Interesting, so the incentive seems to be to break up larger "library systems" into smaller ones? Sounds terrible.

In general, I've found the ebook selection at my library (San Mateo County Libraries) to be terrible. I can't remember the last time they had a book I wanted to get. I have done title searches many times, and they always autocomplete the name, but then there are no search results. I assume these books are available in hard copy, but they just choose not to get them in ebook format for whatever reason. Too bad, since I'm pretty much never going to check out a physical book from my library.

</comment><comment><USER16> It would be great if a bunch of libraries pooled their single copies, split the files apart into individual pages, and wrote an app that allowed members to automatically check out one page at a time as they read.

Of course the real answer is sci-hub and the like. Libraries have always fought the good fight for public access to information (threatening signs by the xerox [sic] machines notwithstanding), but they're chained to playing by the rules of an obsolete copyright system that gets continually worse. They will only be able to truly re-focus after larger society moves to Free copying, such that basic access is taken for granted.

<comment><USER17> I think it's important to distinguish between scientific papers, which the authors _want_ to make as publicly accessible as possible, and fiction (and non-fiction) books, which the authors are trying to make a living from. There are a lot of issues with current copyright law, but "free copying" isn't a solution that's going to appeal to working writers.

<comment><USER18> I don't think we want to move to a system where you can't monetize books, but very few authors are able to live a middle class life by writing books in the current system.

<comment><USER19> However, other systems like Patreon seem to support vastly more authors than traditional publishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Seattle Public Library has 769 holds on the ebook of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, with 146 copies! One copy is ridiculous. This is almost three times the number of holds on physical books (376 physical books total, I'm 286 on the waitlist for it).

</comment><comment><USER21> > According to Sargent, 45% of Macmillan's e-books were being borrowed from > libraries, a number he says is growing rapidly.

That sounds like a big number. I don't know how much an author makes from a library borrow compared to a regular purchase, but I'd wager increased library borrowing is a net bad thing for author paychecks. So MacMillan is trying the same tactics movie studios use (I sure can't borrow a DVD from my library when the film is in theaters, let alone buy it) to throttle free access when a book's value is highest (new release). This seems reasonable to me.

</comment><comment><USER22> > You May Have to Wait to Borrow a New E-Book from the Library

1\. eBooks are for copying, not borrowing.

2\. So, no, you never have to wait... unless there's some artificial DRM standing in your way.</comment>


Superset disassembly: statically rewriting x86 binaries without heuristics [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://wp.internetsociety.org/ndss/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2018/02/ndss2018_05A-4_Bauman_paper.pdf <comment><USER2> This could be used to, e.g., rewrite existing object code to use retpolines, no? This seems very interesting.

EDIT: Other ideas might be to insert trace points. Something like that is mentioned on the github page. Another idea might be to convert from not-PIC to PIC (they have the opposite implemented), relink, etc...</comment>


The one essential skill that will set you apart from other developers - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/the-one-essential-skill-that-will-set-you-apart-from-other-developers-c7eaab3511fa <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR The article focuses on the ability to "Think and act like a CEO" as a developer.

In one of the recommendations it says: "As a developer, when you are developing features or working on any project, think about how this relates to the success metrics of the company and communicate this clearly."

I wanted to hear from experienced developers, how much of this is true. I get the feeling that in some environments, thinking about how a metric relates to the success of the company may not be something some developers think or can actually focus on.</comment>


Upcoming ICO: Enigma Catalyst, Trading, and the Catalyst Token - <AUTHOR> http://www.globallybored.com/initial-coin-offering-ico-enigma-catalyst-trading-and-the-catalyst-token/ <comment><AUTHOR> Enigma Catalyst will exist as an open platform wherein traders, programmers, and data scientists can build, deploy, test, and even monetize their own trading algorithms inside a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.</comment>


Publishers Straddle the Apple-Google, App-Web Divide - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/technology/publishers-straddle-the-apple-google-app-web-divide.html <comment><USER2> The problem is that news, opinion articles and similar content is commoditized, so it is super hard to attract subscribers. They never needed an App, that was just a fad.</comment>


Msynch, track phone activity remotely with calls recording - <AUTHOR> http://demo.msynch.com/ <comment><USER2> [https://msynch.com](https://msynch.com) is correct web address

</comment><comment><USER2> nice phone spy tracker with call recording capabilities</comment>


Mathematicians mapped "Game of Thrones" relationship to find the main character - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/650796/mathematicians-mapped-out-every-game-of-thrones-relationship-to-find-the-main-character/ <comment><USER2> This is only a popularity contest among the known characters and their known interactions. For instance, Littlefinger started out seemingly as a small player but then we learn later he was actually a rather significant player in almost all aspects of what has been happening so far. Granted his obvious interactions are with rather important people but by appearances the number of interactions seem low while actually being quite large.

As for Tyrion; he has a high position in life, hangs out with a large number of similar characters, and even crosses an ocean to meet up with more of that group that the others have not met yet. Regardless, I would say he's not so significant to what's going on simply because most of the others don't listen to a thing he says, even though he's right most of the time, so he doesn't have as much impact on events as he should. Just because he's present at significant events doesn't make him significant. Although, I admit those reasons are why I find him one of the more interesting characters.

Seems fun but I don't see how it can answer the question without it just being about today's favorite. It cannot be fully answered until the end.

<comment><USER3> > _[Tyrion is] not so significant_

He was essentially responsible for the successful defense of King's Landing at the Battle of the Blackwater. If he hadn't been there, Stannis would be on the Iron Throne -- I'd call that high-impact.

I agree that Littlefinger's impact is under-represented by this measure, though. And obviously Arya has had no impact on anything important at all ti date...

<comment><USER2> Defense of King's Landing? You mean the event that everyone immediately dismissed and took credit away from him? How many characters even recall it that way? It was significant at that moment, but dwindled away to next to nothing almost immediately. Other than that one thing, Tyrion has mostly gone along for the ride, which fits his character.

As for Stannis being on the Iron Throne, it would makes some things different but it would not make a huge difference in the overall storyline so far as to what's coming. We wouldn't have gotten all the fun stuff with Tyrion's family true, but most of everything else likely would have continued on the same. Just because Stannis would have taken the throne wouldn't mean everything else would suddenly stop or change.

<comment><USER4> But remember what they are saying they are trying to find here is the main character, not the main character in the universe. You actually argue against your own point. You say this is a popularity contest, and then say no one in universe would remember it that way. But if his impact, and hence relationship to the actual story, is what this measures.

<comment><USER2> But I am talking about the story, not the universe. There is no main character to a universe.

But I'm not understanding how I'm arguing against my own point, could you elaborate?

I'm saying that the chart is an indication of a popularity contest as defined by the rules of the chart. But the rules of the chart does not necessarily follow the rules defined by the story.

As for the events that I'm saying the characters don't recall the same as it happened, that's my point that the character did not have that much impact to the overall story because their involvement is forgotten or has been deemed unimportant by the other characters. Therefore, Tyrion's impact has been negligible to the story overall. For the most part, almost all the characters have had very little impact to the story overall; which I find really interesting. They have significant moments that's a huge impact to the characters individually, but may not have much significance to the story as a whole.

So far I would say that Littlefinger is the closest to a main character we have with this type of thing in mind. Simply because he has influenced almost everything that has happened so far in some way.

Almost all the deaths in the story have had an effect on readers simply because almost all the characters have the same weight (or whatever term) as any other despite their position in the perceived power structure. The story taught us very early that no one is safe, therefore there is no easy choice to be made as to who the hero or villain of the story is. Because so far neither really exists. This is one of the many reasons I find this story so interesting, it doesn't read as your typical hero-vs-villain fantasy story where you can guess the outcome before the end of the second act.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The graph is interesting. But maybe Game of Thrones doesn't _have_ a "main" character. One of the things fans love about the books is that they subvert genre expectations at every turn. Given how things are going, in fact, I won't be surprised if the next literary convention GRRM eschews is "conclusion".

<comment><USER6> I think this is one way to look at it, at least for the books. For the TV show, over all the seasons it seems like three main characters have emerged (based on longevity, screentime, and plot importance): Daenerys, Tyrion, and Jon Snow. You could perhaps argue Cersei as well - iirc she has more POV chapters and page-time in the books than any other character.

An alternative view is that the main character(s) change from book to book and season to season. Ned was probably the main character in the first book & season one, Robb replaced him in book/season two, with similar evolutions for other "temporary-mains." Though really the first explanation seems better: a "main character" just doesn't fit the structure of ASOIAF very well.

<comment><USER7> Robb was never a POV character

<comment><USER6> Didn't actually say that he was, though it may be the TV show has changed my memory of his place in the second and third books. After a few years it gets hard to keep track of exactly what happened in a ~5000 page series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _spoiler alert_ I wouldn't say this necessarily points to the "main" character, as its just one measure of a character's significance. Littlefinger (Petyr on this diagram) is rather small and on the edge - but he's ultimately responsible for a huge amount of what goes on.

<comment><USER9> you are right but the aim is to find who the writers consider the "main" character and not who had the most impact on the GoT universe. If we take it in that sense the white walkers are probably the most significant.

<comment><USER2> I would say there is no single main character to the story.

<comment><USER9> that's also the most likely reason the story (book or TV) is so popular. the fact that there is no distinct good or evil, no main character, no main villain etc. everyone is grey, everyone can die etc

<comment><USER10> There are obviously evil characters, obviously good characters, and ambiguous characters. Mostly ambiguous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _Whenever two characters appeared within 15 words of one another, a link (or > "edge") was added between them. The links are weighted based on how often > the two characters appeared in close proximity._

The interesting part here is that the algorithm needs no upfront understanding about the relationships nor about the type of interactions between characters. You can construct the graph from just looking at the locations of the words associated with each character.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can they map postmodern literature to find the plot?

<comment><USER13> [http://www.critical-theory.com/this-is-what-happens-when- you...](http://www.critical-theory.com/this-is-what-happens-when-you-map-a- deleuze-and-guattari-book/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This would be interesting to run on the HN community, or any popular forum.

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of Six Degrees of Harry Lewis[0], where Mark Zuckerberg set up a graph to find out the most popular person in Harvard, via cross-referencing articles in the crimson. That project may or may not have been the origin of Facebook.

0 - [http://bostinno.streetwise.co/all-series/the-harvard- profess...](http://bostinno.streetwise.co/all-series/the-harvard-professor- who-helped-make-facebook-possible/)

</comment><comment><USER16> This graph only covers the third book, A Storm of Swords.

I'm surprised that they haven't gone back and generated a graph for all of the released books yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> GRRM said Tyrion is his favorite character so not that surprising.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is it so hard to imagine that a popular series could represent a non- traditional narrative structure in which there is no, one, main character?

</comment><comment><USER19> "In spite of his small size, Tyrion is mathematically the most important character in Game of Thrones."

... followed by Jon Snow.

</comment><comment><USER20> I want to see this animated.

<comment><USER21> With the 3D clockwork graphics and the musical theme score!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The dragon has three heads, so we're told. Tyrion, Jon, Daenerys?

<comment><USER23> This is a popular fan theory (Jon's parentage is very ambiguous, and it can be argued that Tyrion's parentage is not completely clear, leading to speculation that they both have Targaryen blood).

<comment><USER24> Yep. That's the general theory so popular and makes enough sense that in a way, I'll be both pleased (for picking up on it) and disappointed (for lack of surprise) if it really turns out that way.

At the same time, it would be sort of lame if GRRM decided "well, everyone figured out R+L=J and the three headed dragon and all so I guess I better change some things around".

Then I just get a little bit bummed out (and guilty for feeling entitled) that the next book probably won't be out for a while still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> tl;dr for those with short attention spans like me: Tyrion, Jon, and Sansa are identified as the central characters.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mathematicians take the fun out of everything and turn it into a graph

</comment><comment><USER9> you need a mathematician to come up with that diagram?

<comment><USER27> Graph centrality measures are a pretty interesting and ongoing topic of research in mathematics, yes. I'm familiar with methods based on eigenspectra of the matrix exponential (and some relevance to Krylov subspace methods), but that's really it.

<comment><USER28> But I guess there will be some arbitrariness involved anyway, even when mathematicians look at the problem. E.g. why would one measure be better than another?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Shocker: POV characters are probably main characters.

<comment><USER30> Readers of the books know that is definitely not the case.

For instance Areo Hotah is a repeated point of view character who is merely there to provide prospective on the court of Dorne as a silent body guard. Fans of the series call him "the camera who rides."

On the other hand GRRM has said characters like Littlefinger and Varys will never have chapters because their plans are too revealing of the end of the book. They are too central to be PoV characters.

<comment><USER7> His chapters is called "The captain of guards" and not "Areo" as is the way chapters of the main POV characters is named.

<comment><USER30> Numerous characters both major and minor get chapter names like that. Asha gets a chapter where she's "the sacrifice", Victarion gets a chapter where he's "the iron suitor" and chapters that just go by their name as well. Arya has been "the ugly little girl" in the chapter title. Theon has been "the ghost of winterfel".

Regardless, he's still a point of view character that isn't central to the plot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Or you know... you could count the number of chapters that every character has and come up with the one that has the highest number of chapters as the main character?

<comment><USER32> Or you could just count the number of times their names are mentioned... Except neither approach really represents character importance accurately. Why just go the naive route when you can extract more information from your data by using a more complex approach?

The article actually counters your point exactly:

" _For example, Arya Stark, Sansa's younger sister, has the third most chapters with 34, but ranks behind Sansa in terms of network importance._ "

<comment><USER33> > Or you could just count the number of times their names are mentioned

"Hodor"</comment></comment></comment>


Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/26/us/turkey-protesters-attack-video-analysis.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> In this video of the attack: [https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov/status/865301089867923456](https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov/status/865301089867923456)

a bodyguard is seen talking to someone in the back of a car. That bodyguard nods to another bodyguard, who then walks towards the protest. The attack begins the second he arrives at the line.

Later, the person in the back of the car gets out. It's Erdogan.

This video didn't get as much press as it should have, I suppose since you can't say it's "proof" he ordered the attack. But come on.

<comment><USER3> I was honestly surprised that NYT did such a beautiful in depth analysis of videos and didn't have this video in there. How can you do an in depth research on that incident and not have this vital video?

I wonder if with modern machine learning backed algorithms, we can do a semi- decent job at reading some of the lips in that video.

<comment><USER4> What? It's near the bottom.

<comment><USER3> I was either having a really slow day or it was added later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > He repeatedly kicked Ms. Usoyan, 34, as she lay on the ground. According to > New Jersey records, Mr. Yildirim is 50 and manages three companies in that > state.

Mr. Yildrim does not appear to have diplomatic immunity, so why aren't assault and battery charges being levied against him?

<comment><USER6> I don't think diplomatic immunity protects the rest of them either. It's not a free license to commit any crimes they want.

<comment><USER7> >It's not a free license to commit any crimes they want.

That's exactly what it is. The hosting country can ONLY just tell them they are "persona non grata". (Expel them.)

Of course, they may face charges in their home country or be extradited. Their home country can waive their diplomatic immunity - and do so for their diplomats acting criminally in other countries.

But 100% of all of these actions are on the _home_ country. The host country can do absolutely nothing besides expel them or complain to their home country.

Let me know if you see anything to the contrary here or anywhere else online:

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

<comment><USER8> Wars were started over less. Maybe a little more patriotism is called for nowadays

<comment><USER9> >Wars were started over less.

We're still dealing with the consequences of a war we started for apparently no reason other than than wanting to do it. Maybe we should _raise_ the bar for going to war, and not keep lowering it.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but right now the actions being taking in response are _substantially_ less than going to war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found this video a few days ago on reddit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWxm- bxgP9g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWxm-bxgP9g)

One thing that I found intriguing as an engineer is that Ertogan's bodyguards etc are trying to shout louder than the protesters.

At first I thought ok thats natural, 2 parties have a disagreement and then each tries to be louder.

The sound from Ertogan's trained personnel thought isn't exactly an argument. You'll hear through the whole video the sound : 'EEEEEEEEEE' coming up from his bodyguards which is definitely not argument, just a way to mask protesters voice.

So to conclude my point, is that Ertogan has trained soldiers trying to shout louder than the protesters so he won't hear anything bad about him. Pretty much the same he is doing to his country by blocking wikipedia etc.

I can only think of one other person that would do such a thing, Kim.

<comment><USER12> DJT is not far off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This same scenario happened last year outside the Brookings Institution. I suspect the reason why there's such good video coverage of this year's attack, is they were ready for it, based on what happened last year.

In the short term, I agree with John McCain, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. should be expelled over this event.

What precedes all of this is the U.S. supports the YPG, which Erdogan considers a terrorist organization. Pretty much any Kurdish organization is probably considered a terrorist organization to the Turkish government, however. The U.S. supports the YPG, makes Erdogan look weak in that he doesn't have enough sway to get one of their worst domestic political and ethnic enemies disenfranchised by the U.S. so Erdogan retaliates with thugs right in the U.S. capitol to embarrass the Trump (and last year the Obama) adminstration. It's tit for tat.

Long term, is whether a Turkish autocracy, which is what it is now, a viable member in NATO? I think the U.S. looks the other way as long as Turkey helps fight Daesh. But Turkey is now a stain on NATO's democratic origin and purpose.

<comment><USER14> >Long term, is whether a Turkish autocracy, which is what it is now, a viable member in NATO? I think the U.S. looks the other way as long as Turkey helps fight Daesh. But Turkey is now a stain on NATO's democratic origin and purpose.

Unless Turkey loses control of the Bosphorous straits or Russia stops being what it is, Turkey will always be welcome at the table. Help with Daesh and/or pushing democratic ideas is neither the purpose of NATO, nor the origin of NATO, nor the future of NATO.

<comment><USER13> "NATO promotes democratic values" [http://www.nato.int/nato- welcome/index.html](http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html)

And Erdogan, right now, is doing the opposite of that. It is completely valid to question Turkey's role in NATO, but the current U.S. president doesn't care about or even understand what democracy is, because he's an ignoramous about pretty much everything. All he cares about is "winning" and that's why he praises autocrats like Erdogan, Duerte, Salman, Kim Jong Un, and el-Sisi, while criticizing American allies. I think he's kinda jealous of autocrats who get things done and doesn't have to deal with silly legislatures and courts. So I have no doubt that this administration will be fine with Turkey staying in NATO for the foreseeable future despite the incongruity on democratic values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great analysis, but I must ask the obvious question. US citizens attacked by foreign entities on US soil. What gives?

<comment><USER16> We can't change the past, but as an American, my question is what will my government do to protect its citizens and how will it obtain justice for them. Will it even try?

Let's hope the fourth estate holds the first three accountable.

<comment><USER17> I'm guessing nothing will happen. I have no idea if diplomatic immunity applies, but also the president and Erdogan are friendly. And, we have a lot of contempt for protestors in our country.

<comment><USER18> One wanna-be dictator to another, my guess is nothing will happen.

<comment><USER17> Mmm, I think one of them is less of a wannabe than the other. At least so far.

<comment><USER19> One is just earlier in his career

<comment><USER20> i don't think trump will be a dictator. it doesn't look like he has that intention - his steps are not cohesive, and not deeply rooted to assert his absolute authority.

not to mention the us has better foundation of democracy.

<comment><USER19> He signs unconstitutional orders and then attacks the court when they strike them down. He heaps praise on dictators and slams democratic allies. He probably won't be a dictator because he's incompetent but it's clear how he wants to operate.

<comment><USER20> Probably, but dictatorship comes as more fundamental. Signing orders is the worst way to do it. You first grow a base thqt would support you, bring them into positions that would strenghten your absolute power. Sure trump is doing that somewhat but i dont think it is happening at fundamental levels. You also need charisma somewhat.

Good thing is, the US has the checks and balances that would make it really hard for him to achieve his potential goal. It takes more than one guy to make it happen.

I have seen it first hand, in Turkey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The footage is really well edited to highlight what's going on. I wonder if it's actually multiple footage augmented together or just single footage. At least it feels as so.

<comment><USER22> I'm totally impressed. The folks who generated this content should very much be given more assignments of the like. It's very much going to set a gold standard with future video highlights, especially in this age of video camera ubiquity with cell phones, surveillance, badge cams, dash cams, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> America is in a sad, sad state when there is no recourse for something like this. What are we, afraid of diplomatically insulting an Islamist dictatorship?

<comment><USER24> It's more of a practical concern. Our diplomats and their details operate in places like Turkey every day and we want those governments to grant us lots of leeway when dealing with the local population. That being said, this is a spectacular display of diplomatic idiocy.

<comment><USER25> This comment is pretty fascist. The notion that it's OK to run around assaulting peaceful protesters because that gives you the scope to similarly ignore human rights elsewhere, and the phrasing "deal with" ... really don't sit well with me. A lot of what is wrong with the world rests on this kind of thinking.

<comment><USER24> I never said it was ok to treat people like that, or that I agree with that line of thinking at all. Describing something fascist doesn't make me fascist. Just that I suspect that is the calculation that goes on when a person decides to overlook this kind thing (which would normally be dealt with as a criminal action). Also tried to point out that there are countless stories of American diplomats and security teams behaving badly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a pretty amazing compilation, is there any recourse for this? Are these security guards protected by diplomatic immunity? Is that a stupid question?

<comment><USER27> Not stupid, and they most likely have immunity, if they are officially a part of the delegation.

<comment><USER28> That's my understanding too. Although I believe that the US could ban those individuals from having immunity in the future and eject them from the country, which is certainly what I'd advocate for here.

<comment><USER29> There's a wiki article somewhere that was brought up when this discussion happened on reddit that states that members of security details aren't usually granted immunity, only consular officials are.

EDIT: I found it [0]

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Diplomatic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Diplomatic_immunity_in_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm waiting for Mr. Erdogan's next visit to the United States.

I plan to travel to D.C. then and stand in solidarity with anyone who wants to express their freedom of speech within the borders of the US.

Mr. Erdogan and his thuggish retinue insulted the very nature of his hosts, who have been far too gracious to some very undeserving guests.

</comment><comment><USER31> Top-notch editing work and presentation, really impressive.

Don't want to get diverted into politics but I was appalled by not only the incident itself but the fact that Turkey then summoned the US ambassador in Ankara to complain about DC police trying to break up the fight. This is not a healthy sign for the future.

<comment><USER32> >Don't want to get diverted into politics

I don't think this has much to do with politics. If you're right, left or center, libertarian or authoritarian, doesn't matter, it's basic morality that this unwarranted aggression is wrong and must have consequences. If I was the president under which such a thing happened, I would make sure the consequences are severe enough that it would never happen again under my term.

<comment><USER9> > If I was the president under which such a thing happened, I would make sure > the consequences are severe enough that it would never happen again under my > term.

This particular president offered to pay the bail for anyone who "kicked the crap" out of protesters at one of his campaign rallies... I doubt he even sees it as a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I immediately called for two things. The NRA to organize an armed protest, and to persona-non-grata all attackers not American citizens, and to arrest those that are and don't have DI (diplomatic immunity).

What happened is the Turks are thugs, and when they heard/saw pro PKK "protestors" they consider "terrorists" they wanted to make an example of them. I'm guessing it was also a distraction technique for Erdogan to proceed to wherever he was headed.

What is most shameful to me, is the response from the DC police. If armed foreign thugs are attacking americans, It's time to escalate force. They were straight up sucker-kicking/punching women and old men already on the ground... shots that could have killed or could cause concussion or brain damage.

What no one is talking about is how deeply Turkey has infiltrated the US intel community (lookup Sibel Edmonds for more info), or the fact they we let Turkey get away with this stuff because of geostrategic realpolitik. Turkey is also funding and arming ISIS against the Kurds because to them the Kurds are a greater threat.

<comment><USER34> There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them -- possibly soldiers in the embassy with rifles, as well. There would have been a shootout, and most likely all of the police and perhaps some/all of the protesters as well would have been dead.

I think we should be treating this as an attack by the government of Turkey against United States civilians. They are no longer an ally. I suspect that we unfortunately have more to lose than Turkey by ending our friendly relationship, but so be it. Staying in a dysfunctional relationship isn't good for either country.

I would like to see the bodyguards prosecuted, but at the same time I expect they are operating under some kind of threat worse than what the United States legal system could potentially do to them. Maybe their wives and daughters will be arrested if they don't attack certain protesters? They may be in a no- win situation. The best thing may be to just get them to leave and not return, even if that offends our sense of justice.

<comment><USER33> > There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns > and there were more of them...

I have heard this argument from multiple sources regarding this event but it seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how things like this work, so I strongly disagree. I've been trained on similar situations, and I know the escalation of force procedures in general (DC police are weird sometimes), and the second they saw Turkish nationals punching and kicking old men and women on the ground is the second they should have been escalating force. No, lightly tapping a dude sucker punching a woman on the ground with a baton on the back is not good enough. Sorry, but it simply isn't. I've been beaten worse in fucking training scenarios as the protestor.

Again, the real issue here to me is the lackidasical way in which the DCPD responded. IF they were afraid to enforce the law outside of the embassy there is a _much_ bigger problem here than people are talking about. The same thing works for Americans in embassies abroud. They have a close relationship with and work with the host countries police and other forces... but they are notoriously well trained to not engage beyond embassy perimiter unless absolutely necessary. The fact that you think we should be afraid to enforce the law on Turkish nationals outside but close to their embassy says to me that if you are right, that embassy needs to be shut down, but in general I think you are wrong.

Now, I'm not a cop. I used to be a knuckle-dragging door-kicker, not a fat mall cop like most of the pd in the video look like. I don't know exactly what the pd's _should_ have done, but I do know what they did _wasn 't it_.

To put it another way. If American DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) showed up in England escorting Trump near the new US embassy, and the DSS rushed British protestors and just start fucking them up, I would fully support and expect the Brits to have arrested every single one, wait for diplomatic immunity to be verified (or not), and then proceed accordingly (persona-non-grata for those with, arrest and charge for those without). What I would not expect is to just let DSS walk back to _their_ embassy as if they hadn't broken a dozen laws.

<comment><USER34> I think that the police should protect Americans in these sorts of situations, but in this case they were just plain outnumbered and outgunned. Our police are not all-powerful and sometimes they can be taken by surprise and find themselves at a tactical disadvantage. I expect police to do dangerous things in the course of their job, but I don't expect them put themselves into a situation of near-certain death. I don't know what their training is, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of their guidelines for escalating violence is don't do if you're probably going to be on the losing end of that exchange.

The thing that bugs me isn't the police response, it's that there seems to have been no consequences for the Turkish embassy or our relationship with Turkey. Maybe a row of tanks parked on the lawn would have been needlessly dramatic, but at least it would have sent a clear message and escalated force in such a way that Erdogan's security forces would have been at a tactical disadvantage.

So far it seems the Trump administration's response is that this was just a normal day (and we're left with the general impression that there may have been a few fist-bumps and high-fives in private).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why no charges? (Diplomatic immunity?)

Also, law abiding US citizens can barely get the government's permission to exercise their 2nd amendment rights in Washington, how do foreign body guards manage that?

</comment><comment><USER36> I guess it's no longer viable to go to protests unarmed.

Good to know.

<comment><USER35> A good thought, and in most states, it would be your Constitutional right to do so. However, carrying a weapon is likely to attract additional attention and there's a good chance you'd wind up dead. You're going against a foreign military trained force, and they're probably not used to seeing a normal citizen exercise their civil liberties in such a way. I think peaceful assembly is probably the best approach, and leaving immediately if anyone (protestor or police) incites violence.

<comment><USER20> I am Turkish by origin, but have been living in USA for 7 years.

I could vouch for the fact that it would make them feel threatened. They are definitely not aware of civil liberties and constitutional rights. Heck, they don't even know or understand what freedom of speech is.

<comment><USER35> Welcome :) we're glad you're here

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I hate to be that guy, but what's going on with that website? On my iPhone It scroll beyond the title. It keeps jumping back to the top immediately.

<comment><USER38> Same on mobile chrome, in mobile or desktop mode. Very frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Regardless of the state department, the protestors should sue and the US can freeze assets here.

<comment><USER40> Even if suing the Turkish government is found impractical, they should definitely sue the thugs who have business interests in USA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not sure what it's doing on HN, but this is a really nice piece of journalism, well worth checking out even if you're not interested in the subject matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured because it was a fairly in-depth analysis of the footage, it was worth posting to the HN community. I'm glad you found it interesting.

<comment><USER27> I found the reading and especially watching experience to be sub par on the iphone. No way to pause/rewind the clips, no complete videos to review, just carefully prepared "analysis" for digestion in a certain way.

<comment><USER42> > I found the reading and especially watching experience to be sub par on the > iphone.

Don't complain to the NYT, go complain at Apple. It's Apple's fault that in mid-2017, there is STILL no way for inline videos in ordinary HTML5 web sites.

But, I admit, there's one single huge advantage: iOS devices are not hit with sometimes dozens of megabytes of traffic due to news sites auto- loading/playing videos, or worse, ad videos...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sea salt around the world is contaminated by plastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/sea-salt-around-world-contaminated-by-plastic-studies <comment><USER2> >"Detectable levels of [the plastic] bisphenol A have been found in the urine of 95% of the adult population of the United States."

This implies to me that the plastic seems to not be biologically available, and passes through unaltered. Unless of course there is a large disparity in bisphenol in vs out. That could be one thing to attempt to find whether or not we are putting ourselves at risk.

I am not a medical expert though.

The thing that makes me most upset about all the noise about microplastics is that, for a lot of them anyway, they were completely unnecessary. They were often added to cleansing products as an exfoliant, completely ignoring the fact that sand is a fairly functional abbrasive, and silica has been used to that effect in toothpaste for quite some time.

And yet people bought into it in droves.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some of your favorite documentaries? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I like documentaries where there isn't much narration/interviewing going on. They are also short.

Primitive Technology

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA)

I think this guy is most of HN's silent hero.

Two documentaries on working class skills approaching a true art form.

Ben's Mill

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJbRHO76s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJbRHO76s)

Sadly only part is available unless you pay a few thousand dollars. It is really good though. It's a guy using the raw power of water to create wooden objects for local farmers.

Glas

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAYh0f1CPuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAYh0f1CPuc)

A Dutch documentary on glass making in the '50s.

Three made for Television documentary series are:

James Burke's Connections. This is the first episode.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4tLYYXDg74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4tLYYXDg74)

This series had an enormous influence on many of HN's older hackers. History, Technology, Philosophy, it's all there. One of the best television series I've seen, and I'm a millennial so it isn't just nostalgia. It is smart.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos. This is so famous I assume you've already watched it. Carl is scientist and poet. The recent adaption is a fair effort but the original is by far the best.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YgBXLUSsmg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YgBXLUSsmg)

Lord Kenneth Clarke's Civilization (1969!). This is the favorite documentary of many Western conservatives and reactionaries because it doesn't constantly caveat, qualify or diminish the history of The West. It is not shy about showing wickedness as well as greatness but nor is it politically correct.

Before I watched this it was quite hard to fully grasp the motivations of the right wing. After watching it I came to the view we have narrowed our view to a chronocentric interpretation of reality. This shows the grand sweep of history, which is admirable even if you don't agree with its worldview for political reasons.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDm4Sl6CdYU&list=PLFYDyLgHrF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDm4Sl6CdYU&list=PLFYDyLgHrFHC_YIf7cs9-HpCb6WIBHm1R)

<comment><USER3> I've never heard that about Civilization! I like it because it's just fun and interesting to watch. Some episodes are inspiring in a way, particularly the Renaissance and 18th century ones.

FWIW I'm not right wing and I'm a US/West minority (Hispanic). No problem with the language or topics in the series.

<comment><USER2> Glad to hear it!

A school history class doesn't give you a sense of the spirit of the times the way Clarke or Burke do. This may sound elitist but when I hear my own generation (millennial) talk about the past I feel like I'm hearing an aural caricature.

Unfortunately you'll notice all my examples of excellent documentary making are unusually old examples of television.

I suspect that between advertisers demand and a culture uncomfortable with bold or frankly even nuanced ideas you just cannot make good television for a large audience.

Adam Curtis for example still makes interesting documentaries from a centrist political perspective but he is notable precisely because he is rare. I think "Curtis and then who?".

Many geeks I assume, have gotten rid of their televisions for that reason.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Offers Free License To Patented Atom Based APIs Extensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.betadaily.com/2008/04/02/google-offers-free-license-to-patented-atom-based-apis-extensions/

<comment><USER2> Nice to see they're doing the ethically right (and financially prudent) thing on this one.</comment>


RFC 8799: Limited Domains and Internet Protocols - <AUTHOR> https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8799.txt <comment><USER2> More legible formats:

[https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8799.html](https://www.rfc- editor.org/rfc/rfc8799.html)

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8799](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8799)

<comment><USER3> HTML is more "legible" than text.

Is this a widely-held opinion?

<comment><USER4> I believe so (as long as there is no insane styling issues), aside for the monospace font being somewhat annoying to read (compared to a serif), on mobile devices one would need to zoom and scroll back and forth to read it with a reasonable font size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ELI5 please?

<comment><USER6> This time, I agree - this is very abstract, and reading the summary, intro and some details, I don't know what concrete problem is being solved.

<comment><USER7> It might be related to: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/ripe-opposes-chinas- internet-p...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/ripe-opposes-chinas-internet- protocols-upgrade-plan/)

<comment><USER8> Hahaha, that one could very well be adopted faster than IPv6 if that ever happens. Apart from this, this shouldn't be a a laughing matter.

Such a feature could be used for filtering based on origin, protocol and destination. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It depends on what is being filtered and the reason.

The risk here is that mainstream protocols could appear with the assumption that they won't be filtered across domains. Censorship-resistant protocols should make sure they wouldn't be filtered across domains due to this (basing them on https should be fine for the foreseeable future).

"Luckilly", company networks are sometimes worse than countries that censor the net. With such prevalent censorship, developers are incentivized to develop censorship-resistant protocols.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It was fun to read... but though they can go in hell with their "remote accesses"...

I meant fun as digging network by the CS side...

Sincerely am wondering what's the purpose of such document...</comment>


Formerly secret report details the triumphs and setbacks of the Lunokhod-2 robot - <AUTHOR> https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/time-soviet-moon-rover-refused-stop-180967884/ <comment><USER2> I grew up reading about Lunokhod. The rover shape itself always looked funny to me for some reason. Oh and I still like to troll people about how the Russians went to the moon 10 years before the Americans.

The missions to Venus are also relatively unknown: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera). Though, I've seen more articles here about it recently.</comment>


Our First Principles - <AUTHOR> http://contentsmagazine.com/articles/our-first-principles/

<comment><USER2> Great find. I'm really interested in the way they've focused on content strategies that are honest not for manipulation.</comment>


Zuckerberg: Amazon and Apple Are Allies And Google Build their own Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20111107/zuckerberg-says-amazon-and-apple-are-allies-while-google-building-their-own-little-version-of-facebook/

<comment><USER2> There is no question about it - FB will own the social layer for the foreseeable future.

The question is, how will this affect people and what actions, if any, should society take as a whole in turn?

Personally - I have never had an FB account - and do not think I ever will. Will my kids? Most assuredly, though my 7-yo is not allowed until she is much older. The other is far too young...

I'd rather my kids spend time outside, in swim class, hiking, chasing bugs etc...

I know all too well what it is to spend too much time on computers. I have been in front of a computer nearly every single day since 3rd grade. I am nearly 40.

I have spent time away from computers, and the internet, but being a silicon valley native and veteran - both my professional life and personal entertainment/educational life have been spent online (I do not watch TV nor subscribe to cable TV - all entertainment comes from inet) - and certain aspects of the quality of my life have suffered. However -- I can say that the singular most important reason I want to keep my kids off facebook is the fact that I dont want them to think that all of their social interactions, tracking, story-telling etc should come from a singular source/portal.

I have never needed FB to connect to anyone. Nobody _needs_ FB to connect to another human, and I certainly don't want my kids thinking that it is a _requirement_ for social presence/community.</comment>


Deliberate Practice and the Senior Developer - <AUTHOR> https://renanmf.com/deliberate-practice-and-the-senior-developer/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if I like the conciseness or if I'm leaning more towards "that's all?"</comment>


I've got an idea for a startup - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea for a startup but I'm not sure how I would actually go about implementing it in a technical sense to beta, on a minimal budget and within a short time period.
The other consideration I have is sharing my idea with a technical guru who could potentially advise me on some of the best practices and relevant technologies. Though without an NDA in place (and a realistic way to enforce it), I am somewhat reluctant to divulge and lose any advantages as an innovator.
Is there a way to get around this? i.e. getting some technical guidance versus confidentiality and maintaining control. <comment><USER2> Howard Aiken said it best: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

There are two passive modes of control over your ideas that you can deploy that won't be taken as signs of "paranoid crackpot syndrome": patent rights and copyright.

Patent rights do cost (particularly if you're broke like many startuppers) and they set a process in motion you have to keep up with (commitments to financially support your patent in upcoming years or lose rights to it), but they make for an effective deterrent to some. They also give investors warm fuzzies, particularly if you sound like you know what you're doing when it comes to the filing process.

Copyrights are free and easy. If you have a powerpoint or whitepaper, simply stick your © dingbat, year, and name on every page. Your first level of audience will still be able to take your idea and run with it, but it becomes a violation of copyright law to distribute the copyrighted work (or iterations thereof) further without your consent.

The kids who cheated off you in high school by and large have found other, less productive things to do with their lives than try and steal your thunder.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's what I posted to a similar question a few days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3703195>

Bottom line is, most people agree that _ideas are cheap_ and that its incredibly rare that keeping them to yourself is worth it, especially as you won't be able to get input from people in your target market and won't be able to talk to potential customers and early adopters. This will cripple market validation and early adaptation to your customers needs. Few successful ideas stay static.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I think I simply have to take the plunge and "trust" someone capable.

<comment><USER3> I know how hard it can be to share an idea you really believe in - even though I know better, it still sometimes happens to me.

Ironically, the ideas I thought had the biggest need for secrecy are also the ones that others did actually do too, completely independently from me. You may think that it was a good thing I kept them secret, or these other people would have been able to work on the same idea even quicker, but I now firmly believe the opposite to be true: if I had shared the idea and talked to people, I could have got advice or even help to make my version better or complete it faster. The other people were going to make their version regardless, so I may as well get as much help and advice as possible, right? Plus if I have my idea out in the public, it could prove valuable as prior art should the other people attempt to patent their version, while having kept the idea secret, I'm now completely at their mercy.

Also, people not already invested in an idea (usually because they didn't come up with it themselves) are very unlikely to _steal_ it. Even if they do, you just need to make sure you can adapt to the market needs. I've heard stories of startup ideas being copied, but the copies not being able to adapt quickly enough to the market because the people who copied them don't have the same drive and vision as the people who had the idea in the first place.</comment></comment></comment>


I just got kicked out of the Apple iOS dev program - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone else ever been kicked out of the program? <comment><USER2> Did Apple give you a reason why, if so can you share?

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely must be a reason why?</comment>


PHP script to backup MySQL on Mega - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paulomanrique/MySQLBackupMegaCoNZ This is a simple PHP script, that dumps a MySQL database in Gzip and upload it on Mega.co.nz service.<p>Since I'm new to open source, I'd like to hear your thoughts, improvements and stuff. <comment><AUTHOR> This is a simple PHP script, that dumps a MySQL database in Gzip and upload it on Mega.co.nz service.

Since I'm new to open source projects I'd like to hear your thoughts, what can be improved, etc.

<comment><USER2> So you copied code that reimplements RSA into your script... why not just call something that's already available? (for example that pear package itself)

IV filled with 0s? Probably doesn't matter that much in this case, but... are you sure?

$comando - that's not English.

Regarding usability of this script: there are two libraries hiding in that file. One for RSA and one for interaction with mega service. Why not make them separate and reusable?

Also there's no usage instruction. Which variables need to be filled in? Is $master_key a global setting, or something used internally? Moving settings to a separate file (just import config.php for example) would make this much more clear.

Finally, you cannot just slap a new license on this code and put it in public domain. Most of the code comes from [http://julien-marchand.fr/blog/using-the- mega-api-with-php-e...](http://julien-marchand.fr/blog/using-the-mega-api- with-php-examples/) and the RSA bits come from Pear package which is licensed under the PHP license. If you keep them separate, you can put your own code in public domain though.

But if it all works... good! You made the first step and that counts :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your insight, I'll work on fixing this as soon as possible. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Questions asked at Y Combinator interviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightjourney.com/q/questions-asked-ycombinator-interview

<comment><USER2> These seem great to answer by yourself too.</comment>


Help Please. Python Programmer to PHP? Is it possible? - <AUTHOR>

I just moved to a new country and looking for a job. I am a Python programmer, more than 5 years experience in various web programming. I also quite good in Javascript, C, SQL, CSS, HTML, etc. The problem is that most jobs here require PHP. I know that I can transfer my experience to PHP given 1-2 weeks, but employers does not seem to believe me. Can you give me suggestions on how to convince them? If you believe they are right, kindly share me your thoughts. Please help me figure this out. <comment><USER2> Do some demo apps. Say you care more about company culture and development process than the stack. I recently made a similar move, although I had some PHP experience, it was many years-old and not really suitable to be cited as a skill any longer. If you burn up the 1-2 weeks on your own time, then you can commit to hitting the ground running without them having to spend that time "training" you.

Also, job hunting sucks. Keep at it, you'll make it work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure. I've programmed PHP for the last 8 years, and C/C++ for 18 years before that. A few months back I picked up Python in about 5 days, dabbling part time. Django on top of Python took another day or two.

I now consider myself an advanced Python developer. It's actually much easier than PHP, but the lack of curly braces, and strict adherence to MVC were my initial hurdles.

I can't imagine going back to PHP at this point, even though everything I did in PHP was highly object oriented.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thanks for all the comments, i find it very encouraging. however, i have a follow-up question. most of the companies here are quite formal in their requirements, they are not quite satisfied with sample codes, demo applications, etc. Most of them honors a certificate over an actual demonstration of programming capabilities. I came across this online course, [http://www.zend.com/en/services/training/course- catalog/php-...](http://www.zend.com/en/services/training/course-catalog/php- for-experienced-programmers). Its quite expensive but i have a feeling that completing it might make it easier to convince prospective employers. What do you think of this option? Honestly, i really feel out of place here, its kinda tiring always trying to convince people that your worth something.</comment>