Ask HN: Are Reddit comments being manipulated? - <AUTHOR> I have recently noticed a pattern on some specific subreddits, in particular r/Canada and r/Toronto, that suggest its comment upvote and downvote features are possibly being manipulated.
It has happened to me more than one occasion now that my comment to a topic would initially receive some upvotes at the beginning, then it continues to receive steady upvotes over a timespan of 5 to 6 hours which suggest these were all coming from real users. Then all of a sudden my comment would receive a series of downvotes come flooding in, all occurred within a timespan of just minutes, effectively rendering its voting count to negative. These comments were almost always related to topics about current government policies.
The first couple of times this happened, I didn't pay much attention and just assumed people were ignorant to what I said. Then one day I happened to click on one of the users who replied mocking my comment. I found out this user only posted all their replies exclusively in r/Canada and nowhere else. The history and content of this person's comments clearly suggests he/she is a government employee. Everything suddenly makes sense to me that there's a real possibility that the upvote/downvote mechanism on these particular subreddits are being manipulated.
One thing to point out is that I've never experienced this anywhere outside of r/Canada and r/Toronto, and it occurred almost exclusively in comments related to government. The pattern doesn't quite make sense to me, how could a comment receive steady upvotes within a timespan of a few hours and then suddenly got flooded with downvotes within minutes? It's almost as if the comment got flagged, then someone reviewed and decided that the comment needs to be struck down, and activated the downvote bots to do its job.
What do you think HN? I'm posting this here to avoid any influences by the invisible forces behind reddit. <comment><USER2> I stopped using Reddit because their API is too open. It allows bots to comment/post/upvote/downvote and I realized I could no longer tell what was organic anymore. This could extend to large networks of bots that are there solely to change opinions. Things seemed too weird, certain __brand new __political subreddits appeared out of nowhere with 26,000+ votes making it to the front page with ease. I even noticed some trends /patterns in local city subreddits as well from shady subreddit owners. After being on there for 6+ years, it all just seemed a tool to change and influence opinions inorganically unless all you visit are highly curated hobby subreddits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback. I'm considering leaving it too. Reddit has become too popular and too prone to manipulation at this point. I found people often hold back what they want to say, in order to appear as politically correct for karma points. The moment someone has the courage or authenticity to speak up their mind they'll get downvoted to oblivion. Lucky I'll always have HN and Slashdot to visit instead.

<comment><USER2> I find Reddit to be on the level of 4chan now. Not in the rude/vulgar/disgusting way, but in how low quality its content and users are. It's totally unbearable unless like I said you are in select niche curated hobby subreddits. The highly public subreddits are disasters of political correctness and 60's-like red scare propaganda blaming Russia on everything. Today I peeked at the hurricane forums and saw people blaming Hurricane Florence on Russian-made propaganda. WTF? People don't communicate in a natural way on Reddit anymore. It's certainly changed enormously since I got there 6-8 years ago.

Hacker News is infinitely higher quality than Reddit at this point, and I'm glad I came here. It changed a lot about how I see others on the internet and how I debate, all in a beneficial and positive way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Absolutely this happens and for a variety of reasons. It's technical term is brigading. It doesn't have to be government-backed, just a group or sub-group banding together in a 'brigade' to downvote comments.

Two things to caveat this though -

1) Reddit is a public forum with relatively low barriers to entry. As such you should take anything that happens on it with a pinch of salt. The popularity of a comment indicated by its score is not a true indication of its popularity, simply popularity of people who have seen it and bothered to click an up or down vote, plus it's more than open to abuse.

2) You have a single data point of evidence, plus a gut feeling through some observations. You're not doing anything wrong by questioning this, quite the opposite, but keep track of your own objectivity. Don't let the observed pattern turn into a conspiracy theory before you've determined how you've tried to falsify your own assertions and gather more evidence.

NB - I think you meant "pattern" not "patent"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for introducing me to "brigading", I wasn't aware of such term.

I'm not the type of person who believes in coincidence, especially when such events require many variables to occur at the same time. These events have happened on more than two to three occasions now so I strongly believe there're credible evidences there. I'll keep observing and monitoring it, but it's likely I won't be staying on Reddit much longer, it just seems too easy to abuse and manipulate this platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is quite common. I knew a guy who had army of 10 sock puppets. I think he had automatized the process because those votes came with minutes. He had a mental problem of some sort, because when the discussion come to heated, those sock puppets started to analyze mental health of participants with large variety of issues, from psychosis to pedophilia. Worst part was that he was also a moderator of that subreddit with 100000 subscribers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems likely but I don't subscribe to r/Canada or r/Toronto so I dunno. Also I'm not a scientist or anything I'm just a Reddit user who says it seems likely so don't quote me here.</comment>


MIT cube robots can self-assemble - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-mit-block-self-assembling-robots-cubes-terminator-20131004,0,4903811.story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqjFa4RskA#t=165 <comment><AUTHOR> You can see additional video on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqjFa4RskA#t=165](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqjFa4RskA#t=165)</comment>


Labour pledges free broadband for all homes and firms in UK - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/14/labour-pledges-free-broadband-for-all-homes-and-businesses-in-uk <comment><USER2> The history of Internet provision "for all" in the UK is atrocious. Massive government handouts followed by private companies that had lobbied for them failing to meet their promises is a summary.

I can't see a nationalisation resolving the issues though, especially not with the paltry numbers being bandied around.

I could see better regulation and forced separation of concerns achieving a lot however.

That said, Internet issues are not the major problem of our times. These issues are a distraction from those of first past the post voting and a collapse in journalistic quality.

<comment><USER3> > Massive government handouts followed by private companies that had lobbied > for them failing to meet their promises is a summary.

That's basically it. OpenReach is the Network Rail of ADSL. Often Openreach would take millions of subsidy for rural broadband buildouts and then do .. nothing.

While I think nationalisation may be a step too far, I think it's useful to move the conversation away from endless privatised failure. If nothing else has worked, let's try threatening Openreach until service improves.

<comment><USER4> >That's basically it. >If nothing else has worked, let's try threatening Openreach until service improves.

That is basically NOT it and issuing random threats to incumbent telcos, whilst contemporaneously empowering them is definitely not the solution. The shameless politicking does not address how to fund the empty promises. The article in essence is debating whether or not, Labour (2030) vs Cons (2025) pledge of "full-fibre Broadband" is a plausible one ie. the former is offering free access to the walking dead, and the latter shamelessly targeting it's base minority of curtain twitching shires, and neither of these parties know how to solve the wider and complex implications of engaging with businesses or how to implement any technical plans.

 _Meanwhile the idea of nationalising Openreach (BT) under public ownership is a much more complicated issue (i.e. its impact upon pensions, the question of who takes on BT's massive debt pile (the public?), shareholders, competition etc.) and one that is likely to result in plenty of legal challenges (this could hamper the fibre rollout until settled). Not to mention a lengthy debate over whether that by itself would result in a better market._

[https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/11/2020-labour- pa...](https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/11/2020-labour-party- pegs-20bn-to-deploy-free-full-fibre-for-all.html)

<comment><USER5> This is a well researched policy based on the government's own analysis. I know people familiar with the current policy framework and (despite not being Corbyn fans) they think this is a good idea.

<comment><USER4> Ah, yes, of course, the super-secret 'CuRrEnT FrAmEwOrK PoLiCy' which you can't link to or share? By attributing any authority to what is essentially a loose collection of a government's ambitions, aspirations, pipe dreams and a random wish list of sorts, is rather fanciful, to say the least. The current talk of full-fibre broadband is just a manifesto pledge, which has already been downgraded to _upto_ 'Gigabit broadband' by the Tories. This rhetoric is reminiscent of 'information superhighway/superfast broadband' buzzwords from the previous decades to capture urban/rural votes. Similarly, there are no detailed plans available on how it will be implemented or how any of this going to get funded ─ which could cost over £30 billion; then the Labour party are pledging to give it all away for free?!? In the absence of any hard facts, putting stock in any of these words uttered by someone, who knows somebody else, who then conducted some research and everybody thought it was a jolly good idea ─ rings alarm bells and means forgoing privacy in return for something perceived to be 'free', yet still being majority funded by the taxpayer.

I will leave you with the USO [Universal Service Obligation] from DCMS (Dept. for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport) as an amuse bouche on delusions of grandeur.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/696490/USO_consultation_government_response_28_March_FINAL.pdf)

<comment><USER5> By "current policy framework", I meant the way things are working right now. The person I was referring to has been involved with policy making all over the UK, and knows a great deal about the subject. I believe you misinterpreted this as "labour's detailed plans." Just wanted to make that clear.

If you'd have been civil, I would have been happy to ask my contact for appropriate reading and share them with you. As it is, I feel even responding is giving a nasty troll too much of my time.

<comment><USER4> Firstly, I apologise sincerely, if you felt in anyway whatsoever, that I was being uncivil. Secondly, it is extremely unfair to label someone a 'nasty troll', when they have diligently provided official sources as a basis to conduct a conversation from, versus hearsay.

Last but not least, I accept your offer of sharing the views of your legitimate contact and a source, which can be used to confirm what you say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Free in this context is that everyone who already pays for broadband will still pay for it through increased taxes.

<comment><USER7> I mean, that's how the NHS works and we generally pay less for that than Americans do for their healthcare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since there are multiple competing fibre companies, won't nationalising one company and offering "the fastest fibre free to all" bankrupt all of the other companies?

<comment><USER9> And it would lead to everybody having the fastest fibre for free. What is wrong with bankrupting companies that aren't needed anymore?

<comment><USER10> At a guess, I would hazard the thousands of people who would become unemployed? And not all be able to immediately go and work for the 'British Broadband Corporation'? That's one negative side effect.

<comment><USER11> By that logic, we should ban the internet altogether, and thus create more jobs for postal workers.

<comment><USER10> No, that's incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well BT is available in all areas in the UK except for Kingston-Upon-Hull which has it's own broadband provider called KCOM which is enjoys a complete monopoly in the area with the city having fibre-optic in all areas.

I wonder if this policy that given that it creates free-access to the internet but in the end it also creates a huge monopoly similar to KCOM that kills competition with the added bonus of only the biggest earners footing the bill + taxes dramatically rise due to this. As for the competition, Labour is fine for bankrupting them and what happens if the FAANG companies cannot pay any more or start to relocate due to other economic events such as Brexit, financial crash, etc? How will they continue to fund this initiative?

The astronomical cost of this on the tax-payer and with the current UK economical uncertainty due to Brexit makes this sound hopelessly utopian for a Labour Government to implement I'm afraid.

<comment><USER13> "astronomical cost of this on the tax-payer" is absurd. Who's having costs go up significantly as a result of free internet service being provided? You already have to pay for internet from a private provider, if you replace that with government-operated internet your internet is funded by taxes - but the government can tax corporations instead of individuals to avoid raising direct costs for any individual taxpayer, which they're doing!

<comment><USER14> Everyone's costs are going to go up significantly as a result of replacing broadband that mostly uses existing infrastructure with a program of ripping up every street in the country and installing new fibre optic connections to every house. Making it "free" and taxpayer-funded just means that there's no way to opt out of paying if the existing broadband is fast enough.

<comment><USER13> This program isn't "taxpayer funded". It's funded specifically by taxing tech companies, as is literally stated right below the headline in the article.

<comment><USER5> And it should be added than ultimately the tech companies will benefit most from this: larger markets for streaming and other services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> EU has just approved Irelands National Broadband Plan, which has been characterized by delays and beaurucracy since it's inception.

[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/broadband- tim...](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/broadband-timeline-how- did-we-get-here-1.4084052)

It hopes to connect .5 million rural homes (private ISPs won't touch them generally) for about €3 Billion Euro over the next few years.

It's insightful to compare the two approaches.

<comment><USER16> In Ireland we're still in the let's privatise everything phase that the UK went through in the 80s. It's now falling out of favour in the UK.

They're trying to connect every home in rural Ireland at great cost even through research found that only a fraction will take it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> porn and VPN (to allow unfiltered internet) is charged extra though!

<comment><USER9> That's a Tory policy. Let's hope a Labour Government would also get rid of that.

<comment><USER18> > _Let 's hope a Labour Government would also get rid of that_

No forethought to what a future Tory government would do after the nation's infrastructure are put under direct governmental control?

<comment><USER9> So the reason not to vote for Labour is that the Tories are too evil and can't be trusted?

<comment><USER19> The reason to avoid (ostensibly good Labour) government overreach is that you can't trust the Tories when they're in power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would nationalising the broadband provider remove a barrier to increased surveillance?

<comment><USER21> It would probably remove barriers to censorship. Both main parties are reasonably hostile to free speech but Labour (or it's supporters) seem to me to be more hostile to "fake news" etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "free"

okay but where does the money come from?

<comment><USER23> >BT would be part nationalised under £20bn scheme funded by new tax on tech companies

I would suggest reading the article, even the subheadline right where your eyes first focus had you even opened the link.

<comment><USER24> Consumers will pay, and not only the direct ones but all people through inflated prices same as with oil taxes. The funny part is those marxists already know how much they will steal - 20bn and 'scheme' is a new word for theft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe scrap HS2 and spend the money on this instead? Seems a better use of however many billion we're up to and would probably make more of a difference...

<comment><USER26> Why suddenly giving 100% of Britain 100mbs BB wont do much for the national productivity.

That money would be better spent else where, better vocational training - Rebuilding the countries ability to say be able to make its own pistol or rifle

Can you see the spending round where the Postmaster General competing against the other departments for more funding for police or the NHS vs subsidising BB.

<comment><USER5> I think you can 10x that bandwidth from what I hear.

<comment><USER26> For every subscriber I think not

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So a few things to note on this:

This isn't an entirely new idea. BT was privatised in the 1980s, and before that had been run as a government department, and later as part of the Post Office, a public company but still under the control of the Government. At that early stage, the UK had some of the best internet infrastructure in the world, and had plans to roll out FTTH. Then Thatcher became PM, privatised BT, cancelled the fibre rollout plans, and encouraged more competition in the hopes that would improve investment. Well, 30 years later and we still have < 10% FTTH coverage. (Source: [https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/world-of- tech/how-the-uk-l...](https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/world-of-tech/how-the- uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784))

Internet infrastructure is in weird state here. Thanks to BT's legacy as a public/nationalised company, they still own the vast majority of infrastructure and cables. This was sort of spun out into a separate company (Openreach) to BT the ISP, but they are widely considered inefficient and disinterested in improving the infrastructure, and they're still a subsidiary of BT. In theory this move was to increase competition, but it hasn't done a lot. There's only one major ISP (Virgin) that truly competes with BT, built their own infrastructure, and ran their own cables, almost every other ISP just leases the lines from Openreach and sells their own services on top of that.

I tend to agree that nationalising Openreach (the infrastructure and cables) is a good idea, to increase internet speeds and coverage across the country - rural areas tend to have very slow speeds as it's not in the interests of BT and Virgin to improve the infrastructure for a handful of customers in that area. I'm not so convinced that providing free high speed fibre internet connections to everyone is a necessity or a good use of government money. I feel like nationalising Openreach but keeping the existing model of ISPs building services on top of the infrastructure makes sense, and public infrastructure would reducing the costs of leasing those lines, a saving that could hopefully be passed on to customers. I'm not sure how this would affect companies like Virgin who do own their own infrastructure though, would they then be competing with the government?

There's of course a privacy concern to the government owning the internet infrastructure too. While the UK government has already had some pretty draconian policies, and they can force ISPs to comply, they've struggled to implement some of their more "ambitious" censorship policies, in part due to it being difficult to get all of the ISPs to come to an agreement on how to implement them. If the government owns the infrastructure, it's easier for them to implement surveillance and censorship at a lower level, harder to circumvent with VPNs and the like. Internet surveillance and censorship are generally policies of the Conservative party, rather than the Labour party who are proposing this, so I don't think there's any malicious intent with this proposal, but if a left wing government nationalises the internet this year, what's to stop a right wing government of the future using this new found control to implement stronger surveillance/censorship in 5 years?

All in all, I'm on the fence about this policy, although I do think some steps in this direction would be positive. And if you've been paying any attention to British politics in the last few years, you'd know there's even more complexities that what I mentioned here.

</comment><comment><USER28> They couldn't put out a worse message.

I very much support their search for an alternative to monetarism (surely now completely discredited), the inevitable gross inequality of pure capitalism, the failure of markets to deliver good societies, and so on, but this just reeks of a return to "old socialism".

</comment><comment><USER29> Calling it now: not happening. Just like half of their current election promises.

Doubling down on predictions: Labour loses.

<comment><USER30> Why such bad grammar?

<comment><USER29> It's getting cold in Moscow

<comment><USER21> If Labour gets in I hope they use the nationalised internet to block russian fake news!

We need a firewall to protect us from Tory and Trump's friends

(Satire, but not far from the party line as Labour supporters also cry fake news these days)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> When will people understand nothing is free. There will be no true equality until we're all equally poor.. that is until free energy / replicators, Star trek technology.

<comment><USER32> Even in Star Trek, there were admirals, and there were ensigns. There were First Chancellor of the Planet, and common folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is not a good idea. We are very close to having a competitive market for broadband in the UK. Efficient markets are better than central government planning.

What's needed is some light regulation to push the market towards being fully competitive.</comment>


Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html <comment><USER2> > 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed > at which experienced parachutists land.

This is of course being a little silly, but it does get the physics wrong. Your energy is proportional to the square of your speed, so you have 25x more energy to dissipate at 120 mph, not 5x. Even if your five point landing was perfect, each of the five 'hits' is the equivalent of a landing at just under 60 mph, not 24.

<comment><USER3> My intuition rings false on this -- I don't think this is right. In a vacuum, ignoring the rocket equation (that is, assuming ejected reaction mass is negligible compared to projectile mass), the energy required to produce the 120 -> 96 mph change is the same as that required to go from 24 -> 0\. This works out in conservation of energy because the ejected mass has kinetic energy of its own.

In the case of you landing, I don't think energy balance is the way to look at it; each of the collisions that slows you down will transfer some energy to the ground. In terms of force, the force is dependent only on the acceleration, so it comes down to how long each impact lasts. If each "bounce" or "thud" lasts the same amount of time (I don't know if this is realistic) then each one will transfer 1/5th of the force, as the article says.

<comment><USER4> Your intuition is wrong.

Potential energy is linear with height. AKA it takes the same energy to climb from floor 1 to 2 as 2 to 3.

Gravity is 32 feet per second per second aka you gain speed over time. In a vacuum 0 to 32 feet per second takes 1 second, 32 to 64 feet per second takes 1 seconds, 64 to 96 takes 1 second etc.

However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38 feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes more energy to increase your speed.

PS: What's confusing about rockets, is your fuel has momentum. So, when use it your consuming the energy it took to get that fuel up to speed with you. Further, at low speed most of the energy goes into the exhaust not the rocket.

<comment><USER5> >However, in the first second you fall 16 feet. in the next second you fall 38 feet because you where falling at the start of that second. Thus, it takes more energy to increase your speed...

Doesn't make sense. Care to explain? Are you saying it takes less energy to take an object from 0 to 10m/s than it requires to take it from 10m/s to 20m/s?

<comment><USER6> That's exactly correct. Consider the equation for kinetic energy:

        E = 1/2 m*v^2

The energy to go from 0-10 m/s is the difference in this value (for 1kg e.g.):

        dE = E1 - E0 = 1/2(10^2) - 1/2(0^2) = 50J

To go from 10m/s to 20m/s:

        dE = E2 - E1 = 1/2(20^2) - 1/2(10^2) = 200 - 50 = 150J

In fact by solving for velocity you can figure out what happens if you put another 50J into your object that's already going 10m/s:

        v = sqrt(2*E) = sqrt(200) = 14.1m/s

When you double the energy, you only get 1.4 times the speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recall the advice of Jack Handey [1] [2]:

> "If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe > you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free > dummy."

[1] [http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/](http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/)

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

<comment><USER8> SENATOR Jack Handey

<comment><USER9> ..? Jack Handey != Al Franken

<comment><USER10> Without checking the interweb, isn't Stuart Smalley == Al Franken?

<comment><USER11> Al Franken - Real person, writer and cast member on SNL, Senator.

Stuart Smalley - Character played by Al Franken.

Jack Handey - Real person, writer on SNL, did Deep Thoughts voiceovers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed > at which experienced parachutists land.

Better yet, just put your hands in front of you and land on all ten fingers. Then it's only 12mph. /s

In reality your entire body is moving at 120mph, so you can't divide the forces in this manner. This a PSI problem. Total inertia distributed over a given area. And the results are much less favorable.

<comment><USER13> As sfeng describes in another comment, the math isn't right, but the concept does make sense. It doesn't negate what you're saying either though; the 5 point landing is basically a way of distributing the force over as much area as possible. (You can't accomplish the same thing by just landing on your side, because the mass of your body isn't evenly distributed across the surface that would contact the ground.) It does manage to distribute the force over time a bit too, which is also beneficial, but a less significant effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Excellent read. Just a few more pointers from personal experience. When over water, "pencil" your body, feet first, at the very last second. Molecules of atmosphere, which are your friend at 120mph, are not so much when they are of water.

Also the author didn't mention my favorite survivor Juliane Koepcke. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke)

<comment><USER15> I've never been on the offshore survival course where they teach you how to jump off an oil platform into the sea and survive, but allegedly they tell you to cover your mouth firmly with the palm of your hand and pinch your nostrils closed tight between your thumb and fingers. Apparently when you hit the cold water your natural reaction is to breath in. Also, you must prevent water being forced up your nostrils and damaging your brain etc.

<comment><USER16> I tried this on a ~60ft cliff jump and punched myself in the eye. Also got the wind knocked out of me

<comment><USER17> Maybe use your elbow? It's not a perfect cover, but it's impossible to hit yourself.

<comment><USER18> I can't help but think this would get your shoulder dislocated or lats torn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety net

When I was child I used have fun by climbing to the top of conifers behind our house to sit on the highest branch and just slide down

Each successive tiered limb would catch the bend on the ones above and I would slide down perfectly fine

<comment><USER20> Children genuinely are constantly trying to find unique ways to kill themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Speed skiers go over 150mph, versus 120 for a flat-oriented free falling person. It's conceivable that orienting yourself to slide down a groomed black diamond ski run could be a winning strategy, too.

<comment><USER22> Maybe you should target a steep avalanche terrain with fresh snow. Not only you have a hell of a ride while falling down, you get to enjoy a ride in a snowy feather all the way down the valley! Don't forget to mount your GoPro while boarding!

<comment><USER23> >Don't forget to mount your GoPro while boarding!

Man, I wonder if we're going to end up seeing someone's free fall smartphone video someday. Not everyone is going to read this article and be prepared to survive like we now are, so what if they decide to use those couple of minutes falling to try to record a message to their loved ones? The audio would be blown out but I don't see why the camera wouldn't continue working. That would be quite disturbing to watch.

<comment><USER20> Potentially NSFW / terrifying videos:

Multiple gopros record an in-air collision of skydiving planes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY&list=FLR2K9vyQEBb4qUyunijtBHg&index=3&t=2s)

Tangled chute: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIjdvNo65s)

I can't find it but I've seen two more videos of people who have survived near freefall after parachuting accidents. One became a paraplegic IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting that the overall advice here is "Don't Panic"

Also interesting that having a towel could be incredibly useful in this situation.

<comment><USER25> Since we're quoting Doug Adams: "The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Somewhat relevant:

[http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and- woke-...](http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-woke-up-in-a- hospital/)

<comment><USER27> Ouch. Nice move for Americans to fly in France where healthcare is affordable. If you did this in the US as a tourist you'd likely be broke for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER28> Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in a foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that.

This reminds me of college, where sometimes the police would come looking for students who were foreign nationals, because they had gotten credit cards and then racked up huge balances buying stuff, but didn't bother paying the bill. When the creditors tried to have them served, it turned out they had already graduated and left the country. Good luck getting some guy in Indonesia to pay off his US credit card balance. What were these creditors thinking?

<comment><USER29> > Make sure to go back to your home country as fast as possible, and then just > ignore the bills. They'll have a very difficult time collecting on a debt in > a foreign country. Don't come back to the US as a tourist after that.

Actually if you have a credit card, you might have a travel insurance as well. So no need to ignore the bills. And in France it's not like in US where the first thing they ask you is the name of your insurance company, even if you're bleeding to death.

<comment><USER28> >And in France it's not like in US where the first thing they ask you is the name of your insurance company, even if you're bleeding to death.

I was talking about a scenario where a tourist to the US goes to a US hospital and racks up a lot of medical bills.

<comment><USER29> Sure, but it goes both ways, a tourists NEEDS an health insurance to travel to US. I'm pretty sure it's necessary even for those who benefit from the VISA waver program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a training camp for another life.

Hence, all the information learned in this one will be useful at some point in this or another life.

Now I don't know what to do with this information .. I don't want to need it..

And then if fate really leads me to fall from a plane, I will definetely remember this article which will seem infinitely funnier in mid flight.

Heck if I don't hit the ground laughing my ass off !

<comment><USER31> > My personal philosophy admits the fact that this life might just be a > training camp for another life.

Makes me wonder if annihilation is possible in the future life, but not this one.

<comment><USER32> If you live N lives then the chance that this is the first is 1/N. I don't know about you, but I don't remember anything from any previous lives, so it seems to me there's a (N-1)/N chance you don't get to remember anything from previous lives anyway.

<comment><USER33> It could be a question of soul distribution, though; if you can only have one ghost in each machine, and there's the potential for a spacefaring civilization to expand to many, many planets in the future, then it's possible that the 50 or so billion people who have lived since humanity's birth represent only a sliver of a fraction of the total number of souls needed to staff a well-stocked universe. So we could potentially be heavily weighted towards most people being on their first go-around if we have the potential to make it that far and souls or selves or whatever are actually scarce enough to be re-used.

<comment><USER23> No. All of the reality as we know it is just a software bug, with the fix request sitting in some junior developer's project management system. They just haven't gotten around to submitting a pull request yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> A man jumps off a 20 story building. As he passes an open window on the 6th floor, people on the floor hear him exclaim "so far, so good!".

<comment><USER20> I don't get it

<comment><USER35> I suppose it's a quote from La Haine (1995) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/)

> Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each > floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so > good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!

<comment><USER36> I remember hearing it from Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven when I was a kid [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ages ago (early 1980s) I read a magazine article about the minds' adaptation when falling. The article posited that the brain kicks into high gear and time subjectively slows down for the faller, enabling them to take action to save themselves.

The article had several first-hand accounts of people who had fallen off cliffs, wagons, and the like, and one skydiver who survived impact by landing in a muddy ditch. The article was especially interesting since I was a skydiver at the time and all of us jumpers could relate to the feelings described. Not only that, but the one skydiver interviewed had jumped at our drop zone and was known by most of us.

Sadly, I can't remember where the article appeared. I think it was Smithsonian Magazine but I have been unable to locate a reference online. If anyone else locates it, please post.

<comment><USER38> I remember reading about some experiments done on this where the result was that the subjects just remembered the experience in more detail, and didn't actually experience time slower. Something about looking at something that changed just slightly faster than the maximum speed someone can normally see changes in something, while freefalling.

<comment><USER20> That makes sense - high adrenaline causing extremely high resolution for memory write, but later the playback speed on a read is the same, so it seems slower when really it's just more detailed / takes up more tape.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've written a longer, more detailed comment in this thread, but long things are hard to remember so I decided to condense my advice into a paragraph:

Falling from a plane, you have a minute to land after waking up. You can move laterally 2 miles by controlling your body. That gives you 13 sq miles to land. In this order, aim for: snow, swamp, glass skylights, large bushy trees (but not redwoods.) Water is almost guaranteed death. Stay "flat" until right before impact, and move to a standing position. Relax and go completely limp. If you follow this advice your odds are good.

My more detailed comment, with sources/numbers, is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13840660)

<comment><USER40> Glass skylights, really? Not disputing it, but what's your reasoning? Slowing you down while still breaking before you do?

Also, regarding water: while I've heard the standard comment that hitting water can be as bad as hitting concrete, that seems like it would apply more if you have a larger surface area. Divers can dive from 35+ meters, and hit at 60+ mph, without any injury at all. If you are capable of aiming and landing feet-first and remaining as streamlined as possible, would water still be a fatal option?

<comment><USER39> Yeah, glass is actually one of your better bets. Two of the 5-15 survivors of free fall incidents fell through glass roofs. You can read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee)

The problem is that you're hitting water at 120mph. A 60mph impact of a 50kg person is 35kJ; a 120mph impact of a 50kg person is 150kJ. That's 4.5 times the energy. I'd almost certainly choose water (with a streamlined, pencil dive profile) over concrete, but that doesn't mean it's not going to be far more fatal than any other options.

<comment><USER41> Nitpick: doubling the speed should merely quadruple the energy, 4.5x is too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Reading this article brought back memories when I was getting training to go solo skydiving. The first day was all theory and drills in the classroom.

In all my years at school, university lectures, and work-related training workshops, that one day of skydiving class remains the only time in my life when I was 100% completely focussed, awake and attentive for every subject.

</comment><comment><USER43> Having jumped out of many airplanes, I've thought about this and how to survive on occasion. But temperatures at 35k are often like -50 degrees. At 500mph decelerating down to 100mph, it seems like there's a good chance you could become a human snowflake long before you hit the ground. :P

<comment><USER44> A friend of mine once said that if you keep your lips puckered up, and force yourself to breathe through a tiny hole, you increase the air pressure in your mouth and lungs, which is useful at a high altitude. I don't have a thought at this moment how to test this as I sit hear at sea level. Any idea if this is true, or partially true? I didn't see anything about this in a quick Google search.

<comment><USER45> Seems doubtful this would have any significant effect. You can only create about 0.1 bar of overpressure with your lungs on exhale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I had always heard that being unconscious was the key to surviving an extremely long fall (relaxed body doesn't tear itself apart on impact). I can't find the story of a boy who was picked up by a tornado who was tossed out from hundreds of feet and survived without any injuries, it was attributed (in the show I was watching) to his having passed out and that his body was relaxed.

<comment><USER47> I've seen someone fall off a cliff (30m I guess?) and survive. He was drunk.

<comment><USER48> Injuries?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wonder if you could grab the center aisle life raft on the way out. If you could keep it under you after inflating it, not only would it provide more surface area and so a slower terminal velocity but it would also absorb energy when you hit by popping and create a wider deceleration profile so limiting the g-force of the impact.

<comment><USER50> If you're supernaturally calm and skilled, it will also give you more steerability. You might even be so lucky as to be able to aim for a stand of pine!

<comment><USER48> Or an angled snowbank. :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> As a skydiver I would admit that the content of this article is a time-wasting bullshit. Here is a real world scenario:

1) you'll knock out either because of lack of oxygen or because of a violent spin

2) you'll freeze to death

3) you won't be able to position yourself properly or fly in a particular direction because of lack of training, so you'll hit the ground at a random place so hard that you'll die.

What I would do is flip to my back not to shock myself with the view of the earth coming at 120mph, relax and wait.

Towel huh. The speed difference is so big, that you'll never see a towel, that happened to fall off the same airplane as you.

There was a case in Russia not so long ago when a cameraman, who happened to be a very experienced skydiver, fell off a helicopter. He managed to drive himself towards a pond but died immediately because of water impact. The hit was so hard that his jumping suit was almost stripped off his body.

</comment><comment><USER52> One thing I've been curious about for a while: would it be possible to survive free fall into water if equipped with a sufficiently long spike-shaped "base"? The sharp part of the spike, which would probably have to be 100+ ft long, would be oriented so that as it entered the water it would displace more and more water, reducing the g-forces experienced by the spike, and you atop it.

A few improbable things would need to also hold: 1) Spike would need to stay straight as it entered the water. 2) Spike should not significantly increase terminal velocity, at least not for most of the descent

I think (?) it's doable, but would be fun to see the physics worked out. E.g., how long should the spike be? What should be its shape? How could it be kept maneuvered into the right orientation for entering the water without significantly increasing terminal velocity?

<comment><USER53> I always been curious about surfactants and whether you could throw some underneath yourself in a free fall to break up the surface tension in a splash landing.

<comment><USER54> Then today's your lucky day. Mythbusters did a bit on exactly this, i.e. if you're holding a hammer and about to fall into water, whether throwing it ahead of you will break the surface tension and save your life: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSQExxWulU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is very useful information. They should have this guidesheet in every airline seat back.

<comment><USER13> I'm sure that would go over really well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I kind of want to free fall to test this out now. I feel kind of prepared.

</comment><comment><USER56> I worked on a hardware product that shipped for the Xbox 360, and it had an accelerometer.

I wanted to add a game achievement for "30 seconds of free fall". Achievable on something like the Vomit Comet. Going for 5 minutes of free-fall would have required something like a rocket. Nobody liked either of my ideas :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm sorry to be the voice of gloom and doom, but this was the money quote for me: "Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die" Holy crap, only thirty feet? We are all going to die.

</comment><comment><USER39> Well-written but a bit light on information. I thought about this a while back when I had the chance to try free-falling in an indoor wind tunnel.

You can control four variables: your speed, your landing position, your landing orientation, and your muscles.

\- Increase your surface area as much as you can, that's your only way to slow down. Best case scenario you'll find a parachute, put it on, and slow down to 25mph or so; worst case, you'll manage to point yourself in a bullet shape and hit 200 mph. Realistically you'll go into a "flat" position and sail along around 120mph.

\- Make yourself "flat" until you're about to land, then position yourself such that you land feet first.

\- You can move, as the site said, about 2 miles horizontally falling from 15,000 feet: aim for trees, a heap of soil, or snow if possible. If you know the area, aim for any buildings with a large glass skylight - that's saved two known freefallers [0].

\- Relax your muscles as much as you can. This can greatly improve your odds. By "greatly improve your odds" I am not kidding: this is almost definitely the single best thing you can do, and being fully relaxed can make you half as likely to die. [1]

There's also a very good possibility you're not at 35,000 feet. For example:

\- You fall off the Burj Khalifa, 830 meters high. You'll fall for about 20 seconds, the last 5 or so near terminal velocity. Use your body to move and aim for the trees near the base of the tower - you've got enough time to make it, easily.

\- You fall off a very tall building, ~500 meters or so. Same as the Burj Khalifa but you have less time, so think fast.

\- You fall off a shorter building. There's no time to maneuver or slow down. With the few seconds you have, point your feet down and relax.

If you're over water, your odds are very low. The best option is to go in feet-first like a pencil dive.

Remember, you _do_ have an OK chance at survival. Between 5 and 15 people have survived free fall, most of which did not know what to do. From 15,000 feet up, you can land wherever you want inside a 13 square mile area - 2 miles in any direction. That's probably enough to get you to some trees at the very least. You can draw that on a map with this tool [2].

You can seriously improve your odds of survival by following these steps. Landing on snow, or a swamp, or a glass skylight makes your odds quite good. Landing in trees makes your odds OK. Making yourself flat gives you more time, and grabbing onto debris - if you can - can increase your chances of survival by 5 times [3]. Then, simply relaxing can double your chances of survival.

Finally, once you've hit the ground - regardless of what you did - there's a decent chance you're still alive, even if you'll die soon. Spend a short amount of time to stop external bleeding, keep your wounds clean and contact emergency services as soon as you can - ultimately, they will know far better than you what to do.

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

[1] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006)

[2] [http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps-radius/](http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps- radius/)

[3] [http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/434...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/4344036/)

<comment><USER58> Doesn't surviving any landing guarantee you'll be disabled for life?

<comment><USER59> Vesna suffered a lot of injuries, but recovered completely: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87)

> _Vulović continued working for Jat Airways at a desk job following a full > recovery from her injuries._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Great read! I must admit, I have thought about this a few times in the past when I was on an airplane and thought what would I do if the plane split in two and thought about some of the things the author mentioned.

One more tip, always wear the largest rain coat you can find onto the plane and keep some nylon rope in one of the pockets so you could fashion a parachute on the way down :)

</comment><comment><USER61> Fun read.

Has anyone actually survived an unplanned free fall like this?

<comment><USER62> 5 have [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fall_survivors)

<comment><USER63> More than 5.

[http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html)

[http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html](http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> That was a very excellent distraction

</comment><comment><USER65> How easy is it to control your body's attitude during a free fall?

<comment><USER66> Belly-down is the easiest and most stable attitude, which is why that's the first attitude taught in skydiving.

The other common attitudes are head-down vertical, feet-first vertical, "sitting", and back-flying. The first three have a much faster fall-rate than belly-down, and are less stable. Backflying isn't quite such a difference in fall-rate, but is still harder to learn, and less stable.

How easy is it to learn? Well, unless you've skydived before, then you get around a minute to learn from scratch. Good luck to that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Great article, reminds me of the same writing style used by the author of the Rotten Library (which, by the way, is still a great read).

</comment><comment><USER68> > If you have ever tried to keep your head when all about you are losing > theirs

because there aren't any around to blame it on you? :)

</comment><comment><USER69> [https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA](https://youtu.be/IVqqnc6x9pA)

</comment><comment><USER70> Just curious, could clothing help you create something like a paradise? For example, a hoodie held by sleeves?

<comment><USER17> You need to hold it by at least three points, otherwise it will simply flop upwards like a flag. Your toes can't curl hard enough to hold onto a piece of fabric being pulled by a 120 mph wind, so the only way to make a sail is with your hands and your _teeth_. If you have a button-down, you can hold the corners at your sides to make a shitty wingsuit. I suppose there is a small advantage if you get to put your legs below you ("crumple zone") while still maximizing your cross-sectional area.

Most clothing fabrics are worse at stopping airflow than the tight nylon of a parachute, so the drag will be less than a chute of equal size. If you can somehow get it soaking wet it'll be more effective, as the fibers swell and make it less permeable to air; consequently, you might want to stick your shirt in your jeans before you piss yourself.

<comment><USER70> That's way beyond insightful, thank you :D Any other ideas on how to get three points? Tying a knot to a belt maybe? I mean we're talking about just a few dozens of second there, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Wow! Glad that I am not the only one that constantly thinks about this when I am on an airplane.

<comment><USER72> I always opt for the last row.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I have always wondered about this. While this is welcome, I am reading and can feel my blood pressure, stress level, and focus increasing as I read.

</comment><comment><USER74> I had hard time reading with the formatting of the site even with various "reader" extensions turned on (maybe I'm the only one?). So I looked at the HTML source to figure out why my extensions still couldn't format well... it is 1999 HTML. Tables for paragraphs.

Even copy and pasting to a text editor yields pretty terrible results.

td { padding: 1em; }

Made it somewhat readable for me. Not a criticism but just in case someone has the same problem as me.

<comment><USER75> I remember reading this in 1999 when it first circulated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I am very very sorry to break it to you, but this very poorly thought-out and the writer has no understanding of physics or drag. Look around for items after 20000 feet of freefall? There could be a parachute? Sorry are we all in vacuum or something? Do you think they all fall at the same rate? Yes one can survive a fall at terminal speeds but this is just insane to hope there are any items around you after all that fall.

<comment><USER77> My dear child, 't was in jest. A peculiar one, granted.</comment></comment>


A Flying Plane Camouflaged in Google Maps - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bluebelle,+Manila,+Metro+Manila,+firstname.lastname@example.com,121.04003,631m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x3397cf0300920309:0x3bb1069da2651c5c!6m1!1e1 <comment><USER2> How is this Camouflaged? The plane stands out pretty well.</comment>


Recovering from a DNS Service Outage in AWS Using Monit - <AUTHOR> http://www.kinvey.com/blog/1532/recovering-from-a-dns-service-outage-in-aws-using-monit <comment><USER2> Agree with the final takeaway -- "... know how your application behaves under different failure scenarios. Testing connectivity loss, loss of network services, and other failures are very important when building a high availability application."</comment>


Ask HN: How do you treat your users that are born on Feb 29th? - <AUTHOR>

In the case of common year, when it is appropriate to send a greetings message? I guess the most common approach is to do it on 28th, but in some cultures it is considered a bad sign to celebrate the birthday a before the actual day. Viewing from the programmer perspective it is now obvious that an implementation which compares the current day with user birthday date and performs some sort of action is not a very wise one. <comment><USER2> If you want to have special case for users born on 29th then make it even more special and send custom greetings with acknowledging the fact that it is not really their birthday and so on...

</comment><comment><USER3> I look at it from a formal/legal perspective. By many definitions, the person will not be considered to be a year older on February 28th. (E.g. in the U.S., they can't have a drivers' license yet if they are 15 years old and their birthday is February 29th., nor can they drink if they are 20 years old.) They will be considered to be a year older on March 1st.

Going on that, I view the birthday to, descriptively, have shifted a day later. And calendar-wise, that actual day that would in a leap year be counted as February 29th is instead counted as March 1st.</comment>


Bitcoin Can Only Win (mass adoption) by Losing (its heart) - aaron-lebo http://aaron-lebo.github.io/2014/08/29/bitcoin-can-only-win-by-losing/ <comment><AUTHOR> >Future three [the use of Bitcoin exclusively in black markets] is by almost any measure a complete failure.

I completely disagree. This is _exactly_ what the people who laid the technological foundations for Bitcoin (Hal Finney, Wei Dai, David Chaum, etc.), and the Cypherpunks in general were trying to accomplish.

Talk to any of the (many) agorist types endorsing Bitcoin today and I'm sure they would tell you that they would still be very happy for Bitcoin if it was relegated exclusive to black markets, because it means that internet black markets can still work even with only oppressively regulated fiat monetary systems!

Relegation to black markets might only be a failure if you judge Bitcoin by its market cap, and not what it accomplishes.

And of course, depending on who you ask, we might expect black markets to grow substantially in the next few years.

To most of the cypherpunks, Bitcoin's mainstream success thus far is just icing on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER2> Most of this seems quite balanced and objective. It's a good post. That said, I think it still massively underestimates the challenge of getting consumers to want to use bitcoin. I think that is the biggest problem bitcoin faces. This suggests that obtaining and storing bitcoins are barriers, but I think those would be trivially solved if only consumers had a major desire to pay for stuff with bitcoin.

Bitcoin can't go mainstream unless it has a system of incentives that appeal to consumers who don't care about the ideology of it. Who will create that system of incentives? I confess little knowledge of the protocol, but I think it is most likely to emerge from a PayPal-like payments company, and funded through transaction fees. The problem is that when a single company is providing those incentives and taking transaction fees, it looks quite similar to credit card companies (so then what was the point of bitcoin?), which is the direction I initially thought the article was heading in.

<comment><USER3> The incentive to use Bitcoin is near-zero transaction fees. Merchants can and do share those savings with customers.

Any future where Bitcoin fails will still have near-zero transaction fees because the technology exists to enable that today. Describing such a future without describing what has outcompeted Bitcoin seems incomplete.

<comment><USER2> Consumers expect chargebacks to be an option, and if their bank account gets compromised, for the bank to reimburse. That stuff is possible (AFAIK) on top of bitcoin, but it needs to be funded somehow. I think that if bitcoin goes mainstream, the fees may end up looking similar to existing payment solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is refreshing to see people having some skepticism about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I suspect that all us have a very limited perspective on what the potential and future of bitcoin and Crypto is. I think we can all agree that cryptocurrecy is a disruptive technology.

Just like the Internet cryptocurrency will bring great weatlth and inovations(google, wikipidea, VOIP, Skype, facebook, etc) and great failures(Internet bubble,lost of privacy, etc).

</comment><comment><USER5> With all respect to our American cousins -> Bitcoin != A US financial system. Regrettably yet another article from an American perspective, by an American author, that doesn't take into account the actual context.

...balanced and well written, but forgets the rest-of-the-world exists. America is certainly powerful and influential - but this system goes well beyond her borders.

</comment><comment><USER6> Everyone doesn't have to use money in the same way for it to be useful. That's the entire point of money to begin with. It is these kind of shallow political articles that drives it down. Not those who are currently trading.

</comment><comment><USER7> The arguments seem to only consider Bitcoin in the US, yet it's clearly global.

<comment> aaron-lebo I mean that as no slight. I'm an American and I best understand the American political scene; anything about any other countries would have been ill- informed at best.

But...I will say that because of the dominance of the United States (SV in particular) in the tech scene (and the US's financial clout), I find it likely that any mass adoption would come from an American startup, and ultimately true "mass adoption" would have to include America and would therefore end up with these same problems.

<comment><USER7> I think your arguments make sense when focusing on the US, but I don't necessarily agree that "mass adoption" would have to include the US. If bitcoin were made illegal (or impotent by regulations) in the US, bitcoin wouldn't die-- we'd just get left behind in terms of innovation; financial and otherwise. As an American, I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is another future scenario that is missed here - Bitcoin could fail to become the "currency of the Internet" but succeed in becoming a digital investment asset (like Gold bullion).

</comment><comment><USER9> Future scenario 1 could occur and the result could very well be a significant improvement on the current system.

</comment><comment><USER10> At this point... what is Bitcoin?

I'm not asking for the definition of cryptocurrency, but what does it mean for people?

<comment><USER11> Liberation from a financial system designed to exploit everyone but those who administrate it.

Which does mean option one is diametrically opposed to my definition of bitcoin, if private enterprise uses proprietary additions to lock in consumers to their platforms and strattle the flow and generation of capital the way they do now.

Like others say, it is a huge improvement over the status quo, but not the kind of resource I want as my store of value.</comment></comment>


iPhone Privacy Is Broken and Apps Are to Blame - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/iphone-privacy-is-brokenand-apps-are-to-blame-11559316401 <comment><USER2> The irony is of course that there is a huge clamor for Apple to be even further restricted from exerting control over apps.</comment>


Cryptocurrency News: Mastercard Pays Back in Coins - <AUTHOR> http://www.cryptocurrencymarkets.net/mastercard-pays-back-in-coins/ <comment><AUTHOR> The giant credit company just joined the cryptocurrency world by making a patent application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The title of the patent is "Information Transaction Infrastructure," was filed on sometime in January, but it took until August 3rd for USPTO to approve the application and publish it on their website.</comment>


Rupert Murdoch makes the case for paying to read the news - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574570191223415268.html

<comment><USER2> "From the beginning, newspapers have prospered for one reason: the trust that comes from representing their readers' interests and giving them the news that's important to them"

I'm not sure that's how it works anymore. Who trusts the media these days? According to Sacred Heart University's polling in 2007 19% of Americans implicitly trusted the mainstream media. Down 8% since 2003. More alarming is that 87% felt the mainstream media was trying to manipulate them. Polls and statistics may not actually prove anything but again let me ask: Who trusts the media these days? Do you know _anyone_ who feels that way? Maybe the extreme ideologues who are simply looking for some rah-rah cheer leading action and don't actually care about truth or facts.

The point of delivering news that's important to readers is much more valid but still very flawed. You get much better results aggregating together content from different sources or, better yet, discovering content from people you have a personal relationship with. Friends, family, co-workers. That all becomes very difficult behind a pay-wall. In this era there are less mainstream sensibilities about news. Everyone has a different weird mix of news they want to see. If you're going for a personalized delivery system you absolutely need social networks, crowd sourcing, and free access so people can discover new topics of interest.

As for quality... He's assuming people can appreciate quality when compared to stories about music stars kissing each other or golf players crashing into tree's with their luxury SUVs. I don't believe for a second that quality matters to the vast majority of the mainstream news audience. The average news paper is written to be consumed by people who struggled through junior high school English class.

<comment><USER3> You can aggregate without it being free.

Imagine a website that does news aggregation. To access the website, you have to pay $10 per month. For this $10 per month, you have the right to read all of the news posted on the website.

The website allows individual freelance writers to put their articles on it.

Now here's the catch - the $10/month that each user pays actually gets distributed _by that user_ to writers whose articles he appreciates. So everytime he reads an exceptionally good article, he gets to assign some of his $10 to that article, as much as he wants.

At the end of the month, whether he assigns the money or not, he loses the 10 bucks. If he assigned all $10 to writers, that's fine. If he left some over, that goes to the website and is used to pay for editors, servers, hackers, etc.

This creates a situation where people are paying for aggregated content (you'd have a plethora of social networking, commenting, and rating systems tailored in whatever way is determined to be optimal) and the writers who are most appreciated by the readers are getting paid.

At the same time, the readers get to try out as much writing as they want for free, so stuff is NOT hidden behind a paywall. They can read the article first and if they find it useful to them can award their dollars. If not, they don't. This encourages quality and also encourages a wide readership.

Anyway I would totally pay $10/month for a system like this. I think you would actually see the case that many people would voluntarily choose to pay more than $10/month just so they can contribute more to their favourite authors. The whole "Radiohead Rainbows" effect.

Feel free to steal my idea and make it a Y-Combinator startup.

<comment><USER4> No way to vote for things you like more than others. Will degrade into a least common denominator system quickly.

<comment><USER3> _WhatWhatWhat?!_

I thought I made it clear you could assign as much money as you want to particular articles. And the amount of money assigned would obviously be used in some algorithm as a kind of sliding scale vote?

<comment><USER4> Even if that was the case, people want things as cheap as they can get them, so even if they CAN vote with their dollars, they won't do it at an unnecessary cost to themselves.

<comment><USER3> I think that is true for the great mass of men, but I think there is a minority of people willing to pay good money for high quality, ad-free content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know what, Rupert?

Go for it.

Don't bother writing about it and talking about it.

Do it.

Put up your pay wall and see who pays.

Until then. . . .

<comment><USER6> He kind of mentioned that when he criticized fair use. He puts up a pay wall, one person buys a subscription, blogs about it, and there isn't much he can do. He can't copyright the news after all, only his journalists' expression of it.

<comment><USER3> That applies to news but not necessarily to in-depth reporting.

Murdoch is right that people will pay for quality.

But there are almost zero commercial writing institutions that produce quality.

<comment><USER7> > But there are almost zero commercial writing institutions that produce > quality.

I only subscribe to the Economist.

<comment><USER3> Yep that's why I said "almost"

I had The Economist in mind :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bollocks. People haven't paid for the news in a century (though we have traditionally paid for its distribution). We're not about to start now that the cost of distribution has utterly collapsed.

</comment><comment><USER9> Fortunately, this is visible without a pay wall--otherwise I wouldn't have read it!

<comment><USER10> So, your working on a startup and yet....you do want to charge your users something?

Maybe your just implying that there isn't really any need to read an article from Murdoch unless its free?

<comment><USER11> I think he is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Asa-Nisse Exec summary: whine whine, bitch bitch.

I wont pay editorial content online. Period. I dont even use google news either. They are not the problem.

I pay for subscriptions on dead trees to arrive at my house because that is the only way I can read it in peace. Now if Murdoch has a idea that his failing businesses are failing because of the internet, good riddance. Have fun selling used cars instead, atleast they cant be digitally copied.

</comment><comment><USER12> Rupert also made a good case for buying MySpace.

He may be good at what he does, but he does not do the internet. Somebody need to have the balls to tell it to his face.

</comment><comment><USER13> 'The prospect of the U.S. government becoming directly involved in commercial journalism ought to be chilling for anyone who cares about freedom of speech.'

Well said!

<comment><USER14> Murdoch puts up another fake bogeyman.

Since when is anyone suggesting that US government get involved in commercial journalism?

Just like the fake bogeyman of Google misappropriating his content when all News Corp has to do is take 20 seconds to edit the robots.txt file.

Murdoch's statements are a textbook example of disinformation. And he wants the consumer to pay for this yellow journalism?</comment></comment>


Serverless currently vulnerable to Arbitrary File Write - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serverless/serverless/issues/7402 <comment><AUTHOR> How big companies are dealing with such a case? At my company, we have a mandatory audit step in the CI. Of course, one can still bypass it by dropping the step in order to deploy but I'm curious to know how others deal with that.</comment>


Show HN: WebGL Enabler for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://demoseen.com/webglenabler/#

<comment><USER2> So it immediately raises the question why isn't this released?

The reasons I can think of are:

* Performance isn't what they want yet.

* Implementation isn't what they want yet.

* There are security issues they still need to fix.

OR putting on my tin foil hat for a second:

* Apple sees WebGL as a possible threat to their app revenues as a soild WebGL implementation could allow developers to avoid entering their app market place and instead charge users directly. It would also allow developers to deploy to other platforms with the same code base.

Obviously the last point is a bit nutty but one can't help but wonder if it is a consideration.

<comment><USER3> His program essentially leaks beta software for profit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I don't know what I'd do without the $20.60 I've made off of this (before Paypal fees)...

<comment><USER4> Would be really interesting to see how much you make off this with your donation model. I wonder how much it would affect income if you used someone other than paypal, or had several donate options.

Anyways, good on you for doing this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm expecting that it's probably not going to go much above where it is right now (which is still twice as much as I figured it'd bring in); despite quite a few downloads from HN, no one has paid for it. That said, I'm sure I could increase paid conversions with some work, but I honestly don't care enough to do so. I built this so that I could build neat demos on my iPad, and there's no way I'll recoup the cost of 5 or so hours of dev time I spent on this. I'm just glad that it's working well for people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this a couple days ago at a pretty bad time (middle of the US night) and it died pretty quickly. I figured I'd wait until v0.0.2 to throw it back up here, and that's now out. It seems to be working quite nicely on all iOS 4.2+ devices, though some of the older iPhones have performance issues it seems. Hope you guys enjoy this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Free, open-source, and _ten months old._

<https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler>

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw that after my first release, but 1) this is free-ish (you can choose to pay whatever amount you want) and open source ( <https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler> ) as well, 2) mine works at the WebView level rather than Safari, and includes a toggle in settings.

That said, I would've used a different name had I known about that before I released.

Edit: Oh, I'm wrong. I could've sworn that his was just for Safari, but I just saw in the source that I'm wrong. He just works at the Web _Frame_ level rather than Web _View_.

<comment><USER5> Ouch, sorry for not paying better attention; I didn't notice the source to yours. Both approaches appear equally valid and yours appears to be rather more fleshed-out (what with preferences).

I didn't mean to denigrate your project, as well: I apologize if it seemed that way!

I quite enjoy seeing people use Theos/Logos as well. Definitely worth sinking my time into working on them!

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries. And seriously great work with Theos/Logos; I haven't touched iOS stuff since working on the unlock for the original iPhone, and I still managed to whip all of this up in ~5 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is badass! But, once again something Apple should have already given developers.

Thanks for putting this together, hopefully it spurs them along.

<comment><USER3> It's not like Apple forgot about this feature. It just isn't ready which is why it's not enabled. It will be released when it's ready.

<comment><USER7> In the mean time you can use OPs link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Former discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029365>

</comment><comment><USER9> WebGL Enabler won't work well with all existing WebGL demos, but there's a cache of them to tryout at <http://www.webgl.com> and <http://www.chromeexperiments.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Two things to note about testing existing demos/games: 1) It supports 0 vertex shader texture units, which breaks some of the more interesting demos (I think this is an implementation thing, rather than a hardware limitation, at least on the higher end devices; the iPad 3 _has_ to support this stuff), 2) Most demos and games use onmousedown/move/up rather than ontouch*, which causes them to break. I'm trying to come up with a decent solution to run these existing demos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know jailbreaking doesn't immediately imply piracy, but this is another example in the fine tradition of pirates getting the better product. The recent Quasar window manager for iOS is another example.

</comment><comment><USER11> Like how Apple has sabotaged the use of HTML5 Audio, I think it is unlikely they will enable WebGL. It provides developers an open platform for developing games, which conflicts with Apple's closed system agenda.

<comment><USER12> How have they sabotaged HTML Audio?

<comment><USER13> The biggest problem is definitely not the lack of OGG support but the disabling of autoplay on iOS: [http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why- html5-audiovi...](http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why- html5-audiovideo-on-ios-is-virtually-unusable/)

<comment><USER14> Disabling autoplay on iOS is not unreasonable. I don't want autoplay anywhere, but I really would not expect opening a web page on my phone to start blaring random audio out the speakers. I wouldn't call that "sabotage", I'd call that "someone actually cares about what users expect". (That's leaving alone data concerns, especially with limited and expensive 3G data plans.)

<comment><USER15> They could always allow you to mute sites by default. You see to be overly optimistic that they are doing it for the users good.

<comment><USER14> How is "mute by default" different from "no autoplay" except that when users actually hit play, it would just start somewhere in the middle? (That sounds like an even worse user experience.)

<comment><USER16> It would be "no autoplay by default" instead of "mute by default".

the difference is that in the "no autoplay ever" case I would be not able to enable it if I wanted. "No autoplay by default" is the reasonable initial setting, while still giving users a choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're encouraging people to pay for this internal setting toggle, that Apple didn't default to 'On' for a reason (not being finished)? Where is the value in this? You are basically charging for Apples incomplete software.

<comment><AUTHOR> The value is that people want to use WebGL now, as seen by the almost 1000 people who have downloaded the software over the last few days. However, I have no idea how one can put a price on something of this sort, which is why you could pay $0 or $500 for it if you want. I tend to believe that saving people from a couple of hours of tinkering (writing the same tweak I have, basically) is worth at least $1, but people have thrown in anywhere from $0.10 to $5.

<comment><USER3> But they're not "using" WebGL other than seeing a demo of it. There's absolutely no interaction. I bet at least half of your downloads expect they'll magically be able to have fully compatible WebGL games. Now that would be software worth paying for, provided it wasn't a settings toggle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Err, what? You do have full compatibility with WebGL with this. Any failings there are on the part of games are due to a lack of proper event handling (specifically, not using ontouch* events).

And again, "worth paying for" is up to the customers. I very much encourage people to download it and then pay for it if they see value in it. So far people have seen value in it.

<comment><USER3> Device data (touches, accelerometer, etc) are exactly what I meant by compatibility. Again, back to my point of it not being finished. I see that it wasn't your fault, but this is misleading and shady.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think you understand. All of these things are there. In addition, these have nothing to do with WebGL. You're painting this to be something that it's very much not.

My tweak has been confirmed to work by everyone who has tried it, and it works quite nicely. You're saying that I'm being "misleading and shady", when in reality the full functionality is there.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I do understand. Congrats on practically leaking a incomplete beta and making money off of it.

<comment><USER9> I actually like that he can make money off of this. It shows that there is a market for WebGL enablement on the iphone. It cracks the whip above Apple's head.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Etheropt, a decentralized options exchange built on Ethereum - <AUTHOR> http://etherboost.github.io/etheropt/testnet <comment><USER2> Very interesting, I hope you are not in the United States. I doubt the CFTC would take too kindly to this especially since they are binary options. Good luck!

<comment><USER3> The CFTC can eat one. Seriously, there's not a goddamn thing they will be able to do about DACs. Better call a hearing.

<comment><USER2> It's funny to realize that a DAC can go on existing even after its creators may have been charged or imprisoned for breaking a law or regulation. I don't agree with the CFTC but I acknowledge their power.

<comment><USER4> Is there a distinction between developing software and operating it? Usually. Always?

<comment><USER5> This isn't just software though. This is an organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > ... verified by Reality Keys. Etheropt has no owner. Its entire operation is > described and executed by an Ethereum smart contract.

Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't your trusted third party now simply Reality Keys?

<comment><USER7> If they used Oraclize (secured by TLSNotary), impossible to forge any data, it would be as authentic as Poloniex/Kraken's APIs say it is.

<comment><USER8> so it means trusting Poloniex/Kraken's API, so not decentralized and trustless.

<comment><USER9> it also means trusting TLSNotary

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome! I've been wondering when we were going to see some of these DAOs come online. (Assuming OP is author or author is reading) Have you written up/do you have any resources on writing a smart contract like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am the author, and I think the best way to get started is by looking at existing contracts, which are generally written in Solidity, Ethereum's language for writing smart contracts. Here are a few examples that I found helpful:

\- [https://github.com/etherpot/contract/blob/master/app/contrac...](https://github.com/etherpot/contract/blob/master/app/contracts/lotto.sol) \- [https://etherdice.io/#contract](https://etherdice.io/#contract) \- [https://ethereumpyramid.com/contract.html](https://ethereumpyramid.com/contract.html) \- And of course the main docs, [http://solidity.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://solidity.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) (see also [https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Solidity- Features](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Solidity-Features))

Once you have a smart contract, it's a good idea to provide some interface to help people interact with it. There are a number of JS libraries to help you interact with Ethereum available at [https://github.com/ethereumjs](https://github.com/ethereumjs).

<comment><USER11> Adding a couple more, i.e. 3 of mine - tried to comment thoroughly.

[https://github.com/thelooneyfarm/contracts](https://github.com/thelooneyfarm/contracts)

In my experience it is not that much of an uphill battle to start, it is quite similar to the stuff devs do in their normal dayjob.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What external ergonomic keyboard do you use? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The Microsoft sculpt: [https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboar...](https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop/l5v-00001)

It's had good Linux support for a while now.

<comment><USER3> The escape key is small. Do you find that to be a problem?

<comment><USER2> Not really, but I don't use it that much, except maybe with tmux or less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use now apple keyboard and is okay but I know it is not ergonomic. I think ergonomic keyboard is every mechanical keyboard

</comment><comment><USER5> An older [http://www.goldtouch.com/ergonomic- keyboards/](http://www.goldtouch.com/ergonomic-keyboards/), might even be version 1.

<comment><USER6> do you find that ergonomic keyboards significantly reduce your wrist strain?

<comment><USER5> Yes. With the keyboard in 20-30 angle it forces me not to have my wrists flat on the table. Same with the mouse. The goldtouch mice used to be 45 degrees (and too light-weight for my taste), the newer models seem to be 30 degrees. When I work on the laptop for a week, e.g. while traveling, I need more breaks to rest my hands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kinesis Advantage

[http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/](http://www.kinesis- ergo.com/shop/advantage2/)

<comment><USER8> Another happy Kinesis users here :)</comment></comment>


Google, give me control over search results - <AUTHOR> http://subhashpalsule.com/2011/05/google-give-me-control-over-search-results/

<comment><USER2> This doesn't co-exist with their business model. If Google were much better (or personalized, or social) that would kill their search engine advertising business.</comment>


Judge temp bar on federal officers from using force, threats, dispersal: journos - <AUTHOR> https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/judge-inclined-to-restrain-federal-law-enforcement-from-using-force-threats-dispersal-orders-against-journalists-legal-observers.html <comment><AUTHOR> The ruling:

[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7001472/Oregon- TR...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7001472/Oregon-TRO- Federal-2020-07-23.pdf)

[https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20200720809](https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20200720809)

Some judges are taking a rather dim view of the events in Portland, it seems. To wit:

> The temporary restraining order that [U.S. District Judge Michael H.] Simon > issued for federal law enforcement is similar to one he granted earlier this > month governing Portland police, except for one major difference that allows > for _individual federal officers or supervisors_ to be held liable if they > intentionally disregard his ruling.

[Italics added for emphasis]

Original title was too long. It was:

Judge temporarily bars federal officers from using force, threats, dispersal orders against journalists, legal observers

<comment><USER2> Is there even precedent for that?

I mean, don't get me wrong; I dig the thought behind it, but is this actually something a judge can unilaterally do from the bench? Like, is this reversal of a reversal of a precedent, or have things gotten so heated the Judiciary is starting to flex some checks and balances muscle, and push the boundaries of their normally light touch with regard to pushing back against the Executive?

Be interesting to see how it turns out. I wager the Supreme Court will have to earn their keep this year.

<comment><USER3> This is a decision granting plaintiffs' motion for a Temporary Restraining Order. Yes, federal judges can issue TROs against federal agencies which, in this case, are DHS and US Marshals Service. Precedent cited in the decision is Winter v. Nat. Res. Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 22 (2008) [A SCOTUS decision.]. The court's analysis considered the following: (1) [plaintiff] is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) [plaintiff] is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; (3) the balance of equities tips in [plaintiff]'s favor; and (4) that an injunction is in the public interest. (It's slightly confusing, but the court is treating this motion for TRO the same way as a motion for preliminary injunction.)

In the end, the court found for the plaintiffs and thus it issued a TRO for 14 days, unless extended (or overturned).

Of course, the federal agencies may choose to ignore a federal judge's order. But the federal judiciary doesn't take lightly to that transgression, and it would be a career limiting move for any federal agent, from cabinet-level officials down to foot soldiers, to ignore the judge's order.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I thought I understood it, I was just hoping someone else would also reach the same conclusions. I delve into these types of thing only as a pass time, so I wasn't sure if I was reading it correctly. It just seems so bizarre.

I never imagined the Judiciary would back or merit an order that essentially infringes on the Executive's prerogative to operate. As I understood it, the Judiciary could rmdismiss cases brought by the Executive as a check, but not outright tell the Executive how to operate via restraining order. That seems a little too "legislating from the bench" for what my detectors are tuned for right now.

What a strange time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who will enforce this? The police? There's nobody interested in enforcing such an order.

<comment><USER5> The courts understand that they (and the Police) have a legitimacy problem. As legitimacy deteriorates, the number and size of protests increases, which can reach a tipping point where there aren't enough police to push back.

This is _exactly_ the problem we faced in Iraq as our tactics only increased the size and power of the insurgency.

> disregard or violate the order will be considered a violation of "a clearly > established constitutional right" and therefore won't shield the officer > through the legal doctrine of qualified immunity.

Revoking Qualified Immunity is the lede.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Revoking Qualified Immunity is the lede.

Thanks for catching this! I can't believe they buried it; that belongs in the headline, I would think, but it was already contextually overloaded as it is.</comment></comment></comment>


Story behind the animals on O'Reilly book covers - <AUTHOR> http://oreilly.com/news/lejeune_0400.html#

<comment><USER2> When I wrote my book on Windows Azure for O'Reilly, they originally assigned me some bird which I hated. I wanted them to pick a pug or some dog (because Azure was originally code named 'Red Dog'). To my surprise, they hunted down a dog that was actually called a 'red dog' and we used that instead.

<comment><USER3> For the curious, _Programming Windows Azure_: <http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596801984.do>

<comment><USER2> Oh yes, thanks for the link. Everyone, please go buy as many copies as you can ;).

Seriously though, all the royalties go to charity. I'm a bit sad how quickly portions of the book went out of date. I've been asked to do a second edition but probably don't have the time to do it given startup commitments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The cover designs of O'Reilly books are truly awesome (and I don't use that word often).

They are not only recognizable in a "brand" kind of way, but they are also professional looking, simple but with a twist of the creativity that differentiate programmers from other technical professions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazing that the covers wouldn't have existed if infinite copyright existed just a few centuries earlier.

<comment><USER6> That's rather insulting to O'Reilly's artists. Do you really think that if they could not have copied those images they used on the first few books, they could not have mustered the skill to draw animals themselves?

<comment><USER7> I'm sure they _could_ have. But would they? The story would have at least played out differently if that initial conversation had gone, "hey, let's pay someone to painstakingly draw animals and then transfer them to scratchboard" rather than "hey, look at these gorgeous woodcuts".

<comment><USER8> We now go to the original sources of the old engravings (we have a big library of old books full of them), and we also have a few illustrators who are able to work in that style. When we started out, we had no money for high-end illustrations; luckily the animal images I chose for the series were in the public domain. Fortuitous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is a pity that the O'Reilly Menagerie lies abandoned: <http://oreilly.com/animals.html>

<comment><USER8> We are working on it. We have so many more titles and animals these days that it's hard to keep up.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found it interesting that "Awk and Sed" was the impetus for using animal art.

</comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who doesn't like these covers? They're unique, and I love that, but sometimes I wish they had more character, not just a single color animal.

<comment><USER11> Yes i feel the same, ive learned to accept them, but call me callous i like my books to have interesting and attractive art, in a non sexual way of course

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've gotten so used to them on my shelf, I rarely pay attention. I just go for the camel book(Perl) or the cow book(C). A classy trademark, love it - and the Oreilly quality has never dropped. Congratulatiosn and keep the awesome titles coming!

</comment><comment><USER13> Ever notice that the O'Reilly books for Oracle have insects ("bugs") on the covers? Could there be a coded message in there?

<comment><USER8> Not really, although some have made that inference. Insect communities have some parallels to databases, if you think about it a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've noticed that my kids were always drawn to the animal art at age 3-4. A nice project (maybe for charity) from O'Reilly would be a children's book with collection of these covers. I think it would be a hit.

<comment><USER15> I have noticed many of cover pictures are selected from 'Dover's Pictorial Archive'. ([http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-art- pictorial-...](http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-art-pictorial- archive.html)). A book like "Animals: 1,419 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Mammals, Birds, Fish, Insects, etc. (<http://store.doverpublications.com/0486237664.html>) would be an interesting gift to children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm saddened by the dragon part because what fascinates me most about these covers is that, most of these amazing animals are really there some where. But now I have to wonder if the one on the cover really exists or product of some ones wild imagination... I hope they ditch this mythical stuff..

<comment><USER17> Read the Colophon of every book which has an animal you're unsure of; it's in the very back of every O'Reilly book I own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some O'Reilly's Python books use big snake in the cover, but this python does not really mean snakes, Guido also said so.

<comment><USER19> But it would stretch the animal term a bit to have six middle aged British men on the cover.

</comment></comment><comment> g-garron I didn't know that. Those are great covers, as soon as you see them yo know you are looking at O'Reilly books.

</comment><comment><USER20> I do find O'Reilly to be the most consistently good technical publisher around. They are also one of the few counterexamples to the idea that you can't judge books by the covers.</comment>


USCIS Reaches FY 2018 H-1B Cap - <AUTHOR> https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-reaches-fy-2018-h-1b-cap <comment><AUTHOR> The key difference from the FY 2017 Cap press release is that the FY 2018 news release does not say anything about lottery. So there is a speculation that this year there will not be a lottery for picking H1B petitions.</comment>