Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/amazon-is-shipping-expired-baby-formula-and-other-out-of-date-foods.html <comment><USER2> A key problem with the complaints is that customer reviews don't† take into account the effect of commingling. The expired food might have come from a different seller initially, but you were sent it because of Amazon's supply line optimisations.

Amazon will know but when you write your review or read someone else's, you won't.

Same problem as counterfeit goods and commingling though iirc there are more control in place on perishables so this aspect of the problem rears its head less often.

[†] they can't, we as customers don't have access to the information to know the route items took to get to us

<comment><USER3> Commingling is bad, but does commingling mean they can't trace it back to which seller sent it to them for FBA?

If they can, they can penalize _that_ seller, not the other seller (who won the sale).

I'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their warehouses. I'm not sure this is the case, but it seems likely given how their warehouses are organized and the location of stuff is very mixed up and only known to computers. (It would also be sufficient if they have unique ids for lots. If one seller sends 10 identical perishable items and Amazon groups those on a shelf together, they can still trace it back to the right seller.)

<comment><USER4> > _but does commingling mean they can 't trace it back to which seller sent it > to them for FBA? If they can, they can penalize that seller..._

Correct, they can't trace it, so they can't penalize.

> _I 'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their > warehouses._

They don't. If they did, there would be some kind of unique bar code on every item you received from Amazon.

<comment><USER5> Commingling (in this context) doesn't necessarily mean that the products are literally sitting in the same bin as the same product from another seller. Each seller's items could be kept in separate bins if put in the same warehouse. Then when one of that product is ordered, the picker is told to go to a specific bin to get it. Amazon would then still know which seller's product they sold you.

The actual advantage of commingling comes from the fact that amazon doesn't have to distribute every sellers items across the US. They can just send you one from the closest warehouse.

<comment><USER6> That takes up more warehouse space, which is what Amazon is trying to avoid. Much easier to put it all into one big bin, and if you want, they can charge you to have your own bin.

<comment><USER3> Seems easy enough to work around. Just fill the extra space with completely different products. Put the other seller's products in a different location, also mixed in with other stuff.

The rule would be that you can put two products together if they are either the same seller (in which case you don't need to distinguish) or a different product (in which case you can distinguish visually).

Amazon already mixes different products in the same slot in order to optimize space anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After so many stories and experiences with fakes, why would anyone still buy items in Amazon that are otherwise typically found in pharmacies or grocery stores?

In my experience Amazon ships:

Food that is expired or fake Drugs that are expired or fake Batteries that are expired or fake

I've even received fake diapers! Very well done fakes too: we only noticed because of a very small logo that are included in the real ones.

I use Amazon only for high ticket items that are unlikely to harm me, and then only because of their easy return policy (Epson, I'm looking at you)

<comment><USER8> Amazon just has a bigger target on their back.

Why wouldn't these issues affect any business with a sizable logistics chain? There are no guarantees of authenticity of goods at your local brick and mortar stores either.

<comment><USER9> This is just patently untrue. Your brick and mortar store has a clear hierarchy of responsibility -- it's the workers job to prune expired items from shelves. It's the manager's job to make sure the employees are doing their job. It's the parent company's or owners job to make sure the manager is doing his job.

Amazon flips this on it's head by having a super-loose affiliation with people selling on it's platform. Turns out, when you break chains of responsibility, people act irresponsibly. This tale is as old as time.

If Amazon wants to fix this problem they should just get out of the independent seller game and let it go back to eBay. Amazon is tarnishing its brand image for low-margin shenanigans and it's just not worth it.

<comment><USER10> It's not low-margin, it aids their financial engineering by eliminating inventory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _A data analytics firm that specializes in the Amazon Marketplace recently analyzed the site's 100 best-selling food products for CNBC and found that at least 40% of sellers had more than five customer complaints about expired goods._

In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it _still_ fails to take one of the easiest steps to address the problem, removing bad actors from the marketplace (which would also make many other sellers clean up their acts).

I've had a similar issue with buying books advertised as "new" and they are clearly used ... including one book that had a "USED" sticker on it. I complained about the seller, and nothing happened. As of the last time I checked this seller was still in business on Amazon, with 22% negative ratings in the last 30 days.

The message to third-party sellers is clear:

Win the buy box however you can. We won't police your listings. We won't punish you if you lie about the condition of the goods. Even if many of Amazon's customers are complaining about you, you can still stay in business on Amazon.

<comment><USER12> > _In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet > lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it still fails to take > one of the easiest steps to address the problem, removing bad actors from > the marketplace_

I have anecdata contrary to this. We used to buy gluten free bread from Amazon because of my son's gluten allergy. It was a pain to buy locally so we would buy 4 loaves at a time from Amazon. We started getting expired loaves from some seller. It happened multiple times, to about 50% of the orders. This bread has a long shelf life so these loaves were months old.

We got reimbursed multiple times through the automated return system but it continued. Finally my wife called to complain. They apologized, gave us some credit, and said they look into it. The next time we got expired bread again. She called again and they promised they'd remove the seller. Indeed they did something this time. The bread was unavailable for about a month and when it came back we never had another expired loaf delivered.

I think Amazon does listen. What they don't seem to do is listen to people who complain in reviews. Reach out to Amazon directly if you want to complain about a real issue with a seller.

<comment><USER13> Sounds to me like amazon takes a 15% or 20% cut of the transaction, and the customer gets to do all the work of vetting sellers?

I'd rather pay more and support a reputable manufacturer or vendor directly.

<comment><USER14> Amazon is the equivocal of the retail end. Any sufficient and provable complaint to Amazon will result in a refund.

<comment><USER13> I don't want a refund, I want to support companies that use the right processes to save me time, but companies that choose to commingle to save the company a penny and cost me time are not worth supporting.

<comment><USER14> What retail shop honestly saves you time? Does waiting in line at Walmart save you time? Yes, you have the option of checking the expiration in line, but is anyone really shopping at Walmart for the time savings?

<comment><USER13> Costco, for one. Based on their track record, I don't think twice about purchasing something from there or something branded Kirkland Signature. I know what I buy is decent quality at a decent price.

Target/Home Depot/Lowes also helps, I know what I buy from them doesn't come from a random reseller, and I don't have to filter through reseller garbage on their website either. They also have pickup in store options, as well as showing me where the items are in the store if I need to go find them. Also, I don't recall waiting in line more than a couple minutes.

I just happen to use those stores as an example, I'm sure many others offer the same benefits. Point is, I don't want to worry about counterfeit, commingled, and all that nonsense. I also know sometimes Amazon hides the option to only show items shipped and sold by Amazon.com, and based on their attempts to deceive me, I assume they intentionally break search to make it not as easy to find things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This happened to us. My wife orders a lot of dog treats and human snacks on subscribe and save. They sent a package of nearly expired nut snack bars. Wife contacted customer service and they just sent another of the same. My wife is meticulous about checking sale by and it is a fight to keep her from throwing out recently expired foods. But I hadn't known a store to ship an expired product before this.

<comment><USER16> We had very expired dog food shipped to us from Amazon, and luckily Amazon was able to give us an instant refund, but that was enough to prevent us from buying foods and other perishables from them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I canceled my Prime membership a few months ago. I never bought food on Amazon, but I received plenty of counterfeit or obviously used and broken items sold as new. I went back through my order history recently and it was over 10% of my orders in the last three years had issues. And I wasn't buying from the marketplace if I could help it.

There are still some things I have to go through great lengths to buy other places (Furnace filters for a reasonable price, mouse bait station poison etc) but I think it's worth it. I don't give Amazon a dollar if I can help it.

<comment><USER18> Somewhat unrelated, how long did it take you to figure out how to cancel your Prime membership? For me it took considerable effort, to the point where it started to be funny.

<comment><USER19> I canceled mine fairly easily a couple months ago. I can't remember exactly how, but it didn't seem particularly difficult. I do remember that they refunded the unused amount which was nice. Still though after being a prime member for like 3 or 4 years they've lost me as a customer since they allowed their platform to become an expensive Alibaba bloated with fake reviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Frankly speaking, the amount of steps a customer has to go through to ensure quality from Amazon -- check out reviews for buyers, cross check prices to ensure you are not getting ripped off, check out estimated delivery times, and then as the article (and comments here) state, be on look out for expiration date -- for me at least, it makes sense to use Amazon only for books.

Everything else, even living in the First World large Global City (Toronto), I find it easier to just go out to stores to do quick check and buy with piece of mind.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes amazon even sells fake books! [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2019/02/amazo...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2019/02/amazon-caught-selling-counterfeits-of-publishers-computer- books-again/)

<comment><USER22> This is still happening. Just last week:

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1183094406573748225](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1183094406573748225)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I ordered a particular type of Hanes boxer briefs that are made from a breathable fabric and hold their shape really well. Instead, I got a pack of the roughest, lowest quality material boxer briefs, the likes of which you wouldn't be able to buy in the dollar store.

I'm pretty much done with Amazon. They're betting against people actually getting frustrated and leaving, but I haven't ordered in a few months and I will get rid of my prime membership.

</comment><comment><USER24> Expired products I feel a lot less strongly about than counterfeit. Expired products have a label on them that the consumer can look at and check. As long as Amazon is honoring refunds, they are financially incentivized to do what makes sense to fix the issue.

If Amazon insisted on shipping an identical product out of a west coast fulfillment center to an east coast customer for which they had a fulfillment center 20 miles away holding the same SKU, they would not be able to offer the kind of service that they do.

"Comingling" is the fundamental basis for them to leverage their scale to provide unmatched service. It's essential to their business model precisely because how enormously valuable it is to Amazon _and_ to its customers, and the way it gets better with scale, _despite_ the concomitant lesser inconveniences.

Fundamentally, Amazon still knows exactly which seller provided each buyer with each item, despite there being only a single shared product page. So they already have all the data, and of course they are using it internally to track per-seller review scores, refund rates, etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> Happened to us several times with our subscribe and save for baby food. Expired or near expired items. In the end we just don't buy baby food from them.

We're shifting more and more spend away from Amazon due to this, and counterfeits due to commingling.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't get it: I've been buying Amazon prime for about 8 years now, and I don't encounter nearly the amount of problems that everyone else reports.

Yes, I've gotten a few bad items from Amazon. I've also gotten bad items from brick and mortar stores as well. (I recently had a bunch of items go bad from Trader Joe's long before their sell-by date.)

<comment><USER27> Same. In close to ten years, I've gotten one mixed-up delivery, where they evidently mislabeled my package with somebody else's when it went out for shipping. And one item that was lost in shipping and was never delivered, which they immediately refunded.

Otherwise, I can't complain at all. Sometimes, the stuff is crap, but you kind of expect that when you are buying cheap generic stuff - if you really want to see cheap junk, go to an Ocean State Job Lot or Dollar General.

<comment><USER28> During the holidays a few years back, I ordered 3 things from amazon in early December. I received all 3 items and a fourth bonus package which was a literally a thick piece of cardboard with a label. To this day have no idea how that happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Public service announcement: Always check your food, purchased online or in a shop. In both cases, you're probably hoping that some bit got flipped in a database (or somebody simply remembered) and a low-paid worker went out and checked the product's date. Accidents happen all the time.

Scare stories: One friend found a live snail in her supermarket salad. Another friend found a cutting blade in a tin of cat food. I've personally purchased in-date bread from a shop and it was covered in mold spores between the slices. In a shop in Spain their milk had sunlight directly on it (and it was very hot), resulting in lumpy milk.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's been my experience that nearly all items with expirations on amazon are either near the end of their shelf life or past it. Coffee, candy, supplements, whatever. It's very obviously used as a dumping ground. It's crazy to me that this isn't common knowledge by now.

<comment><USER31> I'll offer the counter anecdote. I've order thousands of food items off Amazon over several years and have had zero issues with expiration dates. I check any food item I think would cause me illness from being expired.

<comment><USER30> Expiration vs. freshness. When I buy coffee or anything at a supermarket, the expiration date is about as far into the future as you can get. When I order on amazon, it's always much shorter. Coffee is a great example. It's usually months fresher if I buy in store. Not an issue per-say but you are totally buying the end of life stuff.

<comment><USER31> Going by the expiration and sell by dates on my goods from Amazon I am not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's astonishing that even multi-billion brands are being tarnished due to Amazon's inadequate and sometimes even dangerous supply chain practices.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you know anything about Amazon, if you know what commingling means, or if you spend 5 minutes reading about this company you will steer well clear for baby formula, food, electronics, or anything else safety related. Stick to using Amazon for books, DVDs, and knickknacks. Target.com or Walmart.com will give you the same price as Amazon, with slightly slower shipping, and no Russian Roulette with counterfeiters.

<comment><USER34> Walmart uses resellers and I've had problems with them recently.

<comment><USER10> Check out Target — they are ridiculously awesome. You can order stuff online and pull into a parking lot in a few minutes, with the guy waiting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This isn't about comingling, even though it doesn't make it any better. It's about the fact that outside of Amazon's grocery-specific operations (Fresh, Prime Now, and Whole Foods), Amazon does not have a mechanism for FIFO or any form of decision making based on expiration date. All decisions are optimized purely on fulfillment costs alone. As far as I know (I've been out for three years now), they have no plans to change this, as it would increase their fulfillment costs.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't purchase baby food by Amazon. You can't trust the resellers. I don't understand how there aren't regulations on policing your marketplace for unlawful products, especially those covered by strict liability.

</comment><comment><USER37> I definitely buy allergy pills off EBay that are close to expiry.

But the vendors will state this.

It'll then take me another 4-5 years to go through the bottle of 500 :)

<comment><USER38> If people were selling expired or near expired items, clearly marked and identified, at deep discount, there would be little issue.

But that's NOT what we're talking about here. That's a different discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > For one Teavana listing, the top customer review says the tea had a > "terrible chemical smell" possibly from spoiled fruit

It seems like an exaggeration, the listing states that the product got a 4.5/5 rating.([https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Beach- Bellini-2-lbs/dp/B07B3Q...](https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Beach- Bellini-2-lbs/dp/B07B3Q6442/ref=sr_1_23?keywords=teavana+sugar&qid=1569934621&s=grocery&sr=1-23))

<comment><USER40> FakeSpot apparently rates it as a "D" grade. Take that as you will though.

[https://www.fakespot.com/product/teavana-beach- bellini-2-lbs](https://www.fakespot.com/product/teavana-beach-bellini-2-lbs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Related: 95% of baby food sold in the USA contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals

[https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/f...](https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2019-10/BabyFoodReport_FULLREPORT_ENGLISH_R5b.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER42> Wal-Mart (or any of the big retailers) is that you?

</comment><comment><USER43> I wouldn't mind if these were discounted. Experience suggests expired goods almost always are perfectly fine although this is not guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER44> I cant speak for every Amazon warehouse but @ Jax2 FC, I've personally worked a role in Vendor Returns, where we would remove, return and/or destroy expired food and candy that has sat in the warehouse for too long. Most of the food that was removed, was on its way to being expired in a few weeks and it was removed well before the expiration date. Some of it gets donated if its still good and the expired goods get destroyed in the trash. - BrianD.J, Amazon FC Ambassador

</comment><comment><USER45> I've ended up with expired food from physical stores many times in my life. It's not really a big deal, you just return it or eat it depending on the product.

Same here. It happens. It's harmless.

If it's a big deal to you, go to the store and pick things out yourself.

<comment><USER46> It happens, but it's a punishable violation - the appropriate response is not "just return it or eat it" but an audit of the whole store and fines for having expired produce on their shelves, which is not acceptable.

A physical store that does not have a reasonable process to ensure that expired goods are not available for sale is not qualified to operate safely, if it does it repeatedly, then it should be shut down - it's like a restaurant with rats running around.

<comment><USER45> In the United States at least expiration dates have no relation to food safety.

Also the majority of expirations other than "Use by" are non binding

[https://consumerist.com/2008/06/18/is-it-legal-to-sell- expir...](https://consumerist.com/2008/06/18/is-it-legal-to-sell-expired- food/)

<comment><USER46> Okay, that may be a substantial regulatory difference, in Europe it's generally not legal to sell expired food. (And to illustrate divergence, that consumerist article isn't available for EU users.)

<comment><USER15> I am not an expert in this, but I am aware from direct knowledge of businesses that collect recently expired foods (that are not yet spoiled - such as frozen) from grocery stores and transfers them to legal charities and food banks. There is a delta between sale by and unfit for human consumption.

<comment><USER47> I know at least one store that uses this as a business model. Food past its sell-by date can be acquired from grocers for little to nothing and resold at insanely cheap prices. The difficulty is in making sure your customers know what they're signing up for without loudly proclaiming that you're selling expired food.

<comment><USER48> This used to be the case with a lot of big lots and ollies stores. Not sure about it anymore, but you also see a lot of inner city / lower income area bodegas/ corner stores selling it too. One near me always has expired rap chips for sale. I eat them and they're fine, but I knowingly take that risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The more I think about it, the differences between Amazon and Walmart are much smaller than I once thought. They're both platforms upon which sellers can sell goods. One of the bigger differences seems to be quality assurance. More specifically, to what degree is each company burdened with that important responsibility?

If some manufacturer put something unsafe into a food product, I would blame the manufacturer. Seems pretty cut and dry. On the other hand, if Walmart was stocking expired food I would blame Walmart because they should be responsible tracking inventory and maintaining a safe environment. Seems pretty cut and dry.

Why does Amazon seem different to me? More importantly, should they be seen as different?

<comment><USER50> It is different. This is talking about Amazon Marketplace sellers. It would be more similar to if Walmart set up a flea market with tents and stuff in its parking lot and let anyone rent a booth and sell whatever they wanted. Walmart would also provide a centralized cash register at the end of the parking lot where people could pay for the items they got from the individual sellers. Walmart would then settle up with the sellers at the end of the day for the sales they rang up for them, while keeping a cut to cover the cost of the transaction and logistics for setting up the tents and keeping security guards on site.

This would be an equivalent analogy. Does THAT seem different than going into Walmart and buying from inside Walmart?

<comment><USER51> Except it's not like a flea market in the parking lot. It's more like Walmart had a flea market, but mixed all of the items in with their own, inside of the store, and made it difficult for a casual buyer to tell the difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> On the left panel under "Seller" there is a Amazon.com check box you can use to eliminate third party sellers from the product search. I tend to select sold by Amazon unless the seller is the actual manufacturer of the product, e.g. a candy company selling direct through Amazon.

<comment><USER53> As far as I know this doesn't actually work, because Amazon will comingle goods. That is to say you buy good from A. The warehouse closest to you has the same "item" but it is from B. So they ship you B's item, but mark it from A's inventory and credit A the money.

So even if you order from known good retailers, or Amazon themselves if party B puts bad products into the warehouse you can end up with bad or fake products.

<comment><USER54> Sellers have the option about whether their inventory can be commingled. Also, when there is high fraud potential or a large number of complaints Amazon doesn't allow commingling stock.

I operate a supply chain company who works for Amazon 3rd party sellers.

<comment><USER2> But how do we, as buyers, know which sellers have selected that option and which haven't?

The option existing for you makes absolutely no difference to how much I trust the system if information about (or even the existence of) the option is not something I know.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The real reason Apple and Microsoft are embracing 'HTML5' - <AUTHOR> http://crisp.tweakblogs.net/blog/4090/the-real-reason-apple-and-microsoft-are-embracing-html5.html

<comment><USER2> There is no deep conspiracy behind Apple's and Microsoft's support for HTML5 video and h.264.

They are adopting HTML5 for video because video is becoming more and more essential part of the web and an open standard for it makes the browsers of both companies independent of any particular plugin. No sane company wants to be dependent on others.

As for them choosing h.264 - that's simple too - h.264 is open standard (as in, no single company or other entity has the ability to change it at some random point in some random way) and is widely used already (i.e. there is a lot of software and hardware support). On top of that the patent situation with h.264 is much clearer and safer (e.g. given h.264's huge use, the longer no submarine patents surface, the higher the likelihood that there aren't any).

edit: fixed typos

<comment><USER3> >There is no deep conspiracy behind Apple's and Microsoft's support for HTML5 video and h.264.

Who said there's a deep conspiracy theory? Saying "they aren't being entirely open with their motives" is an observation that is almost always true of almost all businesses.

This is a classic conflict of interest. It's like finding out that your doctor who is telling you that you really need to remove a kidney has a lucrative side business selling kidneys.

This is really all so ridiculous, though. The video thing is a giant red herring -- the truth is that Flash as a video container is almost always used to thinly serve up h.264 these days. Yes, the stream should be decoupled from the player. No doubt.

Yet that blanket idea about video is used to mask the incredible gap that HTML5 currently has on mobile devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> MP3 suffers from all the same characteristics that he says is a threat to our artistic culture. Yet it did not kill our musical culture. Arguably, it lead to a vast expansion of musical culture.

There's no reason to believe that H.264 is any more of a threat than MP3 was.

<comment><USER5> MP3 is at or near it's patentable lifetime. Fraunhoffer Institute created MP3Pro to replace it but it hasn't taken off; now there are more viable alternatives.

The MP3 format was used because the patent wasn't enforced. As soon as it was and people found out the terms of license (per file, per encoder, and per decoder) the AAC license became a better alternative (only per encoder, per decoder, and high thresholds to payments).

In one regard h.264 is almost a repeat of the MP3 fiasco. Terms are good enough to make it widespread, then severely jacked up once it has market domination. From an enduser point of view. This isn't a problem, the CE company you buy gadgets from is required to pay this. Depending on the company this could be a problem. If you are a US-based company (where software patents are valid) competing against foreign companies it can be the difference of your product not selling because of a cheaper alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another author in this MPEG license discussion debacle who is clearly unread and confused over what open means, and what free means.

H.264 _IS_ open, just as all the other MPEG "technologies" are. The complete documentation for each and one of MPEG's data formats is available to anyone, free of charge, to use and to implement in whatever way they want - it's just that the end result; the H.264 video product itself, isn't free to deal with from January 1st 2016. What MPEG decides from that date and on can so far only be guessed, and for some damned reason, everyone in the "other camp" keeps making the worst possible guesses, while always having kept their mouths shut about MPEG-1 Layer-3, and MPEG-4 ASP. I call it FUD, and hypocrisy.</comment>


EFF's most influential cases from its first 25 years - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/effs-top-5-cases-from-code-is-speech-to-fighting-government-surveillance

<comment><USER2> EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn lists Bernstein ("code is speech"), Grokster (a partial win), and then three surveillance state-related cases: Hepting vs. AT&T, and the still-active Jewel and National Security Letters cases.

As one of the comments points out, Steve Jackson Games from the early 90s -- which lead to the creation of EFF -- also could be on the shortlist.</comment>


AvastSvc.exe contains a full, unsandboxed JavaScript/DOM implementation - phoe-krk https://github.com/taviso/avscript <comment><AUTHOR> I don't expect much from anti-malware companies, but this is one of those moments that made me absolutely dumbfounded that someone actually thought embedding an entire un-sandboxed JS engine with SYSTEM privileges was in any way a good idea. I actually had to get out of bed, open IDA, and start a Windows VM just to check that this wasn't some sort of elaborate hoax!

This isn't some MIDI parser logic, it's an entire JS interpreter that can parse DOM elements! How in Earth did this even get pushed out to a release? Did we learn nothing since the last time [1]?

1: [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=12...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=1252&desc=5)

<comment><USER2> Because low-effort JS developers are now everywhere. Just as JS should not be found in the server yet is now prevalent, JS is now finding its way into other places where it shouldn't be. You can't have an entire industry push this terrible ecosystem, then expect security companies to miss out on the fun. Locating and hiring C++ engineers at a scale is something that has become very, very difficult.

<comment><USER3> As much as I am tired of the crappy code produced by some JS developers this time they are innocent. If you had read the article you would have known that the JS code executed here is JS found on the Interent, not any JS written by Avast. The bugs are in Avast's C++ code (or possibly C).

<comment><USER2> I have read it. It's not clear what code runs inside the interpreter.

What reason is there to even have such an interpreter in a highly privileged process?

<comment><USER4> If the interpreter was running code written by Avast then it wouldn't be a security issue. Having an interpreter running code you have written vs writing the code in C++ is not necessarily better or worse from a security point of view.

<comment><USER5> Highly disagree here. Javascript's DOM parsing functionality has but one purpose: presentation manipulation, i.e. rendering. Having something like that running as SYSTEM is a security issue in itself, regardless of where the code comes from.

FFS, even display drivers don't run with full system privileges anymore.

<comment><USER6> JS has no DOM API, browsers provide JS an API to use. Plus DOM had nothing to do with rendering, it's just tree manipulation APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The real tragedy is that there are still "security" standards bodies mandating that AV software is installed on clients. If you want to be PCI-DSS compliant for example then you better install AV software.

Even worse, sometimes the requirements go even farther and require the AV software to be third-party - OS built-in solutions don't count.

At this point, the only safe solution is running proper whitelisting to make sure that only authorized binaries get to run and to keep those binaries up- to-date and, if possible, sanboxed.

If you have such a setup and then you have to install AV like this because of security-theatre, you're making your security much, much worse (because in order to run AV, you have to whitelist it and because AV is apparently written to quality standards that allow running arbitrary user-supplied JS as SYSTEM)

<comment><USER8> Who defines what "AV" is? Isn't your whitelisting solution also an "antivirus"?

<comment><USER9> NIST actually defines most of these standards and definitions. "Antivirus Software" has two:

A program specifically designed to detect many forms of malware and prevent them from infecting computers, as well as cleaning computers that have already been infected.

A program that monitors a computer or network to identify all major types of malware and prevent or contain malware incidents.

[1]: [https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/Antivirus- Software](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/Antivirus-Software)

<comment><USER10> > as well as cleaning computers that have already been infected.

That's not a thing.

<comment><USER11> Well, all AV software seems to offer the option, but I don't know many folks who would trust it alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I managed to run sample app on linux box.

Observations:

\- I am not sure this is 'full' javascript engine. I am thinking more inline with static-eval [0]

Example 1: Date.now() returns 'Exception: undefined'

Example 2: console.log([1, 2, 3].map(function(x) { return x; })) returns 'Exception: function(x) { return x; }'

\- I couldn't manage to access DOM document.write("
html
");

returns empty

\- After reversing DLL little bit, seems like it is used as unpacker ( also it has VBA support )

Still can be some vulnerabilities, but saying running full Javascript/DOM implementation is 100% wrong

[0] [https://github.com/browserify/static- eval](https://github.com/browserify/static-eval)

<comment><USER13> It doesn't have a bunch of standard functions (or they're not hooked up correctly?) but it is very much evaluating input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> For as long as I can recall, visusscanners are malware itself.

<comment><USER15> Hasn't always been like that however.

I think it's only became like that after the built-in malware detection of Windows 10 became good enough so the antivirus ventors started adding "features" to make themselves stand out and look good on Enterprise comparison charts.

Thinking back on the Windows XP days... You'd be in actual danger if you didn't use one.

<comment><USER3> Sure, while they actually caught malware back in the XP days, they were also still malware and some probably spied on their customers even back then. So back then it was about picking your poison.

<comment><USER16> If spying on your customers is malware (I think it counts), then Windows 10 itself is malware.

<comment><USER17> Not disagreeing in the slightest. My home laptop (Inspiron touchscreen model) will be on Ubuntu when the HDD gets replaced, with little regret.

<comment><USER18> I'm a fan of Ubuntu too, but you should note that they don't have a perfect reputation here either- [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu- spyware.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html)

<comment><USER17> I do remember that, and I admit I haven't researched current distributions yet, so I'm a few years out of date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _Last week, 3 /4 @taviso reported a vulnerability to us in one of our > emulators, which in theory could have been abused for RCE. On 3/9 he > released a tool to simplify vuln. analysis in the emulator. Today, to > protect our hundreds of millions of users, we disabled the emulator._

[https://twitter.com/avast_antivirus/status/12376853435807539...](https://twitter.com/avast_antivirus/status/1237685343580753925)

</comment><comment><USER20> Very nice writeup!

It contains a link to Avast's Coordinated Vuln Disclosure site: [https://www.avast.com/coordinated-vulnerability- disclosure](https://www.avast.com/coordinated-vulnerability-disclosure) and this has a link to Avast PGP key that's served via unencrypted HTTP: [http://virfile.avast.com/viruslab/avast-bugs-pgp- key.txt](http://virfile.avast.com/viruslab/avast-bugs-pgp-key.txt) Not only that, the key is a weak 1024 bit DSA key :(

<comment><USER21> I'm hoping this isn't a dumb question, but why does it matter that a public key is public-facing and unencrypted?

<comment><USER22> If someone intercepted the communication, they could swap the Avast key for their own, allowing them to decrypt your message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Someone [1] mentioned this hash d0e7e0e0287cd5a6ee36c74557ebf70f38235f90c8ce07c75d49721e379503aa [2] for Tavis to have a look at. Another AV company that ships a js interpreter?

1) [https://mobile.twitter.com/buherator/status/1237115773409206...](https://mobile.twitter.com/buherator/status/1237115773409206272)

2) [https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d0e7e0e0287cd5a6ee36c745...](https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d0e7e0e0287cd5a6ee36c74557ebf70f38235f90c8ce07c75d49721e379503aa/summary)

<comment><USER13> A search suggests it's Norton?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Has antivirus always been this sloppy? I recall a time in the 90s/early 2000s where the engineers working on these products were considered the best in the business.

<comment><USER25> Actually yes, in the (old) past they where not only "sloppy" but some (view?) where even malicious in _creating_ a virus which only theire program could handle (but which also didn't do much damage besides annoying the user).

Through instead of sloppy I would say it's often more on the line of misguided about what is secure and _overconfident_ about their own skill to write code without security vulnerabilities. And if the are no vulnerabilities no sandboxing is needed right (sarcasm).

Through there where and hopefully still are exceptions to this. But don't ask me which ones because I haven't been on Windows for a long time.

<comment><USER26> > Actually yes, in the (old) past they where not only "sloppy" but some > (view?) where even malicious in _creating_ a virus which only theire program > could handle (but which also didn't do much damage besides annoying the > user).

Do you have any proof for that or you just like bullsh __tting people so you appear knowledgable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't have access to windows machine, but what does 'full' mean in the title? Like can it open outgoing network connections? Can load remote code?

<comment><USER27> The readme shows it runs as SYSTEM which means it can write to disk and make network calls, etc.

<comment><USER7> well. the process that contains the JS engine can. The JS engine itself seems to be limited to what JS engines in browsers can normally do, so no intentional file system access.

However as the README says, this is a custom built implementation, built by a company who believes running a JS engine with SYSTEM privileges is a good idea. This means that there are probably exploits available and _those_ do get full access to the system as the highest privileged user.

<comment><USER28> And, let me guess - this JS scan is a part of their "web protection" stuff that runs on the websites you browse? Because that would mean attackers can drive-by exploit a lot of people with a bit of malicious script attached to an ad.

<comment><USER13> > That service loads the low level antivirus engine, and analyzes untrusted > data received from sources like the filesystem minifilter or intercepted > network traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just wondering, Has it got anything to do with [1] Sciter, the UI Library many AV software are using?

[1] [https://sciter.com](https://sciter.com)

<comment><USER30> I wouldn't be surprised if Sciter comes bundled with a VM for running JS, but it's not explicit on their website. They do position themselves an an alternative to Electron. And it looks like every anti-virus package uses this product.

"In almost 10 years, Sciter UI engine has become the secret weapon of success for some of the most prominent antivirus products on the market: Norton Antivirus and Internet Security, Comodo Internet Security, ESET Antivirus, BitDefender Antivirus, and others. The use of HTML/CSS has allowed their UI to stay in touch with modern GUI trends throughout all these years, and will continue to well into the future.

Sciter Engine is a single, compact DLL of 5+ Mb in size. Application using it are 10+ times smaller than the ones built with Electron or Qt. And size of the distribution matters, one of main Sciter's customers discovered "golden 40 seconds" rule: for the user, to buy a product, it should not take more than 40 seconds from the click on "download" button to the UI to appear on screen."

\---

As mentioned by others, this would be separate from the JavaScript VM mentioned in the OP and would not run as a privileged account (it would just be the UI people interact with).

<comment><USER31> > one of main Sciter's customers discovered "golden 40 seconds" rule: for the > user, to buy a product, it should not take more than 40 seconds from the > click on "download" button to the UI to appear on screen."

Is this another case of a metric becoming a target and thus no longer useful as a metric? The quality of software should be how well it performs its intended purpose, not by the conversion rate of the user funnel.

<comment><USER32> You can have the best performing software in the world and it is still worth exactly nothing if you can't sell. The reality is that cheaply developed software that sells well is usually good business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Most third-party AV software today is useless adware/bloatware. On my Windows machine I rely on Windows Defender + MBAM, never had any malware infection.

</comment><comment><USER34> Isn't Avast is the same software that auto-includes a signature inside all the mails you send? Without a browser extension.

</comment><comment><USER35> Apparently Avast has now disabled the JavaScript interpreter for all of their users: [https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1237745571009409029](https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1237745571009409029).

</comment><comment><USER36> [https://www.avast.com/bug-bounty](https://www.avast.com/bug-bounty)

Have at it

</comment><comment><USER13> Unrelated: [https://github.com/taviso/loadlibrary](https://github.com/taviso/loadlibrary)

It lets you call Windows DLL functions from Linux!

<comment><USER37> Maybe post unrelated links as their own HN stories?

<comment><USER13> Well, I don't really post Hacker News stories, and given that this was one of the first links on the page, I felt someone might find it interesting. (It also indirectly tells people that they can try the thing on Linux…)

<comment><USER38> Well, I hadn't seen that before and thought it's pretty cool, so I posted it in case others might also find it interesting: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22544777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22544777)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What can a unsandboxed javascript engine do? can you read files? read data from my computer's memory? Send my credit card info to the internet? Is this reading my chrome's profile data or running Node in any way? Access my camera/microphone/keyboard?

I fail to see how this is a problema and I've been programming with javascript for 8 years...

<comment><USER40> If there is no vulnerability in the javascript engine or any of the API they exposed to it in order to mockup a web browser then it can't do anything. The problem here is that that's not exactly a tiny attack surface, and modern web browsers implement defense in depth and sandboxing untrusted code for very good reasons. If there was some RCE for a part of this javascript engine, you're not just executing inside of some locked down environment, you're not just executing code as an untrusted user, you're executing code in a process with SYSTEM level permissions.

This is like putting a 2 meter wide thermal exhaust port on your death star. On the off chance someone manages to hit it, game over. This process runs untrusted code so if you can get a file opened on the target computer, or even just get the user to go to a malicious website, you can try to attack this. Once you get some payload running yeah you could use bog standard crimeware to sniff out any credit card details entered, export your saved passwords from your web browser, look for any wallet.dat equivalents and run a keylogger waiting for you to decrypt it, drop some ransomware on the system, etc. This gives full control over the system if you find an exploit to it.

But yeah, this isn't immediately a vulnerability, just a poor design decision and a very juicy target.

<comment><USER13> > This is like putting a 2 meter wide thermal exhaust port on your death star.

Except it's probably more like the second Death Star because it's unfinished and there's a gaping hole in the side of it that you can just fly in.

<comment><USER40> Nah, that was Chromodo.

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=70...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=704)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Using a third party antivirus solution in 2020 just sounds like a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER42> I am unable to replicate this on Windows 7 x64 (yes I know I should upgrade, but I am a crusty ol' XP user)

<comment><USER43> Yesterday on W10 I had to create registry keys to run an installer because the normal ways of unblocking the executable were simply missing off the menus. I miss Windows 7 every goddamned day.

<comment><USER44> There's a cmdlet for that

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/powershell/module/microsoft...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/unblock- file?view=powershell-7)

<comment><USER45> Or you can right click on the file in explorer, choose properties, uncheck the checkbox at the bottom (I forget the text in it, sorry) then click OK.

<comment><USER43> That's the problem. The executable was missing the Unblock checkbox despite throwing an "app has been blocked for your protection" pop-up.

<comment><USER25> If I remember correctly there is a version of Windows 10 which has server restrictions on what you can do, including it fully blocking "untrusted" installs. In turn it's a bit cheaper. But I'm not sure what they named it, maybe that was related to it. Also it's not uncommon for Windows to be able use features your version didn't had through the command line.

Edit: sorry swipey keyboard messed up some words.

<comment><USER46> There's Windows 10 "in S mode" which does this, but it's not a version of Windows sold at a discount, just a "mode" you can run Windows in. It's possible to (irrevocably) change from S mode to normal Win10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Typical modern application development. "Javascript all the the things" because "we can make good UIs!" with no regard for safety, speed, or reliability.

</comment><comment><USER48> Security theater at work</comment>


Behind the stick of the SR-71 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sbnation.com/2014/3/7/5447310/sr-71-blackbird-pilot-interview <comment><USER2> > There was a titanium bulkhead between you and the backseat. [...] Literally, > a wall.

This is what makes the famous "speed check" story about the SR-71 so effective ([http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite- sr-71-story-107912...](http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite- sr-71-story-1079127041)).

There is no eye contact or body language possible between the pilot and the communicator in the SR-71. What makes that story so perfect is not just the speed aspect, not just the smugness of the other planes, but the interpersonal relationship between the pilot and his crew member. It's just perfect story- telling.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps equally exciting is that the inertial navigation system on the SR-71 is calibrated by looking through a telescope at stars in broad daylight. Apparently quite simple, but still cool.

<comment><USER4> It's the same way with ICBMs. Once they've gone ballistic they look up at the stars to get their bearings. Then they switch to their gyroscope to guide themselves in. It makes sense, in a chilling way: you can't rely on radio signals like GPS, because in a nuclear exchange your satellites are likely to be destroyed or jammed. You can't rely on surface features because in a nuclear apocalypse those might be changing too. The only things that can be trusted to work are the gyroscope and the stars. And the payload.

(In case you're wondering, I know this because I was wiki-ing around after my iphone's accelerometer went nuts to figure out how state-of-the-art gyroscopes worked. Turns out that there's a special type of gyroscope, the Ring Laser Gyroscope, which uses relativity and interference patterns to achieve ~0 drift. RLGs were developed for ICBMs.)

<comment><USER5> It is a dreadful poesy to think that the last stargazer from this planet might have been a robotic rocket, looking up once at the fixed stars for all of humanity before ending it.

<comment><USER6> Deeply poignant

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll be honest, I'm kind of enjoying 'Aviation Week' here on HN. This is the kind of stuff that got me interested in math and science to begin with. Too bad my vision is so awful.

<comment><USER8> I think it's more like War Machinery Porn Week, really. Never really felt fully comfortable about this stuff myself. But for whatever burred tooth in the cogs of fate got us here, we'd be reading of (and marvelling at) the derring-do of people history has taught us to despise.

Nevertheless, here we are. And here, most importantly, at least from my perspective, I am. And - or perhaps, "and so" \- I enjoyed this one.

<comment><USER9> It's really important to separate the tools from the intent IMHO.

Just as one can use a butcher knife for its intended purpose or use it to kill, it's possible to design military equipment to "kill people and break things" without necessarily meaning to wage aggressive warfare.

It's true that the military tools _are_ often misused, but that wouldn't change in the real world by simply not having them; pacifist countries are sheep in a field full of wolves.

Just look at Ukraine, and then compare to nations that e.g. gave up nuclear weapons and then suffered "regime change". The list includes Libya, parts of Ukraine, and effectively Iraq (who were _very_ close to a nuke circa 1991). There's a reason Iran and North Korea want the bomb, and that reason is because the _deterrent_ value is real, not imagined.

Rather it's the same as an underlying principle behind the Second Amendment push (no one cares for my defense more than I care for my defense), scaled up to the geopolitical level.

So just as I think it's possible to appreciate the craftsmanship and design that goes into a well-made katana even if you don't intend to run the sword through someone's guts, I think it's possible to appreciate at a technical level some of the technology used in military gear without feeling like it means you support war. ;)

<comment><USER10> _It 's really important to separate the tools from the intent IMHO._

First thing I'll say: I'm not sure I've reached a conclusion regarding that statement or not.

But I've been leaning rather more strongly to the idea that things can be classified as beneficial vs. otherwise. Though sometimes counterintuitively.

One of the more interesting hypotheticals I've run across recently is the Paperclip Maximizer example: [http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer)

 _The paperclip maximizer is the canonical thought experiment showing how an artificial general intelligence, even one designed competently and without malice, could ultimately destroy humanity. The thought experiment assumes an AI stable structure of goals or values, and shows that AIs with apparently innocuous values could pose an existential threat._

The idea: _any_ simple-minded optimization behavior which doesn't take into consideration human values can, taken to the logical extreme, prove hazardous.

It was posted to HN a few years ago, though it didn't trigger much discussion at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747413)

<comment><USER9> It's a great thought experiment. I think I even read it when it came across HN. But it seems to me to be an argument about _why_ we keep humans "in the loop", as it were, and less about what tools you give the humans.

It does open some questions about how "innovative" one might want to be when developing a weapon, even for defensive uses.

It's sort of unfortunate that nuclear physics made the gains it did, _when_ it did, as a big part of the reason the U.S. ended up making the big push for the bomb, at a time when they needed all the resources they could get put into things like logistics for shipping materiel, was because of the fear that Germany might get it first. I.e., " _if_ someone will get the bomb, we'd better do it better they do".

I suppose the Cold War would have ensured proliferation one way or another, but WWII certainly did not help the cause of non-proliferation.

But either way, war or defense (whatever you call it) can _never_ be a simple- minded optimized anything. It is almost the very highest level of human holistic competition. So I'm not worried about the technology (as long as we don't make it self-aware, of course), I'm worried about the people.

<comment><USER11> Especially considering that human beings can, very easily, become totally divorced from healthy, " _normal_ " human values.

It's not enough to merely keep humans in the picture, but to keep healthy, undamaged humans in the picture.

Let's say, perhaps, that after a particularly costly war, the only humans left are a mixture of mentally unstable, angry, ambitious, victory-driven amputees, with intense biases imbued upon them by surviving particularly horrific and violent combat. These people, in a warped attempt to say "never again", optimize an artificially intelligent, fully automated child-rearing skinner box [1] to mold children into their own image, as the natural and perfect outcome which produces a society averse to violent warfare. The result is that every child that emerges from the skinner box is an angry, warped sociopath, missing limbs, who rationalizes even trivial behavior with an arbitrary moral high ground of extreme polar ideology.

But wait... aren't humans... technically classifiable as self-assembling intelligent constructs, spewed forth from the bald nothingness of space and time by mere coincidence? What if _WE_ are the beast we fear?

Oh... oh god.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner)

<comment><USER10> Organizational behavior and group decisionmaking is among the more fascinating fields I've encountered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The world's fastest plane was built before we landed on the moon. We're spoiled in tech by Moore's Law but the difficultly in making advances in commercial and military aviation is disappointing. In the 1970's everyone probably though NY to London in 2 hours was a given by now.

Here's a great book to read about the SR-71.

[http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/dp/0316743003)

<comment><USER13> > In the 1970's everyone probably though NY to London in 2 hours was a given > by now.

[https://medium.com/lift-and-drag/7885a299bca2](https://medium.com/lift-and- drag/7885a299bca2)

<comment><USER14> To be fair, a lot of the "We're too cheap to fly >Mach 1" comes down to the fact that door-to-door travel time doesn't really come down commensurate with the increased costs of faster-than-sound travel.

When the airport is outside town, and you have to arrive 1.5 hours before the flight takes off, taking even a large % of the flight time off doesn't make a significant dent in total travel time.

<comment><USER15> I think that for any travel there is some critical time when it doesn't matter how long it is as long it is < 24h and more than a long commute. You are wasting a whole day for that leg of the trip anyway no matter if the flight is 4 or 10 hours. So why waste money.

<comment><USER16> It makes some difference but I agree with your basic point. Especially as you have to add 2 hours or so buffer for check-in, security, etc.--especially for an international flight.

And if you're looking for more generalized "reduced pain of travel," the reality is that really comfortable seating arrangements and decent food/drink can be delivered on a sub-sonic widebody for a lot less $$ than it would cost you to travel the route on a hypothetical supersonic passenger jet.

Transpacific is probably where the difference would matter the most, assuming the supersonic jet had that kind of range (which is sort of doubtful). But it's worth noting that, even with today's jets, some really long haul routes that would significantly cut travel time for some don't make economic sense and have been eliminated (e.g. New York-Singapore).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not mentioned in the story (or comments yet): You can see the SR-71 at the Smithsonian out by Dulles Airport, along with a shuttle and a huge array of other hardware. Very cool if you're into that sort of thing.

[http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy- center/](http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/)

<comment><USER18> I remember seeing one at the Paris flight show when I was a kid. It looked like nothing else. You'd think it was a fighter jet, except it's so massive and streamlined, it's more like a misplaced, oversized prop from a sci-fi flick. Absolutely amazing aircraft. Anybody has a list of other "odd" planes? I know about the giant Soviet plane, the Kalinin K-7 [1], though while being "special" it's not particularly elegant and never went beyond the prototype stage.

1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7)

<comment><USER19> The "Capsian Sea Monster" certainly counts as odd: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun- class_ekranoplan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan)

<comment><USER18> Definitely odd. Looks like Russian designers had a weakness for unwieldy, large "planes".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Obligatory great SR-71 story: [http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite- sr-71-story-107912...](http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite- sr-71-story-1079127041)

<comment><USER13> Had a feeling it was ground speed check. My favorite story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend reading Ben Rich's autobiography Skunk Works. Very good book, and a ton more information about their projects with some great pilot excerpts.

My favorite is the SR-71 that had to cut across France, was intercepted by a Mirage fighter and then left it behind in seconds :D

</comment><comment><USER22> There's a link to the SR-71 manual, where I found this gem, in the takeoff section:

"The tires may skid with the brakes on at high engine thrust."

That is not a problem you have to deal with when flying a Cessna 172.

<comment><USER23> They had some other interesting problems. The big one was that the chines allowed very high angle of attack turns. The result was that you could actually stall your engines without stalling the plane (the engine inputs would blank and you'd lose compression).

That's not a problem you'd have with other planes either because usually the wings would stall first. This is a problem because you don't get an aerodynamic sense of being near the danger zone when things go haywire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's again this time of the year on HN where avalanche of aviation stories eventually leads to the great SR-71 articles. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Related: [http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html](http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> "Skunk Works" by Ben R Rich is a great book about the Lockheed guys and the SR-71 + F117. They were basically running a startup at Lockheed.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know why this is on a sports website, but it's great stuff all the same.

<comment><USER28> because, awesome

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> From [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/vetscor/1981814/posts?page...](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/vetscor/1981814/posts?page=1)

"The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit."

So asked Wolfram about this

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+mile+per+1.6+seconds...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+mile+per+1.6+seconds+in+miles+per+hour)

2250 mph (3629 kph)

Mach 2.956 at Sea level (340.3 m/s)

I couldn't figure out the magic English sentence that would get it to calculate the Mach at different altitudes.

<comment><USER30> [http://www.fighter-planes.com/jetmach1.htm](http://www.fighter- planes.com/jetmach1.htm)

According to that page, at 60,000 feet the speed of sound is 1062 km/h, making 3629 km/h approximately mach 3.4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Got to see one of these in person along with the engines and external starter engines at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

UNREAL especially for 1960 era technology.

<comment><USER32> The Blackbird there is an M-21, which has a pylon on the top for launching drones. Though, they do have the cockpit of an SR71 that went off the end of a runway and was totalled.

There's also a Blackbird at Dulles, in the Udvar Hazy Air and Space annex. That one's an SR71.

The concordes are amazing too. They look sooo spindly, until you're right up close to those engines. (and hmm, both museums have concordes too. But the Seattle one lets you walk through the inside.)

<comment><USER33> > _" the Seattle one lets you walk through the inside"_

As long as the weather is nice enough. We had to close down if there was either a threat to safety (lightning, ice on the stairs) or a lot of moisture getting inside the aircraft.

As a bonus, you can also walk through Eisenhower's Air Force One aircraft and see a lot of other cool stuff. Apparently in the summer they even open the 747 prototype, one of the 727s, and the Super Connie: [http://www.museumofflight.org/airpark](http://www.museumofflight.org/airpark)

(I used to work in the museum, and later volunteered to monitor those two aircraft. Never got to see inside the 747 though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting quotes from the article

> You'd fly the T-38 every day (for proficiency sake).

> As we took off from there and came back around for a pass, the right engine > exploded. We had to dump gas, and set about thirteen acres of Maryland on > fire as we did that. That was kind of interesting, just spewing flaming fuel > and titanium pieces around.

</comment><comment><USER35> Pretty amazing. Here is another SR-71 story that broke up mid-flight at Mach >3: [http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm](http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm)

<comment><USER34> Thanks for the article. Quotes from it.

> The SR-71 had a turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed (above Mach 3) > and altitude.

Also, during his 1st flight after the accident, Eject light went on in the back seat due to electrical issue. Because the backseater cannot see front seat, the backseater momentarily thought the pilot ejected without telling him...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Check out this list of 14 Rules of Management by Kelly Johnson. It was true back then for building fighter jets and it's true now for basic software development projects:

"Johnson's famed "down-to-brass-tacks" management style was summed up by his motto, "Be quick, be quiet, and be on time." He ran Skunk Works by "Kelly's 14 Rules":

The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.

Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.

The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).

A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.

There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.

There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the program. Don't have the books 90 days late, and don't surprise the customer with sudden overruns.

The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project. Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.

The inspection system as currently used by the Skunk Works, which has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and vendors. Don't duplicate so much inspection.

The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn't, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.

The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to well in advance of contracting. The Skunk Works practice of having a specification section stating clearly which important military specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons therefore is highly recommended.

Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.

There must be mutual trust between the military project organization and the contractor with very close cooperation and liaison on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and correspondence to an absolute minimum.

Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.

Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay not based on the number of personnel supervised."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_\(engineer\))

<comment><USER37> _Note that Kelly had a 15th rule that he passed on by word of mouth. According to the book "Skunk Works" the 15th rule is: "Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy._

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie)

</comment><comment><USER39> Got one of these good 'ole birds in the Museum next to Robins AFB in Georgia. They also have the start carts, and even have an engine pulled so you can see the six bypass ducts. They have recently mounted the plane on a stand so it looks like it has just left the runway, headed for the stratosphere....

</comment><comment><USER40> If you liked this, you'll love _Flying the SR-71 Blackbird: In the Cockpit on a Secret Operational Mission_ [http://www.amazon.com/Flying-SR-71-Blackbird- Cockpit-Operati...](http://www.amazon.com/Flying-SR-71-Blackbird-Cockpit- Operational/dp/0760332398/)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is what sometimes makes me wonder if the US Air Force came into contact with alien technology ;). Imagine going to this in just 60 yrs of flight being invented. Incredible, inspiring engineering.

</comment><comment><USER42> Interesting interview with a former SR-71 pilot: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeBu6mRDaro](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeBu6mRDaro)

</comment><comment><USER43> What's with this aviation / war topics week on HN?

</comment><comment><USER44> Pilots were wearing HEV suit!

</comment><comment><USER45> "You would get a couple of sunsets and sunrises, because at those northern latitudes often you would see day to night, and then a terminator line..."

Eh, this would only happen if they were adjusting their vector in like a wave, or their speed, right? It's not like they are shooting around the planet.

And he says England to Russia, so not following the sun. What is he talking about?

 __edit: reading further i 'm having a real hard time believing this shit.</comment>


Google Chrome cannot display URL schemes without installing an extension - <AUTHOR> https://superuser.com/a/1498561 <comment><AUTHOR> Additionally, after installing the extension, the http scheme will still never be displayed.</comment>


Edward Snowden gives address on US election result - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/usa/366364-edward-snowden-election-speech/ <comment><AUTHOR> This maybe a slight misquote but it's close: "Privacy is not to hide something, it is to protect something".</comment>


Same word. Different places? Different meanings - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/quality <comment><USER2> Sigh. Another facile "ooh, different language/cultures are so very different" story, coating a nugget of truth in a thick layer of bullshit. Having lived in the US, Japan and Singapore, rest assured that in any of these, a washing machine (or car or mobile phone or...) that falls apart in a week is considered low quality, regardless of how new (Korea), shiny (Japan) or expensive (China) it looks. Sure, each of those three cultures has those preferences for appearance and you'll need to take that into account for design and marketing, but _material_ quality (Jp. 品質 hinshitsu, Ch. 品质 pinzhi) still means exactly that everywhere: how well it's built to spec, how long it lasts, etc.

Also, I am completely not buying that story about somebody refusing a dented shipping container _just_ because it's dented. Think about it for a second: if somebody offered you a shipping container full of goods, and said giant metal box looked like it had fallen from a crane, would _you_ buy it? Hell no, at least not without inspecting every piece inside for damage and a hefty discount for my troubles.

<comment><USER3> > ""This is why you can't just take your brilliant American business idea and > go make it happen in China, India, or Indonesia." I don't see much of > difference in definition of quality when it is described as in "Japan" and > "U.S" . I don't get this , what is difference between "it is perfect" and > "it's well built and it will last".

I am not buying this piece either and because I am born and brought up in India , I know better how quality is defined in India and it's different from what author is trying to justify.

<comment><USER4> This thirdhand piece of information comes courtesy of something my mother read in the autobiography (?) of a Japanese woman who came to the US some time in the past.

Supposedly, in the course of cleaning her new home, she pulled the piano away from the wall and was shocked to find that that part of it meant to sit flush with the wall looked completely different (different wood, say) than the rest of it. To her, the piano should be viewable from any angle and any direction, no matter how it was intended to be installed in the home. To the American manufacturer, the appearance of the piano was of course highly significant -- but only the appearance of the parts you could see.

<comment><USER5> That's probably why Steve Jobs cared so much about how the inside of computers looked. He was obsessed with it. He probably read some Japanese book when he was in his youth and his culture became radically different in some way. Much more Japanese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _What if I came to America and tried to start a company that helped people stay at home and get drunk alone...blah blah blah_

Sivers responds: _Touché_

Touché? What if I came to America and tried to start a...liquor store? Where you can buy a bottle of vodka at 90 percent off, compared to clubs? Totally novel, right? Unthinkable.

Obviously, if the Singapore retail experience described in this article is correct, any entrepreneur there is going to look for ways to change that. Besides, a _huge_ amount of product from amazon is boring stuff like nappies and soap and ground coffee. People don't buy those things during a social event.

<comment><USER7> _Touché? What if I came to America and tried to start a...liquor store? Where you can buy a bottle of vodka at 90 percent off, compared to clubs? Totally novel, right? Unthinkable._

Most people buy at liquor stores to take to a social event. That reinforces the story's point, not contradicts it.

Liquor stores don't compete with clubs on price, they compete with each other and other sources of take-away alcohol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> However earnest, such efforts always end up being a narrow perspective which when successful becomes even more dangerous as then the one persons stereotype becomes an 'accepted fact' (case in point the Indian head nod references, What!)

The only way to do this would be to avoid being your culture centric and wherever you go start with respect for that culture and then open your eyes, ears and mind as the first step

During business visits to Europe, I have had Indian colleagues who cringed up their faces short of vomiting at the sight of a rare beef steak and have had European colleagues come and track down that 'cow on the road photo shoot' as their first biz agenda.

Now that is not the right start and it does not need a book to tell you that you have to respect others way of life.

</comment><comment><USER9> A long advertisement for a pile of books. Not to mention the article states the obvious - different cultures are.. you know.. different.

Am I missing something? Was there anything more to this?

<comment><USER7> I think you cynicism is unnecessary.

Knowing _different cultures are.. you know.. different_ is pretty pointless without being able to point to specific examples of just how alien they can be to one another.

I - for one - didn't know that quality in Korea meant "newness".

<comment><USER10> > I - for one - didn't know that quality in Korea meant "newness".

Yeah, me neither, and I'm Korean.

* Well, it can be a sound advice to say "when you want to sell a product in Korea, emphasize it's new." But that's just plain old marketing strategy and sounds boring. (When selling books to English users, play on cultural relativism?)

<comment><USER5> I also didn't know everyone in japan would think that perfection = quality. That really is a revelation to me. And if you ask everyone in Korea, they'll tell you new = quality. They are kind of related culturally, yet they are radically different.

I actually asked a Korean man the same question maybe 20 years ago, and he told me that he thought quality product meant "well crafted." Maybe because he was americanized in some way by watching American movies, etc.?

<comment><USER4> Consider that I always buy laptops "refurbished". Dell's definition of a refurbished laptop includes "someone else ordered this, and we built it, but then they canceled the order and we never shipped it". The discount you get for buying one of these, relative to a "new" (different how?) one, is substantial.

> I actually asked a Korean man the same question maybe 20 years ago, and he > told me that he thought quality product meant "well crafted." Maybe because > he was americanized in some way by watching American movies, etc.?

Occam's razor would suggest that he said that because that's what "quality" means, and the article was written by a blowhard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And if you ask a Six Sigma drone, even here in Murka, "quality" means little variation from piece to piece.

"Quality" is one of those things like "value" that doesn't refer to a specific thing, but must always be reckoned against human desires. Like, gold doesn't have "intrinsic value". It has value to us because it's rare and shiny, and humans like shiny things. And it's the same thing with quality: things are quality because people like them and consider them useful, reliable, pretty, or whatever. So this article boils down to a bunch of broad cultural stereotypes (Koreans like new things, Japanese like refined things, etc.) without much meaning.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm working on something somewhat related:

[http://www.istorical.com](http://www.istorical.com)

It's user-contributed reports about what it's like to live in cities and countries around the world. I'd love to hear some feedback if anyone else is interested in this sort of thing!

<comment><USER13> Love the idea and the site. Now to be notified of new posts? No FB Page.. no Twitter.. doesn't even seem to have good ol' RSS feed (not that I'd really use it, though I probably should switch back to that from that damned social media).

Look I'm not going to set a reminder to regularly check back what new stories you got -- do you really want only "once a year by chance" visitors? Get that subscription funnel going. And yeah don't try to get membership signups for just that one feature, not gonna happen. Might sign up and contribute even at my own leisure at some distant future date, but right now --- offer some feed or other to even keep us passive lurkers out there fed ;)

<comment><USER12> That's a great point. I had that on the to-do list but I haven't prioritized it enough.

I'm still really, really bad at marketing. Do you know of any resources for learning best practices as far as subscriptions?

<comment><USER13> By subscription I meant anything feed-like I can subscribe to / "follow" ;)

I too am a loser at marketing :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's particularly cool that "quality" is the word dissected in this article.

Robert Pirsig wrote a whole book[1] about Quality: specifically the unique characteristic that it doesn't completely resides in an object itself, nor does it reside completely within the subject experiencing the thing.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060589469](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060589469)

</comment><comment><USER15> The "culture shock" series is pretty good too, aimed more at people who actually move to the country.

The difficulties with books like this are 1> they age quickly 2> they are hard to generalise (books of the same length for the Netherlands and India will have wildly different levels of resolution) and of course the authors will be different.

This wood egg approach seems like a reasonable way to deal with the latter.

I've lived in five countries the only general statement I can make is that people are the same everywhere, and completely different as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Article is VERY accurate. Japanese, especially, hate imperfection and believe that everything should be perfect, without any asymmetry or irregularity.

<comment><USER16> A hardware company I used to work for had a sister company in Japan. We'd send over our product and they'd run it through another set of production tests before sending it on to customers. If something wasn't right, no matter how trivial, they'd troubleshoot the issue (including pulling the thing apart) leave big stickers pointing to the issue, and send it back with a report.

How trivial can they get? One item came back with 'dirt on screen', with an arrow-sticker pointing at it. The tech here picked it up and touched the dirt with his finger... and it fell off. Nothing else was wrong with the unit. For this, the unit had a return-trip journey across an ocean...

<comment><USER5> as a consumer, i would never return an item that was dirty. that's just too extreme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How is Derek the co-author for all of those books? Is it like how celebs co- author books or did he really write parts of each book?

<comment><USER18> From the about page:

> How these books were made I wrote 200 questions to be asked of each country. > I hired multiple researchers in each country to answer each question. One > local, one foreigner, one other. I wanted the book to be more than one > person's point of view. I hired a writer to turn the multiple different > answers into one combined answer, and add another layer of expertise. I > hired an editor to proofread and improve the final text.`

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> On their face these WoodEgg books look very attractive. I having been toying with the idea of setting up a company elsewhere than Australia, and would be very interested in an in-depth survey.

Anyone who owns one care to share their thoughts?

<comment><USER20> I read the Singapore version out of curiosity because I stay here. Most of the stuff can be researched online. But you'd probably have to spend much more time doing that research and can't verify the results easily. And this is for a city that already has quite a lot of information online. Worth purchasing, I would say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's conflating language and expectations. Quality means the same in the US as in EU or China or in Japan, we just don't expect the same level or properties depending on the environment. Quality sushi in Japan is not the same level of expectation as quality sushi in Brazil. A quality car in Sweden won't be judged on the same criteria in Zimbabwe.

</comment><comment><USER22> It does seem like a bit of an ad splash page.

But on the topic of different meanings, my favourite example is in Greek, you as "Τι κάνετε" "What are you doing" literally but it translates as "How are you?". These things go always translate directly, and if you are speaking with a nonnative it's likely that these things will occur.

</comment><comment><USER23> Have people never left their own countries?

This is one of the first things you figure out when venturing abroad.

Nothing beats a summer day in thongs.

<comment><USER24> Yes. I've lived abroad for years. Apart from local colloquialisms, English words commonly used in the industry convey basically what one would think they would convey. This blog post is exaggerating things a little to make a point. The "thongs" play on words is a funny one, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Quality is defined in the Service Level Agreement.</comment>


Links to real-world corporate branding manuals - <AUTHOR> http://identityworks.com/tools/guidelines_and_standards_manuals.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> Some broken links, but otherwise hopefully useful to those of us putting branding docs together to see some examples as reference.</comment>


How the Languages We Speak Shape Our Realities - <AUTHOR> https://philosophybreak.com/articles/language-shapes-reality/ <comment><USER2> Based on my experience whenever I switch between French/English or Romanian my thought process or even how I feel can hugely differ!

My friends noticed that I will get angry much more faster if I'm in "Romanian mode" than French.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice post, I think that languages not only shape our reality but transform how we act or think

</comment><comment> matt-snider The use of "Umwelt" seems a bit forced to me. I speak German and don't think the meaning is different from just saying "environment". Is this a standard term in the environmental sciences?

<comment><USER4> I think it's a relatively common thing in philosophy—especially philosophy of mind, where it mingles with cognitive (or social) science like this—to borrow German words instead of neoclassical equivalents.

Aufgabe, grundnorm, gestalt, schadenfreude, kulturwort, übermensch, &c.

Many have their roots in the 18th century surge of German philosophy ignited by Kant which influenced the early psychologists like Freud and Jung (who were—if we're being honest—hardly more than philosophers, but proto- psychologists notwithstanding).

Insofar as I understand it, when such borrowing is done nowadays, it's not usually because the German word is perceived to have some different shade of meaning to a native one: rather because the _borrower_ intends a different shade of meaning, perhaps deeming the risk of misunderstanding too great to use the native word. That is, the imported word as used in the context of the work is meant to have a precise and technical meaning as jargon. In using a different word, the reader is then forced to learn the new word with this new meaning, avoiding any connotations one might have with a familiar word—provided, of course, that this "new" word is _un_ familiar ;)

<comment> matt-snider Great explanation, thank you :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's more than vocabulary and grammar that shapes reality, it is the metaphors that extend the language, allow analogies to be drawn, and provide handles for semantic analysis.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's a thought experiment: do you think describing the world using words is just describing it? Or, when you put your thoughts into words, does your brain then search for examples to confirm what you've just created?

</comment><comment><USER7> Here I thought it'd be an article on what we read/understand shape our realities.

Nothing is more fun then reading the same story, but on different news media - from CNN, NHK to El Pais.

</comment><comment><USER8> Even within a single language the words that we chose to use shape our mental and emotional states. Tony Robbins talks about this in his book Awaken the Giant Within (highly recommend)

</comment><comment><USER9> For anyone who finds this stuff fascinating, There's a great book, "through the language glass" by Guy Deutscher. I really enjoyed it.</comment>


Xv6, a simple Unix-like teaching operating system - <AUTHOR> http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/xv6/ <comment><USER2> _For many years, MIT had no operating systems course. In the fall of 2002, Frans Kaashoek, Josh Cates, and Emil Sit created a new, experimental course (6.097)..._

That seems pretty shocking, unless they meant in name only. What was the next closest thing?

</comment><comment><USER3> "Students doubted the relevance of an obsolete 30-year-old operating system written in an obsolete programming language"

And an operating system not used in the industry but just used for teaching is going to be more credibly relevant?

</comment><comment><USER4> I saw this fragment in the source code:

        case T_IRQ0:
            // Bochs generates spurious IDE1 interrupts.
            break;

Evidence that they run their educational OS in a virtual machine.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm looking forward to version 11, so I can ask a question like "can you run X11R6 on X6R11?".</comment>


Ask HN: Jump from quant finance into tech startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi Hacker news! I am considering leaving my career in quantitative finance (2+ yes) to join a tech startup (none in mind ATM).
Has anyone in the community made a similar jump?
Did you find it difficult or realize any considerations in terms of skill set reqiired, lifestyle, and/or compensation ?
Thanks all for the tips or advice! <comment><USER2> With questions like this, 2015 hype cycle has started to look like 1999 hype cycle.

I will encourage OP to read this Quora thread before considering such a move.

What was Silicon Valley like after the bubble burst in the early 2000s?

[http://qr.ae/BgEva](http://qr.ae/BgEva)

Are you unhappy with your job and the domain you work in and want to make a career switch? Do you want to make this move mainly because tech startup is right now hot and you think you can roll the dice and get rich quick? You may want to read up on what happen to people who made such moves during last hype cycles.

<comment><USER3> From the Quora thread: "Then I took a real job for 18 horrible months and banked enough to go independent again.

Those years left a permanent impression on me."

God, have mercy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When you say quant finance, do you mean you're an Excel ninja? Or that you do your work in code? That will make a big difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks--that would certainly be good to clarify.

I work at a major hf in C++/R and do a large amount of data analysis and signal generation research. A bit of excel too :)

<comment><USER4> Well, one idea if you're interested -- you could email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I can put you in for an engineering role here :) A lot of the other engineers here actually came from similar roles at, ie, GS and DE Shaw.

More generally, I would look in places where your financial services experience will be appreciated. Financial tech, for sure, but really any enterprise SaaS company will appreciate people with programming skills and business sensibilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/archisman- rudra/4/62/621/en](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/archisman-rudra/4/62/621/en)

[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris- kramvis/1/508/a16/en](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-kramvis/1/508/a16/en)

[http://www.linkedin.com/in/lmsanch/en](http://www.linkedin.com/in/lmsanch/en)

</comment><comment><USER6> _"...compensation..."_

Trading a high probability of a decent bonus for a low probability of a half- decent equity payout (I guess, also no unicorns).</comment>


Extreme makeover: Computer science edition - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/11/14/extreme.makeover.computer.science.edition <comment><USER2> _But what if you could somehow reach inside the video and swap the offending photo for a snapshot of your current love? How perfect would that be?_

NO NO NO! Enacting revisionism on your life is a dangerous game. We're all products of our history - changing history is to fail to learn from and appreciate our mistakes.

It's the equivalent of going through a photo album and cutting out the heads of people you don't like. It's an activity fueled by bitterness and emotion rather than practicality - and one that's often regretted later on.

The technology is cool but this particular implementation is a sad reflection of society - a bit like the advances in face recognition, really.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _They say a user of the software can easily plunk an image on almost any planar surface in a video, whether wall, floor or ceiling. And the embedded images don't have to be still photos—you can insert a video inside a video._ </quote>

A new way to place ads for video-hosting services. It might be great news for youtube-like sites.</comment>