Embedly (YC W10) Raises Another $450K, Launches One API To Rule All Embeds - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/09/embedly-raises-another-450k-launches-one-api-to-rule-all-embeds/

<comment><USER2> Is there such a thing as a library that abstracts away the differences between the JavaScript APIs of common embedded video players (YouTube, Vimeo, etc)?

This could be useful if I've embedded a player with embed.ly and then want to control it from elsewhere on the page (say, have a big "play" button somewhere).

<comment><USER3> I've written a library that does that (just play/pause/stop/mute/unmute for now) for a Chrome extension that I am working on to provide uniform audio controls to Google Chrome. (<http://www.mutetab.com>)

I haven't decided yet, but I am leaning toward open sourcing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.oembed.com/> does same thing I think , for free.

<comment><USER5> oEmbed is a spec. That site does nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news, congratulations!

Embedly seems like a great service. I haven't started using it yet, but it's definitely on my roadmap of things to do. A service that does a simple but incredibly important thing for you, without you having to worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> i made a mashup using embedly a while ago -- it's cool because if you have a forum, you can use embedly to automatically embed all links etc and produce the cool dynamic experience of an image board / video site without any of the hassle

</comment><comment><USER8> "If you are an existing api.embed.ly user, you can sign up for an API key here." <http://app.embed.ly/pricing/free>

From the embedly blog

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't get it. Why would I want to use them instead of embedding directly?

<comment><USER5> Every site is different and some don't even offer oEmbed. A ton of work has gone into embedly. You can repeat the effort, and host your own solution, or just use us. We think using Embedly is a cheaper solution.</comment></comment>


Navy Returns to Compasses and Pencils to Help Avoid Collisions at Sea - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/politics/navy-orders-safety-operational-standards.html <comment><USER2> [https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy- swo...](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a- culture-in-crisis/)

"For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer's School in Newport, Rhode Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as division officers.

But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the "SWOS Basic" school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job. The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.

"The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the expense of our ability to operate safely at sea," said Lippold, who commanded the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.

After 2003, each young officer was issued a set of 21 CD-ROMs for computer- based training — jokingly called "SWOS in a Box" — to take with them to sea and learn. Young officers were required to complete this instructor-less course in between earning their shipboard qualifications, management of their divisions and collateral duties.

...

In recent years, there's been a push to re-energize SWO training. And on paper, they've got a course for every level of SWO — all the way up to the commanding officer level.

Young SWOs now get about nine weeks in fleet concentration area classrooms. Generally, these new officers report to their ship first and then get a seat in school within the first couple of months on board.

But, Parin said, "only a couple of days are dedicated to navigation and mariner skills. The rest is damage control and other material division officer-specific training."

Another eight weeks of school comes between an officer's first and second division officer tours. They are taught more advanced skills, but still, the professional mariner instruction isn't what it should be, Hoffman said.

That's still just a fraction of the original training."

<comment><USER3> Skipping on training to save money -- with a budget the size of nearly half the world's military expenditure.

<comment><USER4> US military expenditure is a stealth job creation program. It's politically untenable for any American government to announce a $1.5 trillion dollar scheme to create 100,000 skilled manufacturing jobs in the rust belt, unless that scheme produces a fighter aircraft. It's a woefully inefficient job creation scheme, but that inefficiency means that a lot of different stakeholders can get a slice of the pie.

Everyone would be better off if that money was spent on clean energy or healthcare, but the American electorate are far more willing to sign a blank check for defence.

<comment><USER5>
        1 500 000 000 000
        </comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----- = 15 000 000
                  100 000

That would, in theory, result in 8-figure jobs for every serviceman. Is that right? Where is the excess going?

<comment><USER4> I was obliquely referring to the F-35 program, which is forecast to cost ~$1.5tn and is estimated to have created ~100,000 jobs within the services and via contractors, subcontractors and suppliers. The F-35 is a dreadful aircraft that is grounded indefinitely because it keeps trying to suffocate pilots, but it has kept a lot of factories busy and made a lot of senators happy. Lockheed Martin proudly trumpet the fact that there are suppliers for the F-35 project in 46 states - that's a lot of pork to go around.

The US defence budget is lousy with pork-barrel projects. The Army Chief of Staff has repeatedly asked Congress to stop buying new Abrams tanks, but the tanks keep rolling off the production line nonetheless. The services might be facing deep sequestration cuts, but there's been no let-up in the procurement of expensive and unnecessary hardware.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-approves-useless- mil...](http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-approves-useless-military- spending-2013-5?IR=T) [http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon- tells...](http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells- congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html)

<comment><USER6> > _The Army Chief of Staff has repeatedly asked Congress to stop buying new > Abrams tanks, but the tanks keep rolling off the production line > nonetheless._

Wow. One has to wonder when some of those tanks will eventually reach regular law enforcement, like lots of other military hardware tends to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a transoceanic sailor I'm still shocked by how little our Navy knows about seamanship. Complete disregard for colregs, disregard for other vessels in confined spaces, and just general lack of knowledge on navigation. From talking with other sailors our Navy is like the elephant in a china shop. An angry, armed elephant deathly afraid of little mice.

USCG on the other hand are pretty great. Ocean rescue gives way to drug enforcement so I know not everyone has a good experience with them. My few interactions with the Coast guard have been courteous and uneventful.

<comment> GCU-Empiricist The difference there is the level of detail in annual or semi-annual colregs certification exams; In the navy you have a multiple guess exam. I have been told, in the coast guard you answer the question and then write the full rule or applicable paragraph of the rule longhand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > More sleep and no more 100-hour workweeks for sailors

That's the far more important solution.

<comment><USER9> The problem is that increasing manning doesn't really contribute to the military industrial complex...so there isn't a real incentive to make room in the budget for additional personnel. When I was in the Navy we routinely had 100hr+ workweeks while in port and the older guys said it was the same back in the day.

<comment><USER10> Honest question from someone that has no idea: Does training in these shitty conditions help performance in case of war, where those conditions might be necessary?

<comment><USER11> No, they are there to break people and get them to rebond as a temp family. You really get to learn who is what kind of guy/girl doing repeated 100 hr weeks

<comment><USER9> > "No, they are there to break people and get them to rebond as a temp > family."

\- I'm not sure if this is the primary point of the 100hr+ work-weeks. In my case, our submarine was going through an Engineering Refueling Overhaul in Norfolk so we were just incredibly busy.

<comment><USER12> Failure to staff adequately is a managerial failure to plan, which is sometimes used as a cost-cutting measure.

100-hour work weeks not only save direct worker costs (you get 2.5x the labor at the cost of 1x), but also in managerial and other costs (you get 2.5x the labor for the cost of managing a 1x headcount).

<comment><USER13> I seriously doubt you get 2.5x as much work done, working people for 100 hours a week versus 40.

<comment><USER14> You wouldn't think so, given how easy it is to burn out a regular white-collar worker by overworking them, but people in the military are sort of the "high- spec components" of humanity: there's been many layers of selection pressures applied to find the people that can be pushed far past their "tolerance" without breaking. Everyone that can't, washed out a long time before you got your hands on them. (At least, that's the thinking. In reality, it's maybe 50% that, and 50% everyone hiding their weaknesses and covering for one-another's failures to give off the _image_ of this. But good officers know that, and only expect 150%-of-tolerance rather than 200%-of-tolerance. :P)

<comment><USER15> Judging this as a civilian employee of a business that does some government contracting, you end up with about 110% as much output as people working 40 hours a week. That's 125% from working 60 hour weeks, plus a random negative productivity averaging out to -15% from the hours worked beyond that.

But each individual is _super proud_ of being able to give a 280% effort. It's just that after that long on the job, you are no longer capable of detecting when the math no longer adds up. And they are "high-spec" components--most people drop to 0% efficiency _long_ before that 60th hour worked in a week. But there are no supermen in real life. Nobody on this planet can produce positive value in the 112th hour worked in a week, even if there are people out there willing to _try_ , and also resilient enough to bounce back from it regularly.

It often boils down to the thoroughly debunked yet oft-echoed labor theory of value. In some people's minds, a person that works 60 hours in a week is 50% better than someone working 40. And if everyone in the organization works that hard, then the whole organization is that much better. The harder you bust your asses, the prouder you are of it, and the more you can ignore any objectively measurable outcomes.

In reality, this just gives the military completely unrealistic ideas about how actual productive labor happens, and how much it costs in time and money, and contractor businesses of the military-industrial complex gleefully take advantage of that.

<comment><USER16> Even if their assumptions that some people working 100 hour weeks were 2.5x better than people working 40 hour weeks, where do you go when war happens?

If the whole system is being redlined when it's peacetime, then it only takes one thing going wrong, a single casualty, some damage to the ship, anything really to make the whole system collapse

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> FWIW, I caught up with a SWO buddy the other day and his take on this was that there are two ultimate culprits for the recent collisions:

1) A "check-the-box-and-cover-your-ass" mentality with regard to the implementation of annual training. The basic gist is that the (very necessary to some extent) training designed to get young sailors to not get DUIs, manage their finances properly, not beat their spouses, etc has gotten more and more onerous every year, with more mission-focused training being sacrificed in order to make hours available. By my friend's telling, there has been something of an arms race in that every fleet-level commander has to do _something_ quantifiable to put as a fitness report accomplishment (eg, "restructured and implemented DUI awareness training; liberty incidents fell 13% during tenure in billet").

2) The tracking systems that Navy ships have turned on in peacetime started getting turned off 10-15 years ago and the original impetus was the IGRC using this data to antagonize Navy ships (ie get position/speed/bearing of a destroyer over horizon, then send a couple of speedboats to cross its bow 300 meters ahead at 40 kts). This was briefly mentioned in article as something that is getting reinstated following recent collisions.

Interestingly he said that the end of the SWO course had little to do with the accidents and that the main reason the Navy ended it was that junior SWO feedback was saying that they would learn more just being on the ship for that amount of time (analogous to the concept of learning much more in your first 4 months as a junior engineer than you did during your senior spring semester as a CS student).

<comment><USER18> For those wondering like me, SWO is surface warfare officer (someone who manages shipboard systems) and IGRC is the Iranian navy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's absolutely ridiculous military vessels, that should have excellent awareness of their surroundings, would collide with a very large piece of metal that was not designed to be stealth in any way.

<comment><USER20> You are assuming these collisions occurred because the Navy crews didn't know the other ships were there. My understanding is that the US vessels knew the other ships were there and did not react properly.

<comment><USER21> It was probably similar to what happened when the USS Porter collided with another vessel in the Strait of Ormuz. You can hear how confusing the situation was from this audio recording. Apparently, the work environments can be extremely stressful and that can lead them to become toxic.

[http://gcaptain.com/intense-bridge-conversation- porter/](http://gcaptain.com/intense-bridge-conversation-porter/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > A Government Accountability Office report from May said sailors were on duty > up to 108 hours each week.

... and people are wondering why accidents happen. If one sailor on the bridge is overworked, there are his fellow sailors to correct the mistakes that are bound to happen, but when the _entire bridge_ is next to collapse from sleep deprivation, that's next to impossible.

</comment><comment><USER23> Something's going to have to give here. Between budget and scope, one or the other will have to change in order to increase staffing, sleep, training, and maintenance and reduce errors like this. It's only going to get worse in the future, too. China is interested in the South China Sea, Russia is interested in Eastern Europe, and North Korea may come to a head soon, so scope of operations won't be decreasing. Procurement of the F-35, _Columbia_ SSBNs, FFX frigates, and Ford class carriers (and that's only the Navy!) means that there's going to be less budget to go around too. Something is going to have to give.

<comment><USER24> > China is interested in the South China Sea, Russia is interested in Eastern > Europe, and North Korea may come to a head soon, so scope of operations > won't be decreasing.

Maybe it's time to realize that the global imperial ambitions of a country of 350 million people are not sustainable in the 21st century.

Oh, who am I kidding, of course that will never happen.

<comment><USER25> Counter balancing those "threats" wouldn't be a problem if the U.S. was't constantly engaged in warfare in the Middle East. But the fact that 1) conservatives are more interested in shifting attention back to Iran than dealing with North Korea, and that 2) both conservatives and liberals criticized Obama's restraint in Syria, tells you everything you need to know about the ultimate, unfortunate fate of American foreign policy.

People criticized Obama for drawing a red line wrt chemical weapons in Syria and then flinching. But IMO his decision to flinch is probably one of the greatest acts of presidential leadership we've seen in generations. Obama's mistake was drawing the red line, but that's something every American president does almost habitually, paving the way to normalizing the bombasticism of Donald Trump. Not only did Obama realize his mistake, he resisted making an even larger mistake just to save face and supposedly preserve our deterrent (as if it wasn't obvious we were already overextended), despite universal advise to do otherwise. In many respects it's on par with Kennedy's decision to cut a deal with Khrushchev, though the optics are less flattering this time around.

The atrocities in Syria are morally repugnant. But while most European allies criticized Obama for not getting the U.S. more involved, precisely none has chosen to get more involved themselves. The situation is fundamentally intractable given the politics and level of commitment that could be sustained. Obama stood up, _alone_, to make the hard choice.

It took Obama years to develop that kind of spine. It's a shame he had to go because that's something we sorely need when it comes to North Korea. Like Syria, North Korea is a losing proposition every which way, except with greater global consequence. Either 1) there's a major war with hundreds of thousands or even millions dead (including tens of thousands of Americans) within days or weeks, 2) global nuclear proliferation as North Korea exports nuclear technology, or 3) a momentous quid pro quo with China that shifts the balance of power in the Pacific to them in exchange for regime change in North Korea. The best outcome for both America and the world is #3, but there is no mainstream American leader willing to even conceive of that bargain, let alone provide the leadership and intelligence necessary to negotiate those waters.

Instead we're likely to get #2, which will merely provide more fodder for American chickenhawks to pursue fanciful military expeditions around the world. Nothing is more certain to lead to the swift end of the American era.

<comment><USER26> Option 4: Contain North Korea like we contained the USSR until they collapse, while maintaining a soft blockade and trade sanctions to limit global nuclear proliferation.

<comment><USER25> Not possible. North Korea shares a border with both China and Russia, and neither would agree to the type of embargo required. They haven't even enforced the embargoes they agreed to. The last thing they want, particularly China, is a total collapse of the regime and a flood of migrants coming across their border. They also see significant value in having a buffer state between them and American-allied South Korea. Both China and Russia benefit from a situation which exposes the limits of U.S. power. Finally, they have a greater tolerance for nuclear proliferation because, at the end of the day, it's really only the U.S. with a global footprint and a target on its back. They're playing a dangerous game, but however flawed their calculus they seem to think the prospective benefits are greater than the costs.

You'd think it would behoove China to simply replace Kim Jong-un, but for some of the above reasons, and more, they're not willing to try it.

If you track the past thirty years of diplomatic efforts, it's obvious how stark the choices are. Frankly, I'm astounded at how short the memories are in Washington, and how motivated their thinking. Across the political spectrum. It's really made clear to me how increasing partisanship (including reactions to that partisanship) has blinded everybody.

<comment><USER26> China has actually started partially enforcing the trade sanctions. They aren't in favor of nuclear proliferation either and won't knowingly allow nuclear weapons components through their territory. So containment is still mostly possible. It doesn't have to be an unbreakable barrier, just good enough.

<comment><USER25> If a blockade strategy were feasible, North Korea would have never gotten the bomb. North Korea has pursued a nuclear capability in earnest since at least the 1990s (EDIT: 1980s according to the Wikipedia timeline), though their desire to obtain one was declared decades earlier. It's unfolded so slowly and so deliberately that the public and many pundits don't even _remember_ all the precipitating events because at this point they don't even stand out. Just look at the timeline: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_North_Korean_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_North_Korean_nuclear_program)

If China were serious about containment, if the sanctions were effective, then things would have never gotten even remotely this far. Both the U.S. and Israel were on the verge of bombing Iran before they even got as far as North Korea did before 2000.

The situation _inside_ China is complex, but ultimately the reasons are irrelevant because 1) China manifestly has proven that it is unwilling to be aggressive _enough_ even during the periods when they were truly upset with North Korea and 2) there is no evidence that China's fundamental calculus has changed or even might change--the calculus that has allowed North Korea to openly a) begin a nuclear research program, b) refine and breed fuel, c) test nuclear weapons, and d) import, develop, and export missile technology to the point where they're close to e) having a delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon. At each step China has vehemently (and believably) opposed those advancements, yet they've refused to prevent it. To be sure they've applied some pressure, just as they are now; but North Korea's resolve is too great.

Despite all this overwhelming, indisputably clear history, people are still in denial. It's incredible.

Trump is absolutely correct on at least one thing: negotiation is futile. Fortunately, my guess is that Trump's vanity and preternatural instinct for survival will stand in the way of the U.S. choosing to go to war over this issue. Which is why my money is on North Korea joining the nuclear ICBM club, with all that will entail down the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We had a video posted from a merchant vessel not so recently. They have a 4-8 watch, a 8-12 and a 12-4 watch where juniors learn on the 4 to 8 watch, which happens twice daily. This works pretty well compared to the U.S. Navy. I don't hear a lot about merchant seamen needing more training budget or needing to use pen and paper.

<comment><USER28> They also have a much simpler ship to deal with.

<comment><USER29> More fancy things but its still a boat in the water with a rudder and propellors that's moving.

<comment><USER28> So is a pontoon boat but that doesn't mean there's much useful comparison to extract between them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems like a UI issue more than anything. How do we even have multi million dollar ships that are capable of violating the rules of the sea? It seems like an ideal situation for a driver assistance type package that is able to be removed during combat operation.

<comment><USER31> _How do we even have multi million dollar ships that are capable of violating the rules of the sea?_

If shipping lanes were like roads that might be possible, but they aren't and it isn't, because COLREGS don't work like that.

<comment><USER30> They arent, however the rules of the sea are very simple. More importantly a calculation of probability of collision between two slow moving giant metal objects would be easy.

<comment><USER31> Ever been a skipper manoeuvring in confined waters with multiple vessels around you? I have, and it is at least an order of magnitude more complex than anything I've ever encountered on the road.

<comment><USER6> Still; assuming you can get good, real-time estimates of mass, rough shape, position and velocity vector of each of the ships around you, making a system to compute probable collisions sounds like a small undergrad-level project at best. What are the obvious things I'm missing here?

<comment><USER31> You would need to account for drag and windage. Basically know everyone's hull shape and CFD it! And the seabed under them.

At a distance it's easy - but in confined waters it gets very complicated very quickly. I've seen situations where literally the only solution is, who do I collide with.

In the case of the USN they have a hell of a lot more manoeuvrability than a freighter but they can't escape the laws o'physics...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Back when I did accounting for a few years, I routinely found more than one way to solve the problem at hand. And I cross-checked.

I remember in particular one instance, where I spent a day tracking back to three garbage "test" orders that a development team was injecting into production (our live accounting systems), assuming no one would even notice in the midst of the normal "slop" in the system due to incorrect coding and habituation to "these systems are outdated/buggy/German/yadayadayada".

I find it kind of unfathomable that e.g. a destroyer class ship would not have multiple means of knowing where it is -- founded upon real-world, what you can observe around you and in the sky, situational awareness. And that they would not be cross-checking these _as a matter of routine._

You're a _war ship_. Do you think e.g. the enemy is going to tell you before they take out or corrupt your satellite navigation?

'But we're not at war.'

Well, you spend billions and billions each year on training exercises. How about some of the simplest, least expensive, and most direct training possible, on a routine basis? I.e. run your bridge and crew with a persistent eye towards ingraining the skills _before you need them?_

Not constant bullsh-t schedules that deplete them and inhibit learning. (How well do _you_ remember the day after pulling an all-nighter?) But skills that will prove critical, and the vigilance to be pro-active in using them.

That includes training for stress -- including functioning during sleep deprivation. But not as a lifestyle.

Anyway, same for me, in software. Cross-check. Don't assume. But a lot of what I've seen around me, is anything but that. Even and especially in our so- called profession.

There are definitely professionals -- I've worked with some. Whether there is a well-defined, high-skilled profession? Yeah, that's a lot less clear.

It seems the navy needs to be asking itself what is actually professional, as well.

</comment><comment><USER33> What about requiring military ships to illuminate their ships just like merchant ships? (TBH I think but I don't know for sure that the US ship in the singapore collision was unlit.)

</comment><comment><USER34> This also may have something to do with it: [http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html](http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html)

See also: [http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467210492/u-s-navy-brings- back...](http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467210492/u-s-navy-brings-back- navigation-by-the-stars-for-officers)

</comment><comment><USER35> I was Army and learned the old school way. Compass, Protractor and Map. Refused to completely trust GPS. It will fail you just when you really need it most. Army navigation is much easier than Navy, but same rule applies.</comment>


Show HN: A free tool to easily check your SpamAssasin Score - <AUTHOR> http://spamcheck.postmarkapp.com//?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=board&utm_campaign=spamcheck

<comment><AUTHOR> Spamcheck is a free tool from Postmark that helps you process the spam score of incoming or outgoing email messages. It allows you to do this with a lightweight JSON API while avoiding the hassle of managing SpamAssassin. It also allows you to instantly and easily integrate spam score processing in your app. If you have any questions, I'll be here to answer them.

</comment><comment><USER2> JJets718 very cool, any plans to allow for bulk uploads and comparisons in the future?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Nat! Great questions. You can do bulk uploads and comparisons using the API, but I don't believe we have plans to allow bulk uploads and comparisons using the web interface in the next few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really nice, I have a few apps I will use this on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Please let me know here or email me at email@example.com if you have any questions.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cosmic JS: API-First Content Platform - <AUTHOR> Cosmic JS makes it faster and easier to add dynamic content to any website or app.  Sign up here to get a beta invite: https://cosmicjs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the links don't work on the description. Here's the clickable link: [https://cosmicjs.com/](https://cosmicjs.com/)</comment>


The Ruby on Rails Tutorial book, updated for Rails 5 - <AUTHOR> https://www.railstutorial.org/book <comment><AUTHOR> I submitted a link directly to the free online version of the _Ruby on Rails Tutorial_ , but to find out more about the new edition (and to get a 20% launch discount) see the news post here:

[https://news.learnenough.com/rails-5-edition-of-rails- tutori...](https://news.learnenough.com/rails-5-edition-of-rails-tutorial)</comment>


Lookback 1.0. Record bugs and feedback, now on Android, Mac and iOS - <AUTHOR> http://lookback.io

<comment><USER2> We have used Lookback since the beginning for our app development, couldn't recommend it more. The team are excellent people based in Sweden and the US.

</comment><comment><USER3> This product has made it really easy for the product team I work with to get real user feedback earlier and easier for the apps we have built. I'm glad to see they are out for Mac OX now so we can try this out instead of silverback since it would be good to consolidate to just one tool.

</comment><comment><USER4> LookBack just keeps evolving. Great feature update, we've used it in beta testing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Super awesome, love this, finally Lookback Android for recording the screen on your phone + frontal camera! #win

</comment><comment><USER6> Fantastic tool all around. I've been looking for something like this for so long!! Thank you lookback!!!

</comment><comment><USER7> Easy to set up, and easy to collect valuable user feedback. Recommend it!

</comment><comment><USER8> Awesome product! I'm literally quite amazed by it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks useful for UX testing, definitely.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeah! Awesome Go team Lookback!

</comment><comment><USER11> Lovely lovely lovely!

</comment><comment><USER12> Go team Lookback!

</comment><comment><USER13> Very cool tool!

</comment><comment><USER14> Awesome stuff!

</comment><comment><USER15> Great stuff!

</comment><comment><USER16> Great :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Great!!</comment>


Show HN: IsAwake – Tell when you are awake with a pull request on Github - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nicola/isawake

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an example: [http://nicola.isawake.me](http://nicola.isawake.me)</comment>


A 100% Privacy focused alternative to Disqus - <AUTHOR> http://usemention.io <comment><USER2> Great too see yet another Disqus alternative. However, I agree with justinjc - I am missing a demo and pricing information. I've blogged about different ways to include comments on a static site [1]. I'm happy to include your service if you provide some more information (even if it's just a WIP) :)

[1] [https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site- comments/](https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I too agree, I will be more descriptive and will be adding a video/gif on showing how the UI will work. Would be happy if you can include after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems a little backwards that I need to join the beta in order to see the sneak preview. Shouldn't I get to see what it looks before I decide whether I want to join the beta?

Also, I'd be a little hesitant to use this without knowing what pricing will be like down the road. If it turns out to be too expensive for me, I would have wasted time integrating this.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep! seems reasonable. will add this soon.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I'm rethinking commenting system and making it more intuitive with conversational interface. Building it from ground-up, it will 100% privacy focused commenting system. Also, I wanted to do something for planet earth, so I will be planting a tree for every signup.

What do you think about it?

<comment><USER4> It's hard to have opinions, when I cannot see how it looks, e.g. don't know what the "conversational UI" is.

What inspired you to create it?

Can I ask about any long term plans?

<comment><AUTHOR> Will be adding a UI video so you can see how it will work.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is wrong with Google Chrome? - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/Yqh9ILg<p>I've been seeing this on multiple sites. The blue/green/purple text in the divs changes as I mouse over them <comment><USER2> [https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/38144053?hl=en&msgi...](https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/38144053?hl=en&msgid=41546793)

Has the identical problem, disabling hardware acceleration is the suggested solution.

edit: And [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106817...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1068170) for the Chromium bug

</comment><comment><USER3> Clickable version of your link, since it's a pain to select on mobile: [https://imgur.com/Yqh9ILg](https://imgur.com/Yqh9ILg)

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you sure you don't have a hardware issue? (overheated?) That looks a lot like GPU artifacting.

<comment><USER5> Would a hardware problem show up in a screenshot?

It could be a picture of the screen, but the alignment is perfect.

<comment><USER6> Depends on where the hardware defect is. If the defect is before the frame buffer (shaders, triangle setup, rasterization), then yes it will show up. If it's after the frame buffer (CRTC, resampling and DAC), then no it won't show up.

<comment><USER5> Now _that_ is the answer I was hoping for. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You have seen past the veil. You must forget you've ever seen this. Some things are too great for a human to know.

<comment><USER8> The image translators work for the construct program. But there's way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it. I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What operating system / graphics backend are you using? Do you have multiple screens? E.g. you can encounter issues with hardware acceleration on Linux if you have multiple screens.

<comment><AUTHOR> MacOS 15.14. I run two screens and hardware acceleration appears to be the issue

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks a tech support ticket, not HN thread

<comment><USER11> HN _is_ Google's end user tech support forum ;)

<comment><USER12> So true, it hurts. If I see another "Google deleted my account" [3 hours later] "Update: Google reinstated my account after someone spotted this" thread...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hit this same issue on some sites, but not others: [https://twitter.com/geerlingguy/status/1257714544044052488](https://twitter.com/geerlingguy/status/1257714544044052488)

It's so strange, because neither webkit/Safari nor Firefox has ever had any issues, but Chrome does this randomly on any Mac with a GPU, it seems.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks like GPU issues or memory corruption in the browser memory.

You can try disabling hardware acceleration to prevent Chrome from using the GPU but if I were you I'd start checking if everything on my machine is backed up properly.

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought we were going to bash on its privacy issues. Mildly disappointed.

<comment><USER15> As did I. Those threads seem to be monthly - but I feel as if we haven't had one in some time. I don't know why, though the threads on the topic here are usually tiresome and predictable, I still find them quite amusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Search for GPU artifacts in Chrome, you'll notice it's quite common, but it's less to do with Chrome and more to do with a problem with your GPU.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can we get Bruce Dawson to use this as source material for one of his deep- dive angry rants about software quality?

</comment><comment><USER18> Last time I've been seeing this was back in 2010-such with the infamous Nvidia mobile GPU solder issue O.o

</comment><comment><USER19> Try rebooting your machine. I had this issue two weeks ago, it strangely was coincident with a chrome upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER20> Try disabling hardware acceleration</comment>


Our new website Animation - <AUTHOR> http://happyfuncorp.com

<comment><USER2> It's disappointing someone discovered it did not filter dupes and decided to post, many times apparently, "WE CAN FLOOD IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T FILTER DUPES". I'm certain they felt clever in doing so.

<comment><USER3> Well, hopefully it makes something fun even better by highlighting its flaws. Like Pwn2Own in that regard.

<comment><USER2> It seems like highlighting the structural insufficiency of a sand castle by stomping on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I seem to get FRESH COFFEE (NOT STARBUCK) an awful lot. None of mine seem to be making it in either, yet I don't think it's moderated as there are plenty of "offensive" messages in there.

<comment><AUTHOR> We made a decision early on not to censor, though the hacker news crowd has upped the frat-house humor. Funny that people still try to inject javascript...

<comment><USER3> You should probably at least make sure that each post is unique though, looking at the source that's why I kept getting the NOT STARBUCK one, it's been submitted multiple times

<comment><AUTHOR> Why?

<comment><USER3> Because people like me, when they enter a message, will sit here and click over and over until they see their own message. And with the number of flood posts etc. you never get to see your message because it's buried in the crap, which is frustrating.

You can get around it by firstly removing any message that isn't unique, and it might also be a good idea to have a timeout where you don't accept another submission.

Clearing the input box between submissions would stop people from just clicking the share button multiple times too, then they'd at least have to paste the text in before clicking submit again.

Also consider this scenario:

            javascript:for(var i=0;i<10;i++){$("#thought_message").val("spammy message");$( "#new_thought" ).submit();};void(0);

<comment><USER3> It's very cool by the way. If it wasn't I wouldn't care.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you liked it.

I've filtered dups and cleaned up the submit process so it makes it a little harder to spam, but I guess it just seems silly to me to try and actually stop spam on the internet.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it's like herding cats. Good work anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Penis was the first 'happy thought' that came up... it seems when we give people absolute freedom and anonymity, penis will always appear in some form.

</comment><comment><USER5> It goes horribly wrong in Opera. Clicking for the next happy thought reveals a huge block of raw HTML, and God help you if you click more than twice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Turns out that Opera does css colors it's very own special way. Fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the first things it suggested to me was "Weed"

<comment><USER7> I totally agree with that idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This site is great. Love everything about it.</comment>


The Poignant Gulag Art by Stalin's Doomed Meteorologist - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stalins-meteorologist-gulag-drawings <comment><USER2> Sad and touching story. His illustrations remind me of the Soviet children's books[0] I grew up with as a kid.

0 [http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-prcurnnlu-childrens- books.html](http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-prcurnnlu-childrens-books.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> this is a great article. It's shocking how many people have never heard of Holodomor [0]. Or the extent of Stalin's brutality long before the second world war began.

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

<comment><USER4> I think part of this lies with the fact that Stalin and especially Communism had a lot of highly placed admirers in the West. One of those was Walter Duranty, who even won a Pulitzer Prize for for his work as the Moscow Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He worked to deny and discredit those who tried to tell the world about the atrocities of Stalin.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty) [https://www.nytco.com/new-york-times-statement- about-1932-pu...](https://www.nytco.com/new-york-times-statement- about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/)

<comment><USER3> It continues today in the social sciences:

"Overall, Marxism is a tiny minority faith. Just 3% of professors accept the label. The share rises to 5% in the humanities. The shocker, though, is that as recently as 2006, about 18% of social scientists self-identified as Marxists"

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/03/the_prevalence_1...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/03/the_prevalence_1.html)

<comment><USER5> It's important to note that in the 2006 study that Caplan cites, which reported that 18% of social scientists identified as Marxists, the other options offered were all about political affiliation rather than economic views (although there is certainly significant overlap between these categories). The prevalence of self-identified Marxists in social sciences, particuarly sociology, may reflect the important role Marx's commentaries on the social outcomes of 19th century capitalism has had in areas like history, sociology, and cultural studies, rather than a commitment to communist economic structures. There are plenty of Marxist scholars who use Marx's methods of analyzing social phenomena without subscribing to his statements about the inevitable triumph of socialism. Marx is generally recognized as a better diagnostician than a prescriptionist, and for fields involved in critical analysis of social-political-economic phenomena it is not surprising to see people who identify (politically) with his work and world view.

<comment><USER6> From the linked SlateStarCodex piece :

> Conservatives always complain that liberals "deny human nature"

> But here I have to give conservatives their due. As far as I can tell, Marx > literally, so strongly as to be unstrawmannable, believed there was no such > thing as human nature and everything was completely malleable.

So, it is possible Marx's economic prescription came out of his social diagnosis</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CouchDB + Redis might be a match made in Heaven - <AUTHOR> http://ai.mee.nu/is_couchdb_the_anti-redis

<comment><USER2> "MongoDB offered me most of the features I needed with the API I was looking for, but it crashed unrecoverably early in testing..."

Just curious...were you running the version that supports the recovery log with the durability option enabled? If so, are you implying that the recovery log feature does not work as advertised?

"fling it at the wall and hope that it sticks, with a recovery log tacked on since 1.7."

MongoDB's recovery log is "tacked on?" how do you differentiate "tacked on" verses being properly implemented and integrated?

</comment><comment><USER3> love the comments about memory usage. it's the low memory usage that allows us to run on mobile devices.</comment>


Language Debt - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@javierwchavarri/language-debt-aa525ee2d879 <comment><USER2> > The Rise Of Immutability

Every language (except some special languages were immutability doesn't make any sense perhaps) should have first-class immutable values declaration support. In the majority of cases when I define (e.g. in C# or Python) a variable I don't mean to ever change it (I only introduce it for sake of the code readability and to re-use the value in multiple places later), if it accidentally gets changed that's a bug. That would be wonderful if I could always define these as immutable the way I do with the `val` keyword in Scala and get a compiler/interpreter report an error once it notices unintentional re-assignment.</comment>


Uber said to be negotiating a multibillion-dollar takeover of a scooter startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/1/18120933/uber-bird-lime-acquisition-negotiaton-report <comment><USER2> It boggles the mind to think of what possible unethical things a scooter startup could be involved in to attract Uber's interest.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cannot fathom, with Uber's existing technology and resources why they would want to waste money on a scooter company... they could rebuild/mimic any of those companies by the end of the week... Uber's investors really need to talk to Uber about their priorities.</comment>


The Herbicide Glyphosate Doesn't Cause Cancer. It Saves Natural Ecosystems - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/glyphosate-does-not-cause-cancer-saves-native-plants.html <comment><USER2> A good friend of mine is a PhD Toxicologist who worked at Monsanto. He was one of the people charged with attempting to reproduce the claims of all of the people who claimed Roundup (the herbocidical ingredient in Roundup) was carcinogenic in some way. One of the things he pointed out to me is that, to humans, the most toxic thing in Roundup is the surfactant (industrial-grade detergent, essentially) that allows the glyphosate to actually stick to the plant and be ingested by it. Detergents can cause chemical burns to the skin and other nasty maladies if you ingest them; the stuff you use for washing dishes has to be formulated to be safe/less irritating to human skin but they almost always recommend wearing dish gloves just to be completely sure.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.iarc.fr/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news- gly...](https://www.iarc.fr/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news-glyphosate)

[https://www.cornucopia.org/2013/07/organophosphates-a- common...](https://www.cornucopia.org/2013/07/organophosphates-a-common-but- deadly- pesticide/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI09rc6MWe5QIVE73sCh2qMAJQEAAYAiAAEgJzJvD_BwE)

>Organophosphates are so toxic to humans that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken steps to limit their availability to the public.

>Upon entering the body—through ingestion, inhalation, or contact with skin—organophosphates inhibit cholinesterase, an enzyme in the human nervous system that breaks down acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that carries signals between nerves and muscles.

>When cholinesterase is inactivated, acetylcholine builds up in the nerves, which become overactive. Victims of organophosphate poisoning typically die because they can't breathe.

<comment><USER4> IARC's findings stand in contradiction to nearly every other governmental agency. From what I can tell, they intentionally chose this position and then curated their data sources to emphasize their beliefs. This is an ongoing situation where I encourage you to read as widely as possible.

<comment><USER3> Yes. I'm sure the EPA, currently headed by Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for Murray Energy, known for trying to push back environmental protection laws, would be fairly quick to dismiss any health concerns on a product that a large corporation, with deep lobbying pockets and a track record of doing terrible things to both the environment and farmers that use their products, relies on for hefty profits.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01664...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166445X14002422)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393511...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935117316730?via%3Dihub)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263381](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263381)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01664...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166445X17303156)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21922334](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21922334)

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's only the EPA that made this determination. IARC stands in opposition to a wide range of government agencies. Note that much of their opposition is based on results in S-D rats which really aren't indicative of any effect in humans.

<comment><USER3> I really don't need the EPA or the IARC to tell me that spraying a bioaccumulative nerve toxin designed specifically to kill things, into the environment, year after year on a mass scale has negative repercussions for the environment and the potential to cause damage in humans.

<comment><USER4> if it's that bad, can you point to the health outcomes in the US (which uses this at massive scale) that definitely are attributed to this?

I worked in life sciences and there are many things which are published that don't actually have anything to do with a compound being safe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Glyphosate is the anything else, it has costs and benefits. One benefit is that you can use it for no-till farming, which conserves the topsoil, and reduces the amount of diesel fuel , water, and fertilizer inputs required per acre.

A big part of no-till is always keeping some kind of plants growing in the fields. The theory being that acres of bare dirt are not found in healthy natural ecosystems. Cover crops are planted in the fall after cash crops are harvested. In the spring, Glyphosate is used to "burn down" the cover crop instead of ploughing it under. This allows the cash crop to grow through the mulch of the dead cover crop, keeping which protects the soil from the sun drying it out or the wind blowing it away.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No- till_farming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming)</comment>


Over 5,600 fossil fuel companies have taken at least $3bn in US Covid-19 aid - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/07/fossil-fuel-industry-coronavirus-aid-us-analysis <comment><USER2> did anyone think this program was NOT a big corporate payout?</comment>


EFF Joins Andrew Auernheimer Case on Appeal - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-joins-andrew-auernheimer-case-appeal

<comment><USER2> I was hoping they wouldn't, this isn't the guy I want to rally behind. He's foul, delusional, at best grey hat, and apparently a pharmacologist on the side. The EFF needs to pick its battles better. Double down on cases like Aaron's, and let this guy hang on his own stupidity.

<comment><USER3> This is such a tough issue for me.

On one hand, I absolutely support the cause that the EFF is trying to champion. It reminds me of the classic case in the American free speech vs. hate speech debate: should Nazis be allowed to organize a peaceful rally to further their thinly-veiled racist ideals?

I have had personal interaction with weev for years, and while I don't think he's _vile_ per se, he is most definitely not the ideal that the EFF and other groups should rally behind to bring this fight to the limelight... mostly because he's not likable. It disgusts me to say it, but it's true: if you want public support, you need a likable figurehead.

In the end, though, I can't fault the EFF. As the famous Hall quote states:

         "I disapprove of what you say, but I
         will defend to the death your right to
         say it."

<comment><USER4> Since it's the majority opinion at this early stage of the thread, what exactly is the ideal being sought?

<comment><USER5> The ideal is: you should be legally allowed to fetch and use any public document on internet, even if you know or should know its owner intended it to be private.

<comment><USER6> > _you should be legally allowed to fetch and use any public document on > internet, even if you know or should know its owner intended it to be > private._

That's a bit too general isn't it? If I hacked H&R Block and gave the tax documents of 5,000 people to journalist should I not face some kind of consequence? Not that I'm on AT&T's side on this; just saying the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Revealing emails, to me, shouldn't be a crime at all. Revealing the kind of info found on tax-forms however should have some kind of penalty.

<comment><USER7> "If I hacked H&R Block and gave the tax documents of 5,000 people to journalist should I not face some kind of consequence?"

As I see it - if H&R Block had a public webserver which used an easily innumerable url to "protect" the tax documents of 5000 people - it's H&R Block who should be "facing the consequences".

Ignoring for a moment the distraction about weev's likableness and/or character, where's the outrage against AT&T for their part? If it's been a teenaged scriptkiddie from somewhere that US jurisdiction (and oil interests) don't reach (like most of these WordPress admin logins my fail2ban config is seeing these last few days), wouldn't it be _much_ more obviously AT&T's "fault"?

Hell, where I live it's an offense to leave your car unlocked : [http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/community_issues/crime_preventi...](http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/community_issues/crime_prevention/public_transport_and_traffic) (scroll down to the first bullet point under "Help Stop Car Theft"). Why isn't someone at AT&T facing jail time here?

<comment><USER8> >Ignoring for a moment the distraction about weev's likableness and/or character, where's the outrage against AT&T for their part?

There's the rub though. AT&T isn't a human, so who do you punish? You can fine AT&T the company, but that's not punishing the people who left the site like that, it's punishing the stockholders. Stockholders really don't like to be liable for the actions of fairly low level subordinates like that, and they have the political influence to make sure that doesn't happen. You could try to go after the specific admins who set up the site insecurely, but they're not unsympathetic people. The ones who do things like this are mostly people who are overworked or poorly trained through no fault of their own. The people who are really at fault, then, are the ones who hired admins without proper training or experience or put so much workload on them that they couldn't adequately do their jobs, but now you're talking about corporate executives who (like stockholders) don't like to be personally liable for the actions of subordinates and who have the political influence to make sure that doesn't happen.

So we're left with a situation where there is no one good to punish, but we have to punish _someone_ , don't we? Something bad has happened! So we kill the messenger. The messenger doesn't have any lobbyists on staff.

What's missing from all this is that we really don't have to punish anyone. Just let the vulnerabilities be published. Companies don't want to hear that because it very publicly makes them look as dumb as they are, but if they can't stop it by threatening anyone with prison then the only way they can do it is by maintaining secure systems. Which means they will, or they'll face the penalties of the court of public opinion.

Where in this dynamic is there a need for intervention by the federal prison system?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Finding Legal Advice for Startup? - <AUTHOR> We are building a news aggregator and wanted to make sure if we are not infringing any copyright laws. What would be the best way to find a lawyer/company to make sure we're in the good? <comment><USER2> Hi there! Congrats on your startup. I'm a startup lawyer and I've only recently discovered a website called UpCounsel that essentially helps with what you're looking for. I've never used them but they have great reviews.

Happy to chat about your business myself, but I can only give you legal advice if you're in Ontario, Canada! :)

I hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for offering to help, but we are looking for someone in California. Although UpCounsel looks very promising, and I've already started talking to lawyers on that. Thanks a lot!</comment></comment>


The 1968 and 1969 NATO Software Engineering Conferences - <AUTHOR> http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> The discussions from these two conferences are fascinating. Example discussion: Should software be priced separately from hardware?</comment>


Google LevelDB inspired compaction in Cassandra 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/leveled-compaction-in-apache-cassandra

<comment><USER2> LeveledCompactionStrategy is still a new piece of kit for Cassandra, and probably should be used sparingly. If I've understood anything I've been told, it's best fit is if the workload involves many random overwrites distributed over a large set of rows & columns. It's also currently not concurrent, so if nodes have high I/O throughput and many cores, it's even less likely to perform as well as standard compaction.

<comment><USER3> Sort of. (a) the times you want to dedicate more than one core to compaction are rare, and (b) you can still use multiple cores within a compaction set. I'll update the post with more details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow.. it sounds very interesting..</comment>


&what; Interactive Unicode Search Engine - <AUTHOR> http://amp-what.com/#q=chess

<comment><USER2> Yes -- I have a similar Unicode search engine on my site, based on JavaScript:

<http://arachnoid.com/unicode></comment>


Reservation System Cwic goes open source - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iadavof/Cwic <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I wanted to let you know that a Ruby on Rails project for managing reservations is now open source (MIT license). It has a lot of features, but due to the flexibility of the system we want to create, it is too much work for a team of three people. We hope that others could join us making this the best reservation system out there!

In essence, every reservation is the same: you want to book a place, object or service for a certain period of time. So, why isn't there a reservation system that does not make any assumptions on the entity that is for rent? With this in mind, we started developing Cwic! The flexible reservation system that is highly configurable. This provides an enormous amount of bennefits. If you are a hotel owner and also want to rent bikes, you can add the bikes as entities in the same reservation system you use for the rooms, and already are familliar with.</comment>


AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying <comment><USER2> One thing I see people saying on here is that people should care....and I do...but I don't know _what_ to do with it!

Can someone show/tell me what I, an average person, can do? It feels a bit overwhelming and things like this point out how powerless we really are. I hope I'm wrong and there are things we can do...I just don't know what they are.

EDIT -

Asking two more specific questions:

1\. What can we do technically to be safe?

2\. What can we do to fight this? Petition Government? Support EFF? Other? Very much at a loss on #2

<comment><USER3> Besides using SSH and VPN more, the only thing I can do is avoid ATT.

I was on T-Mobile for years (out of ATT spite) until Verizon got the iPhone and I jumped within the week. I also spent a lot more money on internet using alternatives to ATT DSL (although I doubt my information was more secure from that choice).

<comment><USER2> I'm guessing those other big companies are just as bad, however. Might not have the facts yet, but being paranoid leads me to think that way....

<comment><USER4> I feel the same. What we would need is a telecommunication company that puts the respect of privacy as one of its core goals (think Zappos), and not just in the boilerplate license agreements. Although entering that arena has high entry costs, it seems like a huge demand for such a service exists.

<comment><USER5> Quest communications was allegedly the only telecom co that didn't roll over to the NSA:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_for_NSA_spying>

A lot of time has passed, and they have a new CEO. I wonder if they have continued to hold out, or have quietly installed the black-room...

EDIT: I see they were just acquired last year by CenturyLink. I have to doubt that they have now not rolled over (call me a pessimist).

Very sad that corporations are so willing to forsake the privacy of the entire country's citizens (on the level of a constitutional breach) in order to make a dime or curry favor. Beyond sad, it is terrifying that the government then used warrantless wiretapping to specifically target our journalists:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/25/tice_nsa_revelations...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/25/tice_nsa_revelations/)

...at least according to the same source that was responsible for leaking the existence of the black-rooms in the first place.

Sigh. Maybe I'll pick up my old copy of 1984. It's getting ironic now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What about the following paragraph is not clear?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and Warrants shall not be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Am I missing something? Of course the problem is that it's near impossible get something like this to the SCOTUS. The only real possibility is more whistle blowing.

<comment><USER7> That is written for you to learn in 5th grade civics class and feel good about your country and your government. But is not for those printing & spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why people are upvoting your comment.

Actually, I do know why. It's a depressing disenchantment with government.

They don't understand that government is not going anywhere, and that government can be as good as it can be bad.

The quote zmblum posted is brilliant, and it is an example of what Good Government is capable of. It is not just for your 5th grade civics class. It's for RIGHT NOW. Read the quote, understand and respect it and its authors, and take action. The government is not just _them_ , it's also _you_ , and sitting on the sidelines being cynical is _supporting them_.

<comment><USER9> _They don't understand that government is not going anywhere, and that government can be as good as it can be bad._

No way in hell. Where, in either the future or the history books, is the saintly leader who will counterbalance a Stalin or a Mao?

<comment><USER10> I think the point is government that is not necessarily led by a single person. Though the president of the US is the 'leader,' he _does_ share power with the Supreme Court and Congress. Just because everyone likes to point to the president when things go wrong doesn't mean there aren't others that share in the blame...

The current problem with the system is that: 1) the Federal government has grown too large, and 2) the US is ruled by only two political parties that are both (at their core) about the status quo and not all that different from each other.

<comment><USER11> May I suggest that the current US political debate is virulently polarizing and unproductive?

Perhaps the issue Good Governance vs Bad Governance would be effective/useful? (as opposed to the current axis of big vs small)

As was said by Deng Xiapong "it doesn't matter if the cat is white or black.."

<comment><USER10> Big government has more chance for corruption because the system ends up growing ever-more complex. Parts the of the system that are useless never get culled, they just keep finding ways to retain minimal amounts of relevance, while attempting to maintain or increase their funding levels.

It's harder to have 'good government' when there are more ways for it to fail.

<comment><USER11> Which is great and fine in a theoretical world. You guys just had your economy blow up. IT doesn't matter if its big or small. It matters if it works. Ignore size.

<comment><USER10> Ok, so you determine that it isn't working. Then you try to figure out how and why so that you can fix the problem and you find out that it's death by a thousand cuts.

I'm not so delusional to think that there will be some magical shrinking of the government, but you seem to be telling me that it isn't a worthy goal, which I disagree with. You can have the goal of making the government _work now_ while at the same time trying to trim away the useless pieces.

<comment><USER11> I have no issue with a smaller government. I just don't see how smaller or bigger government are worthy goals IN and OF themselves. It just needs to be working government.

The debate about big vs small govt. is one of many, pointless hand-wavy, ideas used to harm your debate.

Is it wrong to point out that something is being used to obfuscate discussion, polarize opinion, and detract from getting a solution?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> No big surprise here really. So when are we all going to get serious and start using public key cryptography on a mass scale, even if we "don't have anything to hide"?

<comment><USER13> Make it easy and you 'may' just make it happen. ;)

<comment><USER14> I'm working on it (seriously :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just imagine what Google has splitting to the NSA.

The question is does Google give them raw data or pre-process it willingly for them?

</comment><comment><USER16> What you can do: 1\. Support the EFF, CDT and other orgs that work on technology and civil liberties. 2\. For truly private data and activity get religion with PGP, TrueCrypt, Tor and other tools. For the non-private stuff, take some sensible measures (see below) 3\. Consider sandboxing/compartmentalizing your online activity across disparate ids, browsers, machines, phones and locations. Definitely run Ad Blockers/Filters. 4\. Stay current with EFF/CDT and related twitter feeds. There will be another privacy debate at a policy level. Get educated, push for the good guys.

Here's an overview resource: <http://amzn.to/etLNze>

Mark was given an award by the EFF a couple of years ago for his bravery.

</comment><comment><USER17> Watch Nova - The Spy Factory ( S36 E11 ). Nova investigated the National Security Agency, and what led to AT&T do what it is doing today and why.

<comment><USER18> There's also a nice book about it (The Shadow Factory by James Bamford): [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9568943...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95689436)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anyone else find it weird that Google Maps shows 611 Folsom Street as "Jesus Christ My Lord & Savior Church"...?

<comment><USER20> Further down the block and across the street we have 666 Folsom Street, where the actual AT&T interconnect happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This happens in every single "free" country. People should care, but no one does.

<comment><USER22> In which other countries, exactly, does that happen? UK? Canada? Sweden?

<comment><USER23> Actually, yes...all those minus Sweden. The US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all cooperate together.

See the Ecehlon program: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence%29)

<comment><USER24> Oddly enough, I hear rumours that it's a spy program on businesses, not people.

<comment><USER25> Spying on businesses generally involves spying on their people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This has been going on with pretty much every ISP for over a decade, hasn't it? Carnivore - rather, DCS-1000?

</comment><comment><USER27> The argument that there is some steady march toward tyranny and erosion in our freedoms would make sense if it weren't for the fact that these programs have existed in one form or another since WWII (e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)>).

Furthermore, when, exactly, were the good ol' days, those days from which we are presumably descending into tyranny, when we (all, not just white folk) were truly "free"?

<comment><USER28> Today a big computer room could transcribe the entire telephone communications of all America, and store it for later view.

You can use computers to search for whatever pattern you want in milisecons. I think this makes it different from the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> 2012 secure communication: handwritten note tucked into some junk sent airmail

</comment><comment><USER30> Question: which major carrier(s) are not known (or known not) to do this? T-Mobile supposedly had little evidence against them, but they're being assimilated.

</comment><comment><USER31> I was walking past the building wondering why they had .mil style no windows for such a large building. Other exchanges I had visited had windows. If we had collectively given the NSA rights to check our data, this would be ok. We didn't give them the rights. Think of the insider trading, that could be occurring by corrupt NSA officials.

</comment><comment><USER32> So? This isn't the equivalent to papers secured in your household, it's data sent over someone else's network. I'm not a huge fan, but saying it's the same as the government walking into your house and examining all your documents is ridiculous.

Either way, call me when someone finds out they can decrypt and examine all the SSL traffic in real-time.

<comment><USER22> It is, however, the same as government opening and reading all of the mail you send through the post office. And that government cannot do.

<comment><USER32> That's only even a problem if they target you. Danger comes when they can target everyone simultaneously and use automated means to find those who match their profile as enemies of an agenda.

<comment><USER33> Isn't that pretty much what they're doing here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The problem is that privacy is no longer the default. So instead of having it, now you don't and you have to prove why you need it.

I think that's kinda why the constitution set the default to innocent. Too bad we don't really see that as necessary any more.

</comment><comment><USER35> There were a series of disruptions to fiber coming out of the middle east and north africa a few years ago that is probably connected to the same program. (<http://goo.gl/apasy>)

</comment><comment><USER36> Is this why the at&t+T-Mobile merger is being approved?

<comment><USER37> I'm willing to bet that any anti-trust issues that are brought up will be quietly squashed in the name of (A) campaign contributions and (B) increasing the size of the AT&T dragnet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That is the meanest-looking bird I have ever seen.

<comment><USER38> Original image available through EFF's flickr account: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/hughelectronic/3531668253/>

<comment><USER39> They _need_ to make some version of that bird picture into a t-shirt.

<comment><USER40> They did, last year (and I have seen people with it in conferences). I donated and asked for this t-shirt but I never received it :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> 2005 called, it wants its news back.

Call recorded by NSA.

</comment><comment><USER42> And there's gambling in Casablanca!

</comment><comment><USER43> The NSA are drowning in data. They have a constantly changing target list from the other intelligence agencies, and whatever crisis is, or will soon be in the news is keeping them quite busy.

They really have more important things to do than monitor the geeks. Unless you come up with some nifty new crypto.

p.s. SPLITTER!

</comment><comment><USER44> This is why I donate money to the EFF and the ACLU.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not surprised.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is literally years-old information. I was aware of and hollering about this at people as a highschooler at debate and speech tournaments. Same thing then as now, no one cares, or those that do care don't care enough.

Besides, who cares if you have nothing to hide. Right?

<comment><USER47> In principal it's quite wrong and scary, but in reality I have to believe the government is too incompetent to actually do anything with their mountains of AT&T collected data.

<comment><USER48> According to paperwork leaked by Mark Klein, they have/had a "Narus STA 6400" in the room. It's described as a supercomputer that sounds, to my ears, similar to Carnivore. I doubt that they even try to collect (too much data), and instead specifically look for things to grab from the firehose.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narus>

<http://narus.com/index.php/solutions/intercept>

<comment><USER49> Or, according to TIA, compile giant banks of information on every user based on their traffic & purchasing habits. Combine this with your other online data & there's quite a bit on every person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I remember reading that long time ago. It actually made me quit AT&T and every time someone called me, I tend to ask or check their number and tell them you calling me from AT&T do you know about "the room"? Couple times my friends quit it for the same reason; others don't care. I guess the answer is switch to a different career.

I had a good laugh when I read (think it was Wikipedia) about that room. AT&T was sued over it... they defends themselves by 1) the room does not exist AND 2) this lawsuit should not be proceed due to Act of National Security setting aside lawsuit frames. LOOL! I dont know about you -- but to me first contradicts the second one :)) the judge only decided on count 2) -- that it is indeed NSA involved - so it was dismissed, but if there is NSA then the room exists, hahahaha!!

<comment><USER51> I think it's reasonable to assume that every North American (and European, etc) carrier does this, so quitting AT&T won't help much. I'm sure there are many other good reasons to leave them, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Not the first time US gov has violated US Constitution to spy on citizens..

People forget that the US President that first set a policy for this type of illegal behavior was Roosevelt leading up to WWII. Cable/Wireless companies were pressured by US Gov to record and copy cables sent by US citizens and to send those copies to the US government.

Did not stop terrorism than will not stop it now..and yet 70 years later and no one has learned.

</comment><comment><USER53> ... but corporations are A-OK. It's the government that's the problem. Right?

<comment><USER54> Actually, yes. Corporations are A-moral and the government is the problem. Just look where this traffic is allegedly going.

<comment><USER53> Corporations run the government. Don't forget that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> AT&T isn't the only one to do this. So long as it isn't used against citizens in criminal trials/etc I don't really care all that much if it helps make intelligence people more efficient.

<comment><USER56> How would you know that it isn't being used that way? Even if the evidence isn't being used directly at trial, it could sure be used to help 'guess' when a good time to stake out someone's house might be.

<comment><USER55> Yeah, but if most of the world is doing this wouldn't we be losing a vital ability to "protect and insure interests" of country? In the real honest way and not patriot act bs.

Maybe you guys are just clueless about us having real enemies out there or something. No fucking way is FBI or local law enforcement going to be granted anything from NSA for shit. Because it's unlawful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Oh hey Reddit...uh...I mean Hacker News.

<comment><USER37> Your liberties and freedoms, especially as they relate to the digital medium and AT&T in particular is very relevant for everyone, including hackers, designers and entrepreneurs.</comment></comment>


Haskell v Ada v C++ v Awk... An Experiment in Software Prototyping Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://www.haskell.org/papers/NSWC/jfp.ps <comment><AUTHOR> Particularly worth noting is how well a novice Haskeller performed. In particular, the novice's program took the second-least amount of time and was the second shortest. Here's a description:

> _The Haskell Report was given to a newly hired college graduate, who was > then given 8 days to learn Haskell. This new hire received no formal > training, but was allowed to ask an experienced Haskell programmer questions > as issues came up during the self study. After this training period, the new > hire was handed the geo-server specification and asked to write a prototype > in Haskell._

A college student who had just started learning Haskell _eight days ago_ managed to put out a very credible prototype! Clearly, Haskell is by no means impossible to learn.

</comment><comment><USER2> Abstract (cut-and-pasted from the paper):

We describe the results of an experiment in which several conventional programming languages, together with the functional language Haskell, were used to prototype a Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) requirement for a Geometric Region Server. The resulting programs and development metrics were reviewed by a committee chosen by the Navy. The results indicate that the Haskell prototype took significantly less time to develop and was considerably more concise and easier to understand than the corresponding prototypes written in several different imperative languages, including Ada and C++.

<comment><USER3> ... but the Navy went with C++ for the actual system, I'll wager.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> This URL works for me:

[http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/Haskel...](http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/HaskellVsAda-NSWC.pdf)

<comment><USER4> another source, just in case [http://webmail.cs.yale.edu/publications/techreports/tr1049.p...](http://webmail.cs.yale.edu/publications/techreports/tr1049.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Haskell vs Lisp, development time (h): 10 vs 3

This hard fact says more than thousand committee reviews.

<comment><USER6> > development times usually included documentation time

Most likely, the Haskell development time includes the time to write 465 lines of documentation, while the Lisp development time includes the time to write 12 lines of documentation. That makes it pretty obvious where the discrepancy in time comes from.

<comment><USER7> I would guess that the Lisp version was more descriptive (it had more program lines) and needed thus much less documentation than the Haskell version.

<comment><USER6> I highly doubt that an 85 line Haskell program with 465 lines of documentation had the same amount of time spent on documentation as a 274 line Lisp program with 12 lines of documentation. The Haskell developer clearly put a lot more effort into documentation.

<comment><USER5> Haskell's code is not far away from APL. Lots of Haskell code uses single letters instead of descriptive names. This makes it a lot harder to read and forces lengthy documentation:

reverse (PS x s l) = unsafeCreate l $ \p -> withForeignPtr x $ \f -> c_reverse p (f `plusPtr` s) (fromIntegral l)

form [http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/bytest...](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/bytestring/src/Data- ByteString.html)

People who write code like this should be banned. Code should be written in a way to be easily read by people, not a compiler. This is not a coincidence that there are 500 lines of documentation. This is how typical Haskell code looks like.

<comment><USER8> Bytestring is a widely used library with very special performance requirements, and not a typical example of good Haskell code.

<comment><USER5> I found it here: [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Example_code](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Example_code)

Description is rather clear: "To get a feel for what real world Haskell looks like..."

<comment><USER8> I have thought about it, and my reply didn't really address what you have said. Single-letter names obviously don't improve the code's performance. The reason they tend to be used is that the values associated with each binding tend to be very generic. If you have code like

      id :: a -> a
      id x = x

you can't really say anything more about what x is, since it could be anything. There are also patterns, such as xs is a list of x, and n is a number. When it's something a lot more specific, names that describe the variable's purpose should and are used. Typically, both the name of the argument and the type signature are looked at to quickly gain knowledge of what the function is probably doing.

The lengthy documentation tends to be more descriptive of what the code's purpose is rather than explaining what the arguments to it are.

I do acknowledge that Haskell code isn't usually too pretty to look at. I tend to find it rather readable myself, although that varies from library to library, and application to application. Applications tend to be a bit more readable than libraries, since the library implementation sometimes deals with concepts that are not exposed to the library's user.

<comment><USER5> First rule of maintanence: readable code. I should be able to read code after short introduction. I remember it took me 1h (after Sussman lecture video) to read Lisp. It is several weeks now since I'm reading Haskell tutorials and docs and still have problems to understand code advertised as "what real world Haskell looks like".

It is the only language I know of which makes trivial problems hard and hard problems impossible.

Because of its syntax you have to write 10x as much documentation, as experiment shows and I can confirm this from my own experience. Haskell is full of BS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Both Haskell and C++ have come a long way since 1994.

</comment><comment><USER9> That link is dead.

<comment><USER4> These one are still alive [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7029857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7029857)</comment></comment>