Ask HN: Need for a human-powered text-to-speech API? - <AUTHOR> We are working with a network of US-based people good on the phone.
Is anyone interested in an API that would accept text as input and return a MP3 of someone reading the text within a couple of hours? We have a couple of US-based people who could do the job really well in a couple of minutes.
Command: POST /tts { text: "Hello John. Thanks for joining us today.", voice:"female", web hook: "../webhook/response" }
Webhook response (a few minutes later): POST /webhook/response { file: "voice.mp3", cost: 0.07 }
Cost would be something like $1 per 100 words. <comment><USER2> > Cost would be something like $1 per 100 words.

A quick googling suggests that voice acting rates (pay to the voice actor alone) tend to be in the range of $1/second for short, small-market bits (short bits with larger markets tend to have higher use fees on top), so it sounds like this service relies on getting people willing to work on-demand for about 1/100 of market rates _with_ a much faster turnaround time than is typical to have any room for profit

Sure, if you've got quality voice talent there's a huge demand for that. OTOH, if you don't have quality voice talent, why would people pay for this instead of today's commercially available machine TTS, which is _much_ lower latency and _much_ cheaper (e.g., Google with their premium WaveNet voices at $16/million characters, or something on the order of $1/8000 words.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd wager that a latency of a couple hours is unacceptable for almost all TTS use cases.

Moreover, the current generation of TTS is pretty good and a lot of research is being done to improve it. You'd have a very finite amount of time to build your service and get users before the big players have got TTS that has caught up and doesn't have an enormous latency/require paying human wages.

</comment><comment><USER4> Both Google and AWS have these APIs for pennies per minute. This market is going to be absolutely commoditized in no time. You thinking of using one of these APIs and slapping a front end on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely agree, it's a super crowded space. Question is: are you happy with existing TTS API? They sound so robotic.

<comment><USER4> Honestly, unless you have some crazy tech there is no way you can complete with Google and AWS in this space. The Google API does this in real-time too (think what is backing Google Home, etc). The new deepmind wavenet tech is getting way better at sounding natural [1]. I think your only option would be to use these APIs, slap a front end on it, and try to undercut everyone in the market (and quickly). But, it is a race to the bottom, and you likely have a brief window to make some real money. Plus, this is typically a one time purchase for most folks and not a subscription business. So, you'll constantly be chasing customers.

I explored this idea, also the speech-to-text option, and when you run the numbers you'll need thousands of hours per day just to keep the lights on. Probably not worth it given you'll constantly be tracking new customers down. One option might be to target news companies and try to make automated news castings or something and try to get consulting fees + using your custom tech. But, I suspect it would need to be the tech + some other offering to differentiate you from everyone else that will be doing this.

Not trying to dissuade you. Just telling you what I think about it after looking at this and building out a few prototypes.

[1] [https://cloud.google.com/text-to- speech/docs/wavenet](https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/wavenet)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if some tech companies need more human audio samples to train their ML?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


When Robots Take All the Work, What'll Be Left for Us to Do? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/08/when-robots-take-all-the-work-whatll-be-left-for-us-to-do/ <comment><USER2> This is an important and increasingly pressing question. On one level, you can ask 'what will we do with ourselves' \- that is, to give our lives a sense of purpose and so on. To me that's easy - we already know how people like to entertain or amuse themselves, and beyond simple consumption and hedonism it's also obvious that people are happy to do some kinds of work for self- fulfilment rather than efficiency - eg gardening when you could just buy food or flowers from a farm, washing dishes even though you could get a dishwasher, painting for pleasure even though you could take a photograph and/or have the image printed or repainted on canvas. In short, I don't worry about how we'll occupy our time.

But I do worry about the question of how people make a living in these conditions. It's not enough to say 'basic income' because absent a massive economic shift most robots are going to be privately owned, and the owners of such capital will ask why they should donate a large volume of their profit to support non-productive individuals. Put another way, I'm not sure that the arrival of technological abundance will necessarily be accompanied by optimal social structures in the short term. A sudden and drastic acceleration in social stratification followed by unrest sems to be a far more common pattern. A luddite backlash is also a possibility, and a stronger one than usual given the factor of AI, which some people seem to have an atavistic fear of.

<comment><USER3> Productivity is over rated. It made sense in a scarcity based economic worldview when we didn't have the technology and know how to create abundant wealth.

How do one measure productivity?

Is it based on number of (quantity) of products produced and service offered?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have done a lot of thinking about this lately. In my country a lot of the recent political discussions have revolved around the creation of jobs. Though their ideas differ, they all seem to agree that everyone who is able to work should have a job. I don't think that is required.

I believe that (unless humanity faces a devastating event) the times when there is a job available for everyone are gone. Robots will eventually take over a majority of our current jobs.

Many peoples first reaction to this is to regard it as if it was a dystopia, but I believe we should embrace it. There are a lot of jobs out there which people choose only because they need an income. If the need for these jobs can be eliminated through the use of robots, and the income of the people can be supplied through a basic income, they can pursue jobs and passions which they didn't dare to do before. The basic income can be financed by replacing current ways of supporting those with poor economies, and will require less money if robots are performing many services.

Jobs will still exist, but only for those who are well-educated. Not everyone is suited for that, and I don't think forcing them to choose between poverty or education is a solution.

Robots will take over many of our jobs, and I believe it is time to embrace it and change our society for it to work.

<comment><USER5> I we don't embrace it, we will get a dystopia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It simply blows my mind that automation of work can be seen as a negative. The problem isn't in the fact that the work is being automated it's with the fact that we structure our society around work. The simple answer is that without work we could do things that we enjoy doing.

<comment><USER7> I don't think people see automation per se as a negative. Rather, they are skeptical of our ability to restructure our society, and fear the social impact of automation in that context.

I mean, what happens when AI replaces programmers? When a designer can "write a program" just by telling a computer in natural language what he wants to do? Not only will most of HN be out of work, but many of our hobbies will be irrelevant. Who will read a blog post about Rust making it easier to write correct concurrent software when some AI is going to handle that much better than a human ever could?

<comment><USER6> Sure, but the focus should be on how to restructure society as opposed to bemoan automation. It's worth noting that automation of jobs has been going on for a long time now, and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.

<comment><USER8> > and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.

I'm sure at some point in the recent past you could have found some formerly employed factory workers who would disagree. It's true, jobs replaced by automation tend to be jobs that people would rather not do, but the loss of _employment_ itself is a different matter. A crappy job is better than no job at all.

<comment><USER6> Again, my point is that it's the fault of the society for not providing a good transition path as opposed to the automation itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The work that robots can't do," just like now.

Rewind this conversation about 150 years and ask what the steel-drivers will do when the steam drill puts them out of business.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's when we create the robots that can build (and program) other robots that this conversation will really get interesting.

Until then, who's going to be the brains behind making the machines? Certainly humans (albeit, and understandably, a small segment). That's work, right?

</comment><comment><USER11> >"But customer service itself is a human problem."

...Says an unnamed academic who, in all likelihood, hasn't worked retail in the 21st century.

Tho, you'd think they'd go to a grocery store once in awhile & be subjected to the customer service atrocity that is the self-checkout. (Or touch an ipad barista at a coffee shop, or patiently repeat "speak to a representative" to an automated telephone system...)

<comment><USER12> Did you even read the article? Right before the part you quoted the author _defined_ customer service to be the un-automatable parts of what we now consider customer service, the purpose of the redefinition being to make people realize that not all aspects of it can be automated. You mentioned problems with the computerized components of what we today call "customer service". You're arguing with a definition the author didn't use, not to mention making a speculative ad hominem attack...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

</comment><comment><USER14> I will do magic tricks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Let's make games.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm concerned that this is one of the great problems that humanity can't deal with, like the tragedy of the commons. Only a small percentage of the population recognizes that freedom from labor is a positive thing. So the way I see it, we have two choices:

1) let the small percentage automate their way to freedom and the rest can join if they wish

2) adopt automation on a wide, institutional scale the way we did with public education and social security

Unfortunately, with the political slant of the country leaning so far towards libertarianism at the moment (government = bad, taxes = bad, welfare = bad, etc) I am becoming more convinced every day that we will go with option #1 and create a two-tier society. The tiny elite today has trouble discerning where unearned income comes from. They don't seem to care if their capital gains come from a working class or automation. As someone who dabbled in dead end manual labor jobs for most of my 20s, I find that appalling. It's like trying to talk to someone about vegetarianism who has never slaughtered an animal by hand.

So, these things will probably go the way they always go. A small percentage who sacrifice tremendously for the greater good of society, with the masses riding the coattails of progress glibly unaware of it. I suppose in the end that that has always been the American way, or at the very least, the western way.

Maybe a path towards enlightenment is to picture a day in the near future as we approach the singularity and find that economic gain is no longer tied to labor. It's going to be a bit like winning the lottery, here and there, small amounts at first but growing larger every day. I will believe that automation has arrived when I begin seeing random acts of selflessness by people who recognize that financially, they have arrived. As in, randomly receiving a call one day that your credit card bill has been paid in full. Or maybe a city receives a large donation for the building of bike paths. Or a solar panel installer goes door to door and gives people free kits to get off the grid and never pay another electric bill. I think small, targeted amounts of money injected directly into the system like that could be quite disruptive.

So in the end such ominous changes could come to pass with a whimper instead of a bang. It could be one of the great advances in civilization that people thousands of years from now look back at in awe, wondering how we ever transitioned from a dog-eat-dog hierarchy to egalitarian anarchy. I guess they will have just had to have been there, witnessing the epic stupidity that we've witnessed over the course of our lives. Stepping back from that, rejecting it summarily is not such a hard thing to do. Not if you grok that the other side of the threshold is not just possible, but probable. And then be willing to take a leap of faith and persevere long enough to see it through.</comment>


Microsoft's new Windows 8 Tablet: "Welcome to Microsoft Surface." - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/default.aspx

<comment><USER2> The jpg artifacts in the rendering look really awful. With Microsoft betting so much on a device like this, why can't they take a second to get something small like that right?

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, look at the Microsoft "logo" in the bottom right. Is that their new wordmark? Microsoft.com is still using the gashed-O wordmark.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was wondering about that. It's the same at the end of the Surface video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No coffeetable any more? It was a pretty weird idea, but with interesting concepts.

<comment><USER5> I thought the same thing. The coffee table $15K plus ~~atrocity~~ research idea has become this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The secret sauce is in the case. Touch + a trackpad is necessary to use both metro and the traditional desktop UI. Could be a good compromise so I can keep using legacy desktop apps until all the new metro apps are ready.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ah, look, rounded corners. Almost indistinguishable from my Galaxy Tab. I wonder if Apple will sue them for design patent violation too.

</comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft are trying so hard to be Apple, and failing so badly.

I don't know much about the Surface, but this preview website is an abomination...</comment>


Ask HN: What questions should I ask a startup before joining? - <AUTHOR>

I have an opportunity to join a startup as a software engineer. What questions should I ask them before making my decision?
A quick google search on the topic came up with the sites I listed below, all with some good questions to ask.
Are there any other questions you would ask? How would you feel about joining a startup in this economy? If you have worked for a startup before (or are currently working) what advise can you give me?
Thanks!
http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/122/Joining-A-Startup-Top-6-Questions-You-Should-Ask.aspx
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/03/nine_questions_.html
http://www.genuinevc.com/archives/2005/10/seven_questions.htm <comment><USER2> Make sure you understand the business plan, as much as they're willing to explain to you. Don't get sold on the "in the future" make sure you're sold on the here and now because at a startup the future may not come.

</comment><comment><USER3> Extending this interesting question, what research process should a person engage in to independently check the answers that the start-up company gives to the questions?

<comment><USER4> Use Archivd. :)

It depends on the situation, how early the company is, how tight the sub- community, etc. But there are 5 major things to check.

a) Funding? See if they are listed on the angel/VC website. Check news reports, press releases, etc. See what other companies the investors have funded and their outcomes.

b) Personnel? See if there are any names in early reports that no longer appear. Make a note of the business / manager / technical mix. Also check to see if the people have worked together before.

c) Competitors? Do your own deepdive for plausible competitors and make a note of their funding, team, and possible business models. Take care to find dead competitors, ie foo.com is cool but Bar Corp already failed at a similar model. Why? How are you different?

d) Relays? You might know someone who knows someone who knows someone at the company. Get their opinions of the people and the business.

e) Demo? Ask for access to their prototype. If Arrington has an invite, then potential hires should too. They might get cagey, might not, either way it's a good data point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> how do they plan on growing your team? do they have a management strategy? may seem mundane, but it will end up affecting your job directly, and if they don't know what they are going to do, you may end up having to deal with a lot of the fallout of disorganization.</comment>


Ask HN: How Do You Maintain Security When Working Remotely? - <AUTHOR> How do you keep communications and your devices safe when working in a distributed team? Maybe from a coffee shop or a coworking space.
I never worked for a company that does that so I was wondering what policies companies like Github & Co. have in place. What best practices beside 2 factor authentication, VPNs, keeping an eye on open ports etc. exist and are used in the real world.
I hope the answers will be useful for people who work remotely. <comment><USER4> Can't speak for other OSes but OS X constantly phones home to Cupertino, sometimes not even using encryption, thus leaking data when you're booked into a public Wifi.

I literally spent weeks last year grepping the entire Mavericks base installation for hardcoded URLs, domain names and IP addresses and setting up entries in /etc/hosts and NAT rules to hardwire that stuff to 127.0.0.1. I also had to disable lots of LaunchServices/Agents to get the OS to shut up. Can put this up on Github if there is interest. It's only for Mavericks though, couldn't be bothered to upgrade to Yosemite as long as there are security updates for Mavericks.

Oh and another thing a lot of people don't know: The OS stores Wifi passwords in EFI boot variables. This is used for Internet Recovery. So if your device is stolen or just lent to someone else, consider your Wifi passwords compromised, regardless if the disk was encrypted.

<comment><USER5> > Oh and another thing a lot of people don't know: The OS stores Wifi > passwords in EFI boot variables. This is used for Internet Recovery. So if > your device is stolen or just lent to someone else, consider your Wifi > passwords compromised, regardless if the disk was encrypted.

I can't speak for if this is true or not, but I literally yesterday ran Internet Recovery and it didn't remember my wifi password. I had to re-enter it myself.

Little Snitch is a good reverse-firewall which might be preferable to messing around with /etc/hosts for many, especially since it offers active protection.

<comment><USER4> Retrieving wifi passwords from NVRAM:

        /usr/libexec/airportd readNVRAM

Alternatively:

        nvram 36C28AB5-6566-4C50-9EBD-CBB920F83843:current-network
        nvram 36C28AB5-6566-4C50-9EBD-CBB920F83843:preferred-networks
        nvram 36C28AB5-6566-4C50-9EBD-CBB920F83843:preferred-count

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having worked in an enviroment with people traveling all over the world to conferences, this has happened countless times, although it is much more likely something will be forgotten, or lost, rather than stolen when on the road. Nothing magical, and all common sense, just try to limit your exposure. Here is a quick list:

      - VPN (no split tunnel)
      - <USER2>
      - loner laptop pool (with base OS and their presentation)
        - do not take sensitive data off-site
        - encrypted hard disk
        - <USER3>
        - screen locks after X minutes
      - let office know if something happens (lock out accounts)

Operate from the standpoint that this is going to happen. Work to limit your exposure. You really want to separate your work and personal life as much as possible, by using two computers, as your personal habits, can have big impacts on your work. I know this is not really what you wanted re: working at Github, but I think most of this still applies. I think a lot of opsec applies to this two.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess the "forgotten" and "didn't think about it" part can't be underestimated. I work from coworking spaces and coffee shops in Asia. People do dev work and business related tasks from these places. The devs spin up servers and have databases with standard passwords exposed on the network. Sometimes they might have client or company data dumped into the DB's to work with. It's scary.

<comment><USER7> I agree with the above post--I can't even count all the times I've seen people bring in a corporate laptop (complete with an asset tag and call if lost sticker--that's just begging for theft attention) at a public coffee house left unattended. If you are going to bother using a VPN 2-factor token and privacy screen, please keep your laptop in your custody and view at all times. Ideally, work from a private executive or home office if you're a remote worker, or on-site at the company. If you must work at a coffee shop, please be sure you don't have PII easily accessible or valuable financial data waiting to be pried (that includes being on a VPN that can potentially have access to such data).

<comment><AUTHOR> re: "asset tag and call if lost sticker".

I think it's also a great idea to not have your user and hostname set to be "johnbigbucks@bestinvestconsulting" but something more generic or randomized. I use something like this to randomize my hostname.

      awk 'length==6' /usr/share/dict/words | grep -v '[^[:alpha:]]' | shuf -n 1 | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'

<comment><USER8> because i'm somehow compelled to golf such things (like unnecessary use of cat):

        egrep '^[[:alpha:]]{6}$' /usr/share/dict/words | shuf -n 1 | tr A-Z a-z

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that's elegant. It's so easy to write bad bash scripts that I do it all the time. So much to learn on my end.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for your post btw, I did not know about this tool `shuf`. My equivalent involves `sort -r | head -1`

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At a previous job (security company) we had an extensive ~/.ssh/config and would forward anything back through a gateway to get at any internal data.

We were pretty much alway connected to the gateway and would used the SSH SOCKS5 proxy feature to get back to any webapps in development and staging staging webapps, code review etc.

To remove anyone from the system we would simply remove their keys/lock one account on the gateway.

Sometimes a bit annoying having to make sure your SSH connection is up all the time but pretty simple to maintain.

Disks encrypted with Full Disk Encryption of course so no worries when laptops get stolen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't particularly have any security measures other than a secure password, full disk encryption and locking the screen after a few minutes. If you are taking a device outside of the office (e.g. to take home to work over the weekend) you should be using those anyway.

Pretty much all the services (even internal systems for staff only) I interact with are available publicly and have HTTPS, so using a VPN isn't really going to change much. Most of the company's (big multinational) chats happen over Skype, which is known to be monitored by governments so... :)

We don't deal with sensitive data like financial records or personal data, so there isn't really much to compromise. It's probably easier just to guess someone's password if you want to get access our systems as they are available publicly.

<comment><USER11> > using a VPN isn't really going to change much

I disagree, using a VPN on open wifi protects against HTTP downgrade attacks, weak cypher compromise, replay attacks... HTTPS for most sites is just not as secure as it should be. It also masks your traffic so outsiders can't even see _what_ servers you are accessing, or how.

Wrapping the traffic in a VPN and securing access to your internal assets to office and VPN IPs offers another layer of security against even targeted attacks.

<comment><USER12> If your company uses any sort of publicly available web applications you support, please for the love of all the bits use HSTS and submit the domain to the HSTS preload list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The best approach here is multi-layered with each layer providing another level of protection.

The best way to think about it is to start with the protection of the end-user device, then work on protecting the access from that device to your external network, internal network etc and finally protection of 3rd party services you use as a company.

For the end-user device the important things are probably a secure password manager, full disk encryption, local firewall, antivirus, requiring a password to log in and locking the screen when you leave the machine.

We then move on to access to your external network (i.e. the user facing portion of your service which probably includes admin only tools). A good way to protect this is by requiring strong password + two factor authentication + access from a whitelisted range of IPs. The whitelisted range of IPs is either your VPN network or your network of ssh server hosts used as SOCKS proxy hosts.

To protect your internal network I think the best practice is to require all access to be via a limited set of bastion hosts again either over your VPN or over SSH.

Finally for all 3rd party services you should were possible require two factor auth be enabled and also educate your users on best practices around password strength etc.

Once you have all this setup the next layer is automated / human monitoring. This becomes easier if you require all elevated privilege access to happen via ssh socks proxies and bastion hosts because you can just implement monitoring of new /failed logins to those. You can the setup manual and automated rules to block users. For example, N failed logins block the source IP, login for an unexpected country manually disable the users public key until you verify it was them etc.

Overall the key idea is to help your users stay secure while still making it convenient for them to do there work.

</comment><comment><USER14> Some others have provided their inputs, my one is just short: take your devices with you, all the time. Yes, that includes the quick toilet break at starbucks.

I can't remember how many times I heard total strangers asking around "can you look after my stuff quickly?". You can do that for your beach towel, but not for your devices.

<comment><USER15> Provided that you lock your device before you leave, have the disk encrypted and do regular backups, what's the problem here?

<comment><USER16> There are lots of quick attack vectors through USB devices, firewire, and other bus systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Don't forget a privacy filter for the screen. Amazing how much information you can glean just from shoulder surfing.

<comment><USER18> I'm always amazed to see New York City banks with employees sitting at street- level, and computer screens in-view of the sidewalk. Simply parking a car outside their office with a powerful video camera aimed at their screen must be able to yield something of value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I run a 2-3 person shop working on SAAS and iOS apps.

We don't use VPN, because most of the communication goes through HTTPS anyway (github, gmail). I just made sure that everyone has 2FA and strong passwords on key services.

Oh, and don't download user data to your machine.

<comment><USER20> How do you "make sure" they've got strong passwords without compromising password security for those people? Do you just have their word, hear them press many keys when authenticating, ...?

<comment><USER11> In our case, we run the widely available password cracking tools and rainbow tables against our stored passwords. If we can get them, those users are notified and their passwords reset.

Yes, we leave any salts and hashes in place - it limits the checks we can reasonably make to the usual password lists but it still catches a large number of poor passwords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I found VPN configuration complicated, routers you have no control over sometimes have problems with VPN bypass, paid service doesn't let it through and so on. Instead I am using the SOCKS5 proxy in OpenSSH together with redsocks and iptables. For me this seems to be simpler and works everywhere. If you have a dedicated IP or your server runs SSLH then you can SSH to port 443 which is rarely if ever blocked.

Also, this allows for easy bastion hosts. While some tutorials still miss it, ssh has -W for 5+ years now and it makes creating bastion hosts even easier than when you needed nc in there. Hire a cheap physical server, put OpenBSD on it, run OpenSSH and absolutely nothing else. Firewall off everything from the sensitive servers except this server and there you go. Of course the bastion host does not have any credentials on it, agent forwarding is your friend.

Put your SSH key on a Yubikey NEO, the NEO on your keychain and never ever ever depart with it. Make it a habit not to be plugged into your laptop more than for the few seconds when actually log into a server. Stealing your laptop is pointless now.

If you work remotely then the exposure to social engineering is bigger as all chat facilities become an attack surface. Practice. Create a Skype account with a disturbingly similar screen name to your own Skype account and try to coax passwords out of your colleagues. If there are no static passwords to be had then you automatically win.

To me, full disk encryption was always of dubious value. You are sitting in a cafe someone walks in and suddenly grabs the laptop and runs out the door. What's good your FDE? Instead, have nothing stored locally and work over SSH. Now at worst what the brazen attacker has is the files open in your IDE but can't open any other files since the connection dropped and the yubikey is still with you. Also, when at the border you are not facing any issues since there are no passwords to be revealed (I do not want to get into a legal debate with anyone whether I can be forced to reveal a password. It's easier to not have the issue.). Your laptop boots, runs etc. Just there's nothing interesting on it.

I like the Yubikey as 2FA better than having some sort of 2FA on my phone because the keychain and the Yubikey is a much lower profile target than a phone. You probably have your keychain affixed to your belt/pocket by a carabiner or similar solutions so ordinary pickpockets, casual coffee shop thieves won't easily walk away with it and honestly don't want too much it either -- phones and laptops are too easy a target. (I do not wear it on a neck chain when showering but you can since it's waterproof. Pick your level of paranoia freely.)

<comment><USER11> > full disk encryption was always of dubious value

On my work laptop, I have the following (because it's simply harder to do development remotely than it is locally):

\- Populated onboarding documents, containing everything you would need to steal my identity. These represent my copy of these contracts.

\- A local checkout of our code

\- Network passwords (encrypted in the repo, but decrypted locally since I need them to deploy). Working to remove these, but they exist now.

\- Complete topology to the entire corporate network.

\- Logged in email access with a jucy number of archived emails.

\- Logged in to various corporate assets from bug trackers to CMS systems, to git frontends...

Now then, an attacker could certainly grab my open laptop out of my hands, and outrun me, all while keeping the laptop from going into screensaver mode. Not too hard for your average federal arrest, but a lot harder for your average opportunist.

If they get my laptop while the lid is closed, or screensaver active, they get nothing but the laptop. Without FDE, they get everything.

It's all about limiting your attack surface.

> since the connection dropped

SSH connections don't magically terminate, by the way: it requires the server to be configured with connection timeouts, and for your client to be inactive long enough to trigger the timeout.

Otherwise, you can change connections, your computer can go to sleep, you can run on mobile with a terrible connection... all while keeping the same open session.

This means your setup just as vulnerable to pickup-and-run attacks as one protected by FDE, with the added downside of their ability to capture data out of your application caches even if they go the with the opportunistic route.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is anything special even required, as most services have their own encryption? Email, chat, git server... VPN seems only if you use Windows Filesharing? So sharing docs via some cloud service would get around that?

<comment><USER11> VPNs aren't that hard to set up, and are relatively cheap insurance against a third party screwing up on their end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Full disk encryption, close the lid of the laptop when you wander away from it.

No need for a VPN if your connection to the email, chat and vcs servers are using TLS. If not, why not? It is the year 2015.

<comment><USER20> Why not?

Because you're leaking DNS traffic.

Why not?

Because you're disclosing where your company assets are reachable from a public connection.

I don't know, but a publicly reachable vcs server that's supposed to contain confidential data makes me shiver.

<comment><USER24> >I don't know, but a publicly reachable vcs server that's supposed to contain confidential data makes me shiver

Isn't that literally the business model of GitHub (apart from the enterprise edition which seems to have mixed reviews), Visual Studio Online, etc.?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> VPN, client cert per device. SSH key per device. Full-disc encryption. 2fa. Single sign-on.

That's about it.

<comment><USER25> Oh, and a clear internal/external machine split with an internal firewall to partition your network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> disk encryption, totally locked down VPN (forcing everything over VPN with 2FA, if you're not in the VPN your packets are going nowhere), some even forbid USB drives.

</comment><comment><USER27> OpenVPN</comment>


Hacker group Anonymous denies Sony attack  - <AUTHOR> http://samyass-popular.blogspot.com/2011/05/hacker-group-anonymous-denies-sony.html Online the secretive "hacker collective" had earlier been singled-out by Sony as the possible guilty party.
But a posting on Anonymous' blog said: "Let's be clear, we are legion, but it wasn't us. You are incompetent Sony." <comment><USER2> This "hacker group" is just a random group of people on the internet. They're not really an organized group. If one person who identifies themselves as part of "anonymous" denies the Sony attacks, that really doesn't mean anything for the rest of the people who identify with the group. Treating them as a real, organized group doesn't really mean much. Hell, back in the (real life, not the internet attacks) protests against Scientology, you could have said I was part of the group. Hell, anyone who ever visited 4chan a few times could almost be considered a member, but really, there is no group, just a bunch of bored people who like to use the title "anonymous" when they do shit online, even if that stuff is a high profile hack.</comment>


How do you market an offline product? - <AUTHOR>

I've built a solid offline software product geared toward restaurants and retail. It seems like it's be hard to reach small businesses and harder to reach corporations. Does anyone have any experience in this area? <comment><USER2> I think that there are a lot of things you can do to sell to your industry. Having worked in restaurants and going to culinary school, I have had a first- hand opportunity to see the inner workings of these places. Here are some selling strategies that should work.

1\. Develop a list of your potential customers. Keep this local in the short term, so it doesn't overwhelm you.

2\. Create a 2 page business brochure that has stats about the industry, the problem you are solving and stats about where the industry is heading. Think infographic. On page 2 describe how your product meets all those needs, include some scenarios and a lot of screenshots. This needs to look good, not too technical, not too salesy. Look at the datasheets from NCR [http://ncr.com/products_and_services/self_service_kiosks/foo...](http://ncr.com/products_and_services/self_service_kiosks/food_service/ncr_xpress_orderandpay_fs.jsp?dtype=datasheet&lang=EN\(at) a minimum they need to good this good)

3\. Take the list you created in step one and try and connections in your network of friends to them, linkedin is good for the bigger companies. For the SME's (small/medium enterprises) you need to think a little harder and maybe even make some calls.

4\. Start making calls but DO NOT sell on the phone. People in restaurants don't have time to talk on phones they have too much crap going on that they can't be tied to the phone for 30 mins while you pitch. Only ask one question to start "When is the Chef/Owner/Manager in?" If you get the Chef/Owner/Manager on the phone ask them when is a good time to come in to talk to them is. If they ask you why, tell them you want to show them a product you developed for restaurants and you want to spend 5 minutes showing them how it can help. If they keep probing then try and say as little as possible about your product, focus on asking them questions about the need you are trying to solve. So if your product is in a new ordering system then ask them when they do there ordering from suppliers, are they happy with that process, etc...

5\. Go there in person, be mindful how you look because before you even say a word they will judge you based on appearance. Don't dress to formal (so no suit) or too casual (how you would look after 30 hours straight of coding). Make sure your breath and you don't stink because people in the restaurant business have keen senses of smell (flavours are 10times smell, 1 times taste). Hand them a brochure and ask if they have 5 minutes. Then give them 30 seconds to scan the brochure, you will know based on the look of their face whether you need to continue your pitch or move on. If the face is blank then it's a 50/50.<br>

That's just the foot in the door, after that you need to convince them to buy your product or service. And the variability in that is too great to explain without knowing what you are selling.

Hope this helps

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this helps a lot, and it's good to know that I'm already doing this. I've built a list, tapped my network, and I just got done taking photos for the brochure! Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Let me know if you want an extra opinion on your brochure. My email address email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Haven't found a solution yet but I'm in exactly the same boat, down to the target industries. My strategy at the moment is to find a partner with experience in that industry who can do sales. I think it's crucial to get out there actively, cold calling, not just in the beginning but as a fundamental part of the business. I don't see myself doing it though, I need a partner to make this work.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.

What's an "offline software product"? You mean not a web app? And, why would this make a difference in terms of your sales and marketing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for being ambiguous, I'm talking about a product that's not a web app. How do you market software to people without a twitter/facebook account? It seems the focus on everything launched here is web, and web-based. How do you market technology for normal people?

<comment><USER4> Are your users not on the web at all? If you're selling software in 2010, I'd certainly expect so.

I'd recommend you take a look at Patrick's "Bingo Card Creator" posts for inspiration-- he's been successfully selling software (up until recently, non- web-app software) to about the least net-savvy bunch of users most of us could imagine.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll check it out. My customers are probably going to be googling yahoo (:D), so they're not the most approchable crowd.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sony wins a battle but loses two wars - <AUTHOR> http://fernblog.com/home/2009/4/4/sony-wins-a-battle-but-loses-two-wars.html

<comment><USER2> I made the prediction when the format was announced and I will stand by it-- Blu-ray will be the last major optical media video format for the same reason that CD Audio was the last major optical media audio format.

If anything, Blu-ray might end up being a slightly more successful DVD-Audio- like format, leaving _DVD_ to be the last major optimal media video format, or perhaps something in between.

The biggest mistake lies in the fact that Blu-ray is quite honestly a waste of bits; modern video formats can put near-transparent 1080p video onto dual- layer DVDs. Blu-ray often tries to waste these extra bits by using pointlessly high bitrates (upwards of 40 megabits), absurdly outdated video formats (MPEG-2), and/or multiple audio streams, many of which are atrociously oversized (5.1-channel 24-bit LPCM). While the space could be put to good use and used to provide extra value (e.g. more TV show episodes per disc, etc), it's just wasted because such improvement for the consumer would cost the movie industry money.

Never mind the fact that an inordinate number of Blu-ray disks are encoded or mastered so badly that they look worse than a good DVD (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a great example of this).

The end result is that Blu-ray is the first optical format for which it is likely that piracy is more popular than actually buying the disks.

</comment><comment><USER3> this just in: products with low demand sell poorly. what is happening to sony is a case where company gets so big that it loses sight of the fact that you make money by giving people what they want. sony thinks it can dictate consumer preference. I will laugh as they crash and burn.

<comment><USER4> Sony won't be going anywhere anytime soon, sure their sales are dwindling in a different market but I'm sure the ps3 will be able to make it through another generation of consoles just like the ps2 just now they have to rely on their other businesses. For Sony that shouldn't be very hard.

<comment><USER3> who here is talking about their gaming division specifically? Sony has been screwing up in all their core businesses for years with poor customer service and poor prices:features. As a result their revenues are way down.</comment></comment></comment>


WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/wikileaks-mole/ <comment><USER2> For those not familiar to Icelandic news this guy has been in it from time to time over the last year or so.

He's under investigation for fraud (more than one) in Iceland and to be honest he needs some medical help. He's burned every bridge he's ever crossed, it seems, and although he tries hard to become some kind of a celeb as much as he can (e.g. showing up with two bodyguards when he went to speak before the parliament)[3] it's not working.

His accomplishments:

Stealing confidential data from Milestone (Icelandic company)[0]

Bugging the Icelandic parliament

Playing nice with the FBI

"Stealing" electronics worth millions of ISK from small shops in Iceland[1]

Taking money for seminars/courses he didn't, and never meant to, hold.[2]

[0] [http://www.visir.is/grunadur-um-ad-hafa-stolid-gognum-fra- vi...](http://www.visir.is/grunadur-um-ad-hafa-stolid-gognum-fra- vinnuveitanda/article/2010536641574)

[1] [http://visir.is/-og-bdquo;siggi-hakkari-og- ldquo;-i-gaesluva...](http://visir.is/-og-bdquo;siggi-hakkari-og- ldquo;-i-gaesluvardhaldi/article/2013130609737)

[2] [http://www.dv.is/frettir/2013/6/5/sagdur-hafa-haft-fe-af- isl...](http://www.dv.is/frettir/2013/6/5/sagdur-hafa-haft-fe-af-islendingum- sem-aetludu-dyravorslunamskeid/)

[3] [http://visir.is/kom-med-lifverdi-a-nefndarsvid- althingis/art...](http://visir.is/kom-med-lifverdi-a-nefndarsvid- althingis/article/2013130229823)

<comment><USER3> The fact that Assange let this guy into his inner circle doesn't give one a lot of confidence in WikiLeaks.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Although there are some great people who work with/at/for the organization, Assange's character, from my point of view, is damaging their reputation a little. He should step back (not quit but get out of the limelight) and let someone else be the "front" for the organization. Kristinn Hrafnsson would be a good choice IMO.

But they have handled the Snowden case well it seems and that gives me some confidence.

<comment> at-fates-hands >>>But they have handled the Snowden case well it seems and that gives me some confidence.

I have to give them credit for that. Assange didn't jump in and hog the limelight and for the most part, WikiLeaks has stayed quiet and reserved during this whole ordeal.

They acted incredibly professional throughout.

<comment><USER4> hogging limelight gets difficult from "exile" in one room in the Ecuadorian embassy.

However I do think an earlier poster was right - a change of personnel at the top of wikileaks might be their best chance of staying the course

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wikileaks is refuting some elements of this story on Twitter, [https://twitter.com/wikileaks](https://twitter.com/wikileaks):

"A wired article today misdescribes a volunteer's role. Earlier statement: [http://wikileaks.org/Eight-FBI-agents- conduct.html](http://wikileaks.org/Eight-FBI-agents-conduct.html) … description of role: [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/herbert- snorraso...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/herbert-snorrason- wikileaks-google-assange) …"

"At no time did Sigurdur Thordarson 'work' for WikiLeaks. At no time did he have access to sourcing or publishing systems."

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, the damage is already done. MSM has a much wider reach than WL's twitter, and the net effect of this "FBI press release" picked up and run as journalism will be that fewer people will trust WL to not have internal government moles and be able to protect source identities.

Now that they're helping Snowden, they are whatever the military intelligence equivalent of Scientology's famous "Fair Game" policy is. They can do whatever they want to smear and discredit them, insofar as they don't get caught with their hands dirty. Unfortunately, for these people, the delusional ends justify the underhanded means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's incredible how far the government is willing to go to stop the free flow and dissemination of information.

It's almost like they have something to hide...

<comment><USER8> How do you get that from this? The FBI is basically an intelligence agency. I would be disappointed if they _didn 't_ have tendrils everywhere. That's their job.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but they investigate only specific things. Having tendrils literally everywhere (including places outside its jurisdiction) is clearly a very intrusive interpretation of their mandate.

<comment><USER8> Any good intelligence agency is going to have an information network that spans far beyond the scope of the specific things they are currently investigating, because that network takes time to build.

I actually am not sure whether that violates their mandate. Is it a problem if an agency gathers information outside their jurisdiction? Obviously they cannot make arrests, for example, but can they gather information?

<comment><USER10> _Obviously they cannot make arrests, for example, but can they gather information?_

In the USA, it would seem that the public laws say that the FBI can't just gather information. They are supposed to have reasonable cause, as determined by some Court. The laws and traditions demand a little oversight of information gathering, and that the information so gathered is related to a crime.

This is related to the public laws and traditions about suppression of speech, particularly political speech. Speaking freely isn't supposed to be "reasonable cause", and speaking freely isn't supposed to make you an object of surveillance. Doing otherwise "chills" free speech.

I can only conclude that the FBI has become a "rogue" agency, like the CIA has, and is full of people who have no respect for US law and tradition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not surprised at this turn of events. It is a common accusation that Assange himself created wikileaks as a tool for self-aggrandizement. I think that's mostly just a smear calculated to discredit wikileaks - it is the other way around: without sufficient ego, Assange would not have preserved long enough to create wikileaks. But I don't think there is any question that an organization like wikileaks will attract people who are motivated purely by self-interest rather than idealogical goals - practically any organization attracts such people, even the non-controversial ones.

I was a little miffed to read that federal prosecutors fly on private jets, although if enough FBI agents were flying with them I suppose that could have been cheaper than a bunch of tickets on a regular airline.

<comment><USER12> > _I 'm not surprised at this turn of events. It is a common accusation that > Assange himself created wikileaks as a tool for self-aggrandizement._

An accusation made by either government lackeys or idiots.

The character of the man has NO BEARING whatsoever to the work done by the organisation.

In the same way that "good Obama" was proven equal or worse to "bad Bush" \-- it's the actual real world action that matters.

People have started rock bands because they love music and others because they would like to get laid much. In the end, it's the songs that decide their worth. And the "get laid" bunch has as much (if not more) good songs than the muso bunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I find in this article of most interest is the fact that it reveals the FBI's intentions when they went to Iceland. I've missed the source (sorry), but there was a previous article on here that made it sound like the FBI was harassing Wikileaks and showed up in Iceland under false pretenses. In addition, it had quotes with numerous public figures going all "we expelled the FBI since they lied".

This article clearly demonstrates that their intentions were true based on the information available from that video, and really paints a more competent picture of the FBI's counter-computer-crimes division. I, for one, am pleased to see that the surveillance bashing in the un-sourced (since I forgot it) article is done with and we now have real information into the FBI's Icelandic foray.

<comment><USER14> Did we read the same article?

 _It turns out the FBI had mislead the local authorities about their purpose on the country. According to a timeline (.pdf) later released by the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, the FBI contacted Icelandic law enforcement to report Thorsadson's embassy walk-in, and ask for permission to fly into the country to follow up. But the bureau had presented the request as an extension of its earlier investigation into Lulzsec, and failed to mention that its real target was WikiLeaks._

If I understood what you were saying this article actually confirms the other article you're referencing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> He made a whole $5k? That's chump change.

<comment><USER16> Couldn't he just have gotten a paper route or something?

<comment><USER17> They covered his expenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would have been more surprised if there were NO informants at Wikileaks, no organisation that relies on people is impervious to this.

<comment><USER19> What about an organization that has no secrets?

EDIT: Downvotes? Clearly I need to explain myself better. My point is that an organization built around full transparency is indeed impervious to informants. Take the government, for example. If they had made public that they'd be monitoring our Gmail conversations for our own safety, we may have agreed or disagreed with the policy but there would be nothing to leak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is why I'm so critical against informants/whistleblowers (I'm referencing an old Google tax whistleblower...not Snowden or Manning), because most have their own intentions and greed/fame motives.

He deceived wikileak supporters to sell shirts.

Chronicled his " _adventure_ ," obviously to source the article.

Attempted to associate with LulzSec and Anon, and did associate with the FBI...for setting up Wikileaks, or ego?

The only thing in this story I like is that the FBI used him and cut him off when he had no more value.

I may be bias here since kpoulsen has done an article on me, but this guy doesn't deserve the attention he'll get...probably use it to sell more shirts

<comment><USER21> You can't say "most." You can at best say "some."

<comment><USER22> Or "Perhaps at least one." :-)

<comment><USER19> Or just be completely honest and say "".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've heard Assange call Wikileaks an "intelligence agency", and others call it "the intelligence organization of the people".

Why is anyone surprised when the US government treats it like an intelligence agency, cultivating informants within its ranks and attempting to intimidate its agents [0]? I suspect Wikileaks has, on occasion, been fed false information by the US and other governments. I suspect the US is not the only nation that has informants inside of the Wikileaks inner circle. Calling themselves an "intelligence agency" and doing the sort of work that intelligence agencies do means we should expect other intelligence agencies to be working against them to some degree.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1220562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1220562)

<comment><USER24> Really interesting thinking. Yes, if one views Wikileaks like an intelligence gathering agency, a lot more makes sense. It doesnt change my support for it, because in that light it becomes an independent intelligence agency acting for every human, world wide. In that context, should it not be protected and even financed by something like the UN?

Equally, it then makes sense that government, especially the paranoid well resourced US government, will treat it as hostile. Worrying and nasty, but very understandable.

Now the problem for me is why did the wikileaks people not defend wikileaks like an intelligence agency? I suppose hindsight...

I would now suggest a new wikileaks be born, campaign for it to become protected under the UN. It should take all the precautions of a nation's intelligence agencies, and act like one. An intelligence agency to inform the people, as opposed to intelligence agencies to secretly inform people with money and power.

I think we need something like that, and we need it now.

<comment><USER25> It is wrong to treat WL as an intelligence agency, because WL lacks the power of a sovereign state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just $5,000?! That seems a little low....it appears Siggi is not the brightest bulb on the tree.

</comment><comment><USER27> Reading the back and forth emails was pretty entertaining. I wonder what caused FBI to go so cold on him for a while -- was it a negotiating tactic, or was there a block due to Sabu or other leads, or was it mostly unrelated bureaucratic stupidity?

<comment><USER28> It seemed to me like it was mainly just "forth". Thordarson seemed like he really wanted to be in contact with the FBI, but the FBI agent he emailed didn't seem too interested in what he had to offer. Particularly since it seemed like the FBI could get the data that they wanted without having to deal with people like Thordarson (this citing the seizure of the contents of Snorrason's Gmail account).

But I have to say, Thordarson sending those short emails consisting of semi- trite messages to an FBI agent wererather amusing. "ok doki" "Merry Christmas :-)" "Happy New Year:-)" Seems rather unserious and informal on Thordarson's part. Not the sort of behavior you'd except from a spy, eh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is apparently his twitter: [https://twitter.com/singi201](https://twitter.com/singi201)

I wonder how the FBI agents involved feel about him going to the press, now :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if he signed one of those 19 million dollar NDAs...

</comment><comment><USER30> "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." \-- Albert Einstein

</comment><comment><USER31> Holy copyediting fail, Wired.

<comment><USER32> I also found this article practically unreadable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was surprised to see that Wikileaks General Counsel wants to stay out of it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Somewhat reminds me of Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz.</comment>


Why Do We Dump Our Greatest Projects? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mertyazicioglu.com/2012/10/06/why-do-we-dump-our-greatest-projects/

<comment><USER2> Because our greatest projects have the greatest potential and therefore also the biggest risk involved.

<comment><USER3> Yeah - that used to me my classic avoidance pattern. "Damn - that's a good idea. Need to do that properly" ;-)

<comment><USER4> Answers our question in light of a darker reality programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mert: this svbtle theme is nice but it makes you look cheap.

I'm not affiliated to svbtle in any way, just think that it's terrible taste to use such a blatant copy of someone else's website, specially for someone who works in tech.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe you only think those projects were the best because you dumped them. Had you stuck with them, they may not look so good know. How do you know it's not hindsight bias?

<comment><AUTHOR> As I mentioned in the text, I think they were the best in terms of usefulness.

Though you are right about the hindsight bias, there is no way to tell. Maybe, just like many human beings, I tend to glorify things I lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Multiple projects is the biggest obstacle for me. It often means I can't gauge correctly what has the potential to be great project.

I need to get a set of criteria for what I'm aiming for & then stick to it.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Focus is saying 'no'" - Steve Jobs

We need to say no to the other 99 good ideas to focus on one that matters most.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sometimes its something so non technical as relationships between coworkers or founders fall a part.</comment>


Ask HN: My penmanship has gone to shit, what can i do? - <AUTHOR> I've been sitting at a computer for way too long. My handwriting used to be clean with style. I have lost it. It's starting to bother me. I have been writing more but I am disgusted with the results. What can I do to get my penmanship back? I am seriously considering hitting up Amazon for some grade school penmanship practice guides but will this retrain my style? <comment><USER2> I am a big fan of this:

[http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write- now.php](http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php)

I had no penmanship, and I had to print in order to write anything legible. I went through the book, and I now have a usable and readable cursive style, which looks much better than my old printing style. I'm not an artist, so it's not pretty, but it's readable and efficient.

Bonus: the entire book is hand-written in the style that it teaches.

<comment><USER3> My parents bought me the books from Getty and Dubay when I was a kid to improve my handwriting. I had a terrible time with legibility in 1st and 2nd grade, and they were adamant I improve. I haven't kept up with it as I should have, and this post is a reminder to myself to do so, but even today my signature and printing style are heavily influenced by italics.

I recommend Write Now also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been trying to re-learn cursive for about the past 6-7 years and am still not thrilled with it. I find that I tend to try to write too fast, and this makes it sloppy. Something about the connection between brain and paper has been accelerated by typing. When I am able to slow down my writing, so that more thought goes into each word, it looks good. But practice, practice, practice!

Also, try different pens and different paper. I write better with "rolling ball" pens, the kind where ink just sort of flows out of them, rather than cheap ballpoints where you have to press down on the paper. But cheap paper causes the ink to bleed and look messy.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments and book recommendations. After some digging around I found an interesting read. [http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html](http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html)

Apparently, I need to re-train my muscles, rework everything and then practice. I guess I now have a New Years resolution and goal for 2015. FML!

</comment><comment><USER5> Try writing more at least everyday to regain your old penmanship, this is what I do and it helps to a certain degree. Im not sure taking penmanship guides would teach you anything you don't already know?

I thought I was alone in this because I've noticed over the last 10 years my handwriting has become horrible!

</comment><comment><USER6> One thing that helps me is using ultra-fine felt-tip pens. They have a touch more friction than ballpoint pens. Obviously, they aren't magic, but when I revisit my notes a week later (I use a combo of org mode and notecards to plan my work), I can actually read them.</comment>


Lesson learned from running a local meetup - <AUTHOR> http://andygrunwald.com/blog/lesson-learned-from-running-a-local-meetup/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Feel free to ask everything</comment>


Swift's Abstract Syntax Tree - <AUTHOR> http://ankit.im/swift/2016/02/29/swift-abstract-syntax-tree/ <comment><USER2> After learning lisp, I just feel like every other language is a weird set of macros. Looking at this AST confirms that.

Wish I could live the rest of my life in Sexp-land.

<comment><USER3> Seeing this "dump AST" option for Swift is truly refreshing.

I've come to the opinion that when sending data in or out of software, it should always preserve as much structure as possible in an easily parseable form accessible to off-the-shelf parsers; e.g. s-expressions, JSON or, if it can't be avoided, XML. Even thrown-together debugging messages. Basically I should be able to reconstruct all of the structure in basically any programming language with something like one module import and a function call (or equivalent); I shouldn't have to define my own parsing rules, no matter how simple their author thinks they are.

Not only this, but any format which, for some reason, cannot be represented in this way, e.g. programs in languages which consciously avoid s-expressoins, should pass through a layer which _does_ convert to a structured form, and this form should be obtainable, e.g. by setting an environment variable or a commandline flag. That's why I commend this "dump AST" flag.

It's basically the opposite of the many "Lisp-on-top-of-X" approaches. Instead of being able to write s-exprs which translate to some underlying language, like Swift, I should be able to translate any Swift into s-exprs to be manipulated. Why? Because there will always be strictly less code written in a Lispy language than there will be for the underlying platform as a whole. For example, there will always be less code written in Clojure than code written for the JVM.

The benefits of s-expressions (and accessible AST structures in general) is that they can be inspected, transformed, manipulated, pulled apart, recombined, etc. This is of some use when programming, e.g. having macros manipulate our Clojure ASTs, but not a huge amount; after all, we could write our code in a different way which didn't need the macros (we could even, in principle, write it in Java!).

In contrast, being able to manipulate code which _isn 't_ ours is much more useful; since we _don 't_ have the option of writing it a different way (since we didn't write it at all!).

<comment><USER4> Interesting. I've been thinking about an alternate way of structuring programming tools that's along these lines. I've written about it here: [http://westoncb.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-make-view- indepe...](http://westoncb.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-make-view-independent- program.html)

<comment><USER3> Very interesting, especially tracing a path through the grammar; I saw "path" and was expecting something more unwieldy like an infinite trie of all valid programs.

Whilst I agree that the visual and on-disk representations of programs are too tightly-coupled, there are many structure-based IDE experiments out there, but few see much adoption due to the immense momentum of existing infrastructure, and the subtlety of integrating nicely with things like version control.

It's a less drastic change to make existing language compilers/interpreters more modular, so that we can use them for things like parsing, type-checking, optimisation, etc. in a "standalone" way, without having to reinvent everything from scratch each time we want to do something the implementors didn't consider.

<comment><USER4> Hey Chris, thanks for checking it out.

The way I see it, the fact that our programming tools operate on huge character sequences is historical accident. Rather than coming up with a particular editor, I'm trying to think of what a more 'correct' structure for representing programs in general would be, as a replacement for character sequences.

Of course this is essentially suggesting a paradigm shift, and as you say (approximately), the current paradigm has lots of momentum.

It feels like this might be closer to describing planetary orbits with the more natural ellipses rather than circles—but maybe I'm just suggesting triangles or something :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be useful to add a command line tool with a linq/jquery-like syntax over that.

I've discovered few weeks ago the same feature (a bit hidden) in GCC:

        gcc -fdump-translation-unit=ast.txt file.c

It gives the AST in a flat map (parent/child with ids).

<comment><USER2> Well since it is s-expresssions (those paren things, looks like lisp), it is also very similar to JSON objects or XML elements.

If you want to convert it to HTML you could do pretty easily. Use the car & cdr functions in lisp, and transform every car into a string like this `"<" \+ symbol + ">"`. Convert the closing paren to `"</" \+ symbol + ">"`. In the middle you put the result of cdr. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR)

Writing LISP is basically writing the AST without hiding it behind a textual syntax. The only textual syntax is the paren symbols that delimit the nodes in the syntax tree. It's a simpler way to live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That looks like lisp?

<comment><USER7> You are right! Lisp is homoiconic which basically means that the language mirrors the AST [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity)

<comment><USER6> Hmmm, I am learning a lisp now I've been reluctant to dive in but this makes me all the more willing

<comment><USER2> It's simpler than it seems, and how strange people make it out to be held me off for a long time.

There are cons cells. A cons cell is basically an untyped tuple. The syntax for a cons cell containing a number look like this: (1 nil) (where nil is the zero byte (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong)).

You can nest them, like this: (1 (2 (3 nil))).

Because nobody can be bothered to type those parens, the part of the compiler/interpreter called the Reader compiles syntax like this

(1 2 3)

to this

(1 (2 (3 nil))).

After being parsed by "the reader" (you could also call it "parser"), those nested tuples/cons cells are sent to eval function. The eval function takes the first element of the list (aka `car` in lisp-speak. My mnemonic is that a is to the left of the keyboard, therefore means first element). That first element is being regarded as the function, and the second element in the cons cell is the argument to the function.

The function to get the second item in the cons cell is `cdr`. I remember that by having `d` being to the right on my keyboard. (car 1 2) => 1\. (cdr 1 2) => 2\. (cdr 1 (2 (3 nil))) => (2 (3 nil)). That is how things are nested.

I digress. The eval function evaluates every symbol (aka atom) in these nested cons cells, and looks up the corresponding meaning of them in a big table of defined symbols. So the + symbol might match an addition function, the string- join symbol might match to a function for joining strings.

What is returned from eval you could say is the true AST, which still looks pretty darn similar to the lisp syntax. The function is then sent to the apply function, which applies the argument to the function. Remember that the argument can be a nested set of cons cell, so it can nest infinitely.

That's it! I'm no lisp expert, so if someone is, please correct me. But that's the gist of it. Syntax is read by the read function, the symbols are interpreted (lookup in a big key-value object) by the eval function, these function gets apply-ed with their argument. Very few primitives are needed by build a system from that. Here is a list of the primitives needed - these can be implemented in binary, C, assembly, Java, Javascript or whatever: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/3482883](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3482883).

BONUS SYNTAX:

If you want a eval to skip over a cons cell (and of course it's children), you can prepend it with a `'` symbol. So (cdr 1 '(this is never going to be evaled, but is just a list)) => (this is never going to be evaled, but is just a list)

This is called a 'quote'. Any Javascript array is basically working like a quoted list. If the first item in a javascript array was a function, and you applied the cdr of that array as argument to that funciton, it would be like using lisp with an not-quoted list.

BONUS VIDEO:

This is just lovely. I'm not American, and do not have a CS degree, so I feel like attending a place like this is a far dream. But happy to be able to enjoy it over the interwebs. Incredibly thankful to the giants of computing on whose shoulders we can stand [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&list=PLF4E3E1B72...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&list=PLF4E3E1B72A58B492)

<comment><USER8> A note on notation:

The standard notation for a cons cell with car "x" and cdr "y" is (x . y), not (x y). The latter is a list, equivalent of (x . (y . nil)).

So (1 2 3) is equivalent to (1 . (2 . (3 . nil)), _not_ (1 (2 (3 nil))). The latter is a nested _list_ , which is equivalent to (1 . ((2 . ((3 . (nil . nil)) . nil)) . nil))

<comment><USER2> Good catch, thank you.

To anyone who wants to play around with lisp, I recommend downloading the emacs text editor. Just open it, navigate around with the arrow keys. Type an s-expression, and place the point after the ")". Then type Ctrl-x Ctrl-e, and the expression will be sent thru read -> eval -> apply. Fun to just play around with.

(+ 1 2)_ ;; _ means the cursor, ";" means a comment</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Braeön – World's Strongest and Most Adaptable Material - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/braeon/braeon-worlds-strongest-and-most-adaptable-materia/description <comment><USER2> It's not clear from the kickstarter, but everything points to this product being some form of fiber-reinforced ribbon form of "polymorph" \- aka:

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

That's not to make light of it - I think it is an interesting form of the substance; hopefully it catches on because it has some interesting use-cases that normal polycaprolactone can't easily touch (for instance, it would be a great addition to an emergency kit for off-roading usage - for some repairs and other things).</comment>


SWI-Prolog for the semantic web - <AUTHOR> http://www.swi-prolog.org/web/index.html <comment><USER2> For anyone interested, I did my Masters thesis on SWI-prolog as a Semantic querying tool, integrating it with the Eclipse RCP platform (Bioclipse.net in particular), and compared its querying performance with Java based Jena SPARQL parser for some typical tasks in cheminformatics.

The title was "SWI-Prolog as a Semantic Web Tool for semantic querying in Bioclipse: Integration and performance benchmarking", and it is available for download here: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50313589_SWI- Prolog...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50313589_SWI- Prolog_as_a_Semantic_Web_Tool_for_semantic_querying_in_Bioclipse_Integration_and_performance_benchmarking)

In this particular task, SWI-Prolog totally knocked out Jena, and it was also more amenable to some heuristic optimiziations, where we the running time really became infinitesimal in comparison to other tools.

<comment><USER3> Read through the paper quickly, seems like a nice representation and solution of the problem. I have a couple of questions if you wouldn't mind.

You say this in the paper:

> It is an interesting observation that writing the Prolog query on the > simpler form (Figure 18) made it amenable to heuristic optimization by > sorting the values searched for, while this was not possible in the longer > Prolog program

I'm afraid I didn't read carefully and will go back, but could you clarify this a bit? I didn't understand about the longer vs. the shorter prolog code. Would this optimization be required always get better performance than Jena or Pellet?

And then this:

> Additionally, a drawback of SWI-Prolog speci?cally, against Jena and Pellet, > is that since it is not written in Java, it is not as portable (i.e. the > same code can not easily be executed) to di?erent platforms such as Mac, > Windows, Linux etc. Instead the source code has to be compiled separately > for each platform. This also has the result that the SWI-Prolog Bioclipse > integration plugin will not be as portable as Bioclipse itself.

Really, though, Bioclipse is dependent on the portabilty of Eclipse which probably doesn't support any more platforms than SWI Prolog (and most probably fewer than SWI Prolog), so I wouldn't really see that as a limitation. I would think you could provide the binaries in the distribution itself.

<comment><USER2> I might not have used the optimal wording there. The important difference between the two prolog implementations is that the "longer" version is implemented by (recursive) iteration over a list of [peak] values (and comparing it to a reference list), whereas in the shorter one, the reference values are specified as separate conditions in the prolog rule, combined with logical AND.

The separate conditions enables "shortcut" of the match-testing, in a way that the recursive list-parsing did not: As soon as one of the conditions is not met, the current spectrum will be rejected and the backtracking will go on with the next item, while with the recursive list-parsing version each item of the list of values will be compared to the reference [value-]list regardless of whether the current spectra has already been rejected or not.

The "shorter" prolog version, with separate conditions, thus enables to order the conditions according so that statistically rare peak values come first (thus, "heuristically"), so that a spectrum can be rejected as soon as possible.

Being a heuristic solution, the performance would of course depend on the prior knowledge of the values in the data.

But as can be seen from figure 15, both prolog versions beat Jena and Pellet by a large margin, though the "shorter" version did so well that it is even hard to notice an increase of the running time linear to the number of triples in the triplestore, in the diagram.

Hope that made it a tad clearer!

<comment><USER3> Yes, that helps a lot, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does the closed world assumption of Prolog (if it's not explicitly specified it is assumed false) mesh with the open world assumption (if it is not explicitly specified it is unknown) of RDF?

<comment><USER5> OWA exists only on paper. Practically all implementations assume CWA.

<comment><USER6> That's false. Several practical implementations of OWL and RDF are based on OWA. At least one is based on CWA and OWA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to use the swi-prolog semantic web tools heavily. Very good stuff.

The cleopatria semantic web server is interesting, but I have just played with it. The core RDF storage and inference get libraries were solid and nice to use.

</comment><comment><USER8> The opening paragraph is structurally identical to "buy our nuclear power plant, it'll generate a billion terawatts, oh and it also comes with this bike shed". Prolog (the submission says) handles the gruesome problem of dealing with RDF, oh and it also generates HTML pages and JSON!

That pattern's a red flag whenever I see it. Like an ostensible proof of P!=NP that begins with a 30 page history written for laymen. Who is that paragraph aimed at? Is there really a sizeable population casually using RDF and Prolog but losing sleep over HTML and JSON?

<comment><USER9> There are a lot of non-developer types who need to deal with metadata and for whom the mechanics of websites are irrelevant, e.g. scientific researchers or art historians or statisticians.

Librarians invented metadata not computer scientists.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure philosophers invented metadata, even though they did not give it that name. The question how to distinguish between the properties an object has and what properties we attach to it, is sort of central in epistemology. Higher category theorists sometimes distinguish between stuff, structure and property [http://nlab.mathforge.org/nlab/show/stuff,+structure,+proper...](http://nlab.mathforge.org/nlab/show/stuff,+structure,+property), which makes the definition of forgetful functors more precise. Conversly attaching structure or properties are (not nescessarily unique) adjoint functors to those forgetful ones. In mathematics this comes up for example if you consider the category of abelian groups from which there is both a forgetful functor to the category of groups and to the category of sets, but the general idea should be applicable to metadata attached to text aswell.

<comment><USER6> Aristotelian distinction between essential and accidental properties is probably what yr thinking about here, but that's not really the same distinction as the one between data and metadata.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> There is also a really interesting Biomedical toolkit for SWI-prolog, which if IIRC uses or integrates with the semantic capabilities (for ontologies etc), although it was a while since I looked at it, so might recall wrong:

* BlipKit - Biomedical Logic Programming : [http://www.blipkit.org](http://www.blipkit.org)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is semantic web tech being reliably employed to solve any big problems? (RDF, RDFa, OWL, SPARQL, triple stores, graph dbs...?) Is it fast?

<comment><USER12> It is not at all fast.

I don't even think it's computationally possible for SPARQL to be fast.

<comment><USER6> SPARQL is PSPACE-complete. Worst case complexity and "fast in practice" aren't really the same thing at all. I suspect average case complexity for SPARQL is much better, which is backed up by several reasonably peformant implementations.

<comment><USER12> What are these reasonably performant implementations? Have you tried them with a billion edges?

Also, if your data store is "fast in practice" but has worst cases that are PSPACE-complete, how do you prevent worst-case queries from DOSing it?

<comment><USER6> Well, I'm a vendor in the space so I like my implementation: [http://stardog.com/](http://stardog.com/) \-- and yes we've "tried it" with 10s of billions of edges.

Worst cases are prevented from DOSing by having query management features like auto-killing queries that run too long, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is always nice to see Prolog on the news. SWI was the choosen implementation at my university back in the mid-90's.

</comment><comment><USER14> SPARQL which is the standard query language for RDF is based on Prolog. So why go back to Prolog?

<comment><USER6> SPARQL is similar to non-recursive Datalogˆnot, but that's a subset of full Prolog. SPARQL is a query language, not a full-on programming language as Prolog is.

<comment><USER2> True. Most notably I badly miss the ability to encapsulate queries in named "functions". That is one of the things I really like in prolog, since it enables to quickly raise one's level of abstraction, by building up a "language" of facts and rules.

If anyone knows a way to do something similar in SPARQL, I'm highly interested to know.

<comment><USER6> You can do this with user-defined rules in some RDF databases. Stardog(.com) supports it nicely.

<comment><USER2> Interesting, thanks for the hint!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it possible to port it to mercury?</comment>


DEFCON 24 - <AUTHOR> https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-24/dc-24-index.html <comment><USER2> defcon.org scores a 10/10 for their TLS cert using Firefox SSLeuth. The domain is also DNSSEC signed with a corresponding HTTPS TLSA record.

Good going DEFCON. Don't see domains that secure so often.</comment>


Ask HN: How to maximize battery life of my Smartphone? - Fire-Dragon-DoL This question keeps appearing within my group of friends, from my understanding there are 2 type of batteries in smartphones:
- LiPo - LiIon
And there are various theories about phone charge/discharge to keep battery healthy:
- Recharge when it goes down to 40% but stop at 80% (I use this technique for my laptop) - Reach battery minimum (~10%) and fully recharge - Keep the phone plugged whenever you can (battery topped as much as possible) - Keep the battery as close as possible to 60% all time (recharge when it's lower, stop charging when it's higher) - Keep the battery unplugged and fully charged all time (laptops only)
What's the right way to deal with battery cycles of my smartphone? Bonus points for laptops suggestions too. <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really curious what an "expert" might have to say about this as well. I've been the kind of person to charge my phone/laptop up all the way and wait for it to be less than 10% before I plug it in again...

<comment> Fire-Dragon-DoL Same here. Even the "web" seems confused about it, whenever I perform a research on internet I find information stating one thing and then the opposite. I'm so confused. I assume there are studies around it so there must be a clear scientifically correct answer rather than just "theories"</comment></comment>


This Is What the Price of Bitcoin Will Be in 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/zapchain-magazine/this-is-what-the-price-of-bitcoin-will-be-in-2015-5b25ff957c20

<comment><USER2> You can't do a "This is X" linkbait article when the conclusion of the article is "I don't know."</comment>


German railways to test anti-graffiti drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22678580 <comment><USER2> Whenever I travel in Germany (indeed usually by train), I marvel at how much _prettier_ most graffiti is than it is over here in NL (basically, more & larger colourful "pieces", rather than ugly "tags").

That makes me kind of ambivalent about this undertaking :) But I also understand that for the Deutsche Bahn this means substantial damage and costs. On the other hand, more effective enforcement is probably mostly going to result in a larger ratio of quick-n-dirty tags, making the overall appearance messier, uglier and more vandalised.

Now I don't think that people should just be able to paint their murals on whatever property they don't own. That's not right. I just think it won't really change the appearance for the better.

I also don't like drones, btw. Flying surveillance robots? Brrr. At least ED-209 couldn't climb stairs ...

<comment><USER3> > _But I also understand that for the Deutsche Bahn this means substantial > damage and costs._

In what sense?

If the don't want repaint damages, then don't fucking repaint them.

People like them fine as they are. Young people at least. As for the older people, they will give their place to younger people sooner or later.

<comment> ah- >People like them fine as they are. Young people at least. As for the older people, they will give their place to younger people sooner or later.

I doubt that. At least I am a young German and I prefer my trains to be clean. And I'm absolutely certain most young people here think the same way.

There is graffiti that I enjoy, but the majority of it doesn't exactly improve the looks of things.

Also, there is a slight problem with people feeling insecure when using public transportation due to repeated incidents where people were beaten up or stabbed in trains. Having graffiti all over the place makes especially older people less likely to use public transportation and therefore reduces the income.

<comment><USER3> > _I doubt that. At least I am a young German and I prefer my trains to be > clean. And I'm absolutely certain most young people here think the same > way._

Were? In squareville? Because the young Germans I've talked to in Mitte sure didn't think that way.

> _Also, there is a slight problem with people feeling insecure when using > public transportation due to repeated incidents where people were beaten up > or stabbed in trains._

That's orthogonal.

> _Having graffiti all over the place makes especially older people less > likely to use public transportation and therefore reduces the income._

Huh? How is that conclusion reached? I hope not with the "broken window" theory -- there are graffiti in affluent and well maintained city districts too.

<comment><USER4> squareville? Let's not act like we are five years old and calling each other names. That makes for a terrible environment.

Remember that your opinion isn't The One and that everybody has different likes. I agree that graffiti on trains normally looks terrible, but in other places graffiti can be very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This undertaking is absolutely ridiculous.

First, Deutsche Bahn simply could hire a security agency for a fraction of the money.

Second, they're trying to solve a non-problem. Their trains are notoriously and regularly late. Their fares are horribly complex and overpriced. They only offer Internet access on two of their high speed routes through Germany. You want Internet access while travelling to Germany's main startup hub Berlin? Well, bad luck for you. No such service. Their trains fail regulary during spring because of the rain, they fail during summer because the trains' air conditioning can't handle more than 35 degrees centigrade, they fail during autumn because their trains' wheels can't deal with wet leaves on the tracks and they fail during winter because of a few snowflakes.

I couldn't care less what their trains look like from the outside if they didn't smell like piss and sweat on the inside. Maybe, they should fix that issue first before buying some expensive toy with their shareholders' money, which happens to be taxpayers' money since Deutsche Bahn is still more or less owned by the German state.

<comment><USER6> As someone who has lived in Germany for many years and experienced the pros and cons of Deutsche Bahn and now lives in the UK, all I can say is you have no idea how good things are in Germany.

<comment><USER5> I have lived in the UK for some time, too. I can only tell about the Tube and regional train services in South-East England and those were quite alright back then (roughly 10 years ago), though not exactly better than German regional train services either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Graffiti is reported to cost Deutsche Bahn about 7.6m euros (£6.5m; $10m) a > year.

or leave it alone and it will cost you close to zero and still look better. wholecars ara PITA for travellers so windows need to get cleaned, but I thought that vandal squad hysteria after the 90s graffiti boom has ended. I guess somebody needs to pump up their budget requirements.

<comment><USER8> This might change your mind <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gLrwaXfeLg>.

While the problem is definitely less nowadays, the difficult to reach places where graffiti appears around German stations sometimes makes you appreciate how much motivation and effort the artists(?) must have.

<comment><USER9> This is really painful to watch. Stupidity like this saddens me. Hope they'll figure out how to catch these people or at least teach them a lesson.

<comment><USER10> > Stupidity like this saddens me

Then here's something a little sadder: this guys are more or less considered heroes. I've never seen the video, but I've heard the story from a tourist guide, who made it clear that this was an awesome stunt that should be admired.

Then again, keep in mind that Berlin has a rather complicated story with Graffiti (the city owes a lot to its starving artists), so the Western point of view is not the only one to keep in consideration.

<comment><USER9> Well, I'm from the eastern bloc and we have (had?) similar problems in Poland. Though I doubt anyone here would glorify or even excuse these guys. Really thought vandalism is rare and less tolerated west of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They should just declare the graffiti as an act of terrorism and rent few of Mr. Obama's drones for a few days. They are battle tested with good track record and nice infrastructure.

My opinion - the only proper way to deal with this is to commission some street art on the walls and cars themselves.

In a few places where the artists have been officially sanctioned it worked acceptably.

<comment><USER3> > _They are battle tested with good track record_

If by "battle" you mean one-sided murder attack, and "good track record" you mean "including killing tens of kids in weddings and such".

<comment><USER11> That is exactly what I meant... the HTML spec really needs sarcasm tag by default. But from purely engineering viewpoint they have performed marvelously.

As a rule I hate purely technical/financial solution that helps someone to isolate himself from a social problem and not solving it.

<comment><USER3> > _As a rule I hate purely technical/financial solution that helps someone to > isolate himself from a social problem and not solving it._

I'm totally there with you on this.

We cannot solve social problems by just piling technology on them.

Just an an example (OT), it's like the thing with the right to privacy: no, cryptography ain't gonna solve the issue.

For one, they could outlaw the use of cryptography and force you to provide a passkey or be jailed. Second, that might work for a tech savvy person communicating with another tech savvy person -- if he's paranoid all the time.

What about when his non tech-savvy friend mentions his secret on a plain text email to another friend? And what about the culture of hiding, instead of a proud culture of "this is not the fucking government's business" that this creates?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Couldn't the graffiti artists just wear ski masks to avoid being identified? (Which reminds me of this story which appears on HN from time to time: [http://cs.txstate.edu/~br02/cs1428/ShortStoryForEngineers.ht...](http://cs.txstate.edu/~br02/cs1428/ShortStoryForEngineers.htm) )

<comment><USER13> A lots of them now wear gas masks, or at minimum put a piece of cloth (scarf or something) on their mouth+nose, breathing paint and what comes with it isn't good for you. So yeah...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A bitcoin to the first successful tag on the drone itself.

<comment><USER15> What if people started using drones to do the graffiti? It seems like a possible future. Then you will need anti graffiti-drawing drone drones. Eventually you will wind up with a giant Skynet graffiti problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "German railways to test anti-graffiti drones"

Yes, take every bit of freedom and artistic expression in the urban environment -- just because there's technology to enable it.

When there'll be technology to enable having people zapped if they do or think anything those in power don't like, they'll employ it too.

<comment><USER16> If you consider graffiti to be freedom of expression, you missed that boat when it was made illegal in the first place. Arguing we shouldn't enforce the laws we have generally won't get you very far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >German media report that each drone will cost about 60,000 euros and fly almost silently German police should look through kickstarter. This whole thing should not cost more than 10,000 even with IR video equipment added. Looks like some company is going to make a healthy profit

</comment><comment><USER18> The Deutsche Bahn, who's still using floppy disks for reservations? And who knows what to power their train station displays (including some 286s with Xenix, if I remember correctly)...

<comment><USER19> They also have a route planner for almost whole Europe that is super-fast. Would be interesting to read howabout it's built.

<comment><USER18> Isn't that all still done by Hafas? I remember when their web site redirected the search to "reiseauskunft.hafas.de" (late 90s?)... Where you actually got a Postscript _program_ when you used the print function in a Linux browser.

Sadly it's pretty rare to find something like a "technology blog" on any German corporate website, apart from a few startups.</comment></comment></comment>


Foursquare is joining the OpenStreetMap movement - <AUTHOR> http://blog.foursquare.com/2012/02/29/foursquare-is-joining-the-openstreetmap-movement-say-hi-to-pretty-new-maps/

<comment><USER3> While I like the concept of the open maps idea and I'm sure it has a bright future, what about aerial views, street view, etc? Is this not a functionality step backwards for FourSquare hopping on such a new service at this point?

The biggest problem I see with MapBox right now is that their map labels don't seem to be dynamic. There are a lot of places around my house I can zoom in and I have to pan to see the street name because the label is out of view. There is one location nearby where I can scroll 3/4 the way across town and not see a label on one particularly major street. This could quickly make for a frustrating user experience.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud what MapBox is putting together and I'm sure it'll improve rapidly. At this point though it does seem like a significant drop in functionality for a major service to move onto it.

<comment><USER4> > The biggest problem I see with MapBox right now is that their map labels > don't seem to be dynamic.

As far as I know, there's only one map where labels _are_ dynamic - <USER2> MapsGL, and it's available only on 10% of browsers.

> While I like the concept of the open maps idea and I'm sure it has a bright > future, what about aerial views, street view, etc? Is this not a > functionality step backwards for FourSquare hopping on such a new service at > this point?

FourSquare wasn't using street view, but the satellite imagery void is definitely something to address.

<comment><USER5> Based on the system requirements MapsGL should be available much more than 10% of browser. WCIU... pegs "partial" WebGL support at 46%. Evan if you remove a generous % for lack of hardware support you are still significantly over 10%.

[http://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...](http://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1630790) <http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What about contributing the Venues to an open places database? AFAIK Foursquare is one of the only companies in the Factual Crosswalk API that is included but not an active cooperative partner.

<comment><USER6> I noticed that all comments on HN and on the blog post that addressed the issue of venue data were conveniently dodged.

This is unfortunate and reflects badly on FourSquare since it is highly indicative that this decision is almost certainly about the money being paid to Google for its API and not at all about supporting open-source.

It appears that FourSquare is happy taking what it wants from the commons generated by the community, but when it has an asset that would greatly benefit the commons, and that they don't necessarily need to hold close to their chest to maintain an advantage, that they don't donate it.

To me, that's a shame.

The whole world would clearly be better off if one of the Place API providers with a solid collection of POI internationally (Google and Foursquare) were to donate that set to the commons.

It's great that the commons gains another major supporter, but near as I can tell Foursquare is just using information in the commons to its advantage here without truly participating in the commons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder whether this is related to recent introduction of leaderboards in Google Latitude check-ins.

<comment><USER8> Payback's a bitch.

[Disclaimer: These are my personal views and do not represent those of my employer, foursquare.]

Really though, the new Google Maps pricing scheme is just totally bonkers. They're trying to charge a higher CPM than typical AdSense rates. It's just nonsense.</comment></comment>