iPad and Linode: 1 Year Later - <AUTHOR> http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-later <comment><USER2> I've been able to accomplish the "meander around, finding cool new places to work" thing pretty well with an 11" MB Air (and optional tethered iPhone).

It doesn't have the ridiculous battery life of an iPad, but other than that it essentially gives you the same portability without feeling like you're constraining yourself to a subpar development environment (I've tried doing serious web dev on an iPad, but the lack of a web inspector and the ability to remap caps lock as control are both dealbreakers for me).

<comment><USER3> This is essentially what I'm doing these days. I wrote quite a lot of my upcoming CoffeeScript book (and its example applications) this way in Istanbul. Spending the morning in one waterpipe cafe, then afternoon in another.

Battery life was the main hindrance, as I would always need to find a place with a convenient power socket at least for the other half of the day. If somebody made an MBA-like, Linux-capable machine with a full-day battery, I'd buy it no matter the cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you looked at ultrabook-class laptops with removable battery packs? Might work out for you. How was Istanbul?

<comment><USER4> Can't comment from a working perspective, but Istanbul - as with all of Turkey I've been to - is _awesome_ (and I've lived in a bunch of places). All the exotic of North Africa filled with people who are honest, decent, friendly, and won't harass you. If I get myself mobile again, Turkey is top on my list of places to spend 3-6 months. Did I mention the food is great?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an impossible setup for a front end dev. As you mentioned Mobile Safari is junk. To add to that, its debug tools are laughable. Don't even think about cross browser testing unless you have additional remote systems + VNC.

I tried an iPad + keyboard + remote vim a while back and found it slowed me down significantly. Having to take my hands off the keyboard and swipe or use the button slows my flow. Writing code and want to look something up? Swiping to Safari is much slower than Cmd+tab to a real browser.

</comment><comment><USER6> The original article inspired me to get a retina ipad and wireless keyboard with hopes of connecting to my home server and developing with issh/tmux/vim/chrome and working anywhere from my tethered 4g phone. It was an immediate disappointment: issh is extremely unreliable, has awkward rendering glitches and a UI that can't be configured to actually fullscreen. Oh and it times out after a short while, especially if you've switched to some other app. iOS can't remap caps lock to control either, which would have otherwise made it usable for me. I didn't waste any more time attempting to fix these issues; the only way I see this working perfectly is if I had actual linux running on the ipad.

<http://s00pcan.com/photos/ipad1.jpg> <http://s00pcan.com/photos/ipad2.jpg>

<comment><USER7> Give Prompt (from Panic) a shot. Much much better than iSSH IMO (if you need just an ssh client, not VNC or other crazy stuff).

[http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh- for...](http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh-for-ios/)

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prompt/id421507115?mt=8>

And for VNC, "Screens" is the best: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screens- vnc-control-your-comp...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screens-vnc-control- your-computer/id400012962?mt=8)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've only had bad experiences with Prompt + 256-color vim/screen, but I've hear it works better with tmux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> About the Surface. I've been doing some Windows 8 HTML5/JS SDK development for the past few months using a Vaio All-in-One with a touchscreen and the responsiveness and feel of HTML5 is on par with the C#/Xaml environment. Using the apps, you absolutely can not tell which SDK is being used.

Of course this is on a fast x86 chip. No one has been able to get a comparable experience on a table or phone yet. I'm slightly worried that things won't be as crisp or as nice on the Surface ARM (and other ARM tablets). If it is it's not just a step up from Mobile Safari, Chrome for Android, and Firefox for Android, but a _major_ step forward.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, I'm happy to answer any more technically detailed questions; I had to cut a lot out of the blog post!

<comment><USER3> First of all, thanks for writing about your experiences! This was an inspiration for me when attempting to do something similar on a Transformer Prime. Unfortunately the Asus keyboard wasn't good enough, and that fell into misuse.

However, this has prompted me to re-evaluate what I need on my work computer. Essentially, there are only three things I actually run: vim, Vagrant and a browser.

This means that when the lease period on my current Air ends in February I will have a lot of freedom to choose my next "workstation". Theoretically it could be any small-and-light laptop, or maybe even something like iPad or Surface. Though even with the little requirements I have, I'm not so keen to go Windows...

Oh, and an actual question: I do quite a lot of front-end development (see for instance <http://createjs.org/> ). One thing that mobile browsers lack is access to proper inspectors and JavaScript consoles. Any ideas on that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I plan to use a Surface as a client but my development will stil be on Linux, of course. The whole no-browsers-except-IE-on-a-surface might be a real killer for anyone doing web development though.

<comment><USER9> I thought I saw Chrome & Firefox doing Windows 8-style apps?

<comment><USER3> The last I heard of this is that the Metro versions of the different browsers can run on Intel-based Windows 8 devices, but not on ARM-powered Windows RT.

This is a shame. Firefox is great on Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe I'm missing the point, but this looks more clunky; having to carry around a keyboard and an iPad, surely just a laptop is more convenient?

<comment><AUTHOR> I throw it all in a rucksack. The keyboard + iPad are lighter than any laptop I've seen that I'd like to use, but it's purely a matter of taste.

Having a keyboard that's not joined to the screen has been convenient a number of times though - I can hang the iPad in a bush and rest the keyboard on my knees, for example.

<comment><USER10> Upvoting for hanging your iPad in a bush.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> maybe i'm really missing the point, but once you attach a keyboard to an ipad you've are bound to have a sub-par user experience.

in terms of portability, i see no difference between ipad + kb and a macbook air. heck, i see very little difference between ipad + kb and ipad + macbook air, which is what i carry around. ipad for reading, macbook air for coding and writing.

iOS does not seem like an environment designed for people who spend most of their time writing and typing or otherwise creating. rather, it is an environment optimized for what most people do with their computers most of the time: consume information. that doesn't mean you _can't_ create on the ipad. OSX, on the other hand, is such an environment. there is no reason to pick either or, you can have both at relatively low cost.

</comment><comment><USER12> This isn't an article about iPad or about tablets. It's an article about _working in the cloud._

Considering all of the comments here, is there a service where you can use a browser that's hosted in the cloud, but have its UI appear in a client over something like VNC?

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't good ol' X forewarning through ssh do? Try enabling compression (-C) as well. Use it a lot, but for simpler programs than browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great article! I have an iPad 2 and a Macbook air 11''. I've tried using the iPad for development (I do web development, both front end and backend) and really couldn't use it. I do have an external keyboard but I believe it's just an interface issue. I find that I'm very used to the touchpad/keyboard combo and that speeds me up a whole lot. Requiring to reach for the iPad to swipe something is a _MASSIVE_ annoyance. Plus, the fact that you can't Alt+Tab between applications (WTH is THAT all about ?!)

As far as weight is concerned the Macbook air is an absolutely WONDERFUL device. Coming in at 2.2lbs it's almost the same weight as my iPad+keyboard. Plus, the fact that it's a shell design (case closes and protects the screen+keyboard) works way better for me than an iPad could (though arguably one could get a similar 'protector' for the iPad).

Oh and the kicker ? I'm currently traveling fulltime with my girlfriend (have been doing so for a year now..) and between us, we carry an iPad2+keyboard and Macbook air combo. We do all sorts of things including photo editing, video editing, web development (for me..) on this combination.

But using the iPad for any useful work ? Nuh-uh!

Given our situation, it's also difficult to get good WiFi connectivity most of the time and the macbook air's wifi hardware is better than the iPad's by far. (in terms of wireless reception quality). There've been plenty of times that I pick up the WiFi signal on the Air and then share it over bluetooth for the iPad. More info on our gear is here: <http://bkpk.me/about-a-z/>

</comment><comment><USER15> The author must be very tolerant or otherwise accustomed to lag. He says "no noticeable lag" but is 3G even _that_ good on paper? Wavering pings of 100-1000ms are pretty normal on 3G in my experience, so given a round trip, if the difference is an optimistic 200ms that's should be pretty noticeable when typing, tailing logs or jumping around vim on a remote system versus doing it locally.

I'm sure you can build confidence and get used to pulling off a string of moves with no immediate visual feedback, but it sounds like something you'd have to get used to tolerating, rather than not notice?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, that has to be horrible. I remember working remotely from Thailand, and had around 150ms to a linode in Japan, and it was infuriating. Even worse when trying to access services at home, with latency around 300ms. With latency over 30ms you start to notice it. There are good tools out there, though. Mosh is one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The problem with replacing the iPad with a MacBook Air 11" is that there are way way more distractions on the MacBook. Maybe this also works so well for the author because the iPad is very limited. He basically degraded his super- multi-functional laptop to a simpler device that just does email/web/ssh very well. Maybe that is part of the reason why it works so well for him.

</comment><comment><USER18> I still have the first ipad generation and I can't see a damn thing outside. Do you have a screen protector or something special? Is it _fixed_ in the second ipad generation?

Also, what kind of programming do you do? I often hack in plain console.. but more often than not, I need a browser with the inspector/console open and lots of documentation tabs.. How do you make it work for these cases?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER19> fascinating stuff, makes me long for a good IDE on iPad that doesn't feel like a "toy", that can handle Objective-C for example. In an ideal world, Apple would be working on "iCode" as we speak... ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I love Vim as an IDE, but there are a features I'd want to import from other IDEs if I had a magic VimScript wand...

Edit: correction - I love Vim as an editor with incredibly powerful macro and scripting capabilities. That makes up for a lot of otherwise missing IDE features, but it could be so much better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Working with limitations is what yields creativity. But unlike the limitations of computing's yesteryear, the limitations of the iPad seem artificial. OSX is built from BSD UNIX, and iOS is built from OSX. Why should it be so limited? Where is the "iPad Pro"? The uncrippled version with USB and SD card slots.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's probably what Microsoft were thinking when they designed the Surface. We'll see how well it works out for them.

<comment><USER20> If I can use my own bootloader with Surface, I'd buy one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have you tried just using VNC to access your macbook? This would turn the ipad into a windows, linux, and mac osx device, plus no monthly cost. Also, Android tablets could do the same thing. If safari won't cut it, try chrome. It seems a bit odd none of this was mentioned/tried. Also, look at the magnetic logitech ipad keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been wanting to try this for a while, the one thing holding me back is frontend work, day to day I do a mixture of frontend and backend development and I'm concerned that Mobile Safari/ Chrome might not cut it. Has anyone had any experience with this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mobile Safari is a bit of a pain for frontend developement. There's the javascript-based FireBug but it's a far cry from the real thing or the Chrome developer tools.

Of course, you don't need to do it all day every day - you can use your laptop for frontend work and an iPad for backend development in the park on nice days.

<comment><USER22> Thanks, definitely going to give it a go for backend development. It might actually be quite nice to have some forced segmentation between backend and frontend work to avoid getting distracted by the design at the wrong times.

Do you have many problems with sunlight on the screen/ glare?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'll be curious to see how he finds the surface keyboard. I'm dubious of the one that doesn't have physical keys on it. I find it really hard to type effectively without that physical feedback.

Great to read the year-after follow up, by the way. Really well done.

<comment><USER24> Me too, and if the surface is the same size as an iPad then the keyboard is not going to be fullsize. If I add the wireless Apple keyboard ontop of the iPad about 2 keys sticks out over the edge if I line it up on the other end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks great, sadly i need a powerful machine locally because i develop hardware heavy 3D Games/Apps.

But i might use something like that for everything that isnt coding, i still love my 11" MBA for that though.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't think I could handle working full time on such a small display.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love these glimpses of the future. I'm far to visual and need more applications then what's available on iPad now, but I'd love to work like this too.

</comment><comment><USER28> I see that you don't have a physical hold on the iPad while you work outside. Has anybody tried stealing it?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but Munich is a pretty safe and affluent place. Also, what're they going to do? Run away in front of hundreds of witnesses while I video them with my iPhone and call for the (ever-present) police?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Lack of offline mode really makes this setup unworkable.

</comment><comment><USER30> I can't understand why ANYONE is still using Linode after their disgraceful behaviour at the start of this year.

For those that don't remember they were hacked and a sizeable sum of Bitcoins were stolen from a number of VPSs after their customer service app was hacked.

The problem is that (a) customers were the last to hear about it having to find out the news from Reddit, (b) we still don't know exactly what happened, (c) we don't know whether it affected other VPS or whether it is still an issue, (d) what they've learnt/changed.

Compare this to Cloudflare which was transparent and open with everyone and clearly learnt a lot of lessons. Trying to hide your mistakes at every turn is NOT how you run a service company.

<comment><USER31> OK, let's be sensationalist for a moment: I should stop using Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Amazon... They have all been hacked at one point or another and very rarely do we get details of what actually happened. Ohh yea, I should give up my US citizenship as well. I hear about the US gov getting hacked all the time and they don't let us know whats going on either.

People love hating on hosting companies, and touting their own horror or success stories. When will people realize that mistakes are inevitable. To me, one mistake every once in a while is forgivable. Perhaps I could also careless about bitcoins (they seem about as worthless as Second Life money). Linode did mention publicly that only 8 accounts were compromised and no credit card info or passwords were available to them.

<comment><USER32> Also, while I'm not commenting on Linode's response to the incident, ultimately the security of your information is up to you. The owner of the stolen Bitcoins has publicly stated that he learned a lesson: encrypt your data.

Your server, your data, your information is only as safe as you make it. Even if everything is fully encrypted and all a hacker could do to mess with you is delete your instance, you should have offsite backups of your important stuff. Always assume you're going to lose everything. Whether it's hardware failure, hacking, or a simple mistake, treat a gun like it's loaded.

Encrypt your important data. Use two-factor authentication on privileged accounts. If you want Bitcoins to be a currency, then read up on Payment Card Industry regulations and really understand how to keep a currency secure.Hire an auditor if need be. Everyone is going to be hacked, everyone is going to be embarrassed, and your data is never secure unless you make it secure.

<comment><USER33> encrypting your data doesn't help when it is inside memory and somebody else has root.

the attack was a hypervisor intrusion, linode's VM setup was hacked, none of these recommendations would have helped at all in this case.

<comment><USER32> Linode does offer basic two-factor authentication, which was one of the things I mentioned. You have the ability to set up IP address whitelists. If you try to log in from an address not on the whitelist, you get an email to confirm you are who you say you are. If I know the attack correctly, the hacker reset (or otherwise gained) the password via the support console and used that to log in. With two-factor, he could get the right password but would still need access to the email account as well. Unless you've majorly fucked up, there is no way anyone besides you is getting root.

You sign no SLA with Linode. They make no guarantees. That leaves it up to you to make sure you're secure, and fortunately they give you the tools needed to make this a reality.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


REST API for your car: Tesla Model S - <AUTHOR> http://docs.timdorr.apiary.io/

<comment><USER2> Of course the beauty of it is (if you have a Model S) you can help with the mapping by fork/pull-requesting changes on GitHub: <https://github.com/timdorr/model-s-api></comment>


React Native for Mac OS X by microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/blog/2020/05/19/rn4mupdadates <comment><USER2> This is a great initiative and hopefully it'll get fleshed out some.

Me and two other devs have tried the Windows RN Windows for months off and on but always something missing when compiling.

As for the Mac version, great that it worked last night but without packaging, we can't ship anything at work.</comment>


First Evidence That Social Bots Play a Major Role in Spreading Fake News - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608561/first-evidence-that-social-bots-play-a-major-role-in-spreading-fake-news/ <comment><USER2> Fake news goes further than politics. Its claws reach to everything unscientific. Those claws are -in theory- rather enormous for the amount of unscientific debate on the Internet is huge.

Take the following two examples from the alt. health community: David 'Avocado' Wolfe [1] and Dr. Joseph Mercola [2]. The former is a self proclaimed health guru with no medical degree yet he makes all kind of (dangerous) health claims. The latter's similar tho he does have a degree. The latter's article is on a website called Quackwatch. If Quackwatch is credible (I didn't verify) it could be interesting to hook into them, perhaps via an API.

Funny enough when I searched for these two (I used DDG, YMMV) in combination with the term fake news I found articles where they comment about other (supposed) fake news. For example, in one article they claimed in the headline CNN distributed fake news. I don't know if that's deliberate, but at least from a SEO PoV it seems clever of them.

Another interesting question is, could -in a future- whitelisting be a better default modus operandi than blacklisting?

[1] [https://au.be.yahoo.com/lifestyle/real- life/a/34572713/david...](https://au.be.yahoo.com/lifestyle/real- life/a/34572713/david-wolfe-youre-fake-news-yahoo7-be/)

[2] [http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html](http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> >So widespread has this become that a number of independent fact-checking organizations have emerged to establish the veracity of online information. These include snopes.com, politifact.com, and factcheck.org.

As long as it remains an assumption that these are 'independent' non-partisan fact-checking organizations, I would discard any conclusions drawn here.

Also Breitbart is highly editorialized news and commentary, but it's certainly not fake. The fact that its CEO strategized the largest political upset in recent history is very, very real.

<comment><USER4> The sentence before the ones you quoted is:

> At issue is the publication of news that is false or misleading.

Initially in the election, "fake news" was a term primarily used to refer to stories and sites that were complete fabrications, created to make money from ads and for political ends. Use of the term quickly expanded to include more long-standing practitioners of distortion, like Breitbart.

The whole point of this article is that "fake news" can have real consequences so the supposed successes of Steve Bannon has nothing to do with the veracity of the publications headlines and stories.

Here's just one example of a fake Breitbart headline:

>Condemned as "fake news" by some media pundits, the Breitbart article was headlined: "Revealed: 1,000-man mob attack police, set Germany's oldest church alight on New Year's Eve." However, according to local journalists, there was no mob and the St Reinold Church – which is not Germany's oldest – did not catch fire. Local police said the night was "rather average to quiet" and the number of incidents in Dortmund on New Year's Eve had decreased to 185, down from 421 in 2015/16\. The brief fire on scaffold netting near the church was reportedly caused accidently by a wayward firework.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/breitbart- new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/breitbart-news- dortmund-police-new-years-eve-fake-news-germany-angela-merkel-syrians-refugee- crisis-a7514786.html)

<comment><USER5> >Here's just one example of a fake Breitbart headline

But it starts to get a bit confusing when you actually look at the accusations and rebuttals, especially when you look at the fleshed out indy article [0]

Accusation : "The right-wing American website, which enjoyed a meteoric rise to prominence in 2016, claimed a 1,000-strong mob chanting "Allahu Akbar" set fire to the country's oldest church in Dortmund."

Rebuttal :"Mr Bandermann on the other hand, in a Q&A-style response published the following day, said that from between 6.45pm and 1.30am, groups of young foreign men formed a large group of 1,000 people. He said the fire at the church only set light to netting surrounding the building and lasted just 12 minutes." ... "He said that saying Allahu Akbar is as normal as saying 'Amen' in church,"

So which is fake news? On the facts, the Independent agrees (although through semantics "church netting on fire, not the church" "group" not "mob") with the Breitbart article.

If they both agree on the facts, but spin them different ways, how do you determine which is "fake news"?

[0] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/edited-1038-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/edited-1038-headline- works-well-a7512636.html)

edit: They did actually issue a correction for something they got wrong in the article

"Correction: This article states St. Reinold's Church is the oldest in Germany. We are happy to clarify that accolade belongs to the Trier Cathedral."

<comment><USER6> Replying to the deadpost:

>They've literally _never_ accidentally reported in a direction that was opposite their editorial spin.

You won't find any news outlet who will err two ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The biggest challenge to branded corporate 'masthead credibility' information sources/'news' aggregators is their reliance on firms like Outbrain for advertising revenue. Outbrain packages up salacious and questionable material as click bait and runs it on sites like SFGate, supposedly as additional 'news' from a partner of SFGate. The result is deterioration of trust and respect for SFGate.

The fuzzy term 'fake news' is fraught with problems. We've been lied to so many times in the western world via 'official' sources many people simply don't trust the mainstream media any more. Apparently more people were watching Yogi Bear reruns than CNN in the US a few weeks ago during prime time.

The joy of the internet is our ability to consume information from a wide variety of sources, triangulate across many ideas, reporting and opinions to make up our own minds. The old model of having a small number of 'news outlets', such as the four commercial TV channels and one main 'news' broadcast a night that worked so well during the Vietnam war era is long gone.

There seems to be a hankering for regulated, rubber stamped 'news' and credibility checks, which I think is profoundly undemocratic and against the principles of free speech.

<comment><USER8> > Apparently more people were watching Yogi Bear reruns than CNN in the US a > few weeks ago during prime time.

lol fake news much? You got that from Sean Hannity's tweets. Cable news are reporting huge viewership

[http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cable-news-ratings-cnn- fox-n...](http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cable-news-ratings-cnn-fox-news- msnbc-q2-1202479416/)

[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sean-hannity-mocks- reruns-...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sean-hannity-mocks-reruns-of- yogi-bear-are-beating-cnn/article/2628304)

<comment><USER7> I read that here on right wing financial site ZeroHedge. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-06/cnns-rating- collaps...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-06/cnns-rating-collapse- prime-time-shows-draw-less-viewers-re-runs-yogi-bear)

Sean Hannity's tweets - along with any other TV bobble head of either political persuasion - are not something I ever pay attention too.

I try and read a cross section of perspectives across the political spectrum and draw my own conclusions from that...

<comment><USER9> Reading a variety of garbage that doesn't share their sources or even provide a ledger for what their data means isn't going to give you good conclusions. Including any of those outlets is a mistake.

<comment><USER7> Everything is relative. In my social circles virtually no one watches broadcast or cable TV any more. The ad industry relies on Neilsen ratings to say everything is wonderful in the world of passive consumption, but do you trust their stats? [http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/ineffective-nielsen- ratin...](http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/ineffective-nielsen-ratings-are- ruining-tv-and-no-one-cares.php) Your dismissive idea about not bothering to 'read a variety of garbage' implies you will only read rubber stamped, verified information. The question there, as we all seek versions of the truth, is who is doing the verifying and what is their agenda... This is why the internet is such a wonderful thing, don't be fenced in by pre chewed and spun information...

<comment><USER9> If you don't trust Nielsen ratings, why are you reading things that only show you a sliver of that data and use it to make attacks?

Reading multiple sources doesn't matter if they're all trash, you'll read multiple biased accounts and then agree with the one conforming to your own bias. I don't read "rubber stamped information," I read things that can source their data and check the sources to make sure they aren't lying to me.

Your link's only source is another article that links to themselves multiple times before providing any source, a bad sign, then the source is provided without context. It basically says "lower on this list is worse therefore CNN sucks."

<comment><USER7> 'sources' is the key word here...I'm not attacking anything.

<comment><USER9> Trusting such content and repeating their claims is attacking what they want you to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is way too simplistic to decree certain sites fake or not, and I would have hoped than an article from MIT would acknowledge this instead of reinforcing this "fake news" meme.

If you've heard about yellow journalism as well as Project Mockingbird, then you can appreciate the fact that news is a tool to entertain and manufacture consent and occasionally inform. All of it lies on a spectrum between fake and not fake. Even The Onion which is intentionally satirical, typically has a nugget of truth in each of his stories, which is why it's good satire.

If you're not already convinced how ridiculous this term is, consider for a moment: How do you prove if a certain publication is "fake news" or not? If a "not fake news" mainstream news source publishes a single story which is later corrected or retracted, is the entire publication forever labeled "fake news" or is a certain amount of fake stories required for a publication as a whole to be considered fake?

<comment><USER11> Journalists have been making mistakes since the beginning of journalism but if you're paying attention you know there's a new class of web site that's qualitatively different from journalism. It doesn't make an attempt to do anything but spread transparent lies. And it's effective because it's aimed at a specific audience that's susceptible to believing what it wants to believe without asking questions, regardless of the transparency of the lie to everyone else. There's a specific reason the term "fake news" was just recently coined. And there's a reason why some are trying to pervert the term by applying it to anything that's mistaken. Because then it applies to everyone instead of calling attention to those who are specifically benefiting from it.

<comment><USER10> I hear where you're coming from, and it could very well just be that the term appeared to help explain why Hillary lost the election. However, I believe the term can easily be used to silence independent news sources that are telling inconvenient truths. The motive for this could be that the proliferation of new media news sources (social media, blogs, youtube) is a threat to mainstream establishment news sources' bottom line, as well as their immense power in shaping public dialogue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Distribution of propaganda by bots is at least sort-of democratic. I wish there was more analysis of the automated suppression of news by the various platforms (twitter, facebook et al).

<comment><USER13> It's not democratic at all. It's specifically the use of resources to impersonate votes.

<comment><USER12> Ok, not democratic in that each person doesn't have an equal voice, but democratic in that anyone could buy some twitter botnet time and get their own message out.

<comment><USER13> It's not traditional to raft the notion of democracy to "how much money you have to rent a resource."

In practice, sure. That can happen. But we tend to universally awknowledge that it dilutes the intent of democracy, which is to keep a government honest to the people it governs. It seems like, given the astronomical differences in wealth between individuals in this world, this is precisely the kind of thing where one person can use resources to dilute the power of many individuals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would have liked to have seen a concrete example of where it worked and walked the reader through a simple demonstration. At some point in the article you realize it's all just a bunch of hand-waving.

</comment><comment><USER15> Paper would be better titled as "Examination of Online News Amplification through Social Bots".

There are no multiple-bullet itemized criteria on what makes "Fake News" in the whitepaper.

Some of the listed websites makes uses of only links to other websites, also of dubious nature. Perhaps, that's the criteria.

</comment><comment><USER16> >Fake news were used to manipulate the recent election

I see this being repeated often, but very little evidence behind it.

</comment><comment><USER17> arxiv link to the underlying research: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592)

</comment><comment><USER18> FoxNews and Brietbart are 2 sides of the same coin. They are right/far-right propaganda outlets, who's only aim is political discord. They will use fake or blown out of proportion or Pumped up editorial "news" segments to spread their message to serve an agenda. These bots help their message spread. Any guess who's agenda they serve?

<comment><USER19> Maybe it's justified. There's some big fear mongering and public shaming by the MSM against conservatives, especially lately.

[https://imgur.com/a/c1RnG](https://imgur.com/a/c1RnG)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6rantp/does_any...](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6rantp/does_anybody_have_any_fake_news_to_add_to_my_cnn/)

<comment><USER18> Spare me "the Donald" reddit thread. You dont think in light of certain facts thats conservatives and fascists masquerading as conservatives getting heat is justified?</comment></comment></comment>


Cuba has had a lung cancer vaccine for years - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalpost.com/article/6526566/2015/04/23/cuba-lung-cancer-vaccine-new-york

<comment><USER2> Quoting:

> CimaVax was developed by government-run Molecular Immunology Center. It's > not brand new, and Cuba has not kept its success a secret. Cuban researchers > were testing the drug in the 1990s and major world media outlets have > reported on it in the 2000s.

In addition, quoting from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba#Medical_res...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba#Medical_research) :

> In the 1980s, Cuban scientists developed a vaccine against a strain of > bacterial meningitis B, which eliminated what had been a serious disease on > the island. The Cuban vaccine is used throughout Latin America. After > outbreaks of meningitis B in the United States, the U.S. Treasury Department > granted a license in 1999 to an American subsidiary of the pharmaceutical > company SmithKline Beecham to enter into a deal to develop the vaccine for > use in the U.S. and elsewhere

Or [http://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-develops-four-cancer- vacci...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-develops-four-cancer-vaccines- ignored-by-the-media/5390303) :

> it is important to note that the US economic blockade of Cuba hinders the > marketing of Cuban pharmaceuticals in the United States, thus affecting the > US people. For instance, a total of 80 thousand diabetic people who undergo > toe amputation every year in the United States every year cannot access the > Cuban vaccine known as Heberprot-P, which precisely avoids such amputations.

Cuba's biotech research is used as an example of what pharmaceutical research might look like were it not profit-driven.</comment>


Ask HN: What happens to the Newsstand apps? - <AUTHOR>

After the News app, what happens to the apps that lived in Newsstand? <comment><USER2> If you're upgrading, they turn into a regular folder, called "Newsstand". You can just drag apps out of the folder if you like. For new iPhones there's no Newsstand at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. This is exactly what I was wondering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> context to understand wtf you're asking?</comment>


Ex-Googlers Won't Found The Next Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-next-google-wont-be-founded-by-an-ex-googler-2010-3

<comment><USER2> This is a list of the mostly modest startups created by ex-Googlers. Look for the "View As One Page"link at the bottom.</comment>


Hacking on mozilla graphserver is fun and easy - <AUTHOR> http://rhelmer.org/blog/?p=185

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a vagrant config and puppet manifests here too <https://github.com/rhelmer/graphs/tree/master/vagrant></comment>