Ask HN: How can I back to school (undergraduate) after working several years? - non-entity Right now, I'm in a weird position where I can't go to school affordably because of the obnoxious dependency / residency rules, but let's say I want to get an undergraduate degree in a couple years, when I will be considered independent and a resident of the state I live in. Additionally, let's make the assumption that I'm not interested in an online degree, my company will not pay me to  go back to school (at least for some degree I'm interested in) and my family wont take me back in.
So I'd be a mid 20s professional with an ok job that disqualifies me from much aid, but not enough where I can just pay out of pocket instantaneously. While technically, part time out of pocket is possible, but because undergraduate degrees are designed for high school -> full time student, the scheduling is likely to be an issue and the time it would take to complete is probably not worth it. Going back full time, a degree could be completed in a timely manner, no idea how to afford it if not working, as most jobs that would fit that sort of schedule wont pay shit. Unfortunately in that case, I'm paying not only for school, but also essentials (rent, etc.)
So basically, Although I'm pretty well off rn, I might want to go back ot school in a few years, but completing it in a timely manner without pulling out near to six figures in private loans doesnt seem possible. Am I overlooking anything? Are there options I may not know about? <comment><AUTHOR> Community college 2 years with a transfer to a 4 year state school program may be best option. Depending on state and your income you could wuslify for at least community college being free.</comment>


New search engine launched www.timmp.com - <AUTHOR>

Apparently indexes 130bn pages. Press releases all dated April 01, so April fools? Picked up on this as Metro newspaper (London UK) ran a piece on it a couple of days ago, saying that it had been founded by an 18 year-old who got $6mm funding for it. Can't find any reference to it on TC or elsewhere in blogosphere. <comment><USER2> It looks like timmp.com is just using the search api provided by yebol.com. Do the same search on both of those websites and you get the exact same results, but formatted slightly differently.

<comment><AUTHOR> great tip. yebol has passed me by. thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why not post the link directly and add your text as a comment?

Anyway, thanks for pointing this out, it looks to work pretty good, it actually caught quite a few links that were relevant in searches that I tried that google missed. There seems to be quite a bit of spam in the results still.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Why not post the link directly and add your text as a comment?

Actually I tried that but I got a submit error. I could add a link _or_ text but not both.

<comment><USER3> It's meant that way, that's why I wrote 'and add your text as a comment'.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah, ok, got it. (relative newbie to HN)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> clickable - <http://www.timmp.com></comment>


ASk HN: second thoughts about joining startup - what to do? - <AUTHOR>

I've hoping you can spread some light over the confusing that I'm experiencing right now.
For the past weeks, my friend and I have been discussing our new business venture. Actually, the idea is his and he has been planning it during the past years but it's only become serious during the last months.
I'm supposed to do the tech stuff for the company - coding, web sites, etc - but my understanding was that we both would be founders or atleast or equal partners. But my friend has other plans, it seems. Basically, he is about to be the sole founder and owner of the company. I can understand this to a certain degree; it's his idea and he's working full-time on the idea (I already have a job, so all my work is after my office hours). But I feel let down and hurt that he's decided to "demote" to an employee or contractor. Especially since I'm fully capable of discussing business ideas and development and actually discuss these matters frequently with him. What's worst, I've just signed a very general NDA that covers pretty much everything I'll do at the company and prohibits me from divulging information to other people. I felt forced to sign the NDA because I didn't want to let down a friend and because he insisted on it. In hindsight I realize this was incredibly stupid. Also, the NDA has made me really doubt my friend's trust in me and if I actually want to work with him.
I do want to make this startup work, but it feels that only a couple of weeks in, I'm in an inferior position and obviously more of an employee than a partner. Also, and this part is what I really hate, I've come to question my trust in my friend a bit because of the NDA. <comment><USER2> You're talking to the wrong people. We can't fix the fact that your friend is mad with power, and has a weak grasp on the value of an idea without someone to execute it.

You need to talk to your friend, and tell him you would love to work with him on this, but the opportunity cost only makes sense if you are an equal partner in the venture. You simply can't take those kinds of risks, accept so little income, work those kinds of hours, without a reasonable expectation of equal sharing in the results of the work. If he wants you to work for him, rather than be a co-founder, he should be offering competitive market rates and benefits (or contractor rates and no benefits; you could even offer him the "friend" rate of $100/hour rather than the regular rate of $150/hour). He'll either realize he's being a douche, or yell at you to GTFO and never call him again. Either way, you come out ahead and you don't get screwed out of a couple of years of your life just to wind up in a crappy job where you're under-appreciated and underpaid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like you've hit a rough patch, but that doesn't mean you should skip out on the idea if you believe in it.

You need to establish expectations for your venture. Simplest is hours / week; if he's working on it full-time, he'll be putting in 50-60 hours / week. If you're putting in 10 hours / week, use that as a baseline to discuss both expectations as well as compensation.

Alternately, adopt a sliding scale of equity for you, out of his general shares. With my startup, we hired another coder on an equity basis, contracting out the specific deliverables he needs to come through with in exchange for specific amounts of equity. E.g., we defined the admin interface, then specify that completion of this by such-and-such a date entitles him to 10 shares. Add in bonuses for completing work early. The sliding scale means that he is protected if he needs to go hire another programmer.

However, make sure that he understands your desire to participate in the business side of things as well. As a coder and startup guy, I've often found the strategic planning stuff the most interesting.

And, finally, if he doesn't want to give you a reasonable amount of equity, remind him that he'll otherwise have to pay to have the website built, and that your prices range from $friend_price to $overloaded_price. And building the site needs to be your #1, 2, and 3 priorities right now.

Good luck! If he's not amenable to these terms (giving you a share of the company), you may not want to work with him. There are hundreds of great ideas out there -- don't limit yourself to this one idea. It's not the idea that will succeed, it's the people. You may be better off finding a better group.

<comment><USER3> Replying to myself feels weird.

Anyway, if he's asking you to sign NDAs, he's probably off his rocker. IMO, the NDA in the startup world is a red flag that somebody is clueless how little their _idea_ is worth. It's execution that matters. (NB: my anti-NDA stance doesn't apply evenly. A biotech startup would be well served by one, but most startups should never use one in this situation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dreams of grandeur corrupt the best of men. Give him a link to this page, it states your concerns very clearly. If he doesn't get it, don't continue with him.

</comment><comment><USER5> > But my friend has other plans, it seems. Basically, he is about to be the > sole founder and owner of the company.

He's trying to grab the reward and shift the risk to you.

Strict percentage deals often don't make sense, especially for minority partners. They're taking as much risk, if not more, and they're getting short changed on reward.

He's probably thinking big exit, say $100M, and doesn't see why you should get $25-50M. However, the likely best case result is a $5-10M exit. If you're putting in a couple of years, $1M is absurd. (Note that the typical result is a $0 exit.)

If he's fixated on the big score, he might agree to something like you get 50% of the first $5M and 10% after that. That shifts the risk back to him. If he's the genius that he thinks that he is, that's basically the same as a 10% deal. However, you get a decent payout if there's any decent exit.

However, I suspect that the right move is to walk away, as most of the other people are suggesting.

</comment><comment><USER6> You seem to have left your thinking about a lot of important issues to too late. You seem to have assumed that you would be equal business partners when the two of you should have been smart enough to work all this out in advance.

I don't see why you are concerned that you have signed an NDA. As you say it means you can't tell other people about the workings of the start-up, which is exactly what the NDA is designed to do. Why would you want to go and divulge information about the company to anyone outside it - thats really concerns me as a business owner. Your friend is working full time, and you might be capable of 3 hours a day five days a week by the sound of it so the relationship doesn't seem equal. Sure you have the technical programming skills, but the real value is in the idea and execution of the idea. He could just hire someone to do the technical parts but obviously he may not have start-up money to do this which is where your real value lies in being able to negotiate some equity for your work.

You shouldn't question trust in your friend because of the NDA, you should see that he is smart and looking to protect the start-ups ideas in the best interests of everyone (yourself included if you have an ownership share in the end). I am in a similar situation of executing an idea I have had for years, and its very scary to think about others stealing your ideas for their own benefit after you have put so much thought into something.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can have a friend, or you can have a business partner. It's extraordinarily rare to achieve both (at least not in the sincere meaning of the words 'friend' and 'partner').

Generally, when you become a business partner with a friend, one relationship or the other will prevail -- that's really okay, and you should accept that as a natural consequence. To not recognize or accept it is folly.

Your case sounds like a very common scenario from the late 90s the dot-com era (except that then Greed excelled to greater dominance than now) -- an MBA-type has an idea that is wholly unrealizable on his/her own, yet he/she belittles the very technical skills it takes to truly succeed. There were (are) many examples of folks with very strong technical skills, but no marketable ideas or business sense and no appreciation for those who have them.

It only works when both partners recognize and respect the complementary abilities they bring, and recognize that the business will fail without _both_ of them.

Your so-called friend doesn't seem to see the equilibrium you see. Maybe he/she is delusional, or naive, or just dumb. The question in your mind maybe should be just how savvy that person would be when confronted with other 'executive challenges'....just as egoistic as now?

Reconsider your friends...and when you have one you cherish -- don't blow it by becoming business partners!

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't see the need for NDAs unless his idea is patentable. If this is in the consumer space, that NDA would likely not amount for anything.

If you read enough startups, you'd know that the success of startups do not depend on the idea but on the founders.

With the situation you are in right now, you and your friend would probably not work well together.

</comment><comment><USER9> If your friend cannot give you a fair equity stake, its not worth your time and effort to make it work. Before signing the NDA (which is perhaps just legal due diligence), you should have been equally formal to make equity a pre-condition of signing, that would have been a good lead into negotiations. Or, maybe walked away. It sounds like you surrendered that opportunity because you're a nice guy and this is your friend, but..

This is business. I think you need to be honest, you feel like a "regular employee". Friends or not, you're going to be a sharecropper on your friend's land, and that's going to ruin your friendship if you keep quiet. What makes it better than any other gig? -- you said it yourself, you might as well freelance on honest terms up front as a contractor or as a regular employee at a regular company with money to pay you. Why should you risk investing your precious free time?</comment>


Show HN: Stop.Dating Bot breaks up with your partner so you don't have to - <AUTHOR> http://stop.dating <comment><USER2> Does no one see that this is a joke? I mean it even says so on the page. Relax people.

<comment><USER3> haha glad i saw your comment before i went off on this idea XD

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see this being good for anyone in the long run. It enables the user to avoid a difficult, but important conversation. It's a generally held opinion that breaking up over text message is disrespectful and tacky, and this is even worse than that to me. The generic responses send to the person on the receiving end are likely to be hurtful as well. Better than ghosting someone I suppose?

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a terrible and heartless use of technology. It should not exist.

<comment><USER6> I agree. If you care at all about a person at a minimum at least call them. Breaking up by Text is pretty low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I could totally see someone using this as a sabotage or a prank...

<comment><USER8> Or: _rapid relationship quality check filtering by MITM stress testing techniques_</comment></comment>


Imec: Field-Free Switching Spin-Orbit Torque MRAM - <AUTHOR> https://www.imec-int.com/drupalImecpresentsamanufacturablesolutionforfield-freeswitchingoperationofSpin-OrbitTorqueMRAMdevicesen/articles/imec-presents-a-manufacturable-solution-for-field-free-switching-operation-of-spin-orbit-torque-mram-devices <comment><USER2> here's the correct link....

[https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-presents-a- manufac...](https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-presents-a- manufacturable-solution-for-field-free-switching-operation-of-spin-orbit- torque-mram-devices)

</comment><comment><USER3> This link is 404 for me and I didn't find the intended page in my casual scroll around their website.</comment>


PotatoPla.net Crypto Challenges - <AUTHOR> https://potatopla.net/crypto/

<comment><AUTHOR> After participating in DEFCON 22 and winning DEFCON 23's crypto badge challenge, we were inspired to create our own challenges for the community.

These puzzle challenges require critical thinking and research to solve. Some of them require forensics or web application hacking techniques. These may seem familiar to you if you have participated in a hacker CTF or ARG.

This past week we launched a new version of the website featuring accounts and leaderboards.

I hope you enjoy our challenges as much as we enjoyed making them.</comment>


OCamlPro and the future of OCaml - <AUTHOR> http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/89

<comment><USER2> A decade ago it looked like O'Caml was going to be the language that brought FP to the masses. It had good runtime performance, good tools, and a decent library. Then the development team basically did no work on the language for some eight or so years, and other languages, notably Scala, F#, and Haskell, have gained ground.

It is hard to cross from academia to commerce. The changes that were (and are) needed to O'Caml are not things that will result in publications, and thus don't fit the academic funding model. At the same time they are a precursor to attracting wider interest in the language. It seems that a benefactor like Jane Street is needed for this to occur. Certainly it seems that Jane Street is eager to spend money to fix this problem.

The story of O'Caml is a good reminder that in language adoption, as in business, execution, along with a bit of luck, what matters. The world is full of could-have-beens. And on that note, I've got code to write...

<comment><USER3> I'm writing OCaml just one hour ago. Out of all the languages I know (and I'm very or reasonably proficient in many), it's still the easiest one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The number one problem with commercial OCaml is the lack of comprehensive library support. Until that's addressed, it's not going to take off. Brilliant language, not very practical. F# is a step in the right direction here.

<comment><USER5> What about Jane Street's Core (<http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/13>), or Batteries Included (<http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/>) ?

<comment><USER6> Go Batteries Included! (yes, I'm one of the developers, did that show? :))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if there's any hope of ever getting type classes in OCaml. Then you'd be able to have stuff like a single "print" function you can give any type of value that can be turned into a string representation.

<comment><USER6> Afaik (and according to Xavier Leroy), it's not planned in mainstream.

Now, implementation of typeclasses is pretty-well documented, so if anyone's willing to finance OCamlPro on this, I don't think there's any technological or scientific barrier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be interesting to know what they plan to do. It's easy to speculate l. It would be much more interesting to see ocaml on the jvm

<comment><USER9> The JVM is quite a bad choice for languages like ocaml as it doesn't support full tail call elimination, which is a fundamental aspect for the predominant style of writing ocaml. So you would either have to simulate the ocaml stack on the java heap (slow and will probably make ocaml/java interop ugly, defeating the whole purpose of porting to the JVVM) or rewrite most of the existing ocaml code in a ocaml-for-the-jvm style that is quite different from normal ocaml style, taking into account which tail calls can be optimized and which cannot. And if you decide to go down that road, you will not gain much you cannot get by using scala right now, the only missing thing is camlp4.

<comment><USER10> JVM tail recursion is done. It's available now and officially ships July 28th.

<comment><USER6> IIRC, the next JVM will indeed offer a new operation that allows tail calls (not exactly tailrec). However, this operation is incompatible with the Java security model (what you're allowed to do depends on what's above you in the stack -- this is used in many places in Java, in particular for anything related to accessing the screen or the file system, or more generally anything involving JNI) and with the Java exception model (exceptions contain the whole stack). Therefore, the operation will not be used by Java itself, and there are chances that using this operation in JVM languages without breaking compatibility with the Java stdlib will take some work, at least for the features that relate to security.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Possible BGP hijack of 220.127.116.11 - <AUTHOR> https://bgpstream.com/event/138295 <comment><USER2> I'm using AnchNet's services. And We've asked AnchNet when I recieved a e-mail from our BGPMon. They said their staff was configured a wrong config on router. Also they don't know 18.104.22.168/24 is used by CloudFlare&APNIC. So they used this prefix to test.

<comment><USER3> Why let people access BGP that don't even know that 126.96.36.199/8 or 220.127.116.11/24 are part of the public internet or that decide they can use random prefixes to "test" things? :-/

<comment><USER4> To be fair 184.108.40.206 had been unassigned/non-routable up until April.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, unallocated or unassigned IP space isn't fair game to use for testing outside of an air gapped lab. I've never in my career thought it would be a good idea to "test" unallocated public unicast address space on my edge routers.

<comment><USER6>
      On an airgapped lab it is bad practice. Same -though DNS related- with using *.local as a LAN TLD

We _just_ should not.

<comment><USER7> .local is perfectly fine according to the IETF [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6762](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6762)

<comment><USER8> For mDNS, yes. There are resolvers that don't even try DNS when looking up a name in .local.

Some of them were made more lenient because just as Microsoft finally stopped encouraging this nonsense, the Kubernetes people picked it up from ancient Windows Server folklore and apparently decided to make it web-scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone else find it sort of beautiful watching replays of events like this? It's amazing to watch how the routers organise themselves, making and breaking connections when needed.

<comment><USER10> There are at least two of us, dear friend!

<comment><USER11> Three's company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ASN 58879 belongs to Shanghai Anchang Network Security Technology Co.,Ltd (China) according to [https://ipinfo.io/AS58879](https://ipinfo.io/AS58879)

website: [https://www.anchnet.com/](https://www.anchnet.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Ah! That may have been the reason why my site wasn't resolving earlier today. It was the weirdest situation with people from all over the planet complaining without any apparent pattern, a RIPE check of the site from 10 different locations showed no issues in connectivity.

Thanks for posting this.

<comment><USER14> No, the issue persists. While I can access your site from mobile and residential connection, any static business connection fails. No 22.214.171.124 involved. I tested this with two different Fibre connections (Berlin).

<comment><USER13> Is the BGP hijack over?

<comment><USER15> As a data point - your site still isn't loading for me.

IP : 220.127.116.11

Time: Tue May 29 15:28:30 BST 2018

<comment><USER13> I wonder if it is a resolution issue or an access issue.

What happens when you go to: [http://188.8.131.52/](http://18.104.22.168/) ? That should come up with a 'domain for sale' page, that's the same server.

<comment><USER16> Not loading for me from MA, USA.

        $ httpstat http://18.104.22.168/
        2018/05/29 10:54:04 unable to connect to host 22.214.171.124:80: dial tcp 220.127.116.11:80: connect: connection timed out

<comment><USER17> +1 for httpstat; I'd not seen this utility before, quite nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Large companies misuse "unassigned" space all the time. I have heard engineers at my work propose using the non public routed DOD /8 before. Not on my watch!

<comment><USER19> If you happen to know why, could you explain their reasoning? In what ways are 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16 insufficient?

<comment><USER18> I help design one of big 3 cloud providers and we're about to run out of private space for customer IPv4. We are addressing this is in a number of ways but I think others have run into this same issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Network engineer here: I'm going to guess that this is a mistaken effort on the part of a Chinese ISP or the GFW to hijack traffic to 18.104.22.168 internally within China, but probably not intended to propagate beyond the major Chinese international-transit-ISP's connections to the global Internet. BCP38 is your friend.

<comment><USER21> It's been a while so I should re-read it, but I thought BCP38 was best applied at the terminal ISP/client network level. If you're a transit network, you can't do that kind of fitering because you have a legitimate chance of forwarding traffic to and from any network address.

<comment><USER20> More about the principles of not just ingress filtering, but the same as BCP38, but as an ISP with its own ASN, applied to your own egress:

a) don't announce shit you don't own

b) know how to set up ACLs and prefix-list filters on your own egress IP space announcements which face towards your peers and IP transit upstreams.

Conversely, as a big ISP which has many small ASNs downstream of it, be responsible and set up filters on your own ingress which prevent your customers from announcing mistaken shit to you.

Using an example of a clueful and attentive major ISP: For example if you are a small to medium sized regional ISP and buy IP transit from NTT, one of the world's top-ten global commercial transit providers, they actually do take the time to verify each and every prefix you announce to them and will require an interaction with their NOC if you want to announce a new /22.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I doubt that this is a genuine hijacking attempt. All it takes is a Cisco router and some IT admin making up an address.

<comment><USER23> Agreed. As many pointed out when the 126.96.36.199 DNS service was introduced, it's an address that is often used (incorrectly) as an internal or temporary IP. Then all it takes is a slight mistake in your route redistribution and suddenly you can find yourself accidentally announcing the prefix to eBGP.

I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a semi-regular occurrence.

<comment><USER20> Hanlon's razor applies to a great degree. I have no doubt that there are a great many enterprise-type organizations that have been using 188.8.131.52/8 internally and cluelessly for a very long time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How effective is this? Looking at [https://bgp.he.net/ip/22.214.171.124](https://bgp.he.net/ip/188.8.131.52), 126.96.36.199/24 is apparently "ROA Signed and Valid". I don't know a lot about BGP. Does this mean hijacking this subnet is a bit harder than unsigned ones because some or all ISPs verify this announcement? Or is it faster/easier to detect?

Maybe a wider question: is there some way to prevent BGP hijacking?

<comment><USER20> Basically, the bigger Chinese ISPs that are upstream of this small one which is making the false 22.214.171.124/24 announcement are not actually verifying that this small ISP is allowed to announce the space.

As for prevention, the only thing that will work is proper use of IRR/route registries and RPKI validation of peer announcements. Which a great many ISPs do not currently do.

[https://www.noction.com/blog/bgp-hijacking](https://www.noction.com/blog/bgp- hijacking)

The other method is more blunt, and can be more effective if the people with 'enable' on various ASNs' core and edge routers actually have a spine. ISPs which repeatedly announce space that they're not allocated (as per RIPE, ARIN, APNIC, AFRINIC records) should be depeered by their local peers, and their owners/operators publicly shamed. It's a reputation thing. As a neighbor of other, more clueful ISPs, it's basically the same thing as being a bad neighbor by leaving garbage all over your front lawn and causing a public nuisance with loud parties and trashy behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting!

My ping to that address went terrible for a brief window today - [https://i.imgur.com/KjCcBeT.png](https://i.imgur.com/KjCcBeT.png)

Wonder if this was the cause.

*edit: I'm in Cape Town and the ping looks what was routing to a DC down the road decided to go to Europe instead.

<comment><USER24> Hey, what software are you using to collect the data and display that graph? I wouldn't mind running something on my server that could notify or log if 184.108.40.206 (and other services I rely on) are slow or down.

<comment><USER26> That looks like smokeping

<comment><USER20> more specifically looks like smokeping, rra file storage and rrdtool to draw the graph. Compared to modern things like influxdb+grafana it is a very oldschool setup but still works perfectly fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What does this mean for those unfamiliar?

<comment><USER28> If true it means that Cloudflare's DNS server can't be trusted.

<comment><USER29> That's not correct, anyone could 'accidentally' do this to every other provider. It's not a special weakness of cloudflare.

<comment><USER28> I'm sorry, I went for brevity because someone was asking for possible impacts. If I were using 184.108.40.206 as a DNS server and saw this news story, I would change to a different DNS server until the problem was resolved.

My goal was to provide actionable information quickly.

I never said it was specific to Cloudflare. :) It is specifically a mistake which would break an assumption - that putting 220.127.116.11 into your resolver results in an answer from Cloudflare. DNS doesn't necessarily have any protections (not current, so maybe they were added?), so the only level of protection is that the IP address routes UDP traffic where we expect it to.

It also isn't a long-term problem, it only remains for the length of time the route is wrong.

It could also be argued that we're already trusting every router between the device and 126.96.36.199 anyways, so there's not much difference. Except that there's already a trust relationship between those groups, and the new route subverts them.

It's the same level of risk if someone had done a BGP hijack of any backbone router.

<comment><USER29> Okay, thanks for your polite explanation.

<comment><USER30> If you use your providers resolvers you would be very unlikely to have this problem (it's not likely someone will re-route the traffic on the network of the provider themselves).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Would this affect certificate-validating clients doing DNS-over-HTTPS to 184.108.40.206 — doesn't it have an ipAddress certificate and demand HTTPS resolution only?

<comment><USER32> Well, if you control the host behind the IP, you could have any CA issue a challenge, and successfully pass it (e.g. if Let's encrypt uses the erroneous routes).

So no. The only thing protecting you would be to have the expected hash of the certificate you expect to see (TOFU - Trust on First use, though you're screwed if you didn't contact 188.8.131.52 before the incident!).

<comment><USER31> Is there a CAA equivalent for ARIN assignments?

<comment><USER33> RPKI, but it's barely used

<comment><USER34> This is currently used to sign ROA. A rogue actor can easily work around that by including the original AS in the AS path of the announce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So who is going to tell the 13 peers that they should not accept BGP path advertisements for 126.96.36.199 from anyone but Cloudflare?

</comment><comment><USER36> I use 184.108.40.206 Do I need to do anything? Can I just continue using it or do I need to clear some cache etc?

</comment><comment><USER37> That awkward moment when you read an IP and the first thought is "But that belongs to Cloudflare I read about this"

</comment><comment><USER38> Are people here really using 22.214.171.124 as a DNS server...? Do people here _really_ think that Cloudflare isn't giving your data away to _someone_? I have been using DNS servers from OpenNIC for sometime now, and I will continue to.

</comment><comment><USER9> And that is why I'm using dns over tls :)

<comment><USER32> Not enough. You have to check the certificate's fingerprint, along with its validity.

TLS is not a silver bullet. If an attacker controls the host behind what everyone believes to be 188.8.131.52, nothing is to prevent them from applying for a legit certificate.

<comment><USER39> Nothing prevents them from applying but...

* They need to do that, and get the resulting certificate, and install it, during the attack. The weirder the product (and certificates for IP addresses are relatively weird) the more humans end up involved in your order, and humans are slow.

* This leaves a smoking gun in the Certificate Transparency logs. So we all get to know (in maximum 24 hours but usually the reality will be minutes) about this extra certificate.

<comment><USER40> 1) would take about 20 seconds, thanks to Let's Encrypt, but probably only marginally more time for some other CA with an API.

2) Who exactly is staring at CT logs and going "oh, I don't remember this domain using this CA, maybe I should investigate this" ? Sure there's a record of it. Doesn't really matter _during_ an attack, because public attacks like this aren't intended to last long.

All you need is a half hour or less to steal a couple hundred million from a bank, or cryptocurrency wallet, using this attack. That's more than enough incentive for most unscrupulous 3rd world hackers.

If you're an authoritarian government, you could require CAs in your country to selectively quiet CT logs by certain users, and just issue certs willy- nilly for your private government org for MITM purposes. Google Chrome would detect them for Google-owned properties, but smaller sites would never know. And spy agencies can use this at their leisure and basically never be held accountable, because world politics.

Let's face it. The CA system is a joke and BGP is the butt of it.

<comment><USER39> "would take about 20 seconds, thanks to Let's Encrypt"

Let's Encrypt does not offer certificates for IP addresses. They choose only to offer DV certificates using methods 22.214.171.124.6 and 184.108.40.206.7

How much of your hypothetical half hour will you spend trying to figure out why your chosen ACME client reports "Policy forbids issuance" when asked for an IP address?

As to who is staring at CT logs, well there's the fun thing about the design of CT, the _logs_ aren't where you would be staring, you would be looking at a _monitor_ and a monitor can be configured to do whatever it so happens you think is important. We know that commercial CAs already sell monitoring as part of "Enterprise security" type offerings.

Facebook took... I want to say minutes here, but I can't find an exact timeline, to spot that a certificate had been issued by Let's Encrypt for a name in their DNS hierarchy and begin investigating what went wrong.

Certificate Transparency isn't finished. As it stands today your authoritarian government "only" needs to ensure that nobody notices these shenanigans as unavoidably they create a "smoking gun" which would lead to their pet CA being distrusted. That's a tall order, but certainly not impossible in the short term, or for attacks in which the bogus certs are shown to a small number of individual targets rather than a broad population that will invariably notice by accident.

But longer term CT is intended for use with a gossip protocol so that it's impossible for the pretence to be kept up. Sooner or later a node somewhere will end up realising that there's an inconsistency, either it has seen SCTs that weren't logged, or it has seen logs that aren't consistent with the logs other nodes see, either of which is a matter for distrust.

BGP has no relationship to the Web PKI, which is what I presume you're referring to by "the CA system". The relatively small number of parties interested in BGP have developed their own PKI to fit their needs.

<comment><USER40> BGP allows anyone to issue fake certs, so it does have a relationship to web PKI.

And sure, if you have a couple billion dollars, you can set up fancy infrastructure and response teams to monitor the whole web (that you are aware of, that participate in CT) for a strangely-issued cert.

Or you could just get a cert issued by the CA you normally use. In which case, now we have to track some kind of "customer number" per CA. If you use more than one CA (Google does) now you're tracking different customer numbers on different CAs. And all that has to be standardized.

Most of these "fixes" for web PKI's glaring holes are intended for large multinational corporations, or are optional, or specific to a particular browser, and don't address the main concern: _do not trust an IP address to be who it claims to be_.

<comment><USER39> No, you wouldn't use a "customer number". The usual approach taken for these genuinely concerned outfits goes like this:

1\. Agree contractual terms with particular Certificate Authorities in which all certs for names in your hierarchy need explicit approval from your security people.

2\. Set DNSSEC-secured CAA records for your names forbidding issuance by other Certificate Authorities.

This funnels requests from hypothetical bad guys into your security people, which is exactly what they don't want. It loses you the shiny capability to do "spur of the moment" issuance, but presumably if you want these sort of terms the phrase "spur of the moment" causes you to start writhing and clutching your throat anyway. Insider threats will usually be much _worse_ than outsiders.

As to things being "specific to a particular browser" we can't and don't want to be able to force, say, Microsoft and Apple to do things just because everybody else decided they're a good idea.

The same with the trust store programmes. I can't make Microsoft take this seriously, but Microsoft can't make me use their SChannel and associated trust store. Maybe you have a lot more pull with Microsoft than I do.

If we're in a world where the "easiest" way to get a bogus certificate is now to do global BGP hijack of an entire /24 then I think we're on the right track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Curious how is this different than the similar? issue with Amazon route 53 getting hijacked not too long ago?</comment>


An all-in-one tool to convert OLM to PST format - <AUTHOR> OLM to PST Converter Pro is for everyone looking to migrate their Outlook 2011 Mac database to Windows platforms. This utility software features a variety of powerful functionalities such as; advanced scan features with broad search criteria, OLM repair and restoration, Conversion of Outlook 2011 Mac database to various formats like PST, EML, Mbox, TXT, MSG. The convert OLM to PST software is also 50x faster in conversion speeds, maintains data structural properties and character as well as support Non-English languages.OLM to PST Converter Pro is for everyone looking to migrate their Outlook 2011 Mac database to Windows platforms. This utility software features a variety of powerful functionalities such as; advanced scan features with broad search criteria, OLM repair and restoration, Conversion of Outlook 2011 Mac database to various formats like PST, EML, Mbox, TXT, MSG. The convert OLM to PST software is also 50x faster in conversion speeds, maintains data structural properties and character as well as support Non-English languages <comment><USER2> If you want to convert OLM to PST file format, use an excellent tool Kernel for OLM to PST Converter Tool. The tool quickly converts all email items such as emails, attachments, contacts, hyperlinks, calendars, etc. It supports all versions of MS Outlook and Windows OS versions. Visit here - [http://www.macolmtopstconverter.olmtopstconversion.com](http://www.macolmtopstconverter.olmtopstconversion.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Indeed, you will find wonderful benefits of this application that makes job easier. Also, you can experience an unlimited change in Outlook 15 to PST format anytime. Just download the premium version and have all functions in this great product. [http://www.olmtopstconverterpro.com/](http://www.olmtopstconverterpro.com/)</comment>


Hacker News ate my ID - <AUTHOR>

Before the HN outage, I posted a link on Twitter to an entry I submitted, so that people could comment on it:
https://twitter.com/sbp/status/419852001732591617
By some chance, archive.is actually picked it up so I can prove what was there before:
http://archive.is/TKmvn
But now, when you click through to that entry, it's some completely random thing:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7016011
Compare that to the archive.is capture above.
So it appears that the site ate my submission, all the comments on it, and reused the ID for some other thing. I also lost all my glorious, glorious karma, so I'm back down to (1). I know.
Now this is kind of hilarious, but perhaps IDs should be incremented by some epsilon after any outage to at least prevent accidental link hijacking? <comment><USER2> Have you seen the explanation? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069013) A few hours of data was lost, so I'm guessing yours isn't the only reused ID. Your epsilon idea isn't bad though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I saw the explanation. It should be possible to calculate the average rate of submission, and therefore the ID allocation rate, and then increment by that plus some safety margin when restoring.

It's just ironic that the first time in nearly 1500 days of lurking on HN I actually decide to post, the site itself eats my submission.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to support someone with burnout syndrome? - <AUTHOR> A good friend of mine has a severe burnout syndrome and I would like to know how to help. And maybe more importantly, how NOT to help. The NOT is important since I see all his friends/family/etc. giving him unasked advice, which I fear will not make it better. <comment><USER2> My first advice is to avoid the temptation to practice pop psychology. Burnout is not a recognized clinical diagnosis in the DSM {[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout)}. The pop-psychology of is a way of perpetuating the stigma associated with accurate clinical diagnosis for a mental health condition.

My second piece of advice follows from that. There my be clinical issues and those may best be addressed by a professional clinician such as a _licensed_ psychologist, mental health councilor, or clinical social worker.[1] A role you can play is to normalize and destigmatize the idea of professional mental health treatment. Ask the people you know if they can recommend a clinician for your friend.

Yes, "I have a friend who might need a professional mental health clinician, do you know anyone?" has a certain "No, really it's a friend" connotation. Accepting that people may reach the wrong conclusion is part of being able to destigmatize and normalize mental health treatment.

Good luck.

[1]: I don't have anything against Psychiatrists. It's more a matter of access to Psychiatrists is limited and [in the US] typically done via referral from a councilor or MD general practitioner for the purpose of prescription based on an existing diagnosis. Which reminds me that your friend might also address their burnout with their regular doctor and likewise, your regular doctor might be a source of referral for licensed clinicians for your friend.

</comment><comment><USER3> My recommendation (not a doctor) is to makes it easy for them to engage, so it is almost accidental.

With burnout, at least in part, and depending on the person, there is a tendency to withdraw. Invite them to go do something already planned, that they don't have to pay for, that won't take too long and you know they enjoy. Then just be a friend without expectations.

I think advice and suggestions can make things worse because making a decision or taking action is often the thing that has them locked-up.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yes he is in tech (developer). And yes, he was at the doctors. I think it's his official diagnosis. So he is now for 1-2 month on leave. Luckily, being on "sick" leave for such a long time is no problem in Austria. So he won't have problems getting the job back and he still receives normal payment.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the clarification.

Your best bet is to involve them in activities that are _completely_ non-tech related, and preferably don't try to engage the overworked analytical skills. It would be great if some (but not all) of the other folks participating are also techies looking to get away.

Movie nights, pot-luck dinners, low impact walking/hiking/cycling, drawing/painting lessons, pottery, museum visits, a book club, gardening, are all possibilities, and I am sure you can think of others.

Just, find a way to let the "burned out" capabilities rest while letting (not making) them engage with others on entirely different terms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. That is great advice. Especially for the techi friends who often think a fun software-side-project is relaxing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're involved in any fun non-tech related hobbies that he might be interested in, invite him to join you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are they in tech? Why do you think they're in burnout, and why do you think it's severe? A little more background here would help.

</comment><comment><USER7> I believe with the best option is to send to doctor.Tbe sooner the better.

</comment><comment><USER8> V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N</comment>


Hackers have gained access to Domino's Pizza customer details - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eset.ie/2014/06/16/dominos-pizza-hacked-change-your-toppings-at-once/

<comment><USER2> I don't mind the public disclosure of pizza toppings (high government officials with perverse pizza topping behaviors should indeed be responsible for their actions) but what really galls me is that the Dominos Moped is parked in a clearly marked bicycle lane. Why aren't they being ticketed!

<comment><USER3> If a Domino's moped is the worst thing in the cycle lane I think I'm doing well.

It's usually taxis and broken glass around here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Actually that would be pretty great, I'd love if my pizza order could be shared between the different places I order from.

</comment><comment><USER5> Note: the title has been edited. The title used to be "Warning: Your pizza toppings could now be available to the public".

<comment><USER6> The old one was sillier and funnier, though.</comment></comment>


Why did the peoples of the New World fail to invent the wheel? - <AUTHOR> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/223/why-did-the-peoples-of-the-new-world-fail-to-invent-the-wheel <comment><USER2> _The general sequence of friction-reducing inventions is thought to have been runners, rollers, rollers held in place by guides, rollers held in place by guides and thickened on the ends to make them roll straighter, the wheel and axle_

How to grow a wheel - it's not how smart you are, it's how often you iterate.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if anyone ever said "There's no reason to reinvent the roller".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" argued rather persuasively that the New World did not develop the (larger than toy-sized) wheel because humans had killed off all the large animals capable of being domesticated enough to be harnessed to said wheels other than fellow humans.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel>

From the wiki: "Eurasia as a whole domesticated 13 species of large animals (over 100lb / 44 kg); South America just one (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species); the rest of the world none at all."

It would seem rather pointless to make a cart with wheels and all, just to pull it yourself. Your neighbors would laugh at your claims of "reducing labor via my remarkable time-saving invention on par with the latest SCRUM practices or even ShamWOW!"

<comment><USER5> I don't place much stock in the idea that the wheel/axle concept is useless without draft animals. Any society that hauls food or supplies will get a LOT of mileage out of a simple wheelbarrow. And that's as easy as making one wheel, a short axle, two forked sticks, and a basket. Easy but not at all obvious, of course.

<comment><USER4> Jared Diamond mentions something interesting. He claims that in the mountainous, llama-ridden regions where wheels are largely useless, the people had already invented wheels. But they used them as toys for children.

In the lowlands less than 100 miles away, ideal terrain for wheeled conveyances, they had no llamas. They also had wheels, albeit tiny wheels attached to toys.

It wasn't that they were astonishingly stupid to not understand the wheel- they had wheels, for their toys. It was, instead, that they had no other use for it.

<comment><USER6> I thought Guns Germs & Steel was an excellent book.

... and yet, and yet - the wheelbarrow is an extremely useful machine.

<comment><USER7> In mountainous, rocky terrain? Hike much? There's a reason why backpacks are used on hikes, and not wheelbarrows.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. The travois (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois>) was invented in the Americas and was widely used even after the introduction of the wheel post-contact (in the fur trade for example) where no reliable roads existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The question for this millennium will be, "Why did peoples of the New World fail to get good broadband?"

</comment><comment><USER9> because they didn't have roads?the only people I would expect to invent wheels are agrarian plains dwellers (agrarian society affords more uses for transporting food and commodities)

</comment><comment><USER10> "The fact is that most civilizations in the Old World didn't invent the wheel either--instead, they borrowed it from some other culture."

That's the essential point. Much of the Old World was a single area for long- distance trade and conquest, and the chariot in particular spread the idea of horse-drawn wheeled vehicles to many places where that technology was not invented, but rather adopted from invading peoples.

</comment><comment><USER11> If I'm understanding the first part of the answer, he's sayin the wheel was not invented in the New World because there was no inventor of the wheel in the New World.

Kind of sounds like some of the answers I used to put on extra credit sections of tests when I wasn't sure : )

I think the more interesting and pertinent question, which he barely touched on, is _why do some societies invent and adopt things and put them to all kinds of use while other societies either don't invent them or invent them without ever adapting and applying them to their full potential?_

Taking off my PC hat, I think this probably describes the difference between a stagnant civilization and a dynamic one. (Bet I'll get the downmods for that one!)

<comment><USER12> > why do some societies invent and adopt things and put them to all kinds of > use while other societies either don't invent them or invent them without > ever adapting and applying them

This may also be why:

<http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/WhyAntiInt.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They almost invented the wheel when they invented the Mayan calendar. It's a wheel, but instead of a hole in the center being used for an axle, they put the head of one of the winners/loosers of those court bat games. So close but yet so far. See [http://crankyphoneguy.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mayancalan...](http://crankyphoneguy.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mayancalanderinsidepicture1.jpg). That's my theory, anyway.

<comment><USER7> So it would've worked if the Mayans were a lot taller, axially symmetric, and stiffer under rigor mortis?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "some 3,000 of 20,000 workers died dragging one particularly massive stone, according to chronicles"

Likely the chieftan was quite fond of telling about how many people died to move his rock. If you can do dumb shit, and stay chief, you must be a powerful chief indeed.

Which is to assert that one also needs the right motives before invention.

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought it was to do with terrain

</comment><comment><USER16> The wheel in itself isn't anything grand. Its just a circular object which is quite useless on it's own.

You must invent 2 wheels, an axle and something to attach them to. Thus you have a use for the wheel as a starting point.

However wheels do not allow you to haul large super-heavy blocks for pyramid construction, you need a bunch of wooden sticks and manpower at best.

So yea a wheel was quite a unique invention. I am willing to bet 3000 years from now if humans still exist, someone will be saying "yea I can't believe people lived without this electricity thing... its so damn obvious! A two-year old can invent it."

<comment><USER17> A one-wheeled vehicle is hardly useless on it's own.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Wheelbarr...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Wheelbarrow.jpg)

<comment><USER18> Still needs an axle, though, and making those things out of wood is surprisingly difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was expecting an answer to sort of emphasise the cliché of no need to reinvent the wheel just work within it. We as people tend to stick with what we have and make it better rather than scratch it all together and start anew, hence perhaps those ancient civilisations came up with something else which performed the same function.

</comment><comment><USER20> One person, several people.

<comment><USER21> If you take each group of people in the New World to be an item, then the title is essentially saying "why didn't the various different groups of people in the New World invent the wheel" - it's trying to emphasize that each of group of people is actually being considered a singular entity. Whether or not this is actually grammatically correct, I don't know, though intuitively it seems quite reasonable to me (which is generally a good first approximation of grammatical accuracy for native speakers).

<comment><USER22> It's correct.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should SSDs be accessed like a filesystem or a memory? - <AUTHOR>

Macbook Air SSD memory sticks look just like DRAM sticks to me (see link), but they use a different abstraction to access them (SATA vs. DDR).  Are the requirements that drove the original use of ATA still applicable with the SSD memory form-factor (e.g., seek times, etc.)?<p>http://notebooks.com/2010/11/08/toshiba-introduces-macbook-air-style-ssds/ <comment><USER2> Despite looking like memory, SSDs are not much like DRAM. They are also not much like disks either. I suspect you will see new protocols for accessing them eventually, similar to NCQ on SATA drives.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. For one thing, SATA (serialized ATA) was originally developed because the disk drive was located away from the motherboard, so I could see this interface looking more like a DDR.

How about other factors, like seek time?</comment></comment>


Getting the iPad to "Pro" - <AUTHOR> https://craigmod.com/essays/ipad_pro/ <comment><USER2> I've been thinking about picking one up after reading 6 or 7 rave reviews. It would be my first iPad. I've used them plenty, and owned Macs and iPhones for years. This article/review was the one I have been looking for— The only one to confirm my reservations about this new iPad "Pro"

Indeed the hardware looks unbelievable, but its _still_ running iOS. All these quirks with photo importing, and inability to use the same app side by side seem like deal breakers. OSX lets you invent ways to work on the fly, and has virtually no limitations between apps. iOS seems so un-pro, designed only to let you do what each app is individually capable of, with a modicum of communication between different apps. I know I would hit a wall and be downloading tons of junky apps to accomplish little things that would be a breeze on OSX.

The iPad Pro seems to occupy this tiny sliver of space between "things I can do just fine on my iPhone" and "things I must do on my Mac". I'm not sure it's worth it, and I certainly don't think this suits my idea of "Pro" anything.

My favorite bit:

> "How would the simplicity of iOS be subverted by allowing this new thing to > happen?"

I do think this is the issue. Apple has done well to differentiate iOS and make it something a great deal simpler. Now can they enable more Pro features without losing that simplicity, potentially encroaching or converging on OSX?

<comment><USER3> There is no "Pro" user story. Every "Pro" is different. Some sales dudes just need to make calls, take notes, and manage email. An iPad is plenty for that.

<comment><USER2> Hmm fair point that every "pro" is different, but this hardware is about 6x more powerful and 3x more expensive than necessary for the tasks you mentioned. Pro is short for professional. The author is a professional writer who has gripes with it. He also mentions why a professional photographer might have issues. The hardware seems pro-caliber, even for the most extreme uses, but the OS simply is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think he's wrong.

Apple and to an extent all tablet makers are treading somewhat uncertain ground here. As far as I can tell, people know what a tablet computer should look like but nobody really knows what a tablet computer should feel like.

Microsoft strangely has perhaps the most experience here, they've been meddling with the overlap between a traditional computer experience and one finally embracing new interactions for the longest but it's always been hamstrung by their at best questionable decisions in interface and is design.

Partly by the nature of its marketing the iPad is currently this weird looking slice between phone and all the phone things we did and now do (actually talking to people, fitting in a pocket) and computers where the legacy of the past has meant you can do all these weird unsanctioned things with relative impunity.

Until this point I don't believe Apple actually cared much about 'pro' usage, other than the excuse for higher specs and a bigger price tag. Until then they were for using things up, not making them. As he points out in the article it only became even mildly possible to use iPads seriously to do work with the ability to multi-task, something dating back thirty years on other computers.

In my experience one of the most annoying things about ios and it's to their credit that it's not the hardware that drove me mad trying to draw on graphics tablets, is the unwillingness to have applications interact. With a desktop you can just plonk a file down and have it be grabbed by something else, pipe it to a new process and carry on. With iOS there's this maddening chunking of everything, from just trying to get a text document between programs to attempting to have an image library that isn't split between various messaging applications and editors.

I realise file systems are hairy and there's a desire to protect the common person from it but I also wonder if anyone at Apple actually uses the iPads they create to do something like import and retouch a photograph.

I'm sure I don't know what the real solution is to this, but then again neither do some of the best funded engineering teams on the planet.

</comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't agree with this article more.

How about Apple's own Pro software? Logic Pro/Final Cut Pro? These applications are daily drivers for me and I've often said the iPad Pro will be a 'Pro' machine when it gets them.

Making a sketch in Garageband is cool. It's great I can open that project in Logic on my Mac. But it's not a 'Pro' device if we don't have 'pro' software for it.

Even Adobe's beaten Apple at it's own game by delivering the first app that can actually push this hardware that isn't a game with Photoshop for iPad.

<comment><USER6> Xcode is Apple's most important pro software. If they don't have an iOS version in the works, someone is making a mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Steven Sinofsky, who formerly lead Microsoft's Windows development, raises some very interesting historical comparisons to prior paradigm shifts in the industry.

[https://www.twitter.com/stevesi/status/1059663467676762112](https://www.twitter.com/stevesi/status/1059663467676762112)

</comment><comment><USER8> Great article. I suspect that as Apple gets closer to throwing out Intel entirely across their product lines, they'll take care of the problems the author describes.

Aside from what they can fix themselves, they're much better placed to put pressure on app developers than, say, Google or Microsoft, thanks to the tight control they have over the app ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a "only go to the Mac if you have to" iPad Pro fulltime software developer, I wholeheartedly agree with the pros, cons and promise of the software. It's just unfurtunate that new and existing iPad Pro users will have to wait almost a year for the iOS to catch up to the hardware - iOS 13 beta in June? and release by beginning of October.? Who knows, by that time a new version gets released, one that makes the smart cover keyboard double as a trackpad.

In the meantime, nothing incites Apple more than bad press. Shame is a great motivator, specially when you have $240b in cash in the bank. For 1k for the iPad Pro, 200 for the keyboard and 130 for the pencil I expect the experience to be... well "magical." Better yet... "at the intersection of getting my work done better than on a Macbook Pro and Jeff Raskin's wet dream."

But Alas, Steve Jobs is dead and with him Apple's reality distortion field.

So maybe it's time to give our friends at Apple a hand and show them - as this article has done - all the areas the iPad - all iPads btw - are lacking.

How about: ipadshortcomings.com pcreplacementneverwillbe.com ipadinsearchofapro.com excelisnotforipads.com ipadprobutnotxcode.com pcreplacementifyouonlyconsume.com externalstorageiscalledicloudsubscription.com

feel free to add to the list

</comment><comment><USER10> For me, frustration was from software _forcing_ the form factor (fighting or disallowing pinch-to-zoom, forcing precise ratios like 2/3 of the screen, etc.). And heck, just the fact that 10 years later we still have a grid of icons on the primary screen that can't occupy extra space and are awkward to arrange.

An iPad works well when you can do whatever _you_ want with it. If I can briefly zoom "beyond" the screen with my fingers, etc. it's incredible. Obviously it's great for tasks that are naturally bound to fingers, like drawing circles.

Apple is really far behind on software though. I won't even say a year...I'm thinking we are _five more years_ away from a well-thought-out tablet.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have the obsessive behaviour where I want to like devices (GPD Pocket, iPad, ...) which have usability issues because I really do like them otherwise. The iPad Pro is one of them; I love the device; I even do not mind the keyboard (although Apple could do so much better) but the software is annoying. Although I do 80% of my work on the iPad Pro by now, it has serious issues as described in the article and others. I like the chromebook way of working; it all is sandboxed until you unsandbox it. I would hope that Apple, with it's chip designs, would be able to do more advanced sandboxing and allow more freedom.

</comment><comment><USER12> _Buy one of these new iPads. They're seductive beyond reason. Buy it knowing well what its limitations may be. But knowing also that it will get better._

The overall story hasn't changed since the first iPad. Just the particulars.

</comment><comment><USER13> I couldn't agree more with the author. Give me a terminal and better solutions for the list of awkward workflow restrictions the author mentions and I am ready go to full iPad. I don't need a clamshell shape and a touchpad, I just need a full OS.

</comment><comment><USER14> it's not an opinion that a mouse uses less physical energy than pointing on the screen.

I can't imagine using a 3 monitor setup that only had touch input.

Software and work requirements can change but interfaces matter greatly. And in this regard the iPad is lacking.

I think if you gave an iPad a hinged keyboard and mouse then it could be pretty useful Mac replacement. We already are putting keyboard on them. A mouse is the same as a finger, but just easier to move around without using your whole arm.

</comment><comment><USER15> To be Pro, it needs mouse support. That would cannibalize the MacBook so it will never happen.</comment>


The Ultimate Twitter Revenue Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_ultimate_twitter_revenue_model.php <comment><USER2> The Ultimate - or - The Only One We Came Up With (in 10 mins.)

So you attach contextual ads(wow. brilliant.). How does someone interact with this ad? You only have 140 chars. Not enough to create a link, and also describe the ad without consuming the entire 140. Also, people are on their cell phone, do you rely on the user having web access on their phone (that is spawn-able from a txtmsg)? Do you send them a follow-up AdTweet after every regular Tweet they receive?

Without consuming the entire 140chars. or sending a followup AdTweet, you are limited to simple branding messages like, "Drink Coke." appended to the bottom. No good.

In this incarnation, Twitter doesnt make any money because they are subjugated to the cell carriers revenue model.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it really possible for a website like Twitter to receive as much investment as I am sure they have without any sort of business plan in place for making money?

Can somebody literally say to an investor "Hey, we are just focusing on getting eyeballs, we will worry about how to actually make money later on" and still get money?

I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly want to know the answer to this question.

My gut says there is a HUGE difference between a private monetization strategy (one that hasn't been implemented but was part of the plan all along) and the sort of 'on the fly' kind of make-it-up-as-we-go philosophy that this article seems to think Twitter is using. I'm not sure I buy the idea that Twitter really doesn't have a plan.

<comment><USER4> evan williams made a bag of cash from blogger, then he started Obvious, which owns odeo and twitter.. also on the blogger to obvious train is jason goldman (the real guy you should be asking about strategy).. biz stone was a part of xanga before joining up with the blogger/obvious crew.

then, look at the investor group.. andreessen and conway are both investors in digg and twitter (conway is also an investor in pownce,) and as you peek around the list you'll see more familiar names in the space.

investment, as far as i can tell, seems to be more like a flock activity than a solo activity. (disclaimer: i've never pursued nor been offered investment)

all companies make it up as they go, or suffer their ignorance of changing market conditions. the old adage is that "the best laid plans don't survive contact with the enemy."

that all being said, can even this group of big names get outside money without a solid plan to make money? i have no clue!

<comment><USER3> So because the money came from within, the idea that they may not actually have a plan to make money laid out is plausible. Hmm, that is an interesting point. I'm curious to know :-)

<comment><USER4> Well, not all their money came from within, I am just saying they likely had an easier time getting money as they have a proven record of building stuff that gets bought

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The same was suggested for IM clients but that never worked out so well. People don't click on ads while they are communicating.

<comment><USER6> I agree, I think the ad model is a red herring.

What might make more sense is aggregating the topics people are discussing for trend-spotting analysis.

There's a mini industry dedicated to "cool" hunting, so Twitter data might be valuable to market researchers, somehow.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but is that really a viable revenue model?

<comment><USER8> umm, consider how much money is spent on the various stages of marketing (a lot!), truly effective tools that can improve the analytics phase of a marketing effort would definitely have a market! (methinks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> aka the best way to kill Twitter

</comment><comment><USER10> Twitter is already breaking apart at times. This will cause breakages to be worse.</comment>


Signal Desktop beta now publicly available - <AUTHOR> https://www.whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop-public/ <comment><USER2> So it can't be used without a phone and phone number? Like most people I have those items - but only one of each. Good enough for standard chats with family and friends (which I currently use iMessage for), but on occasion I'd rather be pseudonymous, and it's precisely then that I need secure communications the most. Right now I have no idea what instant messaging software to trust, so I was hoping I could use Signal over Tor for this purpose, but I guess not.

<comment><USER3> A few things:

* You can use Signal with any phone number that can receive voice calls: [http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21319067...](http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/213190677-How-can-I-get-Signal-working-with-my-Google-Voice-or-Project-Fi-number-)

* Signal's primary audience is non-technical users. The big goal of Signal is to thwart passive, dragnet surveillance of people's text and voice messaging.

* AFAIK, Signal's use of GCM makes it more difficult for an adversary to perform traffic analysis to determine with whom a Signal user is speaking, but not impossible.

* If you don't trust Open Whisper Systems to treat the phone number that you give them as sensitive and confidential, you really can't trust their messaging software, either. :)

<comment><USER2> I do trust OWS (although I'd like if they made the Signal iOS app build reproducible - there's an issue report about it). But I don't trust the people I'm conversing with, and they need my phone number to reach me on Signal. I guess I could use Google Voice or another service to register an anonymous phone number, but that's not a great UX, especially if I'm recommending the same procedure to the person I'm conversing with. (Oh, and the app doesn't seem to support multiple identities... I really should just look elsewhere, I suppose. It's just that I have a lot more faith in OWS's ability to deliver properly engineered systems than, well, anyone else's.)

<comment><USER4> Also GV requires an existing phone num to sign up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is finally what allowed me to get rid of Telegram/Whatsapp. The lack of desktop integration is what held me back from using and recommending Signal with most of my friends. It's nice being able to use the same app for SMS, IM, and now desktop IM.

We've been using it for the last week and I've personally found it pretty flawless so far.

The only complaint I've heard from other people is that they couldn't sign-up when their phone was offline. But not a big deal given the security advantage of routing through a local device.

That is Telegram's biggest security/UX compromise which I hope they address, since I'm sure 90% of people using Telegram aren't really using E2E encryption the majority of the time - due to the fact encryption is not enabled by default in the UI, the lack of syncing conversations between devices for "secret" chats, and the fact a few official Telegram desktop GUI clients don't even support secret chats at all (including on Linux).

<comment><USER6> How does giving away a known end point make a system more secure?

To me, it's the opposite, and makes Signal less secure.

<comment><USER5> A big problem with some E2E messaging systems is that your conversations aren't synced across devices. By routing messages through your phone, the way WhatsApp does in their desktop app, you can have the same conversation synced across both devices. (EDIT: additionally a server in between could sync the various client conversations as it seems Signal is doing).

Otherwise you end up with a situation, such as with Telegram secret chats, where encrypted chats are initiated on your phone<>friend, then you switch to your desktop and create a second secret chat channel with the same friend. You could then potentially miss messages that are still going to your phones secret channel - as your friend won't be able to know which secret chat is mobile/desktop or the "right" one to use at that moment. You'd have to close the existing secret chat on your phone when switching machines, which we often forgot to do in practice.

<comment><USER7> Signal Desktop messages aren't routed through your mobile device, so it's the best of both worlds. Once you've installed Signal Desktop, you can use it when your mobile device is turned off, and vice versa.

<comment><USER6> (@Moxie) Are there docs on how & why phone numbers are used, and what if any risks/threats/weaknesses are known to exist?

<comment><USER8> I'd love to see Keybase support for contact management and addressing, perhaps by hooking into OpenKeychain that's already got it integrated (OpenKeychain has an API)

<comment><USER9> Don't hold your breath - moxie isn't the biggest fan of GPG.

[http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/gpg-and- me/](http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/gpg-and-me/)

<comment><USER10> You should update your knowlage of keybase. They are more then just a GPG public directory. They try to have multi device end to end encryption capability distributed by a smart system of public key infrastruture. This gives them the basis to have multi client archtecture for messanging and file sharing. It is very cool because it allows you to revoke individual devices and thus also 'solves' the GPG problem of having one 'holy' key.

See:

\- [https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-new-key- model](https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-new-key-model)

\- [https://saltpack.org/](https://saltpack.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems a native desktop app would be ideal... privacy-concious consumers might be hesitant to use Chrome.

<comment><USER12> I agree. Last time I looked at why they were designing it be Chrome-only, it appeared to be due to a reliance on Google Cloud Messaging (GCM, [1]). This could be due to one or both of the following factors:

a) they wanted to re-use as easily as possible their existing back-end infrastructure which already uses GCM for the Android app.

b) they are using GCM to ensure that their desktops users are also "screened" by Google's existing authentication/security infrastructure - which ties a user down to a phone number among other things.

[1] [https://developers.google.com/cloud- messaging/](https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/)

Edit: clarity, typos

<comment><USER7> We've never used GCM in conjunction with the desktop app, so I'm not sure where you were looking. Writing and maintaining three different fully native apps for Windows, OSX, and Linux is a non-starter for most organizations these days, but it's particularly true for a small open source project like us.

We developed it as a chrome packaged app because it provides the same experience as a native app (appears fully stand alone, integrates with your native OS launcher, etc), and because that's where the people are in the world we live in today.

Eventually we might consider wrapping it in electron or equivalent, but that's just a question of packaging.

<comment><USER13> Picking up on the maintenance burden here: Is there library support (or documentation) for the underlying stuff?

Say, is there a way to go to your Github page [1] and grab a project that allows me to a) build a client (I think that's possible) and b) link clients just like the browser?

Could I create the world's ugliest native client, connecting to the Signal network using my (phone's .. hrm..) identity? Is that a scenario you support (in general, not with office hours..) or would consider if it isn't possible today?

1: [https://github.com/WhisperSystems/](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/)

<comment><USER14> You can get the chrome client from Github. That enabled one to circumvent the private beta until this announcement. There are no proprietary parts in the app store version.

Thus you should be able to make a native client just as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why doesn't the title of the announcement indicate "for Chrome? Is there a reason not to mention the release of such an application for other Web browsers, like Firefox?

<comment><USER16> It's a Chrome app and you need to have Chrome installed to run it, hence the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is not a desktop application. The browser chrome, which is required, is a desktop application. This is a browser extension.

Not worth the time. Use Retroshare instead.

<comment><USER7> It's a Chrome packaged app, not an extension. It integrates with your OS to function just like any other stand alone application (visible in your native launcher, etc).

<comment><USER13> For a moment I thought you meant that this is similar to say Atom: It's an application that just happens to run in a browser engine.

The link in the article points to [1], the Chrome App Store. That in turn presents me a button 'Available on Chrome' and wants me to download that dreaded thing (the browser itself, not some Signal-Using-Chrome-As-Shell bundle) [2].

I admit I don't understand what a Chrome packaged app is, but it seems to require a normal installation of Chrome, going to the 'Chrome App Store' to finally install Signal.

That's probably what the OP (and others here) try to say: This isn't a desktop app, it requires an installation of Chrome and then might act like a desktop app if you install it that way, right?

1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private- mes...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private- messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk)

2: [https://www.google.com/chrome/](https://www.google.com/chrome/)

<comment><USER7> Correct, you need to have Chrome or Chromium (if you want something fully OSS) installed. Once you do, it functions like a native app (integrates directly with your OS's launcher), rather than like an extension (something attached to a browser window).

We might consider distributing it via something like electron in the future, but that's just a matter of packaging.

<comment><USER13> Thanks a lot for the confirmation.

The Chrom(e|ium) name is tainted for me and while Electron is Chrome I'd be less hesitant to install an 'application' than something that might want to be the default browser or end up being launched by guests / my family.

You explained at length on HN that the target demographic doesn't include the random nutjob like me, and I understand that the average person doesn't care (or runs Chrome anyway already): I'm not trying to say that this release, this work is bad - I'm just trying to explain why I'm not putting on my party hat just yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you install signal on your phone without google play it will magically stop working with no warning after some delay (6 months?) leaving you without communications ability. It was especially irritating when it cut out mid- conversation leaving me unable to tell the far end why I was unable to respond further, or get help getting a new package built.

Pretty lame. I wonder if the desktop software also has this kind of logic bomb anti-feature?

</comment><comment><USER19> What needs to be done to add iOS integration? Asking as an iOS developer...

<comment><USER20> What do you mean? It's already on iOS.

Do you mean integration where Signal could integrate the SMS messaging (or similar functions)? Just taking a stab in the dark, but that's not (afaik) something iOS allows.

Edit: Duh, you mean to pair it with like you do now via QR code from an Android device. Sorry, gotcha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A Chrome Extension is not a Desktop application.

<comment><USER22> This annoys me so much. Since when are websites tied to a specific browser "desktop apps"?

<comment><USER14> Since most people cannot distinguish them from native apps. It has its own icon/menu entry. It opens its own window. Quacks like a duck.

<comment><USER23> I missed minimise-to-taskbar; made a temporary workaround: [https://gist.github.com/unhammer/d970780be79a3121a48ccc8049f...](https://gist.github.com/unhammer/d970780be79a3121a48ccc8049fbe173)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not for iOS sadly.

Edit: To clarify. It can't be paired with an iOS device yet.

<comment><USER25> > Not for iOS sadly.

Do you mean OSX? If you really meant iOS, the Signal app has been available for iOS[0] since July 2014[1].

[0] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/signal-private- messenger/id8...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/signal-private- messenger/id874139669?mt=8)

[1] [http://www.techrepublic.com/article/new-signal-ios-app- allow...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/new-signal-ios-app-allows-free- encrypted-voice-calls/)

<comment><USER26> I think they mean you can't pair the Chrome app to your iOS device like you can with the Android app.

<comment><USER27> yes - which means I can't use the chrome app it seems :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've recently been coming across some strange message sync issues with using the desktop client on two different computers. It seems like they'll go out of sync, and not all received messages will arrive. Sending works sometimes, but I won't see the "received" checkmark. Re-pairing isn't enough to fix it, I need to delete the Chrome app to clear the history and re-pair. Anyone else coming across this issue?

</comment><comment><USER29> Works like a charm. I'd love to see a more technical description, all the announcements are rather light on the details.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't use a smartphone, but I think there's an old android phone lying around my apartment. Could I use that to set up this desktop version and then never need to bother with the smartphone again? Or would you need to use the phone pretty regularly?

<comment><USER31> You could likely even use an Android emulator.

<comment><USER32> You need a phone number, though.

<comment><USER31> It sounded like robto uses a "dumb phone" or has some other method of accessing the PSTN (land line?). You don't need your smart phone to receive the verification directly, you just need to be able to get the verification to your smartphone

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is there a way to start Signal directly without starting Chrome/Chromium beforehand? I have Chrome/Chromium installed, but do not use it. I want to use only the Signal desktop webapp.

<comment><USER34> In the "Extensions Overview -> Details" you can create a desktop shortcut. If you start that, there is only the Signal window w/o a Chrome window.

edit: spelling

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why all the negative responses here about it being a Chrome app? If you're paranoid about reliance on the product of a PRISM partner, I understand. But in that case, just quietly don't use it. Why shit on work done by Moxie and his team that is _helping_ to mitigate dragnet surveillance?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

</comment><comment><USER36> The desktop app doesn't show a lock key icon in the message bubbles, while the Android app does. I never quite understood why the Android app clutters the interface with that icon since, I assume, _all_ messages are end-to-end encrypted anyway.

<comment><USER37> The Android app also supports standard SMS with non-Signal users. Those messages are not encrypted, so they show the lock to indicate whether the message was sent via Signal or SMS.

Think Apple Messages blue versus green.

<comment><USER36> Ah, that makes sense, thanks! Never used the Android app for SMS :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> NSA sends drone strikes on people and villages based on metadata. How do I use Signal without exposing metadata to Google? It's metadata what counts, not content. So why hide context and purposely expose all metadata to Google and NSA?

<comment><USER14> Nobody figured out how to hide meta data yet given the requirements.

P2P is not practical on mobile, because it eats your battery and data plan. Thus, client-server is a requirement. Federation is a problem for non- technical users, because it makes the app more complicated.

<comment><USER39> > Federation is a problem for non-technical users

Then teach them so it isn't a problem.

Also, I want to see _proof_ that federation is a problem for users, because most people seem to handle email addresses just fine. The resistance to federation is primarily from users, it's from business that want to control a protocol as middle-men.

> it makes the app more complicated

So? Federation is _necessary_. Leaving it out simply creates yet another centralized solution that can be targeted by businesses and/or governments. Saying "Security and freedom are complicated, so we left that feature out" is not a solution.

<comment><USER10> Teaching people is incredibly hard and usually does not work. For years and years we have tried teaching people about gpg and it has done nothing.

Its also incredibly difficult to make federation work, amd even harder when you want to hidemeta data. I am sure OWS would love to develop solutions for all of those, but they simply do not have time for it, not because the want to protect their costumers.

Its opensource, and you can send them a pull request where you solve federation. Currently you sound like an intiteled brat who does not understand the concept of time constraints.

<comment><USER39> > teaching people about gpg

You're moving the goalposts. Teaching people that their chat address has a @hostname component just like their email is easy.

(and gpg just needs a nice GUI front-end that makes the common cases trivial)

> [it's hard]

Yes it is. What you don't seem to understand is that this isn't a reason to create yet another centralized solution that promises more than it can deliver. So far every centralized communication service with true privacy has ended up either exploiting their users privacy, sold to people who don't care about privacy, or strong-armed by various powers. If you don't build in mitigation to this problem from the beginning, it will never happen.

> incredibly difficult to make federation work

This is complete nonsense. It's another feature that has to be taken into account, but it isn't harder than any other feature. (I would rate the crypto ratcheting protocols as "incredibly difficult" to get right, not federation)

Again, if this isn't built in from the beginning, it will never happen.

> Currently you sound like an intiteled[sic] brat

Insults are rarely effective rhetoric.

> who does not understand the concept of time constraints.

I've been designing and implementing network protocols for about two decades, so I'm very aware of what's involved. I'm suggesting that protocols are hard to change once implemented. If federation isn't designed in from the beginning, then this is just another centralized system that is destined to fail. Pursuing the wrong goal is not a good use of time.

> you can send them a pull request

I still might.

<comment><USER10> > This is complete nonsense.

I don't just mean in getting federation to work. I mean building a good network that is response to updates and adding features. A network that does not make further devlopment almsot impossible.

> If you don't build in mitigation to this problem from the beginning, it will > never happen.

I would disgree about that. I think an incremental approche can work. I guess we will see about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Happy that it's public now, I'm a regular Android Signal user and was waiting for this. It seems to work fine, my desktop and phone messages are in sync.

</comment><comment><USER41> Are there 3rd-party implementations of OpenWhisper or a complete and detailed spec, so that others can build clients more fitting their (integration) needs?

</comment><comment><USER42> I wish there was a windows phone app :(.

</comment><comment><USER43> So Android is a requirement?

</comment><comment><USER44> To bad seeing it's a Chrome app. Maybe Electron would have been a better fit?

</comment><comment><USER45> wait - so desktop is available on mac, but you need to link it first to android? WTF?

That just seems rushed and lame.

<comment><USER20> 1- it's beta 2- it's built as a chrome packaged app, which means it runs on all platforms regardless of what smartphone OS you use. 3- it's beta 4- it's okay.

<comment><USER45> Are you fucking joking?

It requires that you install the android app first.

The just say (android only currently) - don't ___advertise_ __it as a "desktop" app BEFORE disclosing this piece of info.

<comment><USER46> Don't you think you're being a bit more angry than you need to be, man?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VMWare opensources Affinity, a graph and document database - <AUTHOR> http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/cto/cloud/blog/2012/02/28/vmware-adds-affinity-to-its-open-source-data-efforts

<comment><USER2> How opensource is it if you have to agree to a TOS and give them your email to view any documentation about it.</comment>


SoftBank said to be near deal to sell British chip designer Arm - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/business/dealbook/softbank-arm-nvidia-computer-chips-sale.html <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/p6PM4](https://archive.vn/p6PM4)</comment>


Ask HN: review my startup - Desktop Application Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://www.concerity.com/

<comment><USER2> I don't have the time to take a real look at it yet (at my plain ol desk job). I like the idea, site construction looks good. However, the first thing I noticed is that the "See Through the Darkness" paragraph on the right-hand side. The paragraph goes too low, into the whitespace (I'm using firefox 3). The rest of the front page looks so nice that it stands out.

I'll take a look at it some more later. Best of luck.</comment>


Hummingbird,compiles trained ML models into tensor computation for inference - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/microsoft/hummingbird/ <comment><USER2> > Hummingbird compiles trained ML models into tensor computation for faster > inference.

That could have been included in the title and would have helped people figure out if they want to click on the title. Hummingbird by itself is a very generic term that could be any type of software. In this case it is specifically about a compiler for transforming ML models into tensor computations. Including that in the title would have been helpful.</comment>