The Grand Illusion:  Why consciousness exists only when you look for it (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/ns02.htm <comment><USER2> I don't see that it matters whether consciousness is "actual" or "illusory" (whatever that distinction entails) for the purposes of explaining subjective experience. The degree to which that experience reflects, or fails to reflects, physical reality is certainly interesting but I don't see it changing the nature of the problems.

"Instead of asking how neural impulses turn into conscious experiences, we must ask how the grand illusion gets constructed."

I really don't see what the difference is. How are we to interpret the notion that, say, the color Orange is really just a "trick"? Some sleight of mind perhaps?

What point was the author trying to make?

<comment><USER3> > _How are we to interpret the notion that, say, the color Orange is really > just a "trick"?_

That might not seem important today, now we know what colour is in terms of physics and the only remaining unknown might be how we internally perceive it, but the nature of colour was a real question at one time, and trying to understand it ended up improving our knowledge of physics.

Trying to understand consciousness, however pointless you might think the difference between an actual consciousness and one constructed on the fly is, could very well lead to interesting discoveries as well, eventually. It's also interesting to know in itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As soon as I saw this headline, I knew it would be Susan Blackmore. I once saw her give a talk on this topic, among others, at The Australian Museum. She is a remarkable speaker and was brutally honest about her own less-than- scientific past in researching human consciousness;

> It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body > experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and > launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that > consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. > Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic > phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, > occasionally, fraud. I became a skeptic.

</comment><comment><USER5> One of my problems with conceptualizing "consciousness" and ideas such as "attention" or "unconscious processes" is that I have such a fondness for analogies that I am forever trying to find the proper one, and it inevitably comes down to some kind of computer-based analogy like the memory management example given in the article.

Instinctively, I find it absurd that the human brain should work similarly to how human-created computer systems work, and that these analogies should be tossed out, but maybe it actually does make a kind of sense? Is there a convergent evolution occurring whereby we will eventually come to understand human consciousness because the more we improve our computer systems, the closer we come to approximating the fundamental "thinking powers" of the human brain?

<comment><USER6> A computer is deterministic, it operates by a set of understandable rules. We know that for sure. For our brain, we don't know. biology is mostly stochastic (unless it has evolved to obtain a certain level of deterministicness). It is difficult to replicate in a machine. But I think humans have a very strong sense that there must be a deeper set of rules that operates our brain and constructs consciousness. Therefor, the creation of a computer with consciousness would prove a certain set of rules exists, and we can understand those rules, even though a computer (as a computer is today) does not function at all like a brain. "What I cannot create, I do not understand" (Feynman), apparently we don't care if the mechanism behind the created thing is different in this case. So I think the lesson learned will be that consciousness can follow from a set of rules but less about how our own consciousness works. Who says there can be only one kind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that it would be good to start with evolution to attempt to pinpoint the different stages that consciousness was created.

[http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Graziano_JCN_2014.pdf](http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Graziano_JCN_2014.pdf) "Speculations on the Evolution of Awareness" \- Michael Graziano

"selective signal enhancement" is an interesting concept.

[http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Consciousness_Research.ht...](http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/Consciousness_Research.html)

[http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-consciousness- works/](http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-consciousness-works/)

<comment><USER8> Wow. The author of that has published numerous papers on neuroscience and consciousness, has written well-received adult literature, award-winning children's books, popular science nonfiction books, passable orchestra music, papers on fake universes modeling emergent laws of physics and he's "an avid practitioner of ventriloquism and performs his art with a monkey sidekick named Kevin"

[http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/](http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graziano](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graziano)

I feel quite lazy now.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link to his blog. I always forget to check those for full papers, I updated my post with a link to the PDF.

Yeah, he's certainly contributed a lot to consciousness research. [http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/MG_Vita.pdf](http://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/MG_Vita.pdf)

I've done a lot of thinking and discussing around brain-transfers and what it requires, I'm really interested in reading his papers around that topic, and some of the others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If consciousness is an illusion, then ego is an illusion as well.

Who is it then, who is succumbing to this illusion?

</comment><comment><USER10> "The User Illusion" by Tor Nørretranders is a must read for anyone interested in the subject. One of the best books i've ever read.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm... that's not directly related to main topic of the article, but I read:

 _You hadn 't noticed it before, but now that you have, you know that the clock has struck four times already, and you can go on counting_

Does that really happen? I am never able to do that, each time the church's clock strikes and I want to know what time it is, I can never be sure if I have missed one or two strikes at the beginning, and I often do miss one (and there is no mean to determine how many could have been missed). I thought that was the same for everyone, and the reason why it strikes again two minutes after the first time, so you can be ready to count.

Other than that, the article is pretty much how I had been thinking of consciousness already.

</comment><comment><USER11> The precise wording is crucial here. It is "the self" \- the notion of persistent, continuous "I am" is this "grand illusion". Some ancient Indian and later Tibetan scholars have written about it since 7th century's "doctrine boom" and following "age of the great translation" (of Indian texts into Tibetan language), which resulted in all that plurality of Tibetan sects, while "the realization" of the illusory nature of what we call "I" goes back to the times of Upanishads, long before the Buddha himself.

In modern words, what we call "consciousness" is mere a set of processes, which could be switched on and off.)

<comment><USER12> no! there is suboff for subconscious

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a weird question because, for me, it starts too far up the chain. Consciousness is a question of subjective perception, but I cannot yet truly define the actual things that I perceive.

So, as I look at my screen, I can acknowledge its existence and repeat stuff I've learned about about atoms, elements, etc. But, when I truly start to question how this physical world is held together and what proof we have that it even exists beyond, say, a simulation, then I fail.

There is some fundamental level at which I'm not "certain" of _anything_. So, how can I begin to ask questions about how I _perceive_ those things?

<comment><USER14> Science requires a fair amount of faith. Its not like you can repeat every experiment.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I'm talking about something a little different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Even if it is an illusion, so what? It doesn't stop me _experiencing_ it, which is really what consciousness is all about.

 _I think, therefore I am_

<comment><USER16> Or, _I think that I think, therefore I think that I am_. In some sense, at least, it amounts to the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment> d-equivalence I think the author of this article confuses consciousness for the interpretation of things that occur in consciousness.

<comment><USER17> Would you care to define a concrete difference between those two things?

<comment> d-equivalence Dunno, maybe practice Zen Buddhism for a decade or two.

<comment><USER17> I am a (lapsing) mindful meditator, and I'm still not sure this article contradicts any of that stuff (which is the distilled science from things like Buddhism.)

<comment> d-equivalence I understand, but forgive me, when I try to argue about consciousness using logic or read scientific studies about it, I always feel like being a 14 year old talking about sex, so I don't talk about it anymore. I prefer doing it.

Quite possibly its arrogance, or jadedness. But I've come to develop my own opinions about issues like that, through other means of acquiring knowledge than science, which I feel is grossly inadequate to address such issues. And no, I'm not talking about secular/clinic types of mindfulness.

Probably that makes me a weirdo in circles like HN, but oh well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Writing on a topic that I know next to nothing :-) Hopefully it will provide entertainment if nothing else.

I have thought recently that consciousness, or any phenomenon that includes the awareness of the passage of time, is an illusion of memory. Imagine that you have only an instantaneous existence. Over time you move from one instance to another, changing state each time. In essence you are a state machine.

At any given instant, your new state depends on your current state and new inputs (not only are you a state machine, but you are a regular expression!). Unlike a state machine with a fixed set of states and an infinite tape, you have a near infinite set of possible states and a finite tape. The way the state is constructed, it is possible to reason about the likely path you took to reach your current state. Of course, states you were in only a few iterations ago are easy to deduce while states that you were in a long time ago are much harder to deduce because there are many possible paths.

Finally, let's imagine that you can partition your state. In other words, you can take a small part of your state (call it a sub-state) and you can deduce past sub-states that you would have had to pass through in order to reach this sub-state.

With this in place, "awareness" could merely be the act of enumeration past possible sub-states. So you can "concentrate" on a sub-state and at any given instant deduce the sub-states that have lead to this position.

Because your interface with reality would be the review of these possible past sub-states, it would appear from your point of view that there was a flow of occurrences that led to your current state. But all of the information you are processing is internal and so your awareness would be dependent upon the instantaneous state only.

You could get very silly and imagine that if your movement between states was idempotent, that you could even execute the state machine out of order and it would _still_ produce the same awareness of order and hence flow of time.

If this were to be the case (and I have no real reason to believe that it is -- it's just an entertaining thought), I don't think it would be as discrete as I describe it. If you consider a neural network, it has a similar kind of state and a similar kind of "memory". Training the neural network creates outputs from inputs based on what had previously been input. One might imagine a kind of network that could walk backwards through "memorised" patterns by feeding the outputs back into inputs, but I don't think any such thing exists (and possibly it can't exist). Aside: I know about convoluted networks, but I don't think they produce the effect I am describing.

Like I said, it's an interesting mental exercise, but not necessarily anything like what really happens.

</comment><comment><USER19> Consciousness has bee a philosophical topic for centuries. She is a psychologist and obviously unaware of it.

<comment><USER12> NO, EVEYBODY CAN LEARN ANYTHING WITHOUT DEGREE

PLUS PSYCHOLOGY HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH NEUROLOGY AT SOME POINT

<comment><USER19> It's a scientific principle to study the exiting body of knowledge, at least the important works, before you publish your own theories and findings.

BTW, your keyboard seems to be broken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We can't even properly define consciousness. Why ask whether or not something exists when we're not even sure what the word consciousness is referring too.

Consciousness is similar to other loaded/ambiguous words in the English language like "spirituality." Everybody has a different perception of what it is, and nobody can really define it. Lots of female hipsters still like to toss the word "spirituality" around while never really knowing what the hell it means.

"Consciousness" on the other hand has a more scholarly philosophical flavor. If you want to get into a meaningless pseudo-scientific discussion with no logical end (and beginning), "consciousness" is the perfect word to guarantee things will go nowhere. Like this article, for example.

<comment><USER21> What is your point? Are you saying there is no point to having words for things that we don't fully understand?

Male hipsters too, btw.

<comment><USER20> I'm saying no point discussing it. Especially on HN.

Articles grounded in science are a better fit.

<comment><USER22> There is a lot of discussion about "functional programming" without a consensus on what constitutes that and what are paraphernalia.

A notion exists in a word form when it has _some_ definition, even if it cannot be articulated well. Here by "definition" I mean something like "the ability to categorize examples even if fuzzily", i.e. saying that "a rock is not conscious while a human is" already indicates the existence of a definition. Note that this doesn't require that you be able to describe the category in a nice precise sentence.

Through dialogue, critique, experiments, we can gradually construct a specific sense for the word that a group of people can work on. Take "energy" for instance. The word existed before physicists defined it precisely, and even the definition within that domain evolved when quantum mechanics came around. Furthermore, the usage of the word isn't limited to contexts in physics only.

Is it worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?".

<comment><USER20> Definitely not worthless to ponder "what might a physics definition of consciousness be?"

But definitely utterly worthless to ponder "Is consciousness an illusion?" without knowing the definition of consciousness.

<comment><USER23> "Is consciousness an illusion?" _IS_ positing a definition of consciousness.

<comment><USER20> In the phrase "Is Life an illusion?" life is not being redefined as an illusion. It is more of a categorization, similar to "Is an apple a fruit?"

Here's a ludicrous question: "Is spirituality a fruit?" Whatever feeling you get when reading that phrase, it's the same feeling I get when reading the title of this article.

<comment><USER23> i see what you're saying, but i disagree with your premise. particularly in light of both the article and the parent comments. consciousness is a defacto categorisation because we cannot point to a distinct thing which defines it.

we have a shared understanding of consciousness which is separate from 'just' life (ie.apes are conscious but plants are not) but also separate from merely categorisation (ie.we think there are fundamental differences between conscious and not conscious). like when a syndrome becomes a disease.. we are looking for some thing we can point to and say this why we have this set of symptoms.

but this article is suggesting is that possibly there actually is no difference between conscious and not conscious, and that perhaps we are looking for the wrong thing. that is, they are suggesting that consciousness is not a thing, but an emergent illusion / experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A guide to DevSecOps, shifting left, and GitOps - <AUTHOR> https://github.blog/2020-08-13-secure-at-every-step-a-guide-to-devsecops-shifting-left-and-gitops/ <comment><USER2> A new set of buzzwords will clearly improve application security. /s GitOps in particular is freaking ridiculous. We need a new title for using VCS? I am having a hard time imagining how they could get lower than this. Maybe #writecodethatruns or something like this.

The only thing I noticed that changed with "DevOps", "SRE", etc is a complete muddying of the nomenclature. Devs still don't care about uptime and security, being well stuck in "works on my machine". The ones that do care did so before the terms where invented. My sysadmin title is gone for no good reason other than trends. I get contacted about DevOps positions where coding is discouraged or even banned - at best you get to write some YAML, SRE means you are accountable for systems you did not design. So 100% responsibility but 0% authority to actually improve things.

I can feel myself getting mad as I write this, I flagged the submission and I want the author to know I consider them a sellout responsible for this industry going to shit.

<comment><USER3> And in spite of all that, "DevOps" is still a massive improvement over the situation from a decade ago.

Back then, you'd apply for a "sysadmin" position and you wouldn't know if it would be a helpdesk role to setup printers, or a role to manage windows desktops and Microsoft exchange, or anything to do with linux systems.

Now you can apply to a devops or SRE role and it's about Linux and automation. No more confusion with helpdesk.

<comment><USER2> Actually we had linux and windows sysadmin in the job title. And devops/sre as I've said in the parent post rarely involve setting up the automation yourself. You just operate it with web interfaces, YAML files, or if you're lucky boilerplate terraform. Since moving to DevOps positions I write a lot less code for the job than when I was a sysadmin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The idea is that when a system goes down, it's everyone's responsibility to fix it._

and

 _...everyone becomes accountable for outages, even if they don't manage the infrastructure_

While describing practical aspects of DevOps that way isn't inaccurate, it casts it in an entirely negative and non-methodological way—as if it's all about crisis management and availability. In my experience, DevOps means reducing the time between committing a change to a system and the change being placed into normal production, while ensuring high quality. As we continuously "automate all the things", it makes sense that the responsibility for software development and IT operations will gel and become more unified, shared, and cross-disciplinary.

<comment><USER5> The "experience" of DevOps will be different for everyone because it's a novel term that someone invented to be trendy. Your experience is therefore entirely correct and so is this characterisation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is eerie: some _expletive-removed_ recently organised a meeting to ramble about DevSecOps versus SecDevOps, with no actionable contents at all. The term "DevOps" was a good vessel for some improvements, but this is clearly pushing it too far. What comes next? DevSecCloudOps? SecHybridCloudDevOps? DevSecHybridCloudDevMgmtDevOps? All these could have a meaning you know and we can spend time talking about all that, if we cannot program computers...

<comment><USER7> BizDevSecOps is what you are looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > DevOps is an increasingly popular trend in recent years—a shift that makes > developers more accountable for operational issues. The idea is that when a > system goes down, it's everyone's responsibility to fix it

This is a very particular definition of DevOps.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really enjoyed this article!</comment>


Doctors much bettter than internet or app-based symptoms checkers - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161010120138.htm <comment><USER2> Bettter or better?</comment>


University of Reading staging Turing Test at the Royal Society today - <AUTHOR> http://www.getreading.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/university-reading-stage-turing-test-7213888

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a video a trailer to the event. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hgw9RVwbaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hgw9RVwbaw)</comment>


Developers screwed by the Man: Dean Takahashi's take on the Infinity Ward story - <AUTHOR> http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/03/07/the-making-and-unmaking-of-infinity-ward/

<comment><USER2> A truly depressing story, but not surprising when their CEO is on the record as saying, "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought into Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out making video games. I think we've definitely been able to instill in the culture the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we're in today."

<comment><USER3> I find that quote really puzzling - what is the supposed advantage of taking the fun out of game development?

<comment><USER4> It reads as bitterly sarcastic to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could tell something was wrong with the MW2 game; it was still great but the OTT plot and "unfinished" feel was apparent.

I'm not surprised to read they a) didnt want to do it and b) Activision was interfering.

Shame.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope they get a big ass settlement and start an awesome new studio and make more awesome games (with dedicated servers please).</comment>


FastoTV - <AUTHOR> FastoTV it is iptv platform, for watching TV via internet. Currently we support next platforms:
    MacOSX
    Linux
    Windows
    Embedded Linux
You can use our player for watching tv channels. Also FastoTV is open and free IPTV platform.
Main big advantages of FastoTV:
    Open source
    One remote control for device and TV
    Low price devices, you can buy device by your self and install application on it.
    Now we support next devices: Raspberry PI, Banana PI, Orange PI, Desktop
    Cross-platform
    Simple code
    Great solutions <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/fastogt/fastotv](https://github.com/fastogt/fastotv)</comment>


Creedoo – presentation software - <AUTHOR> Creedoo software is an online presentation tool that helps in creating memorable presentations with few clicks, and is packed with unique features.<p>With Creedoo Presentation Software now it is possible to simply create memorable presentations that will distinguish the presenter and make the presentations memorable. With few clicks it is easy to design presentations that the audience will remember. Creedoo helps also to interact with the audience more closely as the audience can send the feedback in real time, using their smart phones, laptops or tablets, and can even ask questions and vote. This simple and fast presentation software helps to reach the audience in an easy way and answer their questions instantly. Other Creedoo features include remote control, where presenter can directly control the presentation from a smart phone, or "back slide" feature that supports the main slides with additions.
Creedoo brings in the market a new generation software tool for online presentations to make the slides more eye catching and to create unique presentations distinguishable from others.
Support that this professional online presentation software can provide includes presentation in offline mode and sharing your presentation with friends using simple URL link. To interact more effectively with the audience Creedoo software is becoming an indispensable tool for using poll questions, using timer for managing the time on stage and collaborating with colleagues. This software is helping to share presentations as these can be also downloaded onto the PC and then shared as a common file.
This unique software is making a great impact in the market, helping to interact with audience as effectively as ever. For more information, you can log onto http://creedoo.com <comment><USER2> And how is it any better than LaTeX with beamer package? I can't tell from your marketing bullshit.

Good presentation has good _content_ and good _presenter_ , first and foremost. Everything else, tools especially, is next to irrelevant.</comment>


First hints of Microsoft's $300 mill "fight back" ads appear - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=499 <comment><USER2> What has changed? I just bought a new laptop with Vista on it. The poor puppy was spending about 10 minutes to boot up and cool down: HDD activity upon startup was so insane that it was better to let it sit for 10 minutes before you could actually do anything. After that it could barely breathe on its own 1GB of RAM, _without any applications running._ I went through the list of running services but couldn't clean up much: there was nothing excessive. Even usual anti-virus junksoft was absent. The damn thing needs 1GB of RAM only to stay barely alive on its own.

How is that usable? These days we're accustomed to running 2-3 copies of virtualized OSes. An operating system in 2008 mustn't assume more than 128MB of RAM available for just sitting and doing nothing, let alone demand 4 times as much.

XP was released when 128MB of RAM was more or less the norm. If you had 512MB, XP was screaming. With Vista, these two numbers (for "barely works" and "screaming") are 1GB and 3GB, i.e. Vista effectively increased its predecessor's hardware requirements by more than 400%

That's just insane.

<comment><USER3> _These days we're accustomed to running 2-3 copies of virtualized OSes._

Well, not Vista, right? I thought you had to own Windows Vista Incredible to have permission to run virtualized copies. Or was it Windows Vista Ultimate Smackdown? I can never remember.

Of course, we in the Mac world have a much easier time remembering which versions of the Mac OS can be easily and legally run in virtual machines: None of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Of course, we in the Mac world have a much easier time remembering which versions of the Mac OS can be easily and legally run in virtual machines: None of them._

Not true. You can run Leopard server virtualized. I haven't tried it but I know people who offer VPS's with it. And yes, it's completely legal. Both Parallels and VMWare support it.

<http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/01/virtual-leopa-1.html>

<comment><USER4> Leopard server can legally only run in a VM on Apple hardware though AFAIK.

I can legally run (some versions of) Windows on any of our Linux machines, loading it over the network, provided we don't exceed the license limit. This is _exceptionally_ useful as it allows access to (office|windows only apps) for the 1% of the time it is useful, without paying for the 99% of the time it isn't.

To do the same for Macs would require us to buy an entire set of Apple hardware. Rather pointless in a shop where most people use Linux out of choice, and most work is done inside a web browser or Eclipse.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK... there's a bit of comparing apples and oranges here. Macintosh is a proprietary _hardware_ platform and MacOS X requires it to run. You can run Windows and Linux on the same hardware because both of them support it and VM software easily uses hardware facilities through virtualization. VMWare and Parallels do not emulate everything.

So it makes sense that you can't run MacOS X on non-Apple hardware since it was never meant to do that. On the other hand, Apple supports Windows XP and Vista on its hardware and have written a ton of drivers to do just that. Linux folks have done the same and they have written drivers for Mac hardware. Sure, there are such things as Hackintoshes but they have a ton of issues (sometimes fans don't work. graphics doesn't work, drivers missing etc).

For Apple to do what you want, they'd have to license VMWare and other VM vendors internal Mac specs so that VMWare can emulate those on a machine that doesn't have them. And this is not beneficial to Apple at all.

<comment><USER4> The fact that they have valid business reasons not to support my use case doesn't magically make my need go away.

It's perfectly reasonable for them not to want some people as customers, but virtualisation on Apple only hardware covers nothing like as many people's needs as virtualisation on any hardware and any underlying OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing: the site has a conflicting message. One part they have their hat in their hands and they're all humble about the fact that Vista's launch was lousy. Browse around a little bit and you get to [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows- vista/discover/100-...](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows- vista/discover/100-reasons.aspx), which says:

"Seeing Windows Vista for the first time may leave you searching for words. Many people just say "Wow." Here are 100 reasons why. 1. Windows Vista makes using your PC a breeze..."

Am I supposed to actually read through that bullshit?

<comment><USER3> The problem is that, while apologizing is the right tactical move in the face of angry customers, it's a tactic, not a strategy.

A person who apologizes is gracious. A person who does _nothing_ but apologize is gracious but impotent: One may accept them as a friend, but one doesn't hire them.

The correct strategic move is to _fix the problem_ , or refund the money, or throw up your hands and declare, believeably, that the problem is unsolveable by anyone.

Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to fix the fact that Vista has no compelling features (they're too busy supporting all the non-compelling features that _are_ in Vista... as someone wise wrote here the other week, once you introduce a feature you're stuck supporting it for life). They certainly don't want to offer refunds. And attempts to pretend that it's impossible to build a better OS than Vista break down as soon as the customer walks past an Apple Store -- or, even worse, as soon as she reboots back into XP.

So, in the absence of a new strategic direction, most of the marketing machine is still coasting along the path of the old one. They're applying lipstick to the pig. Again.

<comment><USER6> > Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to fix the fact that Vista has no > compelling features

Without getting into specifics, Vista is a much more secure operating system than XP. It also has much better support for detecting and resolving errors. I run Vista (with 2 GB of RAM), and it runs great.

I guess in the eyes of most users, security isn't a "compelling feature" because it's not very visible -- but it's a big improvement over XP. Most people who use Vista with capable hardware (yes, I admit this is a weakness of Vista) are happy with it. When it was released, there were lots of compatibilty issues. But today, it's a much better OS than its reputation might suggest.

<comment><USER3> _I guess in the eyes of most users, security isn't a "compelling feature" because it's not very visible_

You got it.

And there are two other big problems with marketing Vista strictly on security grounds. One is that Microsoft has very little credibility on security. I seem to recall a long, long era when security was an afterthought at Microsoft, and when security issues were downplayed. That, plus the energetic PR efforts of thousands of malware authors around the world, has pretty much tarnished the brand as far as security is concerned. The company does not start from a position of strength.

The other is that Microsoft's market probably doesn't contain a lot of security-sensitive customers anymore. Those that haven't been driven to the Mac or Unix have evolved defenses: They're acclimated to running tons of antivirus software and periodically reinstalling their systems, or they've firewalled and proxied the living death out of everything. Or, you know, their machines have been 0wned and they're living in blissful ignorance.

At this point, trying to convince long-time Microsoft customers that the new OS is safe and secure is like trying to talk grizzled survivalists out of their shelters in the mountains. ("We have no weapons! You can put down the rootkit scanner! You don't need to fear anymore! It's the 21st century out here and we've got a utopia!")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The ironic part of that ad is that Microsoft needs to correct their own "facts"

Essentially no one during the the time of Columbus (and even centuries before) believed the world was flat. That's just a myth that people like to believe.

<comment><USER8> I think you are being a bit pedantic. First, the statement is true. At one time people did believe the Earth was flat. And it could be argued that the roundness of the earth wasn't conclusively proven until Magellan circumnavigated it.

<comment><USER9> I don't think so. You have to go back a really long time to find when people thought the earth was flat. In the time of the ancient greeks they estimated the circumference of the earth. And even in the heliocentric theory of astronomy they at least assumed the earth was a sphere.

<comment><USER10> You have to go back a really long time to find when everyone thought the earth was flat, but even though it was no longer consensus, flat earth was still a well-represented belief in the middle ages.

<comment><USER11> I'm interested in knowing those sources to which you refer and also interested in what constitutes "well-represented". The largest and best representation of generally accepted cosmology of the middle ages, Dante's Comedy, _requires_ the earth be round (an 'echo' of the heavenly spheres). And he's basically synthesizing all available knowledge (theological, philosophical, political, and scientific) in his text, so where the text is silent to a conflict (that is, where it's making an _assumption_ as opposed to an _argument_), it ought be trusted as generally accepted.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_mythology> has more on the myth.

And assuming the truth of the citation in the wiki article, having Gould say, "all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology" is, I think, fairly damaging to your position. When one of the biggest critics of religious interactions with science says 'hey, they got it right here', they probably got it right.

<comment><USER10> I meant well-represented in the same way that creationism is today. Not as in believed to be true by most scientists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tie this however with the ads I saw in the NY Subway yesterday, advertising features of Vista and taglined with:

"Microsoft Vista - Now with Service Pack 1!"

Unfortunately, here's how I see it:

\- People who are smart enough to know WTF a Service Pack is already are sold one way or another on Vista. Throwing it out there as a selling point is not likely to sway them either way.

\- Most people have no idea what it is.

Microsoft has a huge marketing nightmare on their hands - and now they're backed into a corner because they've forcibly killed off the highly successful XP. It makes me wonder if they shouldn't throw a few more patches in and relaunch the product quietly under a new brand. It's a lot more likely to work than the "Now with Service Pack!" crap.

<comment><USER13> Yes, relaunching XP as 'Windows Minimal' would be great move. Right now, they are their own enemy.

<comment><USER12> I actually meant relaunching Vista with a new brand (I mean, in many cases each release of OS X - esp the last ~2 releases is essentially aservice pack - updated kernel, some UI tweaks and some extra hangon apps and it works great giving it a new name even though it's officially a minor patch level).

But, come to think of it - XP would work as well. MS is currently rebranding XP as a 'portable' OS ; they're supplying it to companies making mini laptops like OLPC, Asus [eeepc] and Cloudbooks. I think thats as far as they want to go because they're aware they're cannibalizing Vista business by leaving XP in the market. For me, it just means when I install VMWare on my Macs and Linux boxes that that cracked copy of XP is getting a few more years of use ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FTA:

 _"Vista is now actually better than its reputation. That's a marketing issue."_

Hilarious, sad, and true, all at the same time. Classic.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nobody is talking about the campaign...

I have a hard time believing they are going to gain ground by trying to "logic" their way into position. Nobody cares about logic, they work off emotion.

I can tell you all night long that the software I just wrote is super- compliant with the OZBOG standard and uses 18.3 jigahertz to mitigate the resonance specification, but you just won't care.

But if you see John Mayer and Britney Spears and Steven Spielberg all use Vista and they "love it to bits and pieces" and because you want to be just like them, now I have a tiny wedge I can pound on.

</comment><comment><USER16> First the Yahoo deal, now this - seems like Microsoft is just running out of ideas.

Macs aren't selling because of Apple's cute ads or clever slogans. They are selling because Windows' much larger desktop software range doesn't make as much difference now that users do most of their stuff online - so customers pick the OS which they judge as easier to use and more stable.

On the corporate market, I doubt all the IT managers who refuse to upgrade their company to Vista will change their mind once they see a picture of a ship.

</comment><comment><USER17> I didn't even _get_ what that ad was supposed to mean until I read the interpretation of it. I'm not sure the general public are really going to hook on to it. Ads have to be catchy and understandable or at least witty.. this has none of those characteristics. It's just confusing.

</comment><comment><USER18> I know Windows is their flagship product, but they need to restructure themselves for the future: the Web.

Vista has some neat little visual items that XP didn't, but beyond the visual there's not a whole lot of benefit to upgrading. I mean, most of the boasted visual items can be pulled off inside a browser.

From all my experience with Vista, they somehow messed up badly on the networking layers: everything is bogged down under traffic.</comment>


What Does that "Business Guy" at Your Startup Do, Anyway? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.500startups.com/2010/11/08/what-does-that-business-guy-at-your-startup-do-anyway/

<comment><AUTHOR> There are countless of "business guys" out there seeking technical co-founders for their project. While this article discusses more about what your role is as part of an already-established team, it can still give you a glimpse of what you should know about in terms of how you can provide value down the road (separate from the initial product development).</comment>


Ask HN: My side project is killing me, any suggestions? - <AUTHOR> I'm about 5 months of part-time work in to development of a massively multiplayer online game (growhive.io, think Risk meets slither.io). Growth was great for the first 3.5 months. Stalled for month while we made, and then reversed out of, a major back-end change (more about that in a moment). It's now back up again and growing at a great pace.
My main metric, total time spent playing, went from 20 minutes per day in the first weeks, to 1.5 days/day before the big change, and is now up to 3.5 days of play per real-time day. My second metric (H-index on users actions) is also way up.
So great, right?
It would be, except the back-end change I aborted would have swapped in Postgres for Firebase, which at the time was costing $400/month and is now on pace to blow well past $1000 this month. Meanwhile, keeping up with with the website, without even adding new features, is taking a couple hours per day. I have an assistant to help with user emails and some social media promotion, but no one to help on the business or planning side. I'd like to bring in people to help with that, but adding tasks I struggle with (networking and outreach) on top an already full plate of front end dev  and back end containment is daunting at best.
I feel stuck in terms of my next move. Try again to transition to Postgres to save cash? Gamble my limited energies on trying to find a co-founder? Ignore the rising costs and grind through my (long) list of bug fixes and features? Sacrifice a lamb in the name of Chris Sacca? <comment><USER2> "3.5 days of play per real time day"

Can you explain what that is in daily active users?

Interesting game, but there's no help or FAQ. How do you get more nectar? Is it per battle won? What is a black chip?

<comment><AUTHOR> The H-index I mentioned gets close to that. Yesterday we had about 100 users who each took over 100 game actions (for example, placing a chip is a game action). Beyond that there's a long tail of people with much fewer game actions.

I've found that the intrigue of figuring things out drives some of the engagement, though many of the items on the page have explanations when you click on them (including Nectar), and we have more info at growhive.io/blog.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quick update: I found a way to cut firebase usage back down to $400/mo even with the higher traffic.

<comment><USER3> How did you do that, if I may ask?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a few processes on the server that do regular queries on the firebase data. I was able to tweak these to be much less aggressive in terms of the amount of data they request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Contact me. My email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tks email sent. I've added my email address to my profile in case anyone else wants to contact me.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Front End Dev Interview Questions - <AUTHOR>

I have an interview next week, and have found a ton of questions through generic, interview-question searches. However I figure HN knows better... <comment><USER2> Can you specify a little further? Are you interviewing for a job, or interviewing a candidate for a job? What level position is this junior/senior/VP Eng? I will assume interviewing and likely for a junior position...

If you are interviewing for a junior level position, I would mostly be prepared to describe applications you have created, included side projects. You will likely be given some application and work with the interviewer to design/implement it. Usually you can and should ask them questions and make it as much of a dialogue as possible. Many companies will expect you to actually write code in an interview, so be prepared for that. Usually this is in the language of your choice, but I would at least be prepared to do things in javascript as this is a front end position, and every front end person should understand javascript.

I don't really know for more senior roles, but I would imagine you'd be asked more "big picture" questions like what are the advantages/disadvantages to various web frameworks, why you would use one over another in various example applications. Also, perhaps how you would work to architect/possibly design some front end application.

Also, obviously know your resume- make sure that any languages/skills/frameworks on there you actually know and be prepared to talk about all your experience on there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hiya, fellow front-ender here. I'm guessing you're going for a junior position? Agency or in-house?

I've found that if the person interviewing you knows what they're talking about, you'll spend most of the interview discussing you're overall philosophy, future goals, and how you'll fit in with the company because they've already reviewed you code and determined you have the skills they need (that's why they brought you in).

If they're not sure on what exactly it is you do, prepared to discuss hows & whys of things you've done, and brush up on your buzzwords and industry lingo.

Overall, prepare to discuss your process (how you approach, plan and execute a project).

How do you handle a very aggressive deadline? Do you push for a more realistic timeframe or cut corners to get it out the door and go back and fix it (no right answer here, btw :)).

Are you comfortable working with someone else's code/framework? When should you write your own javascript, and when should you use a framework? Why JQuery instead of Prototype (or vice versa)?

Be able to defend your decisions (without getting defensive,that's a big red flag) and articulate your position. Don't wear a suit (unless it's a law firm or somewhere where everyone wears suits). Bring a few copies of your resume. Above all, relax. If you got in the door, chances are it's your job to lose :)</comment>


No fallback mode in GNOME 3.8, future of gnome-panel - <AUTHOR> http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/2012/11/21/No-fallback-mode-in-GNOME-3.8%2C-future-of-gnome-panel

<comment><USER2> Does this mean you can no longer run xmonad or other tiling window managers with GNOME?

<comment><USER3> Could you before? I was under the impression that the shell _is_ the window manager, Mutter.

<comment><USER4> In fallback mode, it was possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's nice. Anyone still using GNOME will, I'm sure, appreciate it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like a plan.</comment>


RosettaCode: "Python isn't very good at number crunching anyway" - <AUTHOR> https://rosettacode.org/wiki/MD5/Implementation#Python <comment><USER2> Curious why you submit this (not in any way controversial?) quote?</comment>


How Skype fixes security vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> https://hub.zhovner.com/geek/how-skype-fixes-security-vulnerabilities/ <comment><USER2> Resubmitted as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227480), currently on front page.</comment>


At Card Table, Clues to a Lucid Old Age - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/health/research/22brain.html?hp=&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> "We think, for example, that it's very important to use your brain, to keep challenging your mind, but all mental activities may not be equal. We're seeing some evidence that a social component may be crucial."

</comment><comment><USER3> I love bridge! I learned in college (northwestern Pennsylvania, very cold winters) and have kept playing ever since. Of every leisure activity I have ever tried, it is by far IMO the most "hacker appropriate". It's a shame it has a reputation as an old ladies game. I'd be willing to bet that many here would make excellent bridge players and really enjoy it too.

I still play in tournaments when time permits, and still get my butt kicked by 92 year old ladies, who explain the logic and strategy of their victory. I bet they would have made good hackers.

I'd play on-line more often, but it's hard to find a good partner. Like many other things, bridge also has its share of posers.

Like good hackers, good bridge players are passionate about their game and take it very seriously. I recently emailed a bridge question to an old buddy, a math professor, "What would you do if your partner was dealt all 13 spades and opened 2 notrump?" His response, "After the medical examiner left, I'd explain to the police that he opened notrump with a void. They'd probably left me go with a small fine."

Any bridge players here?

<comment><USER4> > "What would you do if your partner was dealt all 13 spades and opened 2 > notrump?"

Sorry, I don't know much about bridge, but if you had all the spades, wouldn't you just bid 7 spades?

<comment><USER3> Of course. That's the joke.</comment></comment></comment>


Hacker Folklore – The Funny Origins of Computing Terms - <AUTHOR> https://endler.dev/2020/folklore/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Planning to write a sequel about the origins of well-known tools and programming languages.

E.g. grep coming from global search in Vim: g/re/p "Perform a [g]lobal search using a [r]egular [e]xpression and [p]rint matching lines".

If you know of any others, post them here in the comments and I'll make sure to give you credits.</comment>


Gaze: Long Distance Movie Night - <AUTHOR> https://letsgaze.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting spin on content sharing.

I assume this is using webrtc as the platform?

<comment><USER3> Didn't see this was up here. Yeah, it's using WebRTC.</comment></comment>


Is Elon Musk Serious about the Tesla Semi? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/08/is-elon-musk-serious-about-the-tesla-semi/ <comment><AUTHOR> In an urban setting, I'll note that electric trucks have a hugely important spillover effect: They're much, much quieter. The noise externality from conventional trucks in cities is awful.

Before someone brings up studies that say noise at high speeds is not predominantly from tires, let me say that I've seen those before. But in the three cities I've spent substantial time walking around—Seattle, LA, and NYC—the awful roar of trucks is an incredible auditory nuisance.

<comment><USER2> >>Before someone brings up studies that say noise at high speeds is not predominantly from tires

I don't think that matters. Trucks rarely reach high speeds in urban settings. Think garbage trucks, for instance. The majority of the noise they generate is during acceleration after their frequent stops.</comment></comment>


Thousands take to Hong Kong streets to protest new extradition laws - abc-xyz https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics-extradition-idUSKCN1S405E <comment> cirrus-clouds Vox has an excellent video called 'China is erasing its border with Hong Kong' which details how the Chinese government is tightening it's control of Hong Kong. It's well worth a watch. Here's the video description:

" _When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, Chinese leaders agreed that Hong Kong would be able to keep its economic and political systems, including some of the civil freedoms denied to China's citizens on the mainland, for the next 50 years.

Although Hong Kong still has nearly 30 years of semi-autonomy left, China has started tightening its grip, and many believe it is chipping away at Hong Kong's freedoms._"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyxG4vTyZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyxG4vTyZ8)

<comment><AUTHOR> The only thing keeping Hong Kong's sovereignty (such as it is) is Taiwan. There is some understanding on the Chinese side that a full annexation of the territory would strengthen independence hardliners in Taiwan - which is the real prize because Taiwan is absolutely critical for Chinese national defense. If it wasn't for that, Hong Kong would have been wholly annexed by now.

<comment><USER2> Why is Taiwan absolutely critical to Chinese defense?

<comment><USER3> Taiwan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. It provides a massive platform from which to attack the mainland. Maintaining control denies this advantage to any attackers.

<comment><USER4> There are so many unsinkable aircraft carriers around China. Taiwan is not the only one, and also Taiwan island is too far away from USA, the only possible opponent of China. So once the war is starting, China is very easy to occupy Taiwan before USA can provide the support.

<comment><USER5> Taiwan is actually very close to two very important US allies, the Philippines and Japan. It's alot harder and more expensive to launch an attack from Luzon or Okinawa than it is to launch it from Taiwan.

<comment><USER6> It's a hell of a lot closer to China than to Philippines or Japan.

FWIIW it was historically used by forces which threatened Chinese sovereignty, including Japan. Since Chinese leadership actually reads history instead of making stuff up as they go along, as Westerners do, that's probably why it's such a sore spot for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how many activists in Hong Kong have been pinched by Mainland China Ministry of State Security in recent years?

I've read of a few missing persons in Hong Kong suspected of being put in the bag.

If I had to guess, Xi will not allow opposition and the temperature will be slowly increased over time in Hong Kong.

I believe extraditions will be allowed to Mainland China, openly legitimising what has already been done in recent years.

<comment><USER8> We don't know how many were taken discreetly (perhaps lesser known people), but the case that caused much concern was the bookstore owners disappearances [1].

Owners of a bookstore that sold PRC-censored books were taken to China secretly, trialed and convicted. One of them was even a Swedish national, but the CCP insisted he was "Chinese". He released a video "admitting" to his crimes of drunk driving a few years prior but his name in the records didn't even match his actual name, i.e. he was obviously forced to admit to a crime he didn't commit. Another one reappeared in Hong Kong, said he would take his family to China, praised Chinese living quality, and went back to China.

When the law is passed, the CCP doesn't need to abduct people discreetly anymore. They would simply order Hong Kong's officials to transfer them. In short, once this law is passed, no one is safe. Not even foreigners.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearances)

<comment><USER9> China could also use mainland family members as leverage, which might explain its otherwise-surprising influence over HK citizens outside its official reach. (Could they _really_ credibly threaten to abduct him a second time, with the whole world watching?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could wonder: why does the mighty bejing government care about these little provinces that dabble with democracy? Actually, Hong Kong and Taiwan are very dangerous to the mainland government. They harbour elites who keep values of democracy and freedom. Those elites potentially could be put into power in order to oversee democratization of China. Not saying that they ever will, but it's certainly a danger for them.

<comment><USER11> I didn't think Hong Kong was particularly democratic. Free market but doesn't it have system where the electorate votes for some seats and business interests vote for others?

<comment><USER12> Yes, basically (35 seats for "geographical constituencies", ie districts, and 35 seats for "functional constituencies", ie industries and the like).

The opposition used to get enough seats to hold the pro-Beijing camp in check somewhat (with veto power on constitutional reforms), but after the (entertaining, but ex post unfortunate) oath-taking controversy [1] in 2016, six members-elect were disqualified, after Beijing "interpreted" the Basic Law of Hong Kong to "clarify" it (as it is entitled to do under the Basic Law).

Now the one-thirds minority to block constitutional changes is gone.

EDIT to add: Still, it's much too democratic for China!

[1] Among the antics: legislators held a "Hong Kong is not China" banner, mispronounced "People's Republic of China" as "people's re-fucking of Chee-na" (the latter a derogatory term), and spent about ten minutes reading the 80-word oath in extreme slow motion.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Legislative_Council_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Legislative_Council_oath- taking_controversy)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9rDqvSP4AY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9rDqvSP4AY)

[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/03/11/pledging-allegiance- be...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/03/11/pledging-allegiance-beijing- purged-entire-generation-political-talent-legislature/)

<comment><USER11> Wow, watching the video that is a strong protest! Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good luck. China owns Hong Kong. Since the mainland gets to decide who runs in major elections, there is only an illusion of independence.

<comment><USER14> > _China owns Hong Kong_

Not yet [1], not technically. Hong Kong, through the UK, has legal redress in international law which would at least make overt subjugation politically costly for Beijing.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong)

<comment><USER15> > Hong Kong, through the UK, has legal redress in international law

The UK has gradually lost interest in ensuring that Hong Kong's Basic Law is respected. For the UK, fighting for Hong Kong would jeopardize its relationship with the mainland, which is much more important in terms of business and trade.

Plus, mainland China has become more assertive and its leadership claims that China is rising back up again after the colonial era kept it down – an era in which the UK played no small role, both in the Opium Wars and in holding Hong Kong as a colonial possession. That means that if the UK tries to really fight for Hong Kong, it will be attacked for acting like a meddling colonial power again. The UK is just too sensitive to the propaganda campaign that China could throw at it.

<comment><USER14> > _the UK has lost interest in ensuring that Hong Kong's Basic Law is > respected_

I agree. When I say through the UK, I mean through the UK's standing in international law. That gives Hong Kong the ability to petition various bodies and sue in certain courts. It also gives legitimacy to _e.g._ the U.S. taking it on as a cause.

TL; DR There are ways for Hong Kong to make an overt treaty violation costly to Beijing. Unless Beijing is concerned about an imminent threat to its legitimacy and power, it's unlikely to find those costs worth incurring.

<comment><USER16> And when you say 'Hong Kong' can sue, you mean its pro-Beijing government?

<comment><USER14> > _when you say 'Hong Kong' can sue, you mean its pro-Beijing government?_

When I sign contracts with a company, I negotiate against the imaginary dick who replaces the gentleman I know. Agreements outlast their signers. Politics can change.

<comment><USER17> The head of Hong Kong's government is elected via a council mostly consisting of business interests with huge incentives to keep the territory's main trading partner (China) happy. Any change to this would require amending the Basic Law, which only China is allowed to do. Nothing short of a coup would change the current situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> HK is slowly-but-surely heading towards full Orwellian Chinese rule. The handover was the beginning of the end, and all promises would be unenforceable and breached. It doesn't matter about petitionings through some international bodies, China could care less.

</comment><comment><USER19> It is hard to imagine what it must be like being a young person in HK.

Growing up with some semblance of individual liberty (small L liberalism) and then knowing it will be gone in your lifetime. It would have been better to always be under authoritarian rule... then you wouldn't know what you were about to go without.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hong Kong should just give up at this point. China is a million times more powerful and no foreign power is coming to save them.

Also, most major businesses have moved to Singapore as their APAC HQ since the China handover.

<comment><USER21> No, Hong Kong should lead the way.</comment></comment>


Logical - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/1901/ <comment><USER2> As usual, the XKCD has a grain of truth, but also sacrifices clarity in favor of zippy punchline impact...

You don't need to cite a study to determine lots of things. Reasoned debate, or logical discourse are enough.

Scientific authority is great for the physical sciences, but poor for other areas of inquiry. And soft science is rife with bogosity, non-reproducibility and misrepresentation.</comment>


Understanding Python Bytecode - <AUTHOR> http://security.coverity.com/blog/2014/Nov/understanding-python-bytecode.html

<comment><USER2> Nice overview of Python bytecode. Reminded me of the 'No Frills Introduction to Lua 5.1 VM Instructions'[1]. I have not seen a similar document for Python yet, is there one?

[1] [http://luaforge.net/docman/83/98/ANoFrillsIntroToLua51VMInst...](http://luaforge.net/docman/83/98/ANoFrillsIntroToLua51VMInstructions.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I don't think so; [https://docs.python.org/3/library/dis.html#python- bytecode-i...](https://docs.python.org/3/library/dis.html#python-bytecode- instructions) was the closest I found when I was writing a compiler for a subset of Python, and that doc was a little sketchy and out of date. I ended up consulting the CPython source a lot and reading some helpful blog series:

[http://docs.python.org/devguide/compiler.html](http://docs.python.org/devguide/compiler.html) [http://akaptur.github.io/blog/categories/python- internals/](http://akaptur.github.io/blog/categories/python-internals/) [http://eli.thegreenplace.net/category/programming/python/pyt...](http://eli.thegreenplace.net/category/programming/python/python- internals/) [http://tech.blog.aknin.name/category/my-projects/pythons- inn...](http://tech.blog.aknin.name/category/my-projects/pythons-innards/) [http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/category/python- intern...](http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blog/category/python-internals/)

Also Python 2 comes with a 'compiler' module which reimplements the built-in compiler in Python. (The real one is in C. The Python one was dropped from Python 3.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is this used for? This went right over my head.

<comment><USER5> The byte code here is an implementation detail of an interpreter for the Python programming language. Wikipedia seems to have decent coverage:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytecode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytecode)

Someone at Coverity would likely be interested in understanding it to use in analyzing source code. They use automatic analysis to find defects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "I came here to HAVE_ARGUMENT!"

"Oh! I'm sorry. This is abuse."</comment>


Google faces scrutiny from Congress, DOJ over plans to encrypt DNS - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/29/congress-doj-scrutinze-google-encrypted-dns/ <comment><USER2> > ISPs are trying to undermine the standard simply because they want continued > access to users' data, Erwin said. Unencrypted DNS helps them target ads by > tracking your web habits, and it's harder to thwart DNS tracking than > cookies and other typical approaches.

Is there any other serious argument against encrypting DNS? The only other one I heard was it makes filters harder such as child protection filters on the ISP level.

It would be very ironic if ISPs are successful in making our communications less secure by using anti-Google sentiment and anti-trust laws.

<comment><USER3> People say: "I'll just block it in my hosts file"

With DNS over HTTPS you can't. You can't even intercept DNS and reroute it to your own DNS server.

Suppose a device, let's say a RoKu (or many other) wants to use a DNS that you cannot block, it could use Google's DNS over HTTPS to a private name server of its choosing. Your DNS, and your hosts file doesn't matter. This makes it significantly harder to block anything (probably ads, but not necessarily only ads).

You could try to intercept these requests, but how do you know an HTTPS request is for DNS? And for what name it is being requested?

Taken further, a device, say an Apple TV, hypothetically, could even use a proprietary DNS protocol to talk to its own mother ship.

<comment><USER4> You could make the same arguments to say that these devices should be speaking HTTP instead of HTTPS for the purposes of allowing the use of a proxy to inspect, redirect, and provide custom responses for requests.

Ultimately if a device in your network is your adversary and you're giving it an open connection the internet then it's game over. If there was actually a significant portion of people who blocked ads with DNS vendors would have implemented DoT with certificate pinning a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am more concerned that they are using the idea that this "would give the internet giant an unfair advantage by denying access to users' data" as a pretext for "We will no longer be able to spy and spoof efficiently on our customers".

In my opinion, the telecoms and government give us a lot more reasons for concern than google. Its not in googles best interest to become known for censorship, customers will just use another browser and search engine (some already have), but you don't have the same degree of recourse with government and telecom control.

</comment><comment><USER6> After this and this [1] I must say I'm in favor of DoH.

I know for sure every major application/game on every device/platform will also hijack DNS queries with their own DoH client and redirect them to their own DNS resolver.

I know for sure that by the time OS implementations are here every application will already have their DoH client built-in up and running for so long nobody will no care anymore.

I know IPSs are just being lazy. I know they will bypass DoH in a couple of months by filtering IPs or deep package inspection or something else.

But is good to see them pissed of once in a while.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20358300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20358300)

</comment><comment><USER7> If DNS is encrypted, would that make it easier to route casual internet traffic through china, russia or another foreign nation which would have an easier time intercepting and monitoring communications without being noticed?</comment>


Introducing azk: an even simpler way to deploy to DigitalOcean - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/azuki-news/using-azk-to-deploy-an-application-to-digitalocean-4fe9a5db0356

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! We're a startup named Azuki and we created azk.

azk [0] is an open source development environment orchestrator for your local machine.

It is operated mainly via a CLI plus a manifest file (Azkfile.js) that describes architectures on a functional level (and the tool takes care of the rest).

You can quickly configure and start environments for new projects or for previously existing ones on top of which you'd like to iterate.

Everything runs on containers instead of VMs (currently, that means only Docker, but there are interesting additions on the way, such as hyper [1]).

It's really neat. Now, we've just added deployment features specifically for DigitalOcean at first.

You can check more azk tutorials on [2].

[0] [https://github.com/azukiapp/azk](https://github.com/azukiapp/azk)

[1] [http://hyper.sh/](http://hyper.sh/)

[2] [https://medium.com/azuki-news](https://medium.com/azuki-news)</comment>


When the RailsRumble told us we had to use Linode and Not Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://blog.onemonthrails.com/rails-rumble-linode-not-heroku/

<comment><USER2> Did you delete this post?</comment>


War on Leaks Is Pitting Journalist vs. Journalist - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/business/media/war-on-leaks-is-pitting-journalist-vs-journalist.html?ref=mediaequation&_r=1& <comment><USER2> The mud-slingers and paid character-assasinators of the world call themselves journalists, and the real journalists go by the names of assange, and greenwald.

<comment><USER3> You'd be surprised how many of our officials are elected solely on the basis of mud-slinging and character-assassinating. Presidential elections are notably limited to "he's better than the other guy."

"Would you have preferred McCain over Obama in '08? No? Then shut up."

"Would you have preferred Romney in '12? No? Then shut up."

Ad nauseum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the beginning of the predictable blowback from the tactics against The Guardian.

Everyone within the United States press is now starting to realize that they could be potential targets in future leak prosecutions. Watch as they push back, _hard_.

<comment><USER5> Except that it seems a lot of those in the press are actually against the leaks, and against the press that report upon the leaks. They have good relations with their government 'sources' and want to protect that relationship.

I think they should just leave 'independent' journalism and just sign on the government payroll as PR reps.

<comment><USER4> There's a complex symbiotic relationship between the government and high level journalists, especially with regard to national security issues.

It's not simply that they're government shills. Rather, there's a strong appreciation for the sensitivity national security stories inherently possess amongst traditional journalists. Often, these stories could cause war, regime collapse, and loss of life in ways remote and unconsidered by the journalist.

The ad-hoc system worked out by United States media outlets is to approach government officials prior to publication of certain sensitive stories. If anything could seriously damage national security or cause immediate loss of life, the officials will lobby the newspapers to remove certain pieces of information.

In most circumstances, journalists only agree to these edits when there is both immediate danger to specific persons, usually military or intelligence assets, that would be caused by the information, _and_ the information requested to be redacted is ancillary to subject of the story.

The reason so many in the media have had a viscerally negative reaction to Assange and Snowden is that they completely ignored this delicate back and forth, skipping straight to full scale publication. In essence, they did not follow the media establishment's rules for responsible journalistic disclosure.

The actions taken against The Guardian by the UK government marked a real sea change in the way the United States media is treating this story. Going after Greenwald? Sure, he was fair game, just a blogger with little to no editorial oversight from the paper that bore his brand.

But The Guardian is a full-fledged newspaper, and most certainly not fair game. United States journalists are now scared stiff. Smashing those hard drives suddenly invoked the narrative of attempted control and oppression that every professional journalist had drilled into them for years at university.

The blowback was immediate, swift, and severe. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post all plastered stories to their front pages about Miranda's detention within a few minutes. Overnight editors shifted their attitudes, and opinion pieces like this one spiked. Most significantly, The New York Times is now spearheading a series of stories based upon the Snowden disclosures, which will likely become the definitive investigation. This shift will take time to trickle down, since American establishment journalism is very elite-mediated, but the impact will be massive.

<comment> grey-area _The reason so many in the media have had a viscerally negative reaction to Assange and Snowden is that they completely ignored this delicate back and forth, skipping straight to full scale publication. In essence, they did not follow the media establishment 's rules for responsible journalistic disclosure._

That's not really true of Greenwald working with the Guardian, the Guardian editors have run each story past the authorities prior to publication, according to Alan Rusbridger and Janine Gibson. And the stories have been heavily redacted by them and Greenwald. I think they've been quite responsible, and Greenwald certainly has had editorial input from the Guardian, and is far from the only reporter there on this story, I think I've seen at least 10 other bylines. See this interview with Charlie Rose for details from the editors on their process:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdzzZB7Xgo](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdzzZB7Xgo)

I think it's more that the traditional press sense the end of an era and with it a huge erosion of their power and prestige - their monopoly on news is simply vanishing, and that creates some hostility to these upstarts who don't understand the rules of the game like Greenwald, wikileaks bloggers etc. and who are willing to completely forgo any access to government sources, and thus are in many ways more independent than the White House press pool.

It'll be great to see the nytimes running with this now that the guardian is giving them access, they did a really detailed synopsis of the story so far anchored on Laura Poitras recently which is really worth reading. I'm also really interested to see what she does with her film, perhaps it'll come out just in time for the elections!

<comment><USER4> Good points, I hadn't realized how involved the Guardian's editors had been in Greenwald's recent stories, especially since he retained sole editorial control over his publications in the past.

The way my friends in the journalistic world have explained it me was in terms of "breaking unwritten rules." The anti-leaker reaction seems very extreme for simple sour grapes, although I suppose it isn't wise to underestimate the reactionary posturing of an industry in decline. I have heard pretty detailed confirmation that the recent events at the Guardian have really altered the US press's attitude thus far.

It's odd to me they didn't redact the program codenames. Since the codenames are legal to know, as long as you don't say the underlying program to which they refer, they're commonly plastered all over unclassified presentations. Once you know the underlying technology, the combination of codename and context gives away a lot of information.

I've seen people spidering based upon the program names that were leaked so far. With a little bit of googling and clustering of results, they can figure out which programs relate to e.g. upstream collection.

That seems like a bonanza for hostile intelligence agencies, especially since they can add all of those codenames to KWS, and wait until someone accidentally slips and describes them in an open channel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll make it easy for you: those arguing _against_ leaks are not real journalists. If they were real investigative journalists, they'd know the importance of leaks.

<comment><USER7> That's true for people arguing against _all_ leaks, not for people arguing against _these_ leaks.

Many people think Manning was irresponsible in leaking what he did - I'm a supporter of his, and even I do to an extent.

On the Snowden/NSA side, I'm completely on his side, and think his leaking was a great thing to do. But that's still subjective. It's perfectly possible to hold the opinion that the NSA is doing the right thing, and that Snowden was wrong to leak it, without being against the concept of leaks.

<comment><USER8> I don't get it - How does the decision process of what leaks are OK go? Ultimately that's a paternalistic "I know better what's right" type approach. It also has a lot of "security by obscurity" type of arguments builtin.

I think a better approach would be to get a minimal set of "we agree this should be secret" approach and have everything else be open or leak-able. Support for what a group is doing should not depend on it being unknown, such support seems weak and abusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Journalist vs. Hack

</comment><comment><USER10> I think they mean "Journalist" vs. Journalist.

edit: in fact they outright say it in the article, except the opposite way:

"The larger sense I get from the criticism directed at Mr. Assange and Mr. Greenwald is one of distaste — that they aren't what we think of as real journalists. Instead, they represent an emerging Fifth Estate composed of leakers, activists and bloggers who threaten those of us in traditional media. They are, as one says, not like us."

This is honestly shocking to read in the nyt. I've been commenting to my friends that the nyt has been going down hill over the last couple of years, but this is kind of absurd. The idea that some how recording everyone's communications, or war crimes in iraq and afghanistan, is not news worthy is really sickening.

<comment><USER11> I'm a bit confused by your comment. What is shocking about the author's observation of those against the leaks? Are you shocked the observation came from someone in the NYT, or are you shocked that "real journalists" actually hold those beliefs in the first place?

> The idea that some how recording everyone's communications, or war crimes in > iraq and afghanistan, is not news worthy is really sickening.

I also don't think anyone is saying this, specifically, even the targets of the author's criticism. It seems more that there are a few that are against the means of the message, rather than the message itself. That sounds crazy, but it's likely a self-interested tactic to keep their lines of information open (insert "Government PR employee comment" here). Or maybe they genuinely believe classified leaks are dangerous, which I'm sure _can_ be true but I'd like to think they would have a little perspective on where the real danger lies.

Of course there are also a few who probably think the domestic spying is a net positive so it was morally wrong to reveal anything, and shame on them.

<comment><USER10> I think i understand what you are saying. Let me rephase...

That the likes of Gregory and Toobin are acting as they are is disheartening. Suppose David Gregory had been put in the position of Greenwald. I realize he was probably given his position as a "readjustment" from his predecessor, and perhaps he feels the need to play that role, but what kind of self respecting journalist would sit on the story that every american was having every communication recorded and saved. It seems a bit shocking, and frankly, unbelievable that one would pass up an almost certain pulitzer because... not even sure why.</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin: Hong Kong's MyCoin Disappears with Up to $387M, Reports Claim - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/hong-kong-exchange-mycoin-disappears-387m-reports-claim/

<comment><USER2> Ahh, the joys of total banking deregulation...

</comment><comment><USER3> Bitcoin exchanges are like the stock market with no regulation, which leads to things like this.</comment>