CSS Tip: Add Line Height to Body - <AUTHOR> http://allthingssmitty.com/2016/12/26/add-line-height-to-body-copy/ <comment><USER2> Line height isn't really solved by a one size fits all solution. Each font size should have it's own line height that is proportional to the size of the text.</comment>


Cascade – A library for creating modern user interfaces - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sjohnsonaz/cascade <comment><USER2> I think the benefits you're trying to provide are not in the CSS. But the major importance of any modern framework is to look beautiful - Apple's been proving this for decades.

I'm sorry to say the styling for [https://cascade.rocks/](https://cascade.rocks/) is really ugly. It's a bit like some forgotten ugly child of Bootstrap and Material Design. It's even worse than jQuery UI.

Please either switch to a Bootstrap or MD styling until you can find something better.

Failing that, go completely minimalist along the lines of [http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/)

Edit: spelling

<comment><USER3> Dude, the primary project isn't the CSS, it's the typescript framework. Plus my project got posted before its website was finished. Calm down and wait.

<comment><USER2> Read my first sentence - so yes I understood that it's not CSS. But you're not just claiming a 'typescript framework', you're claiming 'a library for creating modern user interfaces'.

I'm not telling you it's ugly just to annoy you, I'm telling you because I'm really interesting in creating user interfaces and so the first thing I look at is what it looks like.

I'd love to use it and being written in TypeScript is great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What makes a user interface modern?

<comment><USER3> It uses concepts behind other popular libraries such as React with Mobx, and Knockout, but refines their workflows where possible.

I'm in the process of converting previous projects to Cascade, and so far it has been easier to use.

<comment><USER5> A cascade to react comparison might be helpful in understanding what you're doing here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It definitely could be used to make a type of "shop" software, for like autobody shops, who seem to prefer that "old fashioned" look, as it has a database-type feel to it, but you are missing responsive design. Wouldn't be too hard to add a few media queries to deal with phones & tablets.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pushing a few examples and documentation this weekend.

To see it in use, take a look at Cascade Components, a library of common components.

[https://github.com/sjohnsonaz/cascade- components](https://github.com/sjohnsonaz/cascade-components)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for posting the -components followup, I had this question on my mind immediately - i.e. wonder, if there are more components.

Any chance I could convince you to add a slider (or knob) as a priority component? Sliders and buttons and knobs are nice, modern, user interface components that work well in various places ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My initial assumption that this was something to do with the design language formerly known as Metro...but seemingly not.</comment>


Ask HN: I shipped my first product, now what? - <AUTHOR>

Long time reader, first Ask HN. I shipped my first product www.jamaicanize.com. It may not appeal to most hackers but the site is getting a decent amount of visits/day. I appreciate all your comments :)
I've been testing new features but most users ignore them and go directly to the translator page (core feature). For instance, there was a dictionary page but it got less than 10% of the total visits.
At what point do I stop tweaking the layout, ad placement and move on to something else?
Thanks <comment><USER2> If you use punctuation, the page shows the encoding.

e.g. Hey%2c ow yuh doing%3f

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will look into it

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe you should fix any XSS vulnerabilities...

</comment><comment><USER4> how about /translate?url=<http://www.news.ycombinator.com/> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Would be fun but not beneficial form a user stand point. Most people just want to translate a few words, not an entire paragraph or page. Note that it is not an official language.

<comment><USER4> Google Translate would disagree..

<http://translate.google.com/translate_buttons>

..and the back-end would be trivial to code, even if you re-invent the wheel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> why is there a google ad on that page? did you at least try to pitch a sponsor like the jamaica tourist board

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not, but I'll take your advice an try a few Jamaican companies.</comment></comment>


'We Need to Break Her Down': Three Women Allege Harassment at Tech Startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-18/-we-need-to-break-her-down-three-women-allege-harassment-at-tech-startup <comment><USER2> That's an interesting phrase 'to break someone down'...I have heard it at least three times in my recent memory. One was said to me and twice, I heard others say about their employees(don't know their genders).

I asked one of them why they would say that..and..paraphrasing..they said that's how it's done in the military..and then the person asked me if I have seen Full Metal Jacket. At that point, I pretended that the cheese platter was calling me and drifted away.</comment>


How do you host your startup web app? - <AUTHOR>

This is a general survey.
What type of a hosting environment do you use/prefer for your startup web application, regardless of the OS, web server or technologies used?
Choices are:
1. Shared (100+ sites per server)
2. Semi-dedicated (10-50 sites per server, but resources are shared)
3. Virtual Private Server (VPS)
4. Dedicated
5. A custom solution (eg: clustered). Please mention below. <comment><USER2> My preference is either Dedicated or Custom Solution. When you're in the early phase VPS should do just fine for an affordable price. You can always upgrade with your provider and once the funding comes in move to a custom solution. Keep things in mind like how much access is needed to the server for custom application installation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good question...

VPS to start with maybe and then upgrade to a dedicated box. It all depends on the nature of the web app actually. Clustered arch provides better redundancy and scalability for high-performance apps. Normally a VPS or a dedicated box should suffice.</comment>


Vial-Http – Simple HTTP REST Tool for Vim - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/baverman/vial-http <comment><USER2> If you're into emacs there is something similar called restclient.el [https://github.com/pashky/restclient.el](https://github.com/pashky/restclient.el)

</comment><comment><USER3> I normally use VRC (Vim REST Client) for testing and debugging APIs from within Vim. [https://github.com/diepm/vim-rest- console](https://github.com/diepm/vim-rest-console)

Pretty sure VRC uses curl under the hood to perform all requests. It's great being able to use plain text within Vim to formulate and reuse API calls right next to your code.

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems very cool, but it's hard to imagine myself ever using this for anything. What use cases do you imagine this has or have other people found for something like this?

</comment><comment><USER5> Well done, it looks really neat, although I personally prefer the simplicity of just using curl in another tmux panel and keep Vim light.

<comment><USER6> If you're using Plug (not sure about other plugin managers) you can just load it on demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice. Currently building a new CRUD app, and debugging with curl. Ill have to try this out. The templating looks cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can we stop calling these "REST" tools? They're just HTTP clients/tools. There's nothing "REST" about them.

<comment><USER9> What's the big deal? Saying REST conveys the idea that it's for working with app specific JSON or XML over HTTP.

<comment><USER10> That's not what rest means, though.

<comment><USER9> Sure, you're right, but is it helpful to be so pedantic about it?

<comment><USER10> I mean, we're not talking about proper mime types here, we're talking about the basics. Rest, even restful, implies a lot of things. A generic http client doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had imagined this would be for neovim only... not so. This looks great!</comment>


MacOS security protections can easily be bypassed with 'synthetic' clicks - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/macos-security-flaw-synthetic-clicks/ <comment><USER2> The attack vector is not broad which makes the headline and story sensationalist.

Yes - plugins add risk because they are dynamic and have an uncontrolled upgrade path with potentially different or non-existent signing systems. That is why plugins and extensions are not allowed on the more-controlled and newer iOS.

I doubt this gets addressed very quickly - if anything it is easier and cheaper to audit all VLC extensions and introduce a signing system. Or to kill VLC's trusted cert/status altogether and treat it as a custom dev app - install-at-your-own-risk.

</comment><comment> java-man apart from a clever synthetic click, the takeaway from this story is -

"But a bug in Apple's code meant that that macOS was only checking if a certificate exists and wasn't properly verifying the authenticity of the whitelisted app."</comment>


Send Me Your Nominations for Algorithms That Changed The World - <AUTHOR> http://parlezuml.com/blog/?postid=771 <comment><USER2> This appeared here a few months ago; <http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~karp/greatalgo/>

I think I'll nominate FFT.

<comment><USER3> I was going to separately nominate back-projection for producing CAT scans, but its really another vote for the importance of FFTs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a little suprised nobody has mentioned the Simplex algorithm yet. I don't think it's importance in the history of optimization problems could be overstated.

Also: does the Monte Carlo method count as an algorithm?

<comment><USER5> Monte Carlo methods is a family of algorithms no?

I still haven't groked exactly what is so special about them. Incredibly useful, sure, but aren't they just simulations? Ie, isn't it something anyone would have come up with(sorry if I'm just ignorant here)?

<comment><USER6> They are the kind of obvious thing that many people would invent for themselves, yes. But the question was about algorithms that changed the world, not about non-obvious algorithms.

I would argue that in the case of Monte Carlo methods, computers are what deserve credit (for making obvious methods like Monte Carlo affordable) rather than the methods themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Finite Element Method.

The Fast Fourier Transform.

Max-Flow-Min-Cut. (Ford-Fulkerson)

Simulated annealing.

Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (the protocol used by ethernet)

And if it counts, dynamic programming, in its many variants. If it doesn't, Dijkstra's algorithm.

<comment><USER8> I have to second simulated annealing if only because it gets too ignored normally. It's a wonderful technique for attacking the optimization of intractable problems, and one that belongs in any good mental toolkit for optimization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> But the more I think about it, I'd have to give Dijkstra's shortest path routing algorithm my highest marks... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm> it probably was used to route this message to all you who are reading this... and also used in the routing of the board design on which your screen is attached.,,and is the basis of many other technology and efficient scheduling applications in common use today...

</comment><comment><USER10> Basic algorithms for arithmetic, when first originated thousands of years ago, have probably had a far more profound effect on the world than any recent computer-based algorithm. Particularly in accounting and engineering, they would have contributed to the ability to have economies that could support large civilizations. The earliest records found of ancient languages are sometimes accounting records.

Interpreting "algorithms in computing" more widely than the questioner meant of course. :-)

<comment><USER11> Algebra itself started out as a bunch of recipes for doing computations back in Babylonian times, "fathered" by Diophantus, and Al-Khwarizmi who named and codified Algebra.

<comment><USER12> I thought it was Al Jabar (or Al Jabbar) from whence we get the name.

<comment><USER13> Name of author: Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. Name of work: _al- Kitab al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-muqabala_ ("A Handbook of Calculation by Completion and Reduction").

John Derbyshire examines al-Khwarizmi's work in chapter 3 of _Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra_ [ISBN 978-0-452-28853-9], which I just finished reading a few days ago.

The first part of al-Khwarizmi's book concerns finding the roots of first- and second-order polynomials of one unknown. He classified the polynomials into 6 fundamental types, with all positive coefficients. Keep in mind, that negative numbers did not exist at the time, though subtraction did. He showed how to manipulate polynomials into a suitable one of the 6 types by adding a term (al-jabr, completing) or subtracting a term (al-muqabala, reducing).

Says Derbyshire, "al-Khwarizmi has no literal symbolism--no way to lay out equations in letters and numbers, no sign for the unknown quantity and its powers." The problems, the fundamental types, the procedures are all presented in words.

Interestingly, Diophantus 600 years earlier did addition and subtraction of polynomial terms using "a rich literal symbolism to aid the manipulations."

<comment><USER12> Thank you! I've been mistaken for years (I can't read the glyph myself, just took it from someone who I thought could).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The point in polygon problem for arbitrary polygons I believe was first solved by Robert Sedgewick and published in his awesome algorithms book... it is discussed here... <http://bit.ly/i1u1> In most computer applications today we assume we can easily tell whether or not a point is within (or without)... But I think Robert published the first algorithm on how...

<comment><USER11> Yea, Sedgewick. His books taught me algorithms. they are to the point, readable, and have working code.

<comment><USER9> Yes me too. I still believe that the godfather is Knuth: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth> think But as you highlight Sedgewick to me was more readable and applicable to the code I was writing in the early 90s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> PageRank, in least in terms of transfer of wealth (only one measure, but at least it _is_ a measure of impact on the world).

<comment><USER3> Is it a good candidate as an algorithm though? The novel part of pagerank is representing hyperlinks as a connectivity matrix and using the eigenvalues as search ranking. Finding the eigenvalues themselves was not new, and the rest doesn't seem as important in an algorithmic sense.

<comment><USER10> I don't want you to be right, but... I think you are right. PageRank is an application of an algorithm; seeing a problem in such a way that it can be solved.

I therefore instead nominate the algorithm which Pagerank applies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would nominate RSA.

<comment><USER14> I think it would be hard to argue that any other single modern algorithm had as much effect on the world as RSA.

<comment><USER15> MP3?

<comment><USER11> Discrete cosine transform and its variants gave us jpeg and mp3

<comment><USER14> Oh, you're absolutely right of course. I completely overlooked that. In that case, I think that the top two prizes should go to one Fourier transform related algorithm and one algorithm from public-key cryptography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quicksort: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort> The wikipedia article has a great visualization of the algorithm in action.

<comment><USER6> But how did it change the world? There are plenty of other usable sorting algorithms.

<comment><USER11> It did not change the world in the sense that pagerank did, but in 1961 it was an important contribution, because it was simple enough to lend itself to formal analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Deutsch-Jozsa Algorithm, while not immediately "practical" in the sense that it solved some real-world problem that had been vexing computer scientists, was instrumental in showing conclusively that quantum computers could be asymptotically faster than classical computers for some problems. This then led the way for more applied quantum algorithms such as Shor's Algorithm (itself a special case of QFT and period-finding algorithms). So I'd like to nominate DJA for an algorithm that changed the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few important ones:

Lempel-Ziv compression: Though it's hard to point to things that would have been impossible without it, it's saved so much transfer and storage capacity in its time that the economic impact would be huge.

Apriori association mining: Of fairly limited application, but it's use in market basket data has probably had quite a large impact on our retail sector for one.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd go with something like Reed-Solomon error correction. It makes CDs and DVDs work. Programmers have to be insulated from the flawed physical world and error correction codes do that.

</comment><comment><USER17> Consistent Hashing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistent_hashing>

</comment><comment><USER10> > please send me your nominations, pointing to ... _any evidence for its > impact_.

I think that's the hardest part of the question.

</comment><comment><USER9> russell... I would perhaps nominate bubble sort above quicksort...for us old timers, it was easy to understand, code, and install in our programs where ever we need a sort... bubble sort I would argue first brought sorting to our discipline.

<comment><USER11> Early in my career I implemented a cross reference function using bubble sort and was ridiculed by a Real Computer Scientist. I opted for quick sort, because I wasnt going to expose myself to that here. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm going to go for Long Division. Yes, I'm serious.

</comment><comment><USER14> Euclid's Algorithm

</comment><comment><USER19> Newton's method, Euler's method

</comment><comment><USER20> bayesian spam filter</comment>


Ask HN: Why do I never read about "Masers?" - <AUTHOR> Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (Maser) is the precursor to the Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is used for atomic clocks and is basically the same device now that it was in the 1950s.
Is there anything new or interesting regarding this device or is it a sort of "vacuum tube circuit" in terms of limitation of iteration?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser?wprov=sfla1 <comment><USER2> A long time ago when I was studying semiconductor lasers, I would periodically bump into maser literature in a lit review. It was all really old. We do use a whole lot of microwave cavity resonators today, although they're designed to cook food rather than radiate.

</comment><comment><USER3> With military conflicts moving into space, we may see masers mentioned again as a potential attack vector.

There are days, driving along streets filled with all too many of those LED advertisements, when I think about building a small one for the purpose of "turning off the lights." Never will, because law, bad things. But I think about it. And that thought makes me happy.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the use-case for this Responsive Web Design script? - <AUTHOR>

The script: http://viewportindustries.com/blog/automatic-responsive-images-in-wordpress/<p>If I load a site on my phone the screen isn't going to magically become bigger. If I load it in a browser, even if it's small, there isn't a problem with loading the bigger image. As I understand, the problem with Responsive sites is loading big images in bandwidth-restricted browsers. Why the need for ajax? Am I missing something? <comment><AUTHOR> It's a fantastic bit of coding, just wondering...</comment>


Ask HN: anyone doing an interesting fantasy football startup? - <AUTHOR>

I'd be willing to pay for a fantasy football service with an emphasis on analytics, especially if it has an API. I know about myfantasyleague.com and their API, and it's a start, but it appears to be focused mainly on managing leagues hosted on their service (drops, adds, standings, etc.). I don't need real-time feeds; I'm mainly interested in using historical player data to create a draft strategy, and to make my own weekly player projections.
Basically, what I'd like is a service that gives me an API to access the player data that ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, etc. use to make their predictions, so that I can make my own.
Is STATS the only source for this kind of information? <comment><USER2> I'd love the same thing. An API would be sweet! I think the problem with offering the data is the licensing fees. If I'm nit mistaken the nfl/pa has ownership of the data and any distribution has to be licensed by them? Anyone know if that's actual true?

<comment><AUTHOR> Recent U.S. court rulings against the MLB say that MLB statistics, at least, are public domain and can't be copyrighted:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_Media#MLBAM_vs._CDM_Legal_Case)

Note that soon after the MLB's ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court was not taken up by the Court, effectively ending that case, ESPN opted out of their multi-year deal with the MLB for the rights. Presumably ESPN still pays STATS for the compilation services, rather than compiling their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm actually working on something to address what I think are the major weaknesses of fantasy football as it's currently played. In the process of setting up a good scraper with an API. E-mail me if interested.</comment>


Apply HN: Design better experiences - <AUTHOR> http://www.xdesignsummit.com/ <comment><USER2> How does it scale?</comment>


A simple guide to responsive design - <AUTHOR> http://www.adamkaplan.me/grid/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm especially glad for discovering the "box-sizing: border-box" trick! I'm sure it's well known among full-time front-end devs, but as the sole developer in our company these days, it's really handy to find simple resources like this that share such important tricks.</comment>


How US students get a university degree for free in Germany - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32821678 <comment><USER3> French here, the tuitions are close to 0 in Finland and France too (granted that you learn French). Our parents pay up to 50% (I don't have the exact percentage) of various taxes based on their salaries and daily life goods, and we as children will do the same. It makes sense that our government rewards us in some way: health care for free, school for free, retirement... In Europe, the government avoids you to shoot yourself by managing part of your money for the well being of the society. In return, we may look less rich by looking at our bank balance. If you take a 3500 $ Swedish salary with all the taxes applied, your life level might be equivalent as a 7000 $ salary in US.

Beware not to overuse this trick. In the past many other European countries were accessible for virtually free. Until an army of Chineses came, studied for free for 5 years and went back to their hometown without any contribution to the society (taxes, intellectual contributions...). That's why Sweden granted recently the free access to only Europe citizens that anyway pay common taxes in their own country.

<comment><USER4> "If you take a 3500 $ Swedish salary with all the taxes applied, your life level might be equivalent as a 7000 $ salary in US." Completely agree.

I live and work in Manhattan. I love the city (!) But between Federal taxes, state taxes, and city taxes, the reality is that I pay over 40% taxes. Yet, I receive none of the benefits European countries offer their citizens: state sponsored healthcare, subsidized (and good) education, etc. It's a real shame because I think it reflects very poorly on us, as a "first world" society.

For those not from the area, a few figures to give you a sense of things: \- the truth is that public schools have a bad reputation. There are a few exceptional public schools (Stuyvesant, Hunter, Bronx Science), but they're highly selective and certainly can't fit every kid in the city. I know many who send their kids to private schools (>$30K or $40K per year in tuition fees) \- health insurance is tied to one's employer, and while some is subsidized by employer), it is paid out of employee's paycheck to a private insurance company.

So, yeah, taxes may be high in France, Germany, and many other countries, but there's some return.

Again, I love NYC and all it has to offer. Objectively, one has to be honest about the pros and cons living here.

Disclaimer: I am married to a European. Perhaps I've been drinking the kool- aid :-)

<comment><USER5> In countries like Sweden I think the tax cut is around 60%.

Also, Europeans don't have near as much military power, there's where your money goes :).

<comment><USER4> Countries like Sweden (or maybe it's the only one) also adjusts the fine for speeding according to one's income. If you make a lot, $250 fine isn't going to deter you from speeding. But $200K might (there's probably an upper limit?)

Looks like they're using their brains there...

Ok, I'm convinced -- anyone hiring in Europe? ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps we should send more kids to Europe for schooling to see how a civil society lives, then bring them back after graduating to fix the problems with America. win/win :)

<comment><USER7> Except we Europeans would pay for your kids education, and get nothing in return. Win/lose.

<comment><USER6> The kids of today grow up to become the leaders of tomorrow. If they grow up with a European worldview and come back to the US, that certainly couldn't be a bad thing.

<comment><USER7> I didn't think about this effect and probably it would have at least some positives. But I think most US leaders will come from Ivy League universities anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There should also be an article on how Asian (Indians, Chinese, Filipino, etc) students get graduate degree for free in the USA. Thanks US for my free Masters and PHD ;)

<comment><USER9> ermm... elaborate a bit more on this? please?

<comment><USER10> In science and engineering, PhD students are typically paid a salary and have their tuition waived. This is mostly funded by the federal government though the NSF, DOE, DOD, etc.

<comment><USER11> It's the same in Germany. Getting a PhD is basically a job.

<comment><USER12> In the US, getting a PhD is not a job. Everything below the faculty level is considered trainee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is the quality of engineering education in Germany these days? I quote Paul Graham:

"There don't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology.

In some countries this is the result of a deliberate policy. The German and Dutch governments, perhaps from fear of elitism, try to ensure that all universities are roughly equal in quality. The downside is that none are especially good." [1]

He goes on. Is this still accurate?

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/america.html](http://paulgraham.com/america.html)

<comment><USER14> He has a number of blanket statements ready about Europe, but Europe is a very diverse place, much more so than the US. Norway, Turkey, Russia, Luxembourg, the UK differ much more from each other than Alaska, Louisiana, Texas, New York, California.

In the end I don't think it has much to do with 'America' vs 'Not America', but with Silicon Valley having been the place where it started. You can't create a second silicon valley in Florida any more than you can in Germany. The startups go to Silicon Valley because that's where the investors are. The investors go to Silicon Valley because that's where the startups go. You can't create a second Hollywood, a second Mecca, a second Rome.

I don't think these things develop according to a plan. Perhaps a generation from now, the Chinese equivalent of Hacker News will mock American attempts to create a second Shanghai or Moscow.

<comment><USER15> Since when Turkey and Russia became "Europe"? Don't get me wrong - <USER2> both are super-interesting places in their own right, but including them into "Europe" is like including Mexico and Brasil into "America". Again, nothing wrong with those as well, they are just vastly different places, far outside of "education and taxes in US vs. that in EU" discourse.

<comment><USER14> I don't mean to be pedantic, but it's basic geography and history.

Russia has been part of Europe ever since it was founded in the middle ages. It only built an Asian empire from the 17th century onward. Russia is European in just the same way as the UK and France were before they lost their empires.

Turkey became part of Europe when the Ottomans started expanding into Europe, in the 14th century. Even today, the largest city in Europe is Istanbul, Turkey. Fun fact: Istanbul has more inhabitants than most EU member states.

I was responding to that 'paulgraham' article, and he consistently talks about 'Europe' (not the EU) like it's this one homogeneous blob.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "To cover rent, mandatory health insurance and other expenses, Hunter's mother sends him between $6,000-7,000 each year."

That's actually a little bit low for Munich. I think two or three times that would be more realistic to cover living expenses.

<comment><USER17> As an anecdote, i live on €6000 in Munich. It's definitely the minimum, but possible when living in university accommodation & and cooking your own food.

<comment><USER16> Impressive :-)

Actually I started out with 500€/month in Munich, but that was 22 years ago. And I ended up doing side jobs. Prices must have gotten up since then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To spare people the click after that dumb clickbait title:

Germany only requires tuition fees of ~30-100€ per semester* from any student, regardless country of origin.

* For administrative stuff and often includes public transit tickets.

Also, previously (today even): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9656905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9656905)

<comment><USER19> Oh man. 30-100€ per semester and not literally 0€ per semester? I feel so misled and cheated by that clickbait title. Do people have _no_ shame?

<comment><USER20> I don't think Mithaldu was simply being pedantic about the word "free".

<comment><USER18> Thank you for being the only one to understand that the word free was not what i was complaining about. The replies to my post have been both amusing and horrifying, and you are a shining light in a sea of shortsightedness. :)

<comment><USER21> Notice how both his, your initial and your second comment don't say anything else besides that the title is linkbait and that it says free where in fact you pay a very very small amount?

You might have been complaining about something else besides free, but information about what would that be is totally absent from your comments.

<comment><USER20> Possibly by "his" you mean me, so I perhaps owe an explanation. I thought the point Mithaldu was making was sufficiently obvious. Instead of a title signaling the contents of the article in a straightforward manner, a more sensational sounding title was chosen. A step along the path to "Click here to learn the one amazing simple free education trick expensive US universities don't want you to know about". But the responses to Mithaldu seemed to think he was quibbling about whether a trivial amount of money was the same as free or not. I didn't think he was, something he has subsequently confirmed. Hope that helps.

<comment><USER21> > _Instead of a title signaling the contents of the article in a > straightforward manner, a more sensational sounding title was chosen._

That's because the title should also get you to want to READ the article, and do it in 10 words or less.

But that doesn't mean it was click-bait and certainly not to the degree of titles like "amazing simple education trick" etc. If it was a "step along that path" it was a very very small step.

<comment><USER20> I have upvoted you, you make a good point. I commented originally because it was clear to me what Mithaldu was saying but others were misunderstanding his point. It was not really so much about whether his point is correct or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It only shows the American political establishment prefers a capitalist system that impoverishes white people rather than have a fair social system that has the side effect of benefiting blacks and latinos as well. Ditto Brazil.

<comment><USER23> You are mistaken, the American system is certainly not true free market capitalism. It is crony capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I work with someone who got a graduate degree in Germany. She simply can't believe anyone goes to college in the US without massive scholarships. From the student's perspective, I've come to agree.

<comment><USER25> Median household student loan debt - for those households carrying any student loan debt - is ~$13,000. That is not crushing. And keep in mind, that's for the whole household unit, the median student loan tally is even lower for individuals.

The median monthly household payment is $160, and the median ratio of income to payment is 4%.

The US has among the highest median incomes and median disposable incomes of any countries.

It's obnoxious that the cost of college has soared so much in the last 15 years, there's no question about that. However, it is still _very_ possible to get a high quality and fair priced education in the US.

Those popular media stories about people carrying $80,000 in student loans? That's in fact talking about a small fraction of all student loan situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I want to go to a _free_! country, like Cuba, I mean Germany, I mean the Unite States, I mean Russia, I mean Ecuador ... oh help me out guys.

</comment><comment><USER27> Sadly, I find the article to be fairly misleading. First of all, the living costs are far higher than they make you believe and then there is the "free degree" vs. "semester fee + x" debate that is actually very different from university to university in germany - and I believe they are oddly mistaken when it comes to the University of Munich.

Where I studied, the rent was 350-450€/month and the semester fee around 250-300€/term. True, the health insurance for students is incredible (~70€), but I'm not going to comment on what the BBC apparently thinks is reasonably in terms of "Groceries" and "Misc.", that's just seems weird to me. Bottom line, as a student you are not going to get by with 7k/year in Munich.

Oh, and hey, you need to get accredited at a university first, of course ;)

</comment><comment><USER28> The drinking age in the US is 21. This doesn't stop college students from drinking, it just means they can end up in trouble with law enforcement or the university authorities.

US students who study in Europe are free to drink without breaking the law.

Also, some would argue that Germany beer is better.

<comment><USER29> Also, binge drinking frat parties aren't a thing in Germany.

There are fraternities ("Burschenschaften"), but they're very different and far less popular. They tend to keep to themselves more and are less visible to non-member students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why in the world did I go to college in the US?? I hate that the US education system is so capitalistic and not out to provide for the citizens of this country! Wish I would've included colleges outside the US in my college making decision..

<comment><USER31> I think that a lot of the legal changes to student loan funding from the 90's are really showing their ugly heads today. They are exempt from a lot of protections other forms of debt offer. Not to mention the effect of widely available loans (and insurance for that matter) have on an industry's pricing structures. It allows for whole new paths of corruption, overcharging and overspending.

That's not to say every school operates like the University of Phoenix and the like... a lot of community colleges offer good education, while not being overtly expensive. Some universities and state colleges are a bit of a mix, and a lot of funding comes from various sources which bleed into expectations, costs and funding. That doesn't even go into scholarship programs and grants.

While I agree with the tenant that everyone should have access to higher education, I'm pretty sure that our approach should have been better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Truly shocking they haven't discovered "out of country tuition". That is the big scam here in the US, most of the state schools have out of state fee's that are 2x-5x as high as the instate ones. The excuse of course is saving money and how the students parents don't pay taxes (ignoring they pay taxes elsewhere).

The best part of course, is the lame/insane rules they come up with to determine if your instate or out of state. Mostly because in the US just having a utility bill from a rental or what not is enough to transfer a drivers license/residency. Amusingly enough, most of these states actually require in state vehicle registrations for said students in order to get the tax money...

<comment><USER33> Part of the reason for raising tuition is also to discourage out of state students from applying so that they can provide a relatively high quality of education to state's residences that is accessible to many of the state's residents. Georgia does this, as well as some other schools.

<comment><USER26> Most US states _used_ to do that. Now, at the least, the University Of California _prefers_ out-of-state and out-of-country just for the extra tuition and charges tuition that's not really accessible for in-state students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is it possible to do this for Canadian students? I don't see Canada listed on the admission assessment page.

<comment><USER35> Canada isn't state #51?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> See Argentina. Free college, university, med school, engineering, PHDs, doctorates, etc. Other problems though.

<comment><USER35> The best part, they have like 100 holidays a year. That's like 1/3rd the work everywhere else :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Pedantic tangent: saying Germany has "abandoned" tuition fees is not entirely correct.

Until a few years ago there were no tuition fees in public universities in Germany. In fact there still aren't any non-public universities, though there are private academies.

University education is also not as common in Germany as it is in the US: although more jobs require formal education and certification in Germany (e.g. if you professionally paint cars in Germany, you need a specific formal qualification to do so), there are long-standing trade-specific education systems that provide these, rather than universities. These are typically three to five year trainings consisting of an internship as well as formal schooling. Historically university has been more academic in nature, being considered to be more about higher education than a job qualification for the industry. In other words, someone with a university degree effectively has no job experience but may understand the higher-level concepts of the business domain (i.e. the "why") whereas someone with a non-university trade education has less high-level knowledge but a lot of hands-on experience (i.e. the "how").

Public universities only charge a comparatively low fee (typically around EUR 200-400), which mostly covers services provided by the university's student union who also often negotiate deals like public transit tickets (which are then paid from the student union's cut). The student unions are thus able to adjust the fee to provide additional services but generally puts decisions which would result in higher fees up to a direct vote by all enrolled students. The decision-making council is also directly elected by the students (which has resulted in a political microcosm that is quite similar to the government-level political parties).

A few years ago, Germany officially adopted the Bachelor/Master system because various European nations decided to standardize higher education degrees across Europe. The general argument for doing so was that it made degrees from different countries more comparable and thus reduced the HR headaches for internationally hiring companies.

Shortly after the BA/MA switch, Germany changed a law that previously prohibited tuition fees in public universities so it only specified a cap of EUR 500 per semester (on top of the existing baseline fee). This was officially part of an initiative to raise the quality of education, along with funding for universities that were trying to create "elite" faculties (i.e. specialising). Officially this would not result in reducing the government spending on universities but it was an open secret that the cap would be raised over the next years as tuition fees gain more acceptance and thus allow the government to slowly pull out their funding to make universities more independent. Officially it was also predicted that most universities wouldn't set their tuition fees to the legal maximum.

Predictably, the vast majority of universities introduced tuition fees at exactly the legal maximum (EUR 500 on top of the existing fees). While EUR 700-800 is still "low" by American standards, it effectively meant an up to 3x increase many students couldn't easily afford. To add insult to injury, the universities' invoices would often contain ads by state banks offering student loans at "reasonable" terms (i.e. lower-than-average interest and they'd pay the tuition fee for you so you continue to only have to pay the baseline fee yourself, giving you the illusion that nothing has changed until you graduate or drop out and suddenly have accrued quite a bit of debt).

It should also be noted that culturally, Germany is a nation of savers, not loaners. While most students were previously able to graduate with no debt at all (except for a public grant known as BAFöG which covers up to 100% of the baseline fee with only the difference accumulating as debt) the tuition fees threatened to change that entirely.

Also predictably, the students reacted quite vocally. There were lots of protests all over Germany and the way most universities handled was a bit upsetting because it violated the silent historical agreement (established by precedent after the famous 1968 student protests) that university disputes are handled non-violently by the university and its students, not by riot police.

After spending a few months explaining to students that tuition was here to stay and that EUR 500 per semester is entirely negligible (to quote the head of the University of Cologne: "just drink one less beer a day" \-- I should probably add that binge drinking frat parties are less of a thing in Germany), some universities finally dropped the tuition fees, resulting in a slow cascade as the growth of applicant numbers shrank for those universities that still maintained non-zero tuition fees.

Nowadays, I don't think any university still charges tuition fees. I'm not sure whether the government intervened at some point and repealed the act that allowed them in the first place or whether it was entirely "voluntary" but they're effectively gone now.

It's important to recognize that the outrage was less about the specific sum -- while a 2x-3x increase in cost can be world-changing for low-income students, it's still manageable, especially if you can stomach taking a loan (or are poor enough you don't have to pay the fees at all). The more important thing was that it created a slippery slope. The only reason the tuition fee was that low was that it was the legal maximum. Adjusting that maximum would have been politically much easier than passing the act that allowed the fees in the first place, especially if the increase is gradual.

A change from zero to a low value is much more intrusive than a change from a non-zero value to a higher value. Introducing tuition fees set a precedent that created a potential path to US-level costs while also turning student debt from an exception to the norm. The UK is a good parallel (tuition fees were introduced in 1998 with a legal maximum that has been increased several times since).

Yes, dear Americans, the US is considered the negative example by German students -- although German politics and industry of course fawn over the quality of elite universities in the US (while ignoring that the quality of German universities compares favourably with non-elite universities in the US).

<comment><USER37> You offer great additional information (the basics of this are all included in the article). Just another additional remark: None of the administration fee goes to the university itself, it is divided between the students and the Studentenwerk (which is separate from the university and organizes things like dining halls).

<comment><USER29> Also, several universities were risking fines because they collected the tuition fees but never used them for anything.

Part of the problem was that tuition fees were legally required to be used only in certain ways ("Verbesserung der Qualität der Lehre", literally "improving the quality of education") but most of the new projects the universities actually started were changes to the administration or constructing new buildings (including lecture halls) rather than hiring more teachers or actually improving the education.</comment></comment></comment>


BP ignored safety software model to save time, oil spill investigators find - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3250509/bp-ignored-safety-software-advice-to-save-time-oil-spill-investigators-find/

<comment><USER2> I can't say I'm surprised by any of it. This is the sort of thing you see in every engineering industry, from software to chemical plants. Its always tempting to skimp out on the additional safety measures, especially when one has skimped out them before without any consequence. I would be highly surprised if the Deepwater Horizon was the first rig to seal a well without the requisite number of centralizers.</comment>


Make Love, Not Flamewars - <AUTHOR> http://bitquabit.com/post/make-love-not-flamewars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bitquabit+%28bitquabit%29

<comment><USER2> It's because we [developers] are highly opinionated people and [most of us] love to be "right". Some people have a hard time understanding other people might not think the same - and in cases when they don't know how to express their feelings - you get name calling.

<comment><USER3> General truth right there sir.

Maybe there is a correlation between developers and math? Since I'm guessing many developers might have a CS background that involves a lot of Math, Statistics, Physics, and of course Programming. These subjects require people to answer things correctly hence subconsciously create a habit of being "right".

<comment><USER4> You are probably right, and it's odd because if I've learnt anything from my time in science research, it's that science isn't like your school homework or undergraduate exams where there is a right answer. I find the notion that there is some absolute Truth which science expounds not to be useful. A useful thing is to be less wrong and to have a good handle for all the ways in which one might be through assumptions, approximations, systematic uncertainties and so on. The wider relevance of all this is the recognition that technical decisions involve some sort of trade-off and are not necessarily the end of the story. In science it's a healthy thing to have different approaches or formalisms because it gives some confidence in the results if they agree. I don't know if that has any wider relevance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _I have a solution.

Instead of talking about why you are better than the other guy, let's focus purely on why your system of choice rocks. That's it._

Nice diagnosis; useless solution. Tool quality is relative. Fast, easy, safe, these are relative terms. Take me back to 1995, and CVS would be my best friend. Repositories rarely get corrupted, and when they do, they're easy to fix! For 1995 values of "rarely" and "easy", at least. Standards are different now because better competitors have emerged.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like to think that promoting what you currently use gains more traction for what you use in terms of; community, documentation, features, demand, etc.

Applies to all languages and software.

But yeah, the immaturity with using fallacies (especially ad hominem) to argue puts me off and it doesn't help with the general community votes for it.

Some links for those who wish to know how to debate like an intellectual:

<http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html>

<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy>

</comment><comment><USER7> relevant: how to disagree:

""" After he has said, "I understand but I disagree," he can make the following remarks to the author: (1) "You are uninformed"; (2) "You Are misinformed"; (3) "You are illogical - your reasoning is not cogent"; (4) "Your analysis is incomplete." """

[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&lpg=PA154&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&lpg=PA154&vq=disagree&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q=i%20understand%20but%20i%20disagree&f=false)

With this in mind, I think saying "I love mercurial" without at least referencing git, the more popular DCVS, will be less convincing since anyone can say, "Your analysis is incomplete - haven't you tried the most popular DCVS?"

<comment><USER8> I agree: the issue with "I love X" as a pure statement is that it has nothing to do with why we argue on the Internet.

Debating a topic is supposed to enrich us on that subject. I have changed my opinion on things before, based on Slashdot comments (this was way back), and now based on HN comments.

Of course, there is also the need to portray ourselves as clever. That's the real driver for flamewars: sophistry.

But saying "I love X" does nothing for either cause. People interested in rational decision-making are not engaged; trolls are not discouraged; and newbies are not educated on how to argue better.

(edit: fixed a run-on sentence)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am utterly offended, DOS is awesome. Esp for embedded devices where the OS and the application are the same thing. Less complexity leads to more stability.

Flame wars are the most virulent when the enemy is extremely close to your position but doesn't take it. Emacs and VIM, essentially the same. Mercurial and GIT, again, the same. If the differences are too far apart the whole argument becomes, meh.

meh.

<comment><USER10> Fair enough, so let me remind anyone who wants a very thin OS for embedded x86 applications that FreeDOS (<http://www.freedos.org/>) is a great DOS for the purpose.

<comment><USER9> Although I haven't used it, there is a version of Python for DOS, <http://www.caddit.net/pythond/downloads.php> but Lua might be a better choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Relevant, focus on the positive outcome instead of a stupid futile private little war that only distracts people from doing great work with whichever freaking tool they needed to use in order to achieve it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apparently there are many good arguments for Mercurial, and many bad arguments for mercurial. The author says:

"These questions matter. And they've been answered, very eloquently, many times."

I've used CVS, svn, bzr, and git - I'm still a newbie on those last two and therefore persuadable - so where do I read these Hg answers? Seriously, I'm not doubting that they exist, but I'm getting the impression that google results will be polluted, and I'm not sure even the most beatific tweet stream is going to pull me in; but I will peruse the tweet recommended <http://hginit.com/>

Seriously, where are the issues carefully explained and addressed?

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, saying "I love mercurial" without some mention of why you aren't using git, which is more popular, will seem like an incomplete argument. Not using what most others are using has drawbacks, so some justification is needed. But it is true that spending too much time promoting something in terms of its competition can weaken the argument. A tough road for the underdog; try explaining why you are excited about android tablets without mentioning the ipad 2 :)

FWIW I love hg and android.

<comment><USER13> _Not using what most others are using has drawbacks, so some justification is needed._

This is only true in the open source world and then only in one corner of it. Subversion is still, by far, the most used version control system in the enterprise.

And why should someone have to argue why they _aren't_ using git? If he loves Mercurial, great! He doesn't have to explain why he doesn't use _every other_ version control system in existence.

<comment><USER7> Good question. I think git is so relevant to the mercurial argument since it is distributed, so if you are saying why you love mercurial, at least acknowledging git will strengthen your argument, as it is the most popular DCVS. Without that mention, readers might falsely think you are uninformed and haven't heard of or tried git.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That won't make a lick of difference. Any statement of the form 'X is great, because ...' or 'I like X, because ...' will be interpreted by a bunch of people as 'He means Y, which I love, is not great and is lesser than X. Otherwise, he would be using Y. He must obviously think it sucks, which shows what an idiot he is'. And the stage is set.

People can't help themselves. They want to defend their choices, even when their choices aren't under scrutiny. They will follow up with a fallacy or two and they start arguing from positions that are so ludicrous that even with the best initial intentions you forget to point out the fallacies they must obviously have committed to arrive at their starting point and just start refuting them. That way, they suck you in.

Only if there are sufficiently many people in a community resistant to this kind of trolling, pointing it out to each other and refraining from feeding the trolls, only then can sensible discussion come about. But it's hard not to get sucked in. It reminds me of David Foster Wallace's speech about being aware of the water that you are in: it's hard work and requires an amount of self-awareness that can be exhausting.

<comment><USER15> _That won't make a lick of difference. Any statement of the form 'X is great, because ...' or 'I like X, because ...' will be interpreted by a bunch of people as 'He means Y, which I love, is not great and is lesser than X. Otherwise, he would be using Y. He must obviously think it sucks, which shows what an idiot he is'. And the stage is set._

Nobody forces you to pander to these people's neuroses. _You are not the troll whisperer_. This over here is my favourite interview question. That over there is my favourite line of Ruby code. This is my favourite book. I wrote blog posts about all of these subjects and attracted exactly the responses you describe. But I was happiest when I ignored the people who had an agenda of arguing about their favourite interview question or their favoruite line of code or their favourite book.

Nobody compels you to play their game. So don't.

<comment><USER16> By choosing a favorite, you cannot help but choose an infinitude of not- favorites. With a high-traffic blog such as yours, it's near certain that some people will believe you've shown yourself to be an idiot by missing a superior choice. Neuroses may be at work in some cases, but it's arrogant to assume that all who disagree with you are neurotic.

<comment><USER15> Choosing to believe something about what I believe based on my expressing my like for something is not neurotic. ASking me to explain myself or seeking further information about my choices is certainly not neurotic. Choosing to believe I'm an idiot because you like something else and because I didn't attempt to intellectually bludgeon you into agreeing with me is _____, but it's not neurotic.

But someone getting so invested in what they think that a stranger believes, such that they have to start a flame war? And expecting that I have some sort of obligation to their egocentricity such that I _must_ respond to their questions?

Well, I'm not a psychologist, so the odds are strongly against this being clinically neurotic. But it isn't for me, and I don't feel a compulsion to play along.

p.s. Again, this isn't about people's right to believe what they want to believe. I'm ok with people believing I'm an idiot. They may be right! But what I'm talking about is whether I have to respond. I don't. I also don't have to worry about it when I write such that I try to deflect criticism or protect my reputation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any Java library/framework for consuming REST API in CLI? - <AUTHOR> Hi. We are creating a REST API and we need to create a simple app for command line interface to use it.
For example;
app_rest_url/user/username gives the detail of the user
"app_cmd user username" should print the details.
Is there any framework or library for this specific purpose? <comment><USER2> [https://square.github.io/retrofit/](https://square.github.io/retrofit/)</comment>


RIAA to .ORG Registry: Take down ThePirateBay - <AUTHOR> http://blog.easydns.org/2016/06/06/riaa-to-org-registry-take-down-thepiratebay/ <comment><USER2> If their argument holds in court, wouldn't this mean that they could go after Google too, on the premise that if you add "Torrent" to your search request, it directs you to illegal content and that (according to their skewed logic) this would imply that Google "contains or promotes" illegal material/activity.

The internet contains and promotes everything.

<comment><USER3> Google does comply with DMCA.

Google is not setup explicitly for the purpose of finding pirated material.

The pirate bay is. And it's pretty obvious from the name too.

I don't see how their logic is "skewed".

<comment><USER4> How do you mean The Pirate Bay is set up explicitly for finding pirated material? Where does that come from? They are set up for finding torrents. Torrents can be and often are completely legitimate. Sometimes they contain pirated material, but even that material is never in contact with TPB site.

About the name: Yes, it contains the word "Pirate". It doesn't mean that the actual pirates are there. Also, Amazon is a legitimate online store, not a river with a surrounding jungle. Kayak does not sell kayaks, and Apple is not about apples at all.

<comment><USER3> Don't talk to me in legalese. I'm not a judge nor a lawyer. I'm not a policeman or a law enforcement agent of any type.

We all know what TPB is for.

<comment><USER5> We all know. However, this is a legal issue. To my knowledge, TPB has never explicitly stated an illegal intent.

Google indexes both legal and illegal content, and the same goes for TPB. Some examples:

Legal: [https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/14396611/ubuntu-16.04-deskt...](https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/14396611/ubuntu-16.04-desktop- amd64.iso)

Illegal: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=game+of+thrones+s06e07+goo...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=game+of+thrones+s06e07+google+docs&oq=game+of+thrones+s06e07+google+docs)

Illegal: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1080p+google+docs](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=1080p+google+docs)

<comment><USER6> >Google indexes both legal and illegal content, and the same goes for TPB.

The difference is that the DMCA says it's okay _as long as you take it down when you get a DMCA notice_ , which Google, but not TPB, does.

<comment><USER7> Without taking sides regarding the original issue, it's incredible how many people consider US law as universal law without any further thought.

<comment><USER6> When TPB claims to be DMCA-compliant, that's what we're judging them on.

<comment><USER8> Given that TPB doesn't actually host any content that _could_ be taken down by a DMCA notice - they _are_ DMCA compliant.

Their response to "take down links to this hash" is "you don't own that hash" which is true.

<comment><USER6> >Given that TPB doesn't actually host any content that could be taken down by a DMCA notice

Which has not been established by any precedent yet, as far as I've been able to tell.

>Their response to "take down links to this hash" is "you don't own that hash" which is true.

That's not the responses they've given before. (see [http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal- responses/](http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/))

<comment><USER8> The legal precedent is the DMCA itself - it can't be used against things the person doesn't have copyright over. It's quite specific actually.

Those hashes are not what they have ownership of.

Now if you meant hat they want to _expand_ that law... well yes, but that's different.

<comment><USER6> Claiming that your untested interpretation of the law says something does not make precedent. This particular argument hasn't yet made it to court, but torrent cases have, and torrents are basically just more detailed hashes of each section of a file. Your argument would imply that torrent files are also legal, and yet Isohunt and others have lost in court over them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The general legal precedent here as I see it is that domain registrars are generally not liable for content hosted on domains they sell, nor are they responsible for enforcing them. They usually will cooperate to take down sites if they are obvious phishing attacks, or if there is a court order, but abuse management through this channel is very rare.

More often than that, they refer any reports to the owner of the IP address the domain is pointing to. The "entry point" for almost all abuse (DMCA/phishing/whatever) reporting is whomever holds the abuse contact for the owner of the IP addresses. They simply do a lookup on the IPs with ARIN (or APNIC or RIPE depending on where the IPs are managed), and then email that abuse contact.

We've had plenty of issues with this approach, now that Neocities hosts a lot of sites. I've recently acquired an IP block largely for the purpose of having control over this abuse contact, so that we can directly receive abuse emails. Some providers also do SWIP, which allows you to be the contact for a specific IP address in their block, but not all providers will do this (Ramnode does - DigitalOcean does not. I don't think Google Cloud or AWS do this either, but let me know if they do). Bigger organizations that need this level of control go this route - you'll note that even companies like Uber use their own IP addresses instead of throwing it up on a cloud providers'.

If you're planning to host a lot of user submitted web sites or content, this isn't the easiest/cheapest route, but it's the route you want to seek. I'm available for consulting on this if you'd like to pursue this for your organization, I've become quite the expert on the topic out of necessity. :)

<comment><USER10> FIY: at some point we owned a /22, but it was statically routed to us by our upstream ISPs. They would send sometime bogus DMCA noticed to our ISPs (they did not even bother sending them to us, since they knew the notices were defective- they were looking for an easy target). Only when we became our own ISP and started BGP routing with our upstream, they we actually got a handle of our abuse contact. This is necessary for any site with a lot of user generated content these days. So now they are fishing for a new easy target- the registrars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> >TPB is DMCA compliant

I thought they explicitly weren't. See [http://beebulletin.com/hilarious- pirate-bay-legal-responses/](http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay- legal-responses/), or [https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca- an-opt...](https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-option- for-torrent-sites-160131/) (from earlier this year) "The Pirate Bay has refused to take anything down on copyright grounds from day one and yet it remains up today."

Is there any other indication that TPB has begun obeying DMCA requests, or are they lying?

<comment><USER11> Compliance with the DMCA requires removal of infringing content. TPB does not host infringing content. Thus, they're vacuously compliant.

<comment><USER12> How is hosting magnet links that let you download copyrighted material not considered hosting infringing content?

<comment><USER13> Google host entire books that are still known to be in copyright without getting the author's permission; that doesn't according to the courts count as copyright infringement. But we're expected to think that hosting content metadata is [contributory] copyright infringement?

Gun manufacturers are murderers in such a world.

<comment><USER14> Just to play devil's advocate, gun sales are regulated in one way or another in many places. Permits, background checks, waiting periods. The pirate bay, in many ways, acts more like a gun runner than a gun manufacturer. They don't create the content, they just make it available and try to skirt regulation through a technicality or even direct non-compliance.

<comment><USER15> So like the HN darling Uber?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those who haven't seen them (I don't know when it was taken down), TPB used to have a quite funny list of legal demands and their replies: [https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepirateb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepiratebay.org/legal)

</comment><comment><USER17> Just bookmark [http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion](http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion) and don't care about it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Time to take down RIAA.

<comment><USER19> That's a terrible plan, or at the least something you shouldn't post online.

<comment><USER18> There must be a lot of entirely legal means of doing so. They overreached their authority enough for a proper punishment.

<comment><USER19> I should have put a winky face beside it indicate I was being coy not serious. I think all comments are interpreted to be super serious. I almost made a comment about just saying something like that putting you on their "list", but I am sure that's silly, they probably don't have lists.

;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> moving my business to easydns!

<comment><USER21> Really? Did you read the whole article?

"We aren't talking wikileaks here, this isn't a free speech or a whistelblowing issue, it's a due process issue. Bittorrent sites expecting some kind of safe refuge on easyDNS believing we would approach the situations they get us into under the former would be severely mistaken."

<comment><USER11> That's an entirely reasonable response. They allowed TPB because TPB very specifically noted how they maintain compliance with easyDNS's policies. They wouldn't necessarily support an arbitrary torrent provider on principle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's probable that this is a good use for the Bitcoin blockchain. Uncensorable DNS. I don't think many sites need that, but it's probably a good thing to have as a browser extension for those that do

</comment><comment><USER23> Always admire 'go f#=%# yourself' statement expressed in a polite way

</comment><comment><USER24> Google is worse than the pirate bay considering they _profit_ from pirated material.

<comment><USER25> TPB has ads. They profit plenty as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well put, and fully agree! Thanks for stating this so clearly.</comment>


An introduction to SCSS - Your style sheet on steroids - <AUTHOR> http://www.dzyngiri.com/?p=802

<comment><USER2> We use SCSS where I work. If you're thinking about starting with it, I'd advise against that because the sass binary causes me a lot of problems. I like the language and the concept is good, but the implementation is a constant thorn in my side. All this expressive power rules, until you're driven to frustration just getting the damn thing to spit out a stylesheet.

I don't know this field very well, but perhaps a more mature CSS preprocessor would be better, or just hold off until this one isn't such a nightmare (no idea when that will be). Just my two cents.

<comment><USER3> I'm just curious, what problems have you faced with SCSS?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Spoiled.tv - <AUTHOR> https://www.spoiled.tv <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I've been working on this project for the past few months. It's a website that allows movies and TV shows to be explained frame-by-frame. To see some concrete examples check out:

Citizen Kane explained: [https://www.spoiled.tv/orson-welles-citizen-kane- explained](https://www.spoiled.tv/orson-welles-citizen-kane-explained)

Rick & Morty explained: [https://www.spoiled.tv/rick-and-morty-pilot- explained](https://www.spoiled.tv/rick-and-morty-pilot-explained)

The hardest job has been adding more spoilers (which I'm very much still doing) because it's hard transcribing them from Wikia or IMDB and finding the correct timestamp. Please let me know what you think!</comment>


Veles – A new age tool for binary analysis - <AUTHOR> https://codisec.com/veles/ <comment><USER2> Been looking for something like this for years. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here :D _nods in the general direction of Kaitai Struct_

<comment><USER2> Also very interesting. Please post more often, really appreciate being exposed to a different way of thinking about development tools.</comment></comment></comment>


Mibbit access to freenode disabled and new freenode webchat - <AUTHOR> http://blog.freenode.net/2009/06/new-freenode-webchat-and-why-to-use-it/

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=665230></comment>


Carol Bartz to be named new Yahoo CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/13/wsj-carol-bartz-to-be-named-new-yahoo-ceo-is-that-a-good-thing/

<comment><USER2> I don't know much about Bartz but I've always been impressed with Autodesk, or rather the products 3DMax, Maya and the pro video tools.

Max is the first product I'd heard of where the developers were not tied to an office, they were all over and met once a year. When Autodesk bought Maya many thought it would be merger slash and burn but both 3D products are important in the market and have ongoing impressive development.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is really the best they can come up with? I know _dont judge a book by its cover_ , but i'm just not seeing it:

\- No experience with an advertising startup \- Old school software background \- Too chummy with existing problem team of decker + yang \- Not sure where the innovation will come from here

Maybe this is what Yahoo! needs, but I just see even more bureaucracy developing. They pissed joshu off enough that he regretted selling to them and went to Google. Do you understand how hard it is to piss someone off after you've given them 15+ million dollars?

I'd much rather have MSFT in control of yahoo. Zero doubt about it.

<comment><USER3> how does that comment warrant downvoting -3 points? It's insightful criticism with some logic behind it. I'm fine with downvoting, but at least give me some feedback with a good argument.

<comment><USER4> There's no argument to refute and no data to back it up. You didn't even know who Carol Bartz was an hour ago.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I see a lot of commenting like this on HN lately. People who comment to feel superior rather than to enlighten others. I realize that Yahoo's doing poorly these days, and management has made a string of blunders. But believe it or not, that doesn't mean that everyone's half-assed opinion about what Yahoo should do is worth reading.

<comment><USER3> Hey Neil,

I've known who Carol is for a while. She's awesome in her field. If you told me she was taking over Adobe or even MSFT, which has some software DNA, I'd be excited. She's grown a company as well with autodesk to new heights. The facts are pretty clear, but they are there to support my _opinion_.

I can agree, hacker news has a lot of people trying to feel superior with a snarky comment rather than enlighten. I was not trying to be one of those people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope she's able to reinvigorate yahoo, but speaking from general ignorance about the person (other than her published resume) this seems like a very conventional hire, just like using heidrick was conventional, and just like most every yahoo product is currently conventional. nothing wrong with that, just doesn't strike me as the kick-start, explosive action yahoo's been trying to convince everyone it's been in the process of making to turn itself around.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I dunno about anyone else, but to me...this doesn't look like a person who can fix Yahoo. Are we really supposed to believe that this is the BEST person on the entire planet to run Yahoo?

Her only quality it seems, is that she looks hot for a 60 year old

<comment><USER6> _Her only quality it seems, is that she looks hot for a 60 year old_

How utterly obnoxious. How many industry-leading software companies have _you_ run for 14 years?</comment></comment>


Show HN: No Ads. No Permissions. Just Drums - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gk.sequencer

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a native android Drum Sequencer built to sound like the historic Roland TR-909 with a modern composing interface. Check it out on Google Play!

</comment><comment><USER2> You should probably use the prefix "Show HN:" since you are promoting your own project.

</comment><comment><USER3> Super fun! I am impressed with the multi-touch support on the "live" mode. If only the sequenced track would continue on in the background while in live mode though...

<comment><AUTHOR> When testing on my own phone the background sequence continues to play! What kind of phone do you have?

<comment><USER3> It's an LG Volt. Seems like it is always running out of memory, so that could have something to do with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats unfortunate. It looks like that phone has 1GB of ram. I will try to optimize the performance of playing live sounds with a sequence in the background to need less memory but it might take a while. Hopefully it goes out in a future update sometime. Thanks for trying it out though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A really cool enhancement to this would be if it had an option to evolve the selections each measure according to the rules of Conway's Game of Life.</comment>


Photon: high performance PHP/Mongrel2/ZeroMQ micro framework - <AUTHOR> http://www.photon-project.com/

<comment><USER2> If you find this interesting, you might also be interested in DripDrop( <https://github.com/andrewvc/dripdrop> ), which is an alternate approach to the fusion of ZeroMQ, HTTP, and WebSockets.

It's not a general purpose web server, but targets message passing applications that must move between transports. For instance Browser <-> Web Socket <-> ZMQ is easily possible in it.

It's based on ruby eventmachine (no external daemons needed), and lets you seamlessly pass messages between all three protocols, leveraging the differences of each in interesting ways.

Additionally, it's got tools to help you build isolated components that communicate via messaging only (preferably ZMQ). If you keep this in mind from the start, it can substantially help when it comes to scaling out.

Lastly, we're working on Mongrel2 support as a front end.

<comment><USER3> I don't know DripDrop (nice name), but messaging is really the way to go. For example with Photon or any system really embracing the message passing approach of Mongrel2, you can get an HTTP request and send back an answer to other connection over jsSocktet (real time analytics for example) or even directly into an HTTP stream (chunked encoding in long polling).

The flexibility to easily address a message to a given connection from everywhere at the backend level is what is wonderful in the protocol developed by Zed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well it just so happens that I think ØMQ and Mongrel 2 are to praise here. Yes, having a thin wrapper around Mongrel's backend api helps as well, but you can't compare it to Symfony or Zend unless it's run tested with all features of a regular application. Db, Auth, Sessions etc.

edit: same goes to tests on symfony's site. We've been using Symfony since pre 1.0 days and you'll be lucky to hit 25% of these request rates once you use most of the common features.

<comment><USER5> However, beneath the benchmarks it does remind the reader that benchmarks are arbitrary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have also started a framework called brubeck for using python's eventlet for coroutines for message routing / processing.

<https://github.com/j2labs/brubeck>

I have the proof of concept, which is more minimal as a project I'm calling mongrevent.

<https://github.com/j2labs/mongrevent>

Mongrevent has better documentation for how the interaction with Mongrel2 / ZeroMQ works.

</comment><comment><USER7> For those looking to try this out, be aware that this framework appears to be in a pre-alpha state. Don't expect to download it and expect a working demo without digging into the code and figuring some stuff out on your own.

With that said: Great work on an innovative framework. I applaud the effort so far.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can I use this stack with Socket.IO in the browser for real-time communication on port 80 to PHP?

In other words, can I implement a simple real-time chat demo using websockets with this stack?

<comment><USER3> Yes, in 30 lines of code: <http://tinyurl.com/chat-server-photon>

As Photon is an application server, this means you can do what you do easily with Django/RoR or a Java application server. This breaks the traditional one request, one reply, we forget everything approach of PHP. This is now possible rather nicely as PHP has improved a lot with respect to memory management in the last releases.

Disclaimer, I am the author of Photon and I am locked out of HackerNews with my normal account because of the great anti procrastination mode :-D

<comment><USER7> Very nice.

Doesn't the Mongrel2 Chat demo use Flash-based socket communication?

I've haven't been able to figure out if Mongrel2 supports native websocket communications on the same port as http traffic (a la nodejs with Socket.IO).

<comment><USER8> Yes, here this is jsSocket with the little flash stuff to bring socket support to all browsers. WebSocket is coming soon into Mongrel2 (the protocol change delayed a bit the implementation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wasn't Photon the QNX GUI stack?

edit: yes <http://www.qnx.com/products/hmi/photon.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been hoping to see more projects using mongrel2.

As ugly and inconsistent as the PHP language is, this project is really cool.</comment>


Secrets of the JavaScript Ninjas - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001163.html <comment><USER2> The cover shows a samurai not a ninja, big difference :D

<comment><USER3> Of _course_ you can't see the ninja. What kind of ninja would allow himself to be seen when he's sneaking up on a samurai?

I think the samurai represents Flash: He's from the same country as the ninja -- he might even be a close relative -- but his moves and his costume are a lot more ostentatious, and he's got better PR. He's also owned by a shogun who controls his every move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A nice antidote to this completely nonsensical article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=263021>

</comment><comment><USER5> Frameworks serve their purpose well, but at a price. They became popular with the advent of broadband and more client memory, both of which they use.

How will Javascript frameworks fare as more apps move to mobile devices and wireless networks? Only time will tell.

<comment><USER6> I think eventually we'll settle on compilers/translators which generate cross- browser JS object code from your notation of choice; like ParanScript (Lisp), Red (Ruby), and GWT (Java) with the feature completeness of today's best JS frameworks.

<comment><USER7> Or ECMAScript 4 translated to JS: <http://ecmascript4.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> anyone tired of people using ninja for everything? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=255587>

<comment><USER9> I still like it</comment></comment>


If you had money to invest in tech stock, which would you choose? - <AUTHOR>

If you had money to invest in tech stock, which would you choose? <comment><USER2> I'd choose a tech stock with less than $1b in market capital and little analyst coverage. Anything larger will have been picked apart by the professionals doing this for a living. It'd probably take a few hours of poring through SEC filings and studying the relevant technology to figure out whether it's viable. It probably wouldn't be a name that's mentioned on HN or Slashdot.

<comment><USER3> Thats popular opinion but for example I bought apple at 240 at a good rate of leverage and it is sitting pretty behind a trailing stop at the moment.... if you belive in the fundementals, follow the industry (i.e. invest in what you know) no reason why you cannot get good returns with large cap stocks

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by "good rate of leverage"? You traded on margin at a low interest rate?

<comment><USER3> I meant because it is a CFD I am getting 25 / 1 exposure. IG markets interest is very low also though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Leveraged bets at the moment personally: Apple - great company, great management, rosy future Google - dominant market share, interesting new products expected ARM and Qualycomm - processors for virtually all smart phones and tablets Was annoyed I missed some of the big security M&A's McAffee at al - so owning Juniper, Symantec and Checkpoint short term in case it continues Galaxy - lithium Newcrest - Gold Corning - gorilla glass for smartphones

Would love to hear HN's readers thoughts the above, loving my trailing stops at the moment :)

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm bearish on google... dominant market share = low growth. they used to be taking share from others, mostly yahoo. now they are loosing share to bing. new products? they have had a string of duds. wave, buzz, etc. furthermore they are loosing talent to facebook. i don't see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm playing the gold rush in multiple ways.

1) Owning physical gold (and silver).

2) Buying shares of gold and silver mining stocks.

3) Buying the mining stocks on the Toronto exchange, in Canadian dollars, so as the USD continues it's decent my investment also appreciates through the better exchange rate.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> Do you have a good story on why you believe that gold will keep going up for while? I can think of one maybe the US currency will continue to decline and the world will change to a basket of currencies backed by gold... Personally I am going long on a gold company just to benefit in the laging effect of high gold prices on the earnings of these companies... other than that I have no real story on why gold keeps going up and more importantly when/if it will peak and take a major fall Is owning physical gold and silver because you think the US will colapse like the roman empire and you want some quick currency to escape?... aka Peter Shiff ? (<http://amzn.to/bTVMIj>)

<comment><USER5> I think you're hitting on some of the key points.

The Fed is continuing it's policy of monetary expansion. Most major central banks around the world are doing the same. US treasury debt is in a massive bubble. The Fed is propping it up daily. Money won't find safe haven in any fiat currency and have nowhere to go but gold to preserve wealth. Good ol' Greenspan said as much in a recent announcement he made. He advises central planners to stock up on gold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A boring diversified combination of ETFs?

</comment><comment> DanI-S Rather than looking for the next big thing, try to look for what the next big thing is dependent on. There could be ten companies trying to build a better electric vehicle battery, but they're all going to have to get their lithium from somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> good point... do you have a good lithium play?

<comment><USER3> Galaxy if you want an Australian stock, Western Lithium if you want a US stock

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GOOG: [http://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GOOG](http://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GOOG)

Their stock is pretty much invincible.

<comment><USER5> _Their stock is pretty much invincible._

When people say things like this you know the stock has about hit it's peak and nowhere to go but down. Just watch :)

<comment><USER8> Agree, GOOG is just one scrappy startup away from irrelevance. The company is locked in a Red Queen race with the very content spammers it subsidizes, and its search results are only incrementally better than they were in 1999. Google's income is heavily leveraged on its search traffic, and if/when that collapses the company will go with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nvidia. Tegra platform will totally dominate the mobile chip market in 2011. Most of the tech companies have already partnered with them to get their chip.

<comment><USER2> Are you sure that you understand this ahead of the rest of the market? How do you know this positive outlook isn't already built into the price?

If expectations are high, any trip-up by NVDA or its current partners could send it tumbling.

My point is that it's not enough to know a company is doing well. To make money off the stock, you need to know it _before everyone else does_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> MSFT Their free cash flow last year was $22 bn and their enterprise value is $177bn, which gives EV/FCF of slightly above 8.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not VMWare, it has a record P/E.

</comment><comment><USER12> Amazon?</comment>


Ask HN: Compile FPGA programs on FPGA itself? - <AUTHOR> [NOOB Alert] If FPGAs are so fast, and compiling FPGA programs on regular programs are so slow, why not write FPGA compilers that run on FPGA itself? <comment><USER2> FPGAs are "fast" for very specific workloads - in particular, things where you need lots of throughput and the problem divides up well into lots of parallel slices. For instance, routing packets between multiple 100Gb links or receiving many channels of high-speed radio data (cell towers).

FPGAs can also be really useful when simulating large custom logic chips (ASICs) that haven't been built yet at close-to-production speed (versus at 1000x slower than normal in software simulation)

Turning HDL code into a bitstream is not either kind of problem.</comment>


Pilot's Rare Trip Around Area 51 Includes Pics of Range Targets Drone Bases, UFO - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32951/pilots-rare-trip-around-area-51-includes-pics-of-range-targets-drone-bases-ufo-legends <comment><USER2> Also shows Papoose Lake, the infamous lake from the Bob Lazar story - S4.</comment>


Justin Kan of Justin.tv talks about pivoting, press & scaling [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/justin-kan-on-getting-traction.html

<comment><USER2> It'd be nice if you labeled it [video] to save me a trip.

Related: I wonder if the bounce rates of video submissions on HN are different? In other words, am I the only one who 99% of the time hits the back button the instant I realize a post is really just a video?

<comment><AUTHOR> I added [video]. I also checked my analytics, and the bounce rates aren't that different (at least for my blog). Eventually I'll put all the transcripts up at <http://tractionbook.com/>. That's going to take me some time though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This video is extremely painful to listen to. All I can hear is "like", "like", like"....</comment>


How to Build a Raspberry Pi Radio Transmitter - <AUTHOR> http://techzei.com/how-to-build-a-raspberry-pi-radio-transmitter/ <comment><USER2> This page basically says "Install this file, magic!"

If you want the technical details behind it, a good starting place is [http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspb...](http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter)

Or the blog of the creator at [http://www.omattos.com/node/19](http://www.omattos.com/node/19)

<comment><AUTHOR> I missed the icrobotics link that was submitted to HN 508 days ago unfortunately... but at least the link that I posted shows that you don't need any additional hardware to transmit on FM frequencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a Ham radio operator, and interested in building my own real 2m/70cm transceiver that I can put in my car, complete with a little display to impress my friends and such. So these Pi articles interest me, but I'm more interested in interfacing a microcontroller to a real quality transmitter that can operate at, say, 25+ watts.

Ideally I'd like for this project to run Android, and drive my car stereo too, and do a bunch of other crazy things like GPS.

There's surprisingly little information out there on how to approach such a project. I've looked for components I could use on Sparkfun, and there's not really anything that jumps out at me, for either building 2m/70cm transceivers, or even for doing the stereo amplifier part.

I did find this fascinating article, though: [http://hackaday.com/2013/02/28/hacking-a-ham- radio/](http://hackaday.com/2013/02/28/hacking-a-ham-radio/)

<comment><USER4> Yeah I've been interested in the links out there around modifying the Baofeng radios and replacing the CPU in them with an Arduino or an generic computer interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anybody have information regarding the strength of the output signal? I know the FCC here in the US very touchy about radio broadcast strength...

<comment><USER6> It's definitely above the part 15 limits of 150 μV/m at 3m

I don't know the current drive capabilities of the Broadcom SoC, but let's assume it can perfectly drive a dipole antenna presenting around 72 ohms. The supply is 3.3V, I think. 3.3^2/72 = 0.15125W. In reality I doubt it's anywhere close to that, let's assume 50mW instead (it could be lower, I just don't know). According to a legit-looking field strength calculator I found online this works out to just over 0.5V/m at 3m! That sounds a bit high. Various factors would conspire to making even this much field strength unlikely, but it'd still exceed the FCC limits easily.

The Pi's output is also a _reasonably_ decent square wave, as pointed out elsewhere. So there are some harmonics that are, themselves, above the part 15 limits.

In other words, don't do this, unless you have a spectrum analyzer, attenuator (don't forget to block DC). Actually, someone needs to do this with the right equipment just to find out how well it really performs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> fun semi-related EE design fact that readers may find interesting:

one of the fastest ways to tell that someone didn't know what they're doing when they designed a board is that they placed the oscillator anywhere other than right next to the component it drives. the traces that connect the oscillator to the component are basically an antenna - the longer they are, the stronger they broadcast. This becomes an issue when there are multiple oscillators in close proximity - their broadcasts can interfere with each other and cause them to synchronize. I forget what this effect is called but here's a neat video that kinda illustrates it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqFc4wriBvE&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqFc4wriBvE&feature=kp)

</comment><comment><USER8> A related hack: using the Pi to transmit at 433.92 MHz with minimal hardware [1]. This frequency is commonly used for remote controlled wall outlets and such.

[1] [http://www.skagmo.com/page.php?p=projects/22_pihat](http://www.skagmo.com/page.php?p=projects/22_pihat)

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody happen to know if it's just as easy to read the pins at 91.25, 94.75, and 95.75 MHz?

Lately I've been trying to find a way to do exactly that - initially using audio in - but so far without any luck.

<comment><USER4> The $20 RTL-SDR sticks can do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I should point out that the pifm code is a bit of a hack and does not properly reset the DMA controller when you stop running it. It will leave the FM signal active until you reset the pi.

</comment><comment><USER11> Appears to have breached hosting limits (or some other 500)

Any caches? Seemed interesting

<comment><USER12> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://techzei.com/how- to-build-a-raspberry-pi-radio-transmitter/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Holy square wave harmonics Batman.</comment>