In Bungled Spying Operation, NSA Targeted Pro-Democracy Campaigner - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/08/14/nsa-gcsb-prism-surveillance-fullman-fiji/ <comment><USER2> Meanwhile in New Zealand the government is hastily amending legislation to allow the GCSB to spy on all New Zealanders. The GCSB being an organisation so partisan that it was at one point directed by a childhood friend of the Prime Minister.

</comment><comment><USER3> "A Fijian military soldier stands guard on Parliament grounds." \-- is it normal to not have a magazine engaged in a rifle like that when on guard duty?

<comment><USER4> Most Western militaries realized they were having far more problems with with accidental discharge injuries and deaths than actual live-fire incidents, even in actual combat zones, and so training calls for the weapon to be unloaded until needed.

<comment><USER5> The answer to that is better, sterner discipline, not guards who can't actually, y'know, _guard_.

<comment><USER6> They still have magazines on them, so they can respond to a threat in a few seconds. And no amount of discipline can completely prevent accidental discharge.

<comment><USER7> The way to prevent accidental discharge is to keep the rifle slung over one's shoulder, with an empty chamber, rather than nervously gripping it with one's finger on the trigger guard as pictured in TFA. That posture serves no purpose other than the intimidation of the ignorant. And it's clear from this picture the magazines, if they exist, aren't secured in one place on a sensible leather belt, but rather are rolling around in the bottom of one or more of those giant pouches he's got hanging around.

<comment><USER8> It's very unlikely that he is there to actually guard anything. In most countries, outside a state of emergency or war, soldiers do not have any right to shoot citizens in the streets. Even if someone specifically attacks the soldier, the correct response is to back away and call the police to handle it.

He's just standing there either for ceremonial reasons or for training (possibly both). In any case, his only task is to stand there and call the police if there's trouble.

<comment><USER9> No, he's literally guarding the place. The correct response to an attack may involve inserting the clip, chamber a round and issue a loud warning before possibly firing.

An attack on the guard himself is likely to lead to a resolute counterattack.

Soldiers guarding typically have limited police jurisdiction of the area they guard in most countries.

This should be common knowledge.

<comment><USER10> Both you and your parent commenter are _sometimes_ correct, depending on the situation (believe it or not, laws vary from country to country, there are many different types of military groups in each, etc).

Your point of view is not _always_ correct, so it should definitely not be common knowledge.

<comment><USER11> The historical nature of soldiers of armed guards with the authority to kill you lends credence to his suggestion that it's not an unreasonable expectation to believe that they _could_ shoot you.

Local mileage and laws may vary, but erring on the side of caution when you see a soldier means that it's prudent to act as if he can legally fire upon you -- even if that assumption is not actually true at that specific time or place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one here who thinks this was not _all_ bad? It seems the problem was not so much the investigation itself, but the handling of the aftermath, once the spies realized there was no corroborating evidence, combined with their bias-inducing excitement to catch a "baddie."

When terrorist attacks happen successfully, and enforcement agencies had some prior knowledge of them, people blame the agencies. So surely when there is some evidence apparently linking somebody to a planned terrorist attack, the agencies are duty bound to at least investigate it. Of course, they're also duty bound to investigate it _within the law_ , and if the investigation turns out to be unfounded, they should forget about it. That's not what happened here, and that's the problem.

The fact is, this was not just some bloke of a bureaucrat from New Zealand who happened to be targeted as a terrorist. He grew up in Fiji, and his best friend was a high ranking Fijian military officer. Their travel patterns aligned. They had membership in the same group (yeah, it's a "pro democracy" group, but is a terrorist group going to call themselves "pro terrorism?"). They made allusions to stabbing the leader of Fiji.

If the initial evidence was based on any one of these factors in isolation, I can see how pursuing the case would be a waste of time. However, it seems what landed Fullman on the radar was the combination of all these factors. He had the right background (pre-coup Fijian origin), relationships (high ranking Fijian military friends), travel patterns (back and forth at the same time as an ousted military officer), and resources (again, friends with a high ranking military officer).

Had he actually been planning an attack, and the agencies sat on all this information, how would that look afterward? It would look like an agency failed to do its job in preventing the violent overthrow of an ally.

I don't fault the agency for opening an initial investigation. There was plenty of evidence to warrant at least looking into the guy. What seems to be the problem was the extrajudicial revocation of his right to travel and do business, _before_ any corroborating evidence existed.

Wouldn't the proper way to handle this investigation have been more covertly? Sure, scoop up as much data as you want -- just enough to see if he actually is planning an attack. But why remove his passport? Keep him under surveillance and watch for any sudden moves, sure. But why the need to restrict his travel? What purpose does that serve?

And once they found the investigation was unwarranted, they should have immediately dropped it. Had they done this covertly, the guy never would have known he was even under surveillance. But instead they seized his passport and many of his possessions _before_ having the evidence to do so. He was fully aware of the investigation in such a way that it materially and negatively impacted his life.

To be fair, though, they did handle the aftermath in a somewhat commendable fashion. They lifted the restriction on his passport without any further hassle, within two years. That's pretty quick. Perhaps they should have done more (apology, compensation), but even by US standards that seems like a fairly equitable outcome. He never went to prison.

At the end of the day, it sucks for this guy. He was in the wrong places, with the wrong people, at the wrong times. But I have trouble faulting the agencies for their _initial_ suspicion. It's their handling of the aftermath that I have a problem with.

<comment><USER13> It was not all that bad.

But there was some oversight, and mis-steps.

He shouldn't have been hassled until there was reasonable evidence that he was a bad guy - or there was something really significant on the line.

We need surveillance, but we also need procedure, lawfulness, oversight.

Also I should point out that we also need a good,free press. The linked article is decent, but also one-sided.

It would seem that the primary issue this guy faces is not being able to get a job? From bad press? Ironic?

<comment><USER14> > We need surveillance

Source? We got by fine for thousands of years without the level of surveillance that's enabled today.

<comment><USER13> "> We need surveillance Source? "

A) There is no need for 'source'? Asking for 'source' does not count as an argument. Where is your 'source' for 'we got by for thousands of years?' for example?

B) We didn't 'get by for thousands of years' without surveillance. Spying has been part of statecraft for 5000 years. The very first textbook on any subject, written more than 2000 years ago - 'The Art of War' has a chapter dedicated to it.

C) If you were ever exposed to what is actually going on in this and other countries, you'd immediately change your tune. It happens often. Here in Canada, we had a fuzzy new Prime Ministerial candidate who wanted to kill a new surveillance bill. Until he became PM and got his 'daily security briefings' as to the reality of the world. And 'poof' \- his promise to overthrow the bill disappeared immediately as his naivte withered against the facts.

I do not believe in a 'surveillance state' (i.e. arbitrary surveillance) and I generally believe that citizens should have the right to privacy as per other criminal issues. But I also believe that if you are building a bomb in your basement, and the Feds want to know why, they can get a court order and 'surveil' you.

<comment><USER15> > But I also believe that if you are building a bomb in your basement, and the > Feds want to know why, they can get a court order and 'surveil' you.

I also don't think that mere suspicion of building a bomb in your basement gives the government scary powers over you. This is why there is such a thing as due process. Because you never know when _you_ might be wrongfully accused.

<comment><USER13> If the Feds thought I was building a bomb, they surveilled my email with a court order, found nothing and moved on, I could care less.

It's when there's not process that's the problem.

As far as 'accused', I'm not worried about that because I'm not building a bomb so there's no way they'd have evidence.

They'd have to fabricate it, which is a whole other level of fraud.

Again, a long as it's done rationally, then we'll be just fine.

I suggest there are very, very few cases wherein people's live have been upended because of 'too much surveillance'.

The 'no fly list' is one bad example, it's because we don't have ways to uniquely identify people, and there's no process for removal. So if you have the same name as a terrorist, you're out of luck. Or of you get on by accident - no process for saying 'hey, I'm a normal guy'. Again procedural failrues mostly.

Or entrapment, or an accusation which turns out to be false that throws your life in a bind.

But it's not that common, and usually the result of back decisions on the side of the Feds, not so much inherently bad nature of surveillance.

One issue - and that is mass surveillance - LAPD has cameras to know where every license plate is going at all times ... that I don't like. They should not be able to record any licence plates unless there is 'cause' \- for example. Same for facial recognition in NYC and London.

I think we'll find the sweet spot on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands The morale of the story is apparently don't get involved in ANY activists groups no matter what side of the aisle you are on.

This makes it really seem like _any_ association with any activist group, whether you're anti-(insert subject here) or pro-(insert subject here) is going to get you into trouble regardless.

It really makes trying to get good people involved in activism (in any form) a real challenge if this is going to become the norm - more people will simply stay home and keep their heads in the sand, which is even more disturbing and problematic.

There was a time when the press was the ultimate check on government authority and overreach. These days, its clear most news outlets are in bed with said government and its really down to the citizens to keep government power in check, which makes these incidents all the more troubling.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hapless water managing bureaucrat is the perfect cover for a terrorist. They'll just need to dig deeper because there is no way the intelligence could be wrong. We believe the coffee and shoe shops are code words where the most nefarious elements discuss their evil plans, over a cup of chai.

</comment><comment><USER17> This isn't surprising, if you understand that the mission of the American military and intelligence apparatus is to promulgate _American Values_ (I.e. Hegemonic control), _not_ democracy. You need only look to the juntas that the CIA have installed and supported in Latin America alone to see that this is demonstrably the case.

Consider that NZ were worried Fiji were getting close to China. This would be the US's concern too - so roughing up some political exiles would curry favour with the Fijian regime, potentially staying their burgeoning relationship with China.

There was no bungle.

<comment><USER18> As long as this stayed secret, you're right. It wasn't a bungle.

Which is why state secrecy is a fast track to tyranny - or at the very least keeps inefficient government workers employed, regardless of how many times they mess up (causing real consequences on peoples lives).

I'm guessing your allusions to the old cold war CIA strategy being present day strategy (as opposed to counter terrorism) is why you're being downvoted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The pro-democracy campaigner in this article openly admits to discussing assassinating the prime minister of Fiji with other members of his group. It seems kind of silly to act incredulous when you find out that he might, then, have been watched by a few intelligence agencies to see what he was planning to do next. Even if he ends up doing nothing, you want to make sure he's going to do nothing.

\-----

The Intercept asked Fullman if he or Mara had ever heard of — or been involved in — discussions about overthrowing or assassinating Bainimarama. Far from denying it, he said that sort of talk happened frequently within Fijian pro- democracy circles. However, he said it was just angry ranting, when the alcohol was flowing, something completely different from real plans.

"People would say things like, 'Please can we just hire the Americans to send one drone to Fiji to get rid of those bastards', or 'Let me go back to Fiji and I'll just get a knife and stab him!'" Fullman said. "It's venting. It's our way of maintaining sanity — we just sit and bitch about everything. We don't want violence. We want something where there's control, a planned approach. More to the effect where it's the people who protest and say, 'Enough is enough. This is wrong. We want to go back to the old constitution and have elections.'"

<comment><USER20> OK, but what I didn't see (maybe I missed it) in the article is any knowledge of that by the New Zealand authorities ahead of this action. And even if that were the case this would be an incredibly heavy handed response to this kind of venting. You can hear people say I wish we could drone strike {{politician name}} on a daily basis and it should take a lot more than that to get your passport revoked. Surely we can find a more reasonable response that reflects the reality that people say things like this without serious intent all the time.

The article also points out that was timed such that it would be a convenient gesture of goodwill towards the Fijian government during negotiations. So there's also a believable reason why the government of New Zealand might have subjected these folks to this. The level of reaction doesn't fit the evidence at hand. The effects for this guy are ongoing as he now must put up with more hassle every time he travels forever. IMO it's just not a reasonable response.

All for his very reasonable advocacy for democracy and maybe someone venting without serious intent about killing a dictator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've seen the enemy and he is not only us, he's the guy at the shoe store and the coffee shop. All it takes to be labeled a terrorist is a clueless person in a position of power, and your visit to Starbucks for overpriced coffee is now a link to terrorism.

<comment><USER22> Sounds like you know a lot about it. Welcome on the watchlist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Haha the Fijian "military soldier" forgot to insert his magazine.

<comment><USER23> It is intentional.

Automatic rifle toting soldiers in public places (eg: downtown Paris) are generally threatening, so, to emphasize their intention to operate those weapons only as self-defense, they remain unloaded until necessary.

Loaded cartridges are stored on their person though, just in case.

<comment><USER7> Then why is he clutching the grip rather than leaving the rifle slung over his shoulder with an empty chamber? That would be less "threatening", and certainly more sensible. It would also be more responsive, as the magazine could be loaded all the time, and on the rare occasion shooting is required, shooting could take place without fumbling with a seldom-used, packed-away magazine.

Perhaps this is a cultural thing, but I've used firearms all my life, and this posture signifies, "We menace the public with 'assault rifles', but we hire amateurs for the menacing so after three old ladies got clipped we took away their bullets." That is, if one harbored ill intent, the presence of this sort of "security" would _encourage_ rather than discourage one's nefarious plans.

<comment><USER24> I can probably load and ready an empty rifle that's in my hands faster than I can move a slung, loaded rifle from my back into my hands. That's using a proper sling and not the improvised sling shown in the picture. It's also significantly safer to have the rifle in his hands than loaded on his back. It wouldn't be that hard for the trigger to catch on something and fire a round while the rifle is still slung. Carrying an unloaded weapon, with proper trigger and muzzle discipline, is perfectly safe.

<comment><USER7> I specifically noted that the chamber should be empty. There's nothing that can happen accidentally to a slung rifle that will chamber a round. Keeping one's finger on the trigger guard while standing around is _not_ proper trigger discipline. It's appropriate in an active, attentive situation, and perhaps photography is such a situation, but ISTM this person is allowing his habit of always being unloaded to foster some bad habits.

<comment><USER24> Mistakes happen. Once you put a magazine on a weapon it's pretty easy to ready it. Think about how many people die every year because someone was cleaning a gun they thought was unloaded but wasn't.

What about keeping your finger on the trigger guard do you have a problem with? Where do you think his finger should be when he's carrying his rifle?

<comment><USER7> Yes that's why experienced gun users regularly bump back the slide/open the breech a crack/otherwise check the chamber when _handling_ firearms. I've seen firearm instructors who could perform that action in tenths of a second with their favorite semiautomatic pistols. In a variety of situations, it's just as important to be able to confirm that a chamber is loaded as it is to be able to confirm the converse.

You do know that a missing magazine is no proof of an empty chamber, right?

My "problem" is experience. An acquaintance who was a little too fond of the "commando" trigger finger posture inadvertently fired a shot in my presence. The firearm was properly pointed at the ground so tragedy did not ensue, but this person was soon convinced to leave his fingers on the grip where they belong, until such time as he is sighting his intended target. For rifles without pistol grips, it's fine to wrap one's hand around the neck of the stock.

[EDIT:] I wonder whether my difficulties in this thread stem mostly from cultural differences? In every nation in which I've encountered soldiers holding their rifles in this posture in public spaces, including to my chagrin USA, their presence has made me feel less safe. I don't assume that they know what they're doing, nor that their commanding officers do. I am not comforted when it's pointed out that their firearms have been somehow neutered, as if that were possible. A firearm has one valid purpose. If it's not time to kill someone, it's not time to handle firearms. Leave it holstered, leave it slung, leave it racked. Go to the range often enough to be comfortable handling your firearm safely, and other than that don't handle it until lives are threatened. Firearms are not suitable tools for rhetoric or ceremony or morale or intimidation, and the growing number of third-world-attitude governments (like that of USA) who see them that way are a blight upon humanity.

<comment><USER24> I think this discussion is straying off topic. I don't want to get into a discussion of when it is or isn't appropriate for the military, LEOs, or civilians to carry weapons. Your original argument was that slinging a loaded rifle vs carrying an unloaded rifle as shown in the picture is: 1) less threatening 2) more responsive 3) safer

I'm perfectly willing to concede the first point. Holding a weapon in your hands is a more aggressive posture than carrying it slung. For the second point, I've already mentioned that I can load and ready a weapon in my hands faster than I can unsling and ready a rifle from my back.

Our main point of disagreement seems to be on the third point. You are correct that a rifle with no magazine can still have a round in the chamber. This is why you should clear any weapon when you pick it up. If someone has cleared a weapon and never attached a source of ammunition the weapon won't have a round in the chamber. If they attached a magazine then there is a chance that they also put a round in the chamber even if they weren't supposed to. Not attaching a magazine prevents this mistake from being possible. While a round could be in the chamber in either case, I'd rather see an unloaded rifle than a loaded one.

We also disagree on hand placement on the pistol grip. In the case you mentioned your acquaintance had a readied weapon he did not intend to fire immediately, with the safety off, and placed his finger on the trigger. The weapon firing was the result of multiple mistakes. It sounds like your acquaintance has decided to prevent one of those mistakes in the future by changing how he holds his pistol grip. Hopefully he also learns to use his safety.

It's also important to remember that the person in the photo is a soldier and not just some random guy with a gun. Soldiers should always handle weapons the way they intend to use them. In stressful situations people fall back to what they're in the habit of doing. Soldiers should be used to carrying their rifle in a way that lets them take the safety off and fire the weapon without moving their hand on the pistol grip.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Internships in Australia? - <AUTHOR>

Many people from Europe use internships as a way of experience the American culture. Such internships are easy to find, as many big companies offer them: Facebook, Google, etc. Do you know any companies that would offer internships in Australia or South East Asia for European students (in my case recent graduate)? <comment><USER2> For what it's worth, Google has an office in Sydney (AFAIK this is where Google Maps was born).

Have you considered looking at a Working Holiday? This will allow you to stay and work in Australia for 1 year, 6 months per employer and can be extended to two years if you work on a farm for a little while. It's also easier to get a sponsored working visa (457, for 4 years) in Australia than in US.

Have a look at [http://internships.com.au/](http://internships.com.au/) there's a bunch of good information on it!

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with big companies such as Google who have offices in Australia is that they just ignore your application or will direct you to the European recruiter. Thank you for the info about Working Holiday, I will indeed check it out.

<comment><USER3> Snail-mail them a dead-tree cover letter and resume on good-quality, high cotton content paper.

Google's jobs site provides the postal addresses of many of their local offices. I don't know about Australia but many of their addresses are there. Also, they ran Want Ads in the San Jose Mercury News - scads of them.

I expect this is because Google doesn't work through third-party recruiters. That would cost billions, maybe tens of billions in commissions.

in you cover letter, maybe in your own handwriting on the back of the envelope, point out that you really do want to live in Australia, and hope to do so by working for the likes of Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> May seem obvious to some, but just a warning. The southern hemisphere's seasons are the opposite to the north's, as are when summer internships happen.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in working in Australia and are a U.S. citizen, there are two visas of particular interest.

J1: Student work/travel visa. You can get a 12 month visa with little hassle so long as you either are a student or have graduated from a university (or recognized equivalent) in the last 12 months.

E3: Specialist worker visa, not difficult to obtain so long as you have a 4 year degree (or 3 years experience equivalent to each year of study for a degree) in a specialized industry, which might also include management, and you are offered a job that pays above the prevailing wage. Preferable conditions to many other visas, 2year renewable visa.

please note: I'm actually Australian living in the U.S.. We have reciprocal visa arrangements with the U.S. so the above is derived from the equivalent arrangement for Australians working in the U.S.

<comment><USER6> Sorry but this is completely wrong. There is no "J1" or "E3" visa in Australia. The E3 is not reciprocated at all, Americans must get a 457 just like everyone else. For a J1 style short work/ internship/travel visa there is the working holiday visa (12 months, but can't work at a single employer longer than 6 months). It can be applied for online and is usually approved almost instantaneously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're interested in startup internships and you're in Melbourne the guys at [http://www.tinalleybeta.com.au](http://www.tinalleybeta.com.au) might be able to set you up somewhere. Other options are to ask around coworking spaces like inspire9 or york butter factory (Melb) or fishburners (sydney).

non-startups to look into: atlassian, campaign monitor, envato, 99 designs, canva (maybe).

Keep in mind that Australian employment law is a bit anti-internship: technically you can't contribute to a business' productivity without being characterised as an employee. So unpaid interns are, officially, not a thing here.

Unofficially, who knows where a bit of hustle can get you ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hi everyone

Bec from Atlassian here - I head up global campus recruitment at Atlassian.

We have an internship program in our Sydney office, and we definitely welcome applications from international students. We have had a number of students from Europe (and other global locations) intern here throughout the year. Generally our internship program opens around June, and majority of students complete their internship over our summer (Nov - Feb), however we are definitely flexible on dates (especially for international students), as well as length of placement. You can find out more at atlassian.com/graduates

A few things just to note from my experience recruiting for internship programs (broadly speaking):

\- A large number of companies in Australia do not offer internships to international students - best to check online before submitting your application

\- You typically need to organise your own visa to enable you to have work rights in Australia. A good place to start to look into visa options is the Australian Government's Immigration website: [http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/Work.aspx](http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/Work.aspx)

\- Most internship/vacation programs run over our summer (end of Nov to end of Feb) and are typically around 12 weeks in duration

Hopefully that has helped you all a little!

</comment><comment><USER9> You should consider applying for Atlassian: [https://www.atlassian.com/](https://www.atlassian.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this sound perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. Are you working for them? Do you have a contact to apply directly to?

<comment><USER9> I do work there but our HR process doesn't work like that. If you're after a full-time role I can submit your CV but it won't be treated any differently than if you apply through the website.

Our recruitment process for grads and interns is somewhat different and I don't know anything about it, sorry.

<comment><USER10> Grads were generally an annual intake with interviews held around the start of the year (for the following year).

Interns were generally from the UNSW corporate placement program (though I can't remember the exact name for it).

Atlassian are a fantastic place to work - if you're in a position to apply for them I would highly recommend it.

Source: used to work there, hosted interns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [http://au.gradconnection.com/](http://au.gradconnection.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> You should checkout specialized job-boards for working abroad like [http://jobsintech.io](http://jobsintech.io) (Made the Front page couple weeks ago)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love to live in Europe again. I lived in Italy for a little over a year when I was six years old. That was quite cool - it was like spending first grade in Disneyland.

Italians are heavily into little kids, they would throw dark chocolate soccerballs at me from their apartment balconies.

I lived in St. Genis France over the Summer of 1993 when I was writing my UCSC Senior Thesis. I'd love to work as a CERN staff member but it is only permitted to citizens of CERN member states. It would not be sufficient for me to marry one, I'd need to hold a member state passport.

I visited Paris and Rome while they are both quite cool I don't think I'd really want to live in either of them.

I've never been to Spain but I'd love to live there, maybe even stay there as I identify strongly with Don Quijote.

When I was at CERN, without a doubt there were three different women I could have - and should have - married, which would have enabled me to stay, eventually to obtain permanent residency, likely French citizenship.

There would have been lots of work for me at places other than CERN. Lots of big american firms like IBM and Google have offices in Switzerland.

But no I was bound and determined to go to grad school, get my PhD. Eventually I lost touch with all three of those fine ladies.

<comment><USER13> Europe, Disneyland, three whole ladies. Fascinating.

So what about them internships in Australia?

<comment><USER3> I used to work for an Australian astronomer. I've never been to australia itself, but I think the Australian people are quite cool.

Dr. Mould looked and spoke just like Crocodile Dundee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bugger all. Australia used to have traineeships for trades, but even this is falling by the wayside.

<comment><USER15> They should bring apprenticeship back for specialist employment as software development, system administration etc. I have friends in the Melbourne area that went through the apprenticeship program for motor mechanic, plumber and carpentry who have done pretty well for themselves.

Although the skills learned are very different, but conceptually it should work in a similar manner.

<comment><USER3> What I'd like to see is some manner of On The Job Training.

I mean anything at all - the tiniest little crumb would make my whole fucking day.

At Knowmed Systems, I was paid to read a book then write practice Smalltalk code for my first week. My second week I was working productively, my third week I was just as good at Smalltalk as most of the other coders there.

For the last fifteen years though I am commonly told that the employer wants "someone who can hit the ground running".

The long-term effect of that has, by now, resulted in NO ONE having the ability to hit the ground running. That is one of the real causes of the perceived yet largely fictitious shortage of software engineers.

It wasn't really until after the Dot-Com Crash happened that anyone ever expected ME to hit the ground running.

Before that, while I was generally expected to be qualified, I was regarded as so-qualified because I learned how to write FORTRAN Computational Physics code during my Physics studies. I only had just one CS algorithms and data structures class, however it was quite a good class.

My actual experience is that I really don't need to know a whole lot more than stacks, arrays, linked lists and binary trees, as well as the standard library routines that operate on them.

I think graphs are just dandy but I can't really say I've ever needed to use a graph on the job.

Yes I am very intrigued to study sorting algorithms as well as to puzzle over various ways the I could beat QuickSort - but in my actual workplaces I just call the C Standard Library qsort().

<comment><USER16> Your profile says you have 26 years of experience, I would certainly expect someone with half that much time in the profession to hit most grounds running.

<comment><USER3> No one seems to believe me that even I can hit the ground running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hey malpiatko, you should check this page from techmeabroad: [https://techmeabroad.com/search/au/all](https://techmeabroad.com/search/au/all)

Hope this helps

</comment><comment><USER18> Generally it should be part of a recognosed training prog.

[http://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/unpaid-work/work- experience-a...](http://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/unpaid-work/work-experience- and-internships)

</comment><comment><USER19> Check out [http://www.theinterngroup.com/](http://www.theinterngroup.com/) they can set up internships in Melbourne and Hong Kong. Full disclosure: my wife works for The Intern Group.

</comment><comment><USER20> It depends on what type of internship you're after? Some of the cities are definitely bigger on certain types of work. And being Australia, it's not really like you can work in the 'next town over', unfortunately...

</comment><comment><USER21> I've hosted four Dutch trainees on five-month placements in Adelaide. They did general web work and also worked on side-project, startup-style web apps. Great experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Mate - send me your resume, expectations, dates, etc

seb at [http://subscribility.com](http://subscribility.com)

We're in Sydey

</comment><comment><USER23> You will have issues with visas - for stuff like internships, many companies insist that you're a permanent resident or an Australian/New Zealand citizen.

<comment><USER24> Many European countries have a working holiday deal with Australia, that allows under 30s to work in Australia for one year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Soon, but not just yet:

[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/australia/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/australia/)

I don't have anything listed there at all yet, however I do have some Australian companies in the OpenOffice spreadsheet that I've been compiling these indexes in.

It would not be hard for me to find lots more but I figure I now know how to proceed with automating a good chunk of it.

If it's urgent I will post what I have by this evening though, then dig up some more.</comment>


Wikipedia Adopts MariaDB - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/22/wikipedia-adopts-mariadb/ <comment><USER2> Official announcement: [https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/22/wikipedia- adopts-maria...](https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/22/wikipedia-adopts- mariadb/)

MariaDB looks likely to inherit a big slice, possibly even a majority, of MySQL's user base over time.

It's not just because MariaDB is as good as any of the "official" editions of MySQL offered by Oracle, but because it has only a single code base under a single Free license (as opposed to differently licensed "open source" and "enterprise" editions), because it has an active not-for-profit foundation looking out for the project and the community[1], and because many of the original contributors to MySQL, including founder Monty Widenius, are now working full-time on MariaDB.[2]

Say hello to the new MySQL -- MariaDB -- same as the old MySQL!

\--

[1] <https://mariadb.org/en/foundation/>

[2] [http://www.skysql.com/news-and-events/press- releases/skysql-...](http://www.skysql.com/news-and-events/press- releases/skysql-merges-with-mariadb-developers)

<comment><USER3> The official post is excellent, we should swap out the blogspam link for it.

"For our most common query type, 95th percentile times over an 8-hour period dropped from 56ms to 43ms and the average from 15.4ms to 12.7ms. 50th percentile times remained a bit better with the 5.1-facebook build over the sample period, 0.185ms vs. 0.194ms. Many query types were 4-15% faster with MariaDB 5.5.30 under production load, a few were 5% slower, and nothing appeared aberrant beyond those bounds."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ever since Oracle has taken hold of MySQL (I was at Oracle at the time, and saw their goals firsthand), they have been trying to extract as much money as possible from anyone using the database in a commercial way. Just the mention of MySQL strikes fear in the heart of any executive who has had any interaction with the mob that is the Oracle money extraction machine.

The sooner we all can move on and keep from using MySQL, the better, and good riddance to it and the red horse it unfortunately rides in on.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article has many facts wrong.

It seems that MySQL development halted entirely at Sun.

I was concerned about Oracle's motives w.r.t MySQL but I can say they have come out with major new releases that improve MySQL in substantial ways. For instance, they've greatly improved the scalability of InnoDB on large SMP machines.

On the other hand, neither Sun nor Oracle have been really wanting to win with MySQL either and I think we could have seen more and different innovation in MySQL if it had been in other hands.

The Wikipedia win is big for MariaDB because it's a show of confidence that it works in demanding applications.

<comment><USER6> Was there ever a doubt that MariaDB wouldn't work in demanding applications? It's pretty much MySQL all the way down.

<comment><USER7> "No one ever got fired for buying IBM."

As a corollary, no one wants to be the guy that suggested MongoDB before it caused an outage.

<comment><USER8> I think that only makes sense if you don't know what MariaDB is. It's a fork that attempts to maintain high compatibility, run by the founder of MySQL.

What it _isn't_ is a different program entirely, with a different protocol, syntax, scalability, consistency and community.

<comment><USER7> You missed the point. The idea is management and investor confidence, buy-in.

Here's how it works in most companies: MySQL goes down = something seriously bad happened. MariaDB went down = that database that Ted suggested sure is a piece of shit.

<comment><USER8> Well that depends on how Ted presented it, doesn't it? If he says "Let's try this _other_ database _instead of_ MySQL" may turn out different than if he says "Let's try this other _version_ of MySQL put out by MariaDB".

In the end it comes down to having data to support your position though. If MariaDB goes down, and you can't answer whether it would have happened the same in MySQL, then maybe you shouldn't be making database suggestions. If it _wouldn't_ have happened to MySQL, well then people were right to be wary, weren't they?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a reason to choose MariaDB over Percona or vice-versa? They're both drop-in replacements for MySQL and both replace InnoDB with XtraDB (which Percona makes).

<comment><USER10> The only real feature MariaDB offers over vanilla MySQL and Percona is an improved optimizer for complex sql queries [1].

In most cases Percona seems to be a win over both MySQL and MariaDB as it is just patch layer over MySQL with features and tweaks that real production users see and need. These features tend to end up in future MySQL releases like saving and restoring the buffer pool allowing mysql to warm start. I believe that feature made it in to MySQL 5.6 but was added to percona/mysql 5.1.

[1] <http://blog.mariadb.org/mariadb-5-3-optimizer-benchmark/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is MariaDB still substantially slower than MySQL?

[http://dimitrik.free.fr/blog/archives/2013/02/mysql- performa...](http://dimitrik.free.fr/blog/archives/2013/02/mysql-performance- mysql-56-vs-mysql-55-vs-mariadb-55.html)

<comment><USER12> The official blog post makes it sound like overall it was a performance gain with a few edge cases coming out 5% slower.

<comment><USER11> I wish it talked more about their DB hardware, I would believe MariaDB is more performant for scale out, whereas the MySQL improvement have been targeting scale up (something Oracle is very good at).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The big battle MariaDB (or any DB) is going to have is gaining ground in the shared web host space. That makes up a pretty large portion of websites, and there is no incentive for those providers to change. I'd love to see other DB options in that space, its all PHP/MySQL.

<comment><USER14> That'll probably happen - mainly because the distributions will probably switch over to MariaDB. I'd expect Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS etc to all ship MariaDB as an upgrade at some point.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately it would appear Debian is actually lagging a bit behind in this regard:

<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=565308>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only problem I foresee with MariaDB is they have no interest in porting innodb fulltext search like MySQL 5.6

Sure there are other fulltext solutions but to simply convert myisam to innodb, FTS on innodb with the same queries is rather helpful.

</comment><comment><USER17> So bets on how long it will be until MariaDB is scooped by Oracle?

<comment><USER18> I had the benefit of seeing Monty talk at All Your Base conference in Oxford last year, and let me tell you, he made it quite clear that a huge driving force behind MariaDB is to take on Oracle, because he absolutely hates them for what they've done with MySQL. Remember, the original sale of MySQL wasn't to Oracle, it was to Sun, which was then acquired by Oracle. After hearing what he had to say, I have nothing but a tremendous amount of respect for Monty, and wish him all the success in the world.

<comment><USER19> > he absolutely hates them for what they've done with MySQL

I may be a bit ignorant, but what have they done with MySQL?

<comment><USER18> You can watch the video of his talk here. <http://vimeo.com/56639635>

Perhaps "hate" is the wrong word, and it should be more "dislike", since Oracle are essentially the complete opposite of what Monty wants to encourage (e.g. Hacker Business Model, Open Source). My memory's a bit hazy, but from what I gathered, Oracle tried to stop MySQL in its early days by acquiring the INNODB Engine around 2005. After that, once Oracle acquired Sun and thus MySQL, Monty and many of the other original developers saw Oracle as being against the spirit of the original intention of MySQL, shifting away from the principles they wanted to encourage, particularly open source philosophies, and they wanted to make sure a version of MySQL would always stay free. From what I recall, he believed that Oracle were no longer fixing known bugs because they didn't know how, and they were also moving from "open source" to "open core", where new features were closed source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anyone know of any hosted MariaDB offerings out there that can be used with Heroku?</comment>


Ask HN: I'm doing a series of lectures on entrepreneurship - what should i say? - <AUTHOR>

I've been asked to do a series of 12 lectures on entrepreneurship, and the ins and outs of starting a company. Each lecture will be 2 hours, and will be given to a group of people that have just started, or are thinking about starting a company.
The idea is to be very hands-on, and talk about what's important, what the traps are, what to spend your time on, etc. The goal is that the group will go out and start their companies, and hopefully have a higher chance of success because of these lectures.
So the question is: What should I talk about? What do you think is important? What do you wish someone had told you when you started out?
The audience isn't particularly technical, and many of the companies are in sales, services and other non-tech industries. <comment><USER2> The mistake most people lecturing about entrepreneurship make is to talk about the mechanics of starting a company. And in fact a big mistake inexperienced founders make is to focus too much on the mechanics of it.

In practice the most important questions are things like how to maintain morale, how to find and get along with cofounders, how to push investors' buttons, and so on.

<comment><USER3> And make sure to demphasize the importance of the "idea." Sure it's important, but not nearly as much as newbie entrepreneurs think.

<comment><USER2> Or more precisely, the _initial_ idea is usually not that important, because it's usually wrong. It's best to see an initial idea as a question rather than an answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You say you want 6 topics...

1\. The Problem Statement

(who needs a solution, why do they need a solution, what do they do now: breakdown the value by time-cost and money-cost, what is the TAM, what subset of that TAM do you focus on first (does a subset of that TAM pay more or at all?))

2\. The Solution

(what options for solutions do you have, what is the cost of each of those, what is the value of each of those to an end-user (is that value able to be reflected in revenue), how do you implement these, which do you choose)

3\. The team

(what roles are needed, what are good qualities for these roles, what should YOU focus on, how do you focus, what is the motivation, other (morale etc...))

4\. Business Strategy

(how do you market your product, how do you make customers screaming happy, do you develop a partner network, how to utilize big players, when to change gears, how to change gears)

5\. Money

(what do you need and for how long, how do you obtain it, what are appropriate milestones for your industry...(there's a lot on this topic))

6\. Getting started

(how to vet ideas, when to incorporate, when to patent if applicable, resources (marketing tools (software and services), financial tools, seeking advice), how to hire, what to outsource, how to outsource)

</comment><comment><USER5> From my experience, the best way to start planning is to give your lecture its structure first. For a start, I'd divide it into 2 parts:

(1) Internal perspective [The bright idea, people, motivation, skills, legal aspects, gtd]

(2) External perspective [Market analysis, funding, communications]

Additionally, I think the key to success is mixing "theoretical frameworks" with real world examples in each session, to keep people motivated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree - I was thinking about having 6 main points and do 2 lectures on each. This, as you point out, makes it more structured and people know what's coming.

What I'm trying to do right now, and with this post, is to find out what the 6 main points should be. I'm thinking about the following: The idea, you as a person, partners and employees, financials, sales and marketing, and legal.

Is there something missing?

<comment><USER5> I'm trying hard finding something missing, but I think your points are very good already. I'd also choose this sequence.

Just brainstorming on the things I wish someone had told me before:

(1) Be careful when picking friends as business partners: Having good friends as business partners can be tough, especially when things don't go as expected. I think this is a personal thing, as some people can argue on a business level and still stay friends. Thing is, you have to be sensitized to that fact.

(2) Endurance It takes longer than you plan. Period.

(3) Set quantitative, measurable goals. When I started a project with some friends :) two years ago, we had a great product (e-commerce), but never implemented any "controlling" into our application. Of course, we could track units sold, but the whole idea would have given us much more data points that could be used for analysis and further development - only had the scripts to read them out never been implemented. Use numbers whereever possible to make your decisions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have your second point in my notes already :-)

Your first and last points are great, and I'll definitely think about how to get them into the lectures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> please post video of the lectures online. thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> They'll be in Danish, so you probably won't get much out of them. If they were in English I would gladly have done so.

<comment><USER7> you may translate your slides (if at all you're using it) and share with us ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1) find a problem 2) solve a problem 3) optimize the solution</comment>


New Macbook Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/

<comment><USER2> $2200 for a laptop that is literally unparalleled in at least display is not a bad price. Some people still buy Windows laptops for well over $3k. Windows8 convertibles are probably going to run for a significant premium.

I won't be buying one - but I've got kids/house and my older riced-up MBP is still fast and sexy enough (and my eyes are fine with the screen).

</comment><comment><USER3> it's too expensive! With this kind of price tag, apple will lose the school market. How can a student afford it?

<comment><USER4> Did you see the "Pro" part? Students can buy the Air.

(I was able to buy a top-of-the line PowerBook after doing a summer internship, but that was years ago.)

<comment><USER3> I don't like Air. I don't like hd4000 graphics. As a student, I still need to use photoshop.

A student can be pro.

<comment><USER5> This year's 13" MacBook Air benchmarked higher than the previous year's MacBook Pro in CS4 speed tests. It's _more than_ sufficient for Photoshop editing tasks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cards Against Humanity Saves America - <AUTHOR> https://www.cardsagainsthumanitysavesamerica.com/ <comment><USER2> > I DON'T LIKE THAT YOU'RE GETTING POLITICAL. WHY DON'T YOU JUST STICK TO CARD > GAMES? Why don't you stick to seeing how many Hot Wheels cars you can fit up > your asshole?

This comment in the FAQ just made my day

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but I have to say that it's truly amazing to me how the left never gets called out on their arrogance and blatant elitism (which is palmed off as mere humor). Make a joke about social class from the right and you're named, shamed, and run out of town with torches and pitchforks.

(This is not a reply to the above commenter, just about the FAQ entry itself).

<comment><USER4> Examples?

What does shoving Hot Wheels up your bum have to do with social class?

<comment><USER5> Nothing really. He is offended by that FAQ, obviously the game isn't for him.

<comment><USER2> Are you referring to me being offended - not in the least. I found it really funny and thats how it made my day.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure he/she was talking about me. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dumb marketing strategy that is working. Funneling tax payer money into that hands of lawyers. Good work.

<comment><USER5> I never thought of it that way before. This whole time the border wall was really just a branding statement. Thank you for enlightening us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If my experience in highway infrastructure is any guide, this is mostly futile. If they really want to slow it down, start with an environmental impact study. The best thing about it is the government has to pay for it and they are very subjective.

You can make a project take twice as long.

<comment><USER8> > If they really want to slow it down, start with an environmental impact > study.

People who care about the environment should care that environmental impact studies are what they claim to be and not red tape bombs. People are _supposed_ to be concerned about the outcome of them, not using them as a means to an unrelated end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> No one monetizes your hate better than these guys, the DCCC could learn a thing or two from them.

</comment><comment><USER10> good luck with that and Eminent Domain.. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain)

<comment><USER11> They are also retaining a law firm that specializes in eminent domain cases. Eminent domain doesn't mean the government could do whatever he wants. You are still entitled to due process. They explain it in a very clear way:

> So we've purchased a plot of vacant land on the border and retained a law > firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and > expensive as possible for the wall to get built.

Also, CAH founder has said in interviews in the past that:

> What I see getting results are back-to-basics material engagement with > politics, like showing up at a Congress member's office, calling, going to a > protest. I think that's more valuable than all of our clever liberal comedy > right now. [0]

This is their way to give Americans a way to do an action with political weight and to funnel their marketing/comedic abilities into political action.

Will it stop the wall? No. Will it slow it down and make it a pain for the Trump administration? Yes. This is the equivalent of filibustering for normal citizens. Is it a way to do a political action? Yes

[0] [https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/9/14532050/cards- against-...](https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/9/14532050/cards-against- humanity-super-bowl-interview)

<comment><USER12> This details of something so trivial are likely far beneath a presidential administration. I have a lot of doubt this is anything more than marketing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >He is so afraid that he wants to build a twenty-billion dollar wall that everyone knows will accomplish nothing. So we've purchased a plot of vacant land on the border and retained a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for the wall to get built.

So they are protesting the cost by making it costlier, got it.

<comment><USER14> No, they're protesting the ridiculousness of the wall by delaying it's construction indefinitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Company known for dumb publicity stunts starts a new dumb publicity stunt

In other news, sun rises in east, sets in west.

</comment><comment><USER16> The founder of this company is also facing rape charges, as a side note.

<comment><USER17> These accusations (not charges) came out in 2014 and don't seem to have gone anywhere. Little mention of it since then, and no evidence presented that I can find.</comment></comment>


The Internet's Bringing Idealism Back to Music...And Why Microsoft's Still Evil - <AUTHOR> http://madepublishing.com/wp/2010/05/internet_bringing_idealism_back_to_music/

<comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure the author justified tacking 'And Why Microsoft's Still Evil' onto the title. I suppose one could make the argument that 'soulless company' (author's words) equates to 'evil', but if that's the case, then the author should have spent some time arguing _why_ Microsoft is soulless (instead of simply asserting it as a universal truth). As it's written, everything after the ellipses in the title feels more like link-bate than a genuine representation of the posting.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Many people hate Microsoft because it's a soulless company. Apple has a ton of fans because it stands for insanely good design and anti-authoritarianism. Steve Jobs is cool, Bill Gates isn't._

While the first statement may be true, I have a _very_ hard time picturing Apple as anti-auhtoritarianism. If anything I would say they are the biggest representative of auhtoritarianism in the computing industry today. If his argument is that being authoritative is unpopular, this makes for a whopping contradiction in the main reasons outlined.

That said, the article's discussion on motivation while not revolutionary in any sense seems absolutely valid. Might be OK to have in the back of your head if you are starting a company, or want to recruit developers to your new FOSS project.

<comment><USER4> "Steve Jobs is cool, Bill Gates isn't."

Which one is saving more lives?

<comment><USER5> Which one has caused the waste of more manhours(and by extension, lives)?</comment></comment></comment>


Apple offering gift cards for old Windows PCs and displays - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/recycling/ I'm probably not the only one with a mountain of pain-to-recycle computer parts. <comment><USER2> Confirmed: none of my old boxes from family or friends are worth a penny and not one of my machines is worth more to the world than it is to me.</comment>


Alex Jones is a crackpot–but banning him from Facebook might be a bad idea - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/op-ed-alex-jones-is-a-crackpot-but-banning-him-from-facebook-might-be-a-bad-idea/ <comment><USER2> > _Booting someone like Jones from Facebook or YouTube altogether could easily > turn him into a martyr among his paranoid fans._

This would be significantly less of a problem if he didn't somehow have a legion of paranoid fans ready to consider him a martyr. Wonder how they got there.

This article understates Jones' Sandy Hook activities, by the way: the parents of one of the victims have moved seven times because their address keeps getting published to those paranoid fans, and they now live hundreds of miles from their child's grave. In response to the lawsuit, Jones has claimed that the parents are public figures because of their involvement in gun control politics, so he can say what he likes about them to those paranoid fans.

<comment><USER3> Stochastic Terrorism in action. You skirt free-speech limiting by baiting the already unhinged, then the thing you "didnt ask anyone to do" happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not that I agree with it but the safe strategy for any big company is to ban anything that seems risky since 95% of content most users consume is benign which is what keeps them on the platform.

<comment><USER5> If social media platforms have devolved into only cat memes and sponsored clothing shoots, that's pretty disappointing for the human race. While crackpots like Alex Jones are objectionable to all people of sense, I don't trust Facebook/Twitter/Et Al to act as arbitrators of free speech.

<comment><USER6> They wouldn't have to be the arbitrators if there was a free market for social networking with different instances that set their own rules.

The real issue is that Facebook is a publisher only when it benefits them, and a dumb pipe all other times. Either regulate it like a phone company, and force free speech on the platform, or force interoperability so Facebook alternatives can have a level playing field.

<comment><USER4> YouTube seems to have had a lot of success with the same strategy. They are a private company and not required to host content that constitutes fair use because, well, terms of service says they can. I don't agree with it and it's one of the reasons I don't publish on the platform anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> well, here are the stakes.

de-platforming emboldens and somewhat substantiates their narrative that they are being persecuted. peripheral followers may view this as a confirmation of what they have said, and draw closer to them, following them to a new platform.

NOT de-platforming them allows their repeated publications to reach a wider audience. gradually, peripheral followers are attracted anyway, and the loyal followers may become more zealous over time.

the real problem here is that both of these possibilities assume that people are 100% passive and 100% fixed in terms of their susceptibility to propaganda or non-mainstream theories.

the sad thing is that alex jones is not remotely persuasive to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking. the debate around whether de-platforming is useful or not is the wrong debate. the debate should be about how we can make the public more critical and more endowed with the ability to think! an intellectually vicious public is not a public that cares much about whether alex jones is allowed to blather because the blathering has little impact even if it is in a public area.

the elitists will jump in and say that the public will never be able to think for themselves. but it's to the advantage of those in power to never try to make the public intelligent and critical. we haven't even tried.

</comment><comment> aaron-lebo The article says as much, but this is a hard problem with no great solutions.

Some of the places that traffic in Jones kind of craziness are the conspiracy and greatawakening subreddits. The former is absurdly abused by the mods while Holocaust deniers and child abuse accusations run rampant (this is why that's not cool Musk) and you get banned for opposing that and other lunacy.

The latter subreddit is kind of terrifying. It's straight on cult behavior complete with subprophets with obvious mental illness breaking down their supposed communications from Trump and "Q" \- and people not only believe it but celebrate it.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/greatawakening/comments/9284sg/trum...](https://www.reddit.com/r/greatawakening/comments/9284sg/trump_told_us_q_was_going_to_post_again_soon/)

I've no doubt this existed before (how did the militant movements organize prior to Waco and OKC?) but I wonder if the spread of some of this lunacy (Q) would be possible if the platform wasn't provided to them. I kind of wait for the day that Reddit has to shut that down because of how bad it looks, but I hope it's not because of some violent and paranoid act fueled by it.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it was a pretty good article with good ideas. But Facebook and Google can't do everything about this issue. The fear and anger which give rise to conspiracy theories are part of being human. We've always been a violent, deceitful species. We have to find ways to acknowledge who we are and deal with it better than we have been. We can't just censor the madness and pretend it doesn't exist. The madness will break out in uncontrolled ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I consider myself an extremely strong First Amendment advocate and "free speech absolutist" when it comes to government force, and I am also uncomfortable about where the line should be for "private entities" that manage to achieve quasi-governmental levels of power, though I do not think that any level of non-violent restriction is directly comparable to censorship via the government's monopoly on physical force.

That said, a major question for me that has been growing bigger and bigger in my mind over the last decade is what exactly should be Free Speech's answer to denial of cognition attacks (and I want to be extra clear that it is a question, I have not been able to come to at all a satisfactory universal answer myself yet). Likely everyone on HN will be familiar with the concept of resource exhaustion attacks in the context of computers and networks. DOS mitigation has regrettably become a near requirement for any significant public facing Internet service. But fundamentally resource exhaustion attacks apply equally well to humans. In the idealized world of discussion and debate and philosophy abstract models of conduct are often used, but at the end of the day "implementation" still comes down to individual humans, each of whom only has so much mental capacity and so much time. And many arguments involving reality can easily be asymmetric too: it takes very little time and energy to make an assertion but a great deal to disprove it. Reality is under no obligation to be simple and elegant to human preferences.

I have seen this get put into practice with ever greater sophistication on a lot of my favorite forums. Someone arguing BS will throw out a bunch of simple stuff that takes a great deal of careful posting to show is wrong. If people volunteer their time to answer in that thread, it does no good in preventing the exact same assertions from being tossed out again (maybe remixed) in a new thread a week or month or whatever later. Eventually people just get tired or are busy. If they try to point towards a centralized source instead, that source can then be attacked and you see "argument from authority durr" and the like thrown out. It's bad faith but in a way that exploits a lot of the norms around free speech and argumentation, which classically didn't have the same scaling and automation threats.

I'm not sure what the answer is but we do clearly have a problem as some of the previous natural barriers due to cost of speech have fallen. It is common to speak of a "Marketplace of Ideas" when it comes to Free Speech, but it's important to remember that "Free Markets" are specific real tools that require regulatory support to function and have no goals of their own. Costs need to be internalized, information and processing ability needs to be symmetric, there needs to be a shared base of legal structure and norms to work on top of. Getting too far away from that results in market failure. I don't know how that might be translated to Free Speech but I do think we're seeing a "market of ideas failure" to some extent right now, and that it could easily get much worse in the near future unchecked. There is a need for better ways to improve the signal/noise cost function, and for systems to re-internalize that the _point_ of Free Speech, of marketplaces of ideas or markets of anything at all, is to come up with _good_ products. They're tools to serve humanity. Bad ones shouldn't be banned by force but they shouldn't be flourishing either, if they are then something isn't working.

<comment><USER10> The technique you're referring to is called the Gish Gallop. I've also heard it colloquially referred to as the Asymmetry of Bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe the term being looked for is "martyr".

Being banned from prominent platforms in a country which professes to believe in free speech (professes, because there's a bunch of caveats) is only going to boost the signal.

This (in concert with the banning of certain DNS entries) is going to bite us in the ass. Of course, what else are we to do?

<comment><USER12> It is free expression for the privately run platforms to ban him.

<comment><USER11> And there's one of the caveats I mentioned.

Of course, it raises the concern - it's not the platform exercising free speech, it's a couple of individuals acting on behalf of the legal entity that owns the platform. Treating the platform, or the legal entity, as a being capable of expressing themselves - let's be honest with ourselves - is just a shield for the company owners to express themselves without being held accountable.

<comment><USER12> its those couple of individuals prerogative. it was never a discussion about the platform it was a discussion about the legal entity. what is there a need to be honest about, what segment of the society is confused about that, I'm personally not familiar with those people and it doesn't anything about what I understand is congruent with the constitutional social contract of the privately run platform to exercise their free expression to boot off someone is also exercising their free expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every great advancement looks like a crackpot idea until it doesn't. The beauty of a public space is that anyone can bring their soapbox and share their beliefs, that most minority beliefs are wrong doesn't detract from the value of accessible minority beliefs.

<comment><USER2> I think there's a pretty clear distinction between ideas that are commonly seen as wrong-as-in-factually-incorrect that need to be protected for the sake of the advancement of ideas, like the earth moving around the sun, and ideas that are commonly seen as wrong-as-in-harmful, like the idea that the parents of the Sandy Hook victims are paid actors and deserve harassment and stalking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No it's not. Dangerous people shouldn't be allowed platforms. You have to make it harder and harder for them to get a following.

<comment><USER15> Obvious question: who decides who the dangerous people are? You?

<comment><USER14> White supremacists ideas are dangerous ideas, always.</comment></comment></comment>


Should I Be Worried About Scaling? - <AUTHOR> http://www.shouldibeworriedaboutscaling.info

<comment><USER2> _Inside a Starbucks a business plots world domination_

Aspiring "Next Facebook Founder" Non-Programmer: "You need to write the code so that it can scale to at least 3 million users in 6 months"

Contract Programmer Hired Off Craigslist: "Pardon me?"

ANFFNP: "If you look at the business plan, just after it defines your equity share in our little venture, you'll see that in week 20 we will have just over 1 million users. But by week 30 we will have 3 million users. After that, growth is exponential."

CPHOC: "Umm, I think we can worry about that later. I'm using Rails and Twitter was built on it. Sure they had some problems at first, but they managed to clear them up."

ANFFNP: "Well, I went to a startup pub night last week and this guy that wrote a URL shortener told me that Rails doesn't scale. I don't think we should use Rails."

CPHOC: "Okay... I guess I can use ASP.NET or PHP."

ANFFNP: "I heard at a FireFox 3.0 launch party last year not to use a Windows server because of security problems and that PHP powered Web 2.0. But our site's going to be Web 3.0, so PHP doesn't give us a competitive advantage."

CPHOC: "Well I've always wanted to learn Erlang..."

ANFFNP: "What's that?"

CPHOC: "It's this language that a phone company made to run its infrastructure. It apparently scales really well and was benchmarked at handling over 20 million processes once."

ANFFNP: "Excellent. I knew you were the right man for the job. I'll re-adjust our scalability numbers upward then. 20 million is about 6 times my original projections, so if I double them we should be good."

CPHOC: sigh...

Sorry, I'm in one of those moods today :-)

<comment><USER3> This isn't far from the truth with one of the companies I was involved in!! The non-techs had these totally unrealistic projections for millions of users and the tech wanted to write in their own PHP framework instead of Drupal so that it could scale.

Haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I unkilled this because it had a few interesting comments on it, but _please_ stop submitting these gag sites that just have "yes" or "no" on the page.

</comment><comment><USER5> So this is how we make arguments now? Reserve a complete-sentence domain name and put up a yes/no assertion?

<comment><USER6> <http://www.isthishowwearguenow.com>

<comment><USER7> Damn, I waited _way too long_ for that page to not load...

<comment><USER8> Verizon just gave me one of their internet-breaking parking pages. Damn them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quick answer: just don't prematurely screw it up. Some features and business ideas _just_ _don't_ _scale_.

The quickest way to check is to imagine you have everything in a big dumb (semi-normalized, but not fantastic) database. Eyeball the queries you're going to use. Then figure out how much work the database has to do to execute those queries. Also consider read/write rates and contention.

It's back-of-the-envelope, but it's pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the first concerns I have about a site is performance. Not scaling , but making sure the site itself operates very quickly. I have found that the path to getting a fast load time often leads to a reasonable level of scaling.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Getting irritated at work with talk about "we need to be ready, just in case"

Open the floodgates...and watch in despair as only a trickle comes through. Welcome to the real world.

Update: Wait until you get home to do something like this. Already got in trouble for it :( Need to remember: "Think then act"

<comment><USER11> That's very true. Plenty of 'start-ups' never make it past their 10,000th signup.

My approach is to throw stuff out there as soon as possible and see what gets traction and what does not. Plenty of time to concentrate on the few that do pan out that way.

Good ideas are two a penny, in the last 10 years out of all the websites we've built for ourselves and for customers the number of duds is staggering. A good idea in and off itself is not a guarantee that something will take off. Some of the most well thought out things I've built have totally flopped and some of the midnight hacks still give me bread on the table a decade later.

So my approach now is to keep the first implementation as thin as I think I can get away with without people noticing how solid something is.

Knowledge about building scalable systems is invaluable though when you do hit the jackpot.

<comment><USER12> Very, very true. I've worked for more than a few companies that built multiply-redundant, highly scalable everything, and then ended up with ten small paying customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't it also depend on who 'I' am? If I am part of a tiny startup that is going to launch a twitter clone, then no, I guess not. But if I am at Facebook or Twitter or Google and I am adding a new feature to the app, then hell, yes. You will have millions of users on Day 1.

</comment><comment><USER14> Er, not exactly "NO".

There are 2 kinds of scaling.

If you're worried about being able to handle a volume of 10,000 on the first day, then the answer is probably "NO".

OTOH, if you're concerned about designing something industrial strength from the inside out, then the answer is probably "YES".

YES, you might as well build reuseable components now if you know you'll need them. If you know what you're doing, that shouldn't take any longer that writing the same code multiple times.

YES, you should write processor intensive code at a low level if you know you'll only have to rewrite it later. Again, doing it right in the first place shouldn't take any longer.

YES, you should build a flexible enough architecture if your specs and design aren't yet frozen in stone (whose are?)

YES, you should probably be doing lots of things right now to avoid doing them twice. You must use your professional judgement about which ones.

A blanket NO bypasses that judgement. That's not being fair to yourself.

<comment><USER15> I agree that the answer is not exactly "No", but I disagree with most of your points.

Building reusable components, coding at a low level and building a flexible architecture all take considerably more effort than their alternatives, IMHO.

That being said, it makes sense to have the big picture in mind for the first time around and to take some small considerations on the way.

Avoid doing inherently bad things like schlepping around tons of unneeded data and not doing some simple caching.

Like the recent post about embracing technological debt, much of the early work may be discarded before it see the light of day so no point in over investing.

Rather that doing lots of things right the first time, I spend more effort not tightly coupling the pieces so that when you have to write something twice (and you will), it's a clean separation. I'd get the processor intensive stuff done with as little effort as possible (and likely barely fast enough), but in a way that I could rip that part out and plug in some native code when the time came.

<comment><AUTHOR> My favorite examplei is naked SQL vs an ORM. The ORM will never be able to write queries that perform as well as if you write them all by hand. But, you'll be able to crank out functionality much faster.

Eventually, if you're lucky, you'll have enough traffic to warrant going back and rewriting some of the ORM calls using a SQL query optimized by hand.

Lastly, 99% of the time, the query you end up optimizing will not be the one you expected to when you started writing the app. That's because between when you started and now, the direction has changed significantly and you finally know what it is that you're really building.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We did this. Now our web servers sit at around 5% usage and we have to pay for the full rack that they sit in. We make plenty of cash however.

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" is spot on.</comment>


Chess champion to miss Saudi Arabia tournament over women's rights - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/dec/27/chess-champion-to-miss-saudi-arabia-tournament-over-womens-rights <comment><USER2> Nakamura is also boycotting the tournament [1]. Naka is currently #2 at rapid and #4 at blitz [2].

[1] [https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-does-it- again-...](https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-does-it-again- boycott-time-including-nakamura)

[2] [https://2700chess.com/](https://2700chess.com/)

<comment><USER3> Just an aside but I love Nakamura and his commentaries!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a side note Saudis high cleric banned chess for civilians how hypocritical they get to host a competition. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi- ar...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabias- highest-cleric-bans-chess-and-claims-game-spreads-enmity-and- hatred-a6825426.html)

<comment><USER5> Islam is a distributed religion, sort of like Protestant Christianity. There's no "normal" form as there is with Catholic or orthodox Christianity, French or Spanish languages, or SQL.

<comment><USER6> Not exactly. I am not too familiar with christianity, perhaps they also have "schools of jurisprudences"? In Sunni Islam, there are 4 major ones (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali). There are a few important ones in Shia too (I am not too familiar with them). Here is a map showing the dominance of the schools:

[http://lostislamichistory.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/02/Fea...](http://lostislamichistory.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/02/Featured-Page-Image2.png)

Saudi is also influenced by the Salafi movement, but it is nestled in the Hanbali framework, which tends to put importance on imams (but not like Shias). The ulema (made up of "important" dudes dressed in robes) in Saudi Arabia has enjoyed a lot of importance. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Senior_Scholars_(Sa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Senior_Scholars_\(Saudi_Arabia\))

I am a /little/ surprised that Saudi would go so openly against the ulema. Things might be changing there, with MbS at the helm.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure I fully understand the distinction but I guess the big difference is that very few Christian countries are theocracies (i.e. in these countries Christian religious law has no impact outside the very limited authority held by clergy, e.g. denying entry to places of worship).

But historically as an outside it seems that Islamic sects are fairly analogous to Christian ones. There was an early split between Rome (Catholicism) and Constantinople (Eastern Orthodoxy), later various reformers led to Protestant sects, some of which eventually joined in alliances like the Evangelical Church in Germany (which includes Lutherans and Calvinists but has established a shared consensus).

At a glance, Christianity is defined by a split between Catholicism and Protestantism, with Protestantism being a fairly diverse collection of various groups ranging from Lutherans to Baptists.

Much of Christianity's present form is owed to the Peace of Westphalia, which in a nutshell led to the widely accepted ideology that it's okay for other countries not to share your religious beliefs (or even allow a diversity of beliefs in their own territories).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for expanding in that. I wasn't aware of Peace of Westphalia.

For what it's worth, early Islam is basically game of thrones. Worth checking out what happened in the decades following the death of Muhammad SAW.

<comment><USER5> The modern conception of sovereign states that people seem to think is some ancient invariant is actually the result of the Peace of Westphalia and the Congress of Vienna. The post colonial borders were shaped by that understanding.

Do people who grew up in former Ottoman territory have the same conception? Within that empire the idea of nation was quite different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a gay person I can't safely visit Saudi Arabia either. International events should not happen there.

<comment><USER9> Hypothetically, is a gay person allowed to visit Saudi Arabia if they don't do anything gay while in the country?

Or is a simple history of homosexuality enough to fear imprisonment?

<comment><USER10> Saudi criminal laws aren't codified. In theory, the Quran is the source of law, with various royal decrees layered on top. In the Quran, it's actual homosexual acts that are the crime. So simply being homosexual should not, in theory, get you in trouble. But in practice, the CPVPV has wide latitude. People have been arrested for flying a rainbow flag: [https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...](https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle- east/saudi-man-arrested-for-flying-pretty-rainbow-flag-unaware-it-symbolised- lgbt-pride-a6955886.html%3famp). People have also been arrested for their social media activity: [https://www.google.com/amp/www.washingtonblade.com/2016/03/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/www.washingtonblade.com/2016/03/28/report- saudi-authorities-seek-death-penalty-for-coming-out/amp/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is a great sacrifice and I absolutely supper her.

Just maybe it would get more media attention if she was physically there and refused to play in abaya or the "high-necked white blouses" nonsense.

Also, where is the solidarity form champions like Magnus Carlsen?

<comment><USER5> > Also, where is the solidarity form champions like Magnus Carlsen?

 _Really!!_

<comment><USER12> This is a great moment to show solidarity in the face to stupid and backward policies. I sincerely hope the great minds choose to boycott this tournament and support a meaningful cause.

<comment><USER5> Yes indeed! It seems the people down voting my comment don't agree.

<comment><USER13> I read your post as _objecting_ , not agreeing. Perhaps others have the same confusion.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. May be a cultural thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The competitor from Israel was also barred from entering the country, and the chess federation was fine with that.

<comment><USER15> I think it is a backwards Middle Eastern country thing, Israel loves to ban people too for all sorts of ridiculous reasons as well:

[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.827401](https://www.haaretz.com/israel- news/1.827401) [https://www.haaretz.com/israel- news/1.822554](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.822554) [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israel-bds- la...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israel-bds-law- immigration-refuse-entry-activists-british-hugh-lanning-palestine-solidarity- campaign-a7630011.html)

Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most part.

<comment><USER16> > Luckily this nonsense hasn't spread to Europe and North America for the most > part.

Isn't that what Trump's "Muslim ban" is?

<comment><USER15> > Isn't that what Trump's "Muslim ban" is?

Actually you are correct, Trump promised this in his campaign and has tried to enact it in a few different ways. I am unsure why you are being voted down.

<comment><USER17> Source for this please. This claim is repeated quite often, but the only 'source' I've been able to find is when Trump was being mobbed by yelling people(after a debate or a speech), some activist asked him about 'banning muslims', and Trump started talking about how we need to build a wall and secure our borders. Basically - Trump misheard or misunderstood the question, and people take that as him advocating for a general Muslim ban.

<comment><USER18> Not exactly a campaign promise, but Trump did inquire about how he could legally ban Muslims. One of his travel bans was even thrown out because a judge interpreted this to be evidence that Trump really was trying to do a Muslim ban [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2017/01/29/tr...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2017/01/29/trump-asked-for-a-muslim-ban-giuliani-says-and-ordered-a- commission-to-do-it-legally/?utm_term=.c30ff95882b1)

<comment><USER19> Except that it wasn't- it was upheld by the Supreme Court.

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/supreme-court- travel-...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/supreme-court-travel- ban/index.html)

People will dishonestly refer to it as a 'Muslim Ban' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, in the end it only diminishes the credibility of those who want to allow immigration from those countries.

<comment><USER20> Trump's most recent travel ban was not "upheld" by the Supreme Court--it was allowed to take effect while legal challenges are pending.[1] At the same time, the Supreme Court instructed the Courts of Appeals hearing the cases to "render [their] decision[s] with appropriate dispatch," presumably so that the Supreme Court can consider the case and issue a final ruling quickly (well, "quickly" in legal time).[2]

Also, it is inaccurate to claim there is "overwhelming evidence" that the ban is not a Muslim ban, and it is an unhelpful _ad hominim_ attack to call anyone who thinks it's a Muslim ban dishonest. The US District Court in Hawaii held that "EO-3 plainly discriminates based on nationality in the manner that the Ninth Circuit has found antithetical to ... the founding principles of this Nation."[3] I.e., it's a Muslim ban. And the Ninth Circuit recently upheld this opinion.[4]

The Supreme Court might overturn the Ninth Circuit decision, but you might want to edit your comment so it's less wrong.

[1] read the article you linked to!!

[2] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120417zr1_j4...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120417zr1_j4ek.pdf) and [https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120417zr_4gd...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120417zr_4gd5.pdf)

[3] [http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015f-2bab-d519-a57f-7fabf1...](http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015f-2bab-d519-a57f-7fabf1450002)

[4] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/us/travel-ban- court.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/us/travel-ban-court.html)

<comment><USER19> >People will dishonestly refer to it as a 'Muslim Ban' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary

I stand by this statement, as 'Muslim ban' is semantically false; Muslims are not banned from the US. If you can disprove this let me know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was reading the justifications of women who are attending and they generally have 3 things to say:

1) All countries are at different places in the march towards human rights. But participating in a women's sporting event in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia is a chance to help further women's rights in those countries as more women might want to play, become very very good, and have a high profile from which to challenge the regime. Refusing because you have to wear hijab or abaya is not worth giving up that chance to help women in such countries.

2) Saudi seems to be sponsoring much more prize money and accommodations. One ranked player complained that many participants had to fund their own travel in the past, that European countries aren't willing to sponsor the tournament, and only the top 4 players received any kind of compensation at all in the past. In Saudi it is supposed to be a better prize and travel is comped. One player said that such pitiful prize compensation as in the past is no less oppressive than having to wear a hijab.

3) Only one player mentioned this but I think it was worth mentioning. She said that human and women's rights are bad in Saudi but human and women's are ignored in other countries (for example, China multiple times in the past 20 years, Russia right after its annexation of Ukraine) the championship is in, and the 'principled' chess players never speak up then.

I think the last point is most revealing. Many of the players who boycott are concerned with regulations that affect them personally (I have to wear this. I won't be allowed to do this), and very few of them will ever care about the human rights violations or even women's rights violations that don't affect them. And of course we are not immune to this way of thinking either. It is easy for us to empathize when we have to go through what others go through. In China though (for example), when we are not having our family size culled and we are not being ethnically replaced with Han Chinese in our homelands, and we are not being suspiciously disappeared by the government like Ughyur Muslims, then we don't empathize enough to boycott a chess championship. We are not as up in arms about human rights and all this when it affects people who are not us. How many of us actually take our respective governments to task for their own rights violations (if you're American, a few years back, they bombed out an active, operating Red Cross Hospital, just as an example)?

<comment><USER22> I salute those that stand up for human rights for others, even when the oppression doesn't affect them. But then again, there is also nothing wrong with refusing to do something based on direct oppression to the person. You are right that people should stand up for rights of others too but this is a different discussion.

Here we have a woman that is expected to go to a country where she has to be escorted around by males, and is told how to dress. So this is directly affecting her, and her dignity. Maybe some will take the higher cash payments and not care if they have to become a second tier human for a bit, which is also fine. But this woman doesn't want to regardless of what the Saudis are paying.

I don't think she is trying to be a human rights champion, she is standing up for her dignity. I am glad the Saudis are making some progress on women's rights, but I also salute this woman for not wanting to take part while there is still blatant discrimination towards women/

<comment><USER21> I never said it was wrong, nor did the female player who made that argument. Good for her if she feels uncomfortable for voicing that and refusing to go. Only wishing it extended to other marginalized groups.

It's also interesting that you become a second-tier human in Saudi because of segregation but being paid pennies so little that you can't even pay for the travel expenses to the World Women's Chess Championship doesn't make a you a second-tier human. The fact that no other country even wants to host this championship this year doesn't make the women second-tier humans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> FIDE, the world chess governing body, seems to have signed a long term contract for the World Rapid and Blitz championships. ([https://www.chess.com/news/view/3-year-contract-fide- saudi-a...](https://www.chess.com/news/view/3-year-contract-fide-saudi-arabia- potentially-illegal)).

As long as it's one country, one vote, you're likely to get outcomes like this one, where a wealthy federation can buy off a large number of smaller federations. This is a perpetual problem in professional chess, hence the existence of proposals like this one: [https://en.chessbase.com/post/one-vote- per-rated-game](https://en.chessbase.com/post/one-vote-per-rated-game)

Edit: Also worth noting, Saudi Arabia was the ONLY bidder for this year's championships.

</comment><comment><USER24> Women's US 2016 champion Nazí Paikidze also boycotted the 2017 world championships in Iran over similar issues.

FIDE (the international chess governing body) seems to be about on par with FIFA when it comes to planning events (and possible graft).

<comment><USER25> > FIDE (the international chess governing body) seems to be about on par with > FIFA when it comes to planning events (and possible graft).

Ilyumzhinov is too busy hanging out with extraterrestrials to take bribes</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Diabetic Retinopathy Medical Device Help - <AUTHOR> Good Day All,
Apologies first if the content is irrelevant.
My grandma found that she's diagnosed with diabetes in late stage so she has to inject insulin by herself every morning.
Our team has started to develop a portable auto-focus fundus camera non-mydriatic for diabetic retinopathy screening and management because we thought there might be more people who under or or are in the process of vision loss.
Late stage detection of retinal diseases presents serious risks because eyesight become irreversible and incurable.
We want to help people all over the world ensure their health and prevent diseases, especially third-world countries with low medical accessibility.
Our prototype is operating in Vietnam for beta testing. We're currently looking for any clinics / hospitals / pharmaceutical companies and partners who are interested in working with us.
I've been to some MedTech conferences but was not able to get much insight.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NShPRdNlaDw&t=33s
or email me (firstname.lastname@example.com)
Kind Regards, <comment><USER2> I presume that you're aware of The American Academy of Ophthalmology. It is the primary conference where all the key players (researchers, distributors, practicing physicians, competitors) attend. [https://www.aao.org/annual- meeting/past-and-future-meetings](https://www.aao.org/annual-meeting/past-and- future-meetings)

I was on the development team for a company that sold Optical Coherence Tomography and ultrasound devices in the Ophthalmology market. If you need assistance in getting your device FDA certified - I can provide consulting assistance.

Clive Hayward [https://www.linkedin.com/in/clivehayward/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/clivehayward/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insight and I've added you on Linkedin. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi There, I am an ophthalmologist based in the US. Please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com for further information. I am interested in helping on this project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :) Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >we thought there might be more people who under or or are in the process of vision loss.

>Late stage detection of retinal diseases presents serious risks because eyesight become irreversible and incurable.

This is why people should get their eyes checked every year. especially if the are diabetic -- even if they think their vision is fine.

I thought my vision was fine. For fine print, I might need a pair of reading glasses; but, otherwise, I thought my vision was fine. One day, I saw what looked like a piece of lint on my left eye's eyelash. It turned out to be blood, more than a "floater."

My right eye just compensated, I had vision loss in my left eye. Thousands of laser zaps later and a vitrectomy, my left eye is stable; but, the vision loss is permanent. (Not to mention the "butt drug.") I was lucky. I can't really read with my left eye or do things requiring detailed vision; but, I can function.

This sounds like a great idea; but, the earlier you catch a problem, the better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your support!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a type 1 diabetic who must get annual eye exams to check for diabetic retinopathy, this would be an awesome tool to make disease management 5% better. And though 5% sounds small, that adds up to a lot overtime. Thanks for working on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Have a great week ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We've actually worked on an application/algorithms specifically for this sort of application, if you're interested in discussing more - I will reach out via email.

<comment><AUTHOR> can you contact me via an email? thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the application on the tablet showing test data or is that a live demo of the machine with the gentleman in the video?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a live demo! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since I'm not a useful med partner but I do know English, the adjective non- mydriatic would ordinarily fit into the sentence like this:

"a portable auto-focus non-mydriatic fundus camera."

<comment><AUTHOR> Clever, noted with thanks!</comment></comment>