Outlook.com now has IMAP - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-outlook/archive/2013/09/12/outlook-com-now-with-imap.aspx <comment><USER2> Interestingly, it looks like they used their AMA on Reddit specifically to announce this [1].

Kind of a neat idea.

        1) Implement a long-requested feature.
        2) Do AMA on Reddit and wait for inevitable "when are we getting {feature}?"
        3) Answer with "right now!"

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m926j/we_are_the_outl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m926j/we_are_the_outlookcom_team_ask_us_anything/cc6xk7e)

<comment><USER3> As others on that page have noted, it is a little suspicious that /u/falconer didn't post anything for 2 years before posting the question about IMAP.

Does indeed look at like a marketing ploy. Nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER4> Nearly a year ago I posted a positive comment on HN about Windows 8, and was then accused (by TWO individuals) of astroturfing.

The anti-M$ hate & paranoia that HN seems to have inherited from /. seems so beyond antiquated in this day and age.

On topic: This is great news. Congratulations to MS.

<comment><USER5> I get the same thing from geeks on Reddit regarding Windows 8. Usually a fair bit of nasty language clears up any /r/HailCorporate connotations.

It's so sad to see people who, on one hand will wax poetic on the subject of rationality and open mindedness,will turn around and join a tech bandwagon with no real reason and certainly no real knowledge.

Win8 is better than 7, even if you hate Metro. Objectively, statistically, the OS is more performant than 7.

Of course, openminded geeks never let data and stats get in the way of the anti-ms bandwagon. I'm sure they'll come around for the next windows, "because Windows is good every other release, donchaknow"!

<comment><USER6> _I get the same thing from geeks on Reddit regarding Windows 8._

Yeah, some people seem to be so blinded by hate towards Microsoft (yes, they behaved notoriously bad), that they can only judge whatever comes out of Microsoft based on that.

I like what they are doing with Windows Phone, Skydrive, Outlook.com, and web- based Office (and I am a UNIX user). But any such comment is usually with by vile reactions.

Yes, you may not like Microsoft and object to using their product because of their moral behavior (ironically, they seem to be one of the least walled- garden-ish company these days). But can we at least judge their products by their technical merit?

<comment><USER7> > I like what they are doing with Windows Phone, Skydrive, Outlook.com, and > web-based Office

I don't. It's entirely possible that you confound the company-directed hate with the product-directed hate, simply because you have neither.

<comment><USER8> Which model of Windows Phone did you own? How long did you use it? How big of a SkyDrive did you own? Did you use Outlook.com or Hosted Exchange/Office 365?

For me, I'm very happy with my Lumia 928, 125 GB SkyDrive and the 400+ users I set up on Office 365 love the email system and web based Office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I opened my firstname.lastname@example.com email address in 1997. They then rebranded it to hotmail.com, then to live.com, then to windowslive.com, then back to live.com and then to outlook.com. I still sign-on to my email using my @msn.com...

<comment><USER10> Whoever succeeds Ballmer is going to have to take a long hard look at their strategic marketing team. Seriously, MS has ADD or something.

<comment><USER11> I suspect it's not ADD, it's reactionary decisions made from lack of or improperly interpreted data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Microsoft services are becoming a very tempting alternative to Google Apps.

Mostly I'm getting sick of Google randomly dropping services I use and re- designing every 3 months.

I was looking at fastmail.fm for my mail hosting, but now I'll have to check out outlook.com as well.

<comment><USER13> Whenever I think Microsoft's online offerings look good, I remember this article:

[http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on- skydriveyou-m...](http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou- may-lose-your-microsoft-life/)

Of course, the NSA revelations make it hardly matter anyway.

<comment><USER10> ... thanks for the heads up. I was actually starting to like SkyDrive after I got a free winphone and started using the MS ecosystem.

Now, knowing that MS is prone to shutting down the whole account for perceived infractions? I have family photos that aren't backed up anywhere else there. That's not cool.

Honestly, even if this policy was reserved for kiddy-porn and crack-dealers, the "boom your stuff is gone no review no discussion" approach to it means the possibility of a false-positive is scary.

<comment><USER14> > _Now, knowing that MS is prone to shutting down the whole account for > perceived infractions?_

IIRC, Google is just as prone to doing this too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't keep track of all the MS rebranding - is Outlook.com the same as Mail.Live.com, which used to be Hotmail.com?

(random aside about Microsoft's rebranding - if you want to get to the photo gallery associated with your Live.com account, you have to go to SkyDrive, because if you search for Live Photo you get the Windows 7/8 desktop application)

<comment><USER14> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazing how they paint EAS as a better protocol than the "older" IMAP. EAS is a beast of a protocol. Just go to the protocol page at Microsoft[1] to get scared. The list of sub protocols and data formats is terrifying! This, compared to a protocol for which the basic session can be taught in five minutes tells a lot about the quality of both protocols.

Simplicity follows good engineering. EAS is way more complex than necessary.

[1] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc425499%28v=EXCHG.%...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc425499%28v=EXCHG.%2080%29.aspx)

<comment><USER16> Of course its more complex. EAS includes a lot more than the IMAP protocol, e.g. Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Documents support.

<comment><USER15> Can you point me to an online sample session, equivalent to this: [http://coewww.rutgers.edu/www1/linuxclass2010/lessons/Email/...](http://coewww.rutgers.edu/www1/linuxclass2010/lessons/Email/sec_7.php)

My point stands. EAS is not just extensive it is needlessly complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Learn how to setup Outlook.com for custom domain free email hosting [http://www.blogsynthesis.com/setup-microsoft-outlook- custom-...](http://www.blogsynthesis.com/setup-microsoft-outlook-custom- domain/) as posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6375844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6375844)

</comment><comment><USER18> Wait, one of the biggest mail providers (that did a relaunch not so long time ago) did _not_ have IMAP until now?!

<comment><USER19> They're on the bleeding edge now!

<comment><USER20> The technology just wasn't there yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Microsoft criticizes how Google scans your mail to provide you with targeted ads, yet they are promoting the following service which is arguably similar:

> Sift makes it easier than ever to find the products you're already > interested in. It uses existing shopping content in your Outlook.com account > to discover your favorite stores and products, then creates a personalized > shopping experience.

<comment><USER22> I feel there is a very important difference between Google automatically scanning all of my emails, and Microsoft pointing out that a third-party service allows you to choose to have your inbox scanned now functions with Outlook.com.

<comment><USER23> IIRC, MS scan "to:" "from:" and "subject:" but not "content" whereas Google, they claim, does scan content.

<comment><USER24> They both provide access for the NSA anyway, don't they?

<comment><USER23> That's a different issue. This is about how they commercialize (monetize) their offerings, not about who grants what data to _Govs_. One issue is companies have more say with regard to how they monetize your data, the other is about how they are compelled, by law, to hand over your data to govts.

<comment><USER25> Amen to this.

I have a drea, that one day there will be a post relating any big software/internet corp, without a snarky comment about NSA .

<comment><USER24> I was just thinking that if you want to choose your service provider by how transparently and trustworthy your data will be treated, they both disqualify anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know if this would allow you to use outlook.com with Outlook (on the desktop) and send mail from your domain without the "on behalf of" message?

Previously if you used outlook.com with Outlook for desktop you had to use the Hotmail connector. Sending emails to others they would see from email@example.com on behalf of firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER27> Yes, you can do that. If you login to your outlook.com account, go into settings then "Your email accounts". Here you can add send only accounts with custom SMTP just as with gmail this removes on behalf of. I've setup my desktop outlook client to use my Outlook.com address but when the message is sent by Outlook.com it uses my own domain and no "On Behalf Of".

Hope that helps..

<comment><USER26> Thanks! completely forgot that was my problem with the old Hotmail connector, you couldnt set a specific SMTP

Derp :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "With today's announcement, we now have a richer email experience across devices and apps, including those not using EAS, such as Mac Mail and Thunderbird on a Mac."

LOL, they made sure to avoid mentioning Mail on Android...

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks like it's still not possible to send from alias addresses with the provided SMTP server.

Outlook.com allows users to have up to 10 different alias email addresses, and the users can send emails using any of those alias addresses provided that they are sending from the desktop website of Outlook.com or the Windows 8 Mail app. However, users can only send from one of their alias addresses if users set up their Outlook.com account on any other mail client, whether using POP, IMAP, or EAS. That includes the official Outlook.com app for Android[1] and the desktop Outlook 2013 client[2], plus Thunderbird and other desktop mail clients[3].

I do hope that this issue gets addressed in the near future.

[1] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail- sy...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-sync/how-do- i-send-an-email-from-my-alias-using-the/b233d566-4567-4054-8fba-2b6e34258745)

[2] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/office/forum/office_2013_...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/office/forum/office_2013_release-outlook/how-to-send-emails-from- outlookcom-alias-in/91fe4b8a-4d67-4873-ba5d-db0fc5058a30)

[3] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail- em...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-email/how-to- sync-outlookcoms-alias-to-thunderbird- or/3cba0cdf-7fab-4b68-b2ce-8b6d815ad3ea?msgId=966f5f0e-3e14-42ea-9fa2-853e8714fe32)

</comment><comment><USER30> Reposting the configuration settings:

        Incoming IMAP
            Server: imap-mail.outlook.com
            Server port: 993
            Encryption: SSL
        Outgoing SMTP
            Server: smtp-mail.outlook.com
            Server port: 587
            Encryption:  TLS

For anyone on Android having trouble setting up the outgoing SMTP settings on their mail account like I was: set the security type to STARTTLS instead of SSL/TLS.

<comment><USER31> I really wish companies would get SSL vs TLS vs STARTTLS right. I wrote about this on our blog a while back and ended up turning it into a help page because people still seem to get confused.

[https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technology_ssl_vs_tls_starttls....](https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technology_ssl_vs_tls_starttls.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So far Microsoft is doing everything right with Outlook. If I didn't already have a gmail address I would easily prefer Outlook over gmail.

<comment><USER33> you can redirect it to Outlook. :)

<comment><USER34> Sorry for butting in but I've recently done this, the new Gmail compose "experience" was the final straw.

I'm happy - the only thing that is a bit weird is I'll sometimes get spam mails duplicated arriving at my outlook.com address. Never with "normal" mails only the obvious spam.

Does anyone know of an easy way to extract all my mails from Gmail? I'd like to dump them in the filesystem and then kill my Google account.

<comment><USER35> I've used gmvault[1] before, and it works pretty well at preserving labels and playing nice with Gmail's specific idioms not common among other IMAP providers.

[1] - [http://gmvault.org/](http://gmvault.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yay! We have now finally been able to add support for Hotmail in YippieMove[1]. It has been one of the most popular feature requests since we launched back in '08.

[1] [http://www.yippiemove.com](http://www.yippiemove.com)

</comment><comment><USER37> Freaking awesome, thank you MS.

</comment><comment><USER38> You could certainly say that was about time.

On the flip side, I always thought they held back on IMAP-support for political reasons. If whatever political momentum which stalled this obviously missing feature is gone from Microsoft, that's probably a good thing which may have more positive effects down the road.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wish they would also have starttls support. I also don't wan't smtp or imap support at all. I want only smtps and imaps support. By not supporting insecure protocols at all, you can avoid huge possibility of insecure misconfiguration.

</comment><comment><USER40> It didn't before? Well in that case I can report that Close.io <[http://close.io/>](http://close.io/>) now supports full 2 way email integration with Outlook.com.

</comment><comment><USER41> Would be nice if they could spread some of this new found IMAP love to Outlook proper. Last time I checked, support for it is still fairly half hearted :(

</comment><comment><USER42> Funny how rebranding goes. When I use Apple Mail auto-detect (on snow leopard) account function it gives me some live.com IMAP parameters.

</comment><comment><USER43> Finally.

</comment><comment><USER44> The news is it didn't have it before :P

</comment><comment><USER45> finally, welcome in the 21st century.</comment>


The canals of Venice are now "clear and full of fish" hoax - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1240229140143448071 <comment><USER2> It seems a bit false to call it a hoax: \- first, the locations he amazingly manages to find with Google Street View and Earth are actually in Venice or in it's district \- second, as pointed out by a response on twitter, Reuters interviewed a resident there about that matter, so they most likely were there and would not post about it if it was not true

Reuters tweet here: [https://twitter.com/reuters/status/1240242797933821955?s=21](https://twitter.com/reuters/status/1240242797933821955?s=21)

<comment><USER3> I think the hoax is that people were saying it was a hoax. Which blows my mind a little. That was the take I originally believed.

<comment><USER4> This will blow your mind in a similar way: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127145356...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312714535679)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1) Algae in water suddenly dissapear

2) in the previous weeks everybody was cleaning the streets with lots of diluted bleach

Mhh... I sense some connection here, and is not what they think...

</comment><comment><USER6> So it's not a hoax.</comment>


Show HN: My RIP Goodbye to my Co-Founder Carlos Icaza - <AUTHOR> Carlos Icaza was my co-founder at Lanica (an Appcelerator backed company). He passed away this summer unexpectedly. I wasn't able to find the right words to say at the time. But since we spent so much in code, I decided I should code something in his memory instead.
Carlos was also the co-founder of the Corona SDK, and was also a lead/manager for Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Flash before that. He also ran @codinginswift on Twitter with over 18,000 followers.
I finally finished my tribute and debuted it at the try! Swift conference in Tokyo last month at the end of my Swift on Android talk. That whole talk has just been publicly posted, but I wanted to make it more accessible so I've uploaded just the demo part to YouTube. (It also contains some fixes and improvements since the conference.)
Dance of the Fairies
https://youtu.be/ciphph8R4sU
It's also inspired by an old Sierra On-Line game series, Quest for Glory. I wrote more about both Carlos and the demo on my blog.
http://playcontrol.net/ewing/jibberjabber/dance-of-the-fairi...
Thank you for reading/watching <comment><USER2> I was camping in Patagonia and away from internet. When I got back to civilization, I had a long group messenger thread that started from his stroke to his untimely death.

The morning after I learned about him passing away, I got up for sunrise photography, and we have a beautiful sunrise in Patagonia. I took the photos thinking of him and dedicating that photo to him. It was my way of saying goodbye.

[http://imgur.com/a/DuFvn](http://imgur.com/a/DuFvn)

</comment><comment><USER3> I met Carlos about 15 years ago while I was in school. He helped me with a project I was working on. Very helpful and friendly guy!

I also remember going to lunch with him as he was building Corona. His passion was contagious.

We hadn't talked for a while and this is the first time I'm hearing about him. Very sad. RIP Carlos.

</comment><comment><USER4> I did not see news of Carlos's passing last year - very sad. He was always a helpful and hopeful voice in the Corona SDK community, and I thought very highly of him as I used his product to develop my first iOS game.

Thank you for sharing your tribute.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's crazy how so many people come to HN from all over the planet, yet we always see many connections in the comments for threads like this. Other communities this large I don't seem to notice it as much, maybe just confirmation bias.

In any case, I remember chatting with Carlos shortly after the launch of Corona. It was still exciting times in mobile. The opportunities were big. It's easy to forget the courage it took to leave a senior role at a top company and face the risk and challenges.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's the cheesiest thing I've seen in a long time and also I'm crying now.

Thank you

</comment><comment><USER7> I am saddened by this news. I met Carlos a few years back in Palo Alto In the early days of corona. I am sad to learn about this. I was just thinking about him yesterday and wondering what he was up to as I had lost touch with him. RIP. Condolences to his family.

</comment><comment><USER8> RIP Carlos.

I wrote my first mobile app in Corona.

</comment><comment><USER9> I feel sad. I was puzzled as I checked his twitter account some time ago since it wasn't updated. Now found out why. RIP Carlos.

</comment><comment><USER10> Damn. I am pretty sure I meet you two in a random FIU presentation a bunch of years ago. Sorry to hear this happened

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry for your loss.

This is great tribute, I hope it brings you happiness for many years to come when you think about your friend.

</comment><comment><USER12> I met Carlos few years back, Corona was just starting and he invited me to the office to debug performance issues on the game i'm working on using Corona SDK. He was helpful and accommodative, even during his busy schedule, a nice person overall, you will be missed Carlos :(

</comment><comment><USER13> Can someone help me clear out the cobwebs? I played the first couple of Hero's Quest / QFG games lo those many years ago.

But how specifically does this animation relate to the game? Was there a scene like this one? Or is it only the background illustration that's similar?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a little about the QFG1 vs. QFG5 inspirations in my blog entry.

But here is a video of the QFG5 dryad dance which will probably start making it clear. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2dTxSCGeNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2dTxSCGeNE)

And this is from QFG1, which is where the concept of dancing and personality of the fairies originate from. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYpN8Uii6ng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYpN8Uii6ng)

I don't remember if that clip shows all the dialog, but they talk about how they rule the forest and make rainbows and "fairies just want to have fun". They like to dance and don't know if humans can dance.

This video does show you making them mad by walking into the fairy ring (because the human smell is impossible to get rid of). So they make you dance to your death as punishment.

The last fairy message at the end of the credits is also borrowed straight from the game. When you leave the screen in the game, a fairy will fly to you in the next screen to say a randomized good bye message before flying off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> RIP Carlos. What a nice tribute. Carlos was a friend and adviser to my company, just prior to him starting Lanica. We both were considering funding from Appcelerator and had met for coffee in Palo Alto many times.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wasn't totally sure when I checked this last night; confirmed while browsing other threads this morning.

Mods: thanks for making the links in the post clickable. :)

It's the little things.

</comment><comment><USER16> woah?!? I haven't read any news he'd passed away.. only just now.. been know him once he started the Corona SDK.

RIP Carlos

</comment><comment><USER17> That's really sad news.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hope he's somewhere like Erana's Peace now. RIP to Carlos.

</comment><comment><USER17> That's sad news, just got the attention now.

</comment><comment><USER16> woah?!? I didn't hear any news he passed away.. only just now..

RIP Carlos

</comment><comment><USER19> rip Carlos.</comment>


A personal device to let you test samples of food for allergens - <AUTHOR> http://6sensorlabs.com/blog/2015/10/4/mark-your-calendars-nima-available-for-pre-orders-october-20 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like an expensive device since the capsules aren't reusable... But if you have severe dietary restrictions, I can see how it would relieve stress about eating out.</comment>


Find and Pitch Investors - <AUTHOR> https://www.investorsfinder.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Used by 2000+ entrepreneurs</comment>


Surviving a traffic surge: Three techniques to scale your site fast - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-emergency-web-scaling/

<comment><USER2> These are decent tips, but the real fix for me when I got a (minor) traffic surge was changing KeepAliveTimeout from 15 (sec) to 2 (sec). Basically, due to the high default keep alive time for requests, most Apache threads were waiting for the timeout.

So the number of threads you have (e.g. setting StartServers, MaxSpareServers/MaxSpareThreads) is way less important than the keepalive timeout: you can/should start enough threads to use all the available resources, but it will only make a difference if you aren't idling all those threads with a high KeepAliveTimeout. Apparently, that's the Apache default setting.

<comment><USER3> Ding ding ding, we have a winner. KeepAlive can even kill your blog at 2 (achievement unlocked 4 times over last year).

Edit to elaborate:

Sorry, was eating dinner and Kindle is not exactly made for typing on technical documentation. This comment is a abbreviated version of [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/19/running-apache-on-a- memo...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/19/running-apache-on-a-memory- constrained-vps/) \-- read that if you want a longer spiel. (It is my most cited blog post on HN. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that.)

Basically, there are a couple of Apache MPMs available. You may have the prefork MPM installed. You can check by running "apache2 -l". If you see prefork in the output, take a look at your config file (quite possibly /etc/apache2/apache2.conf) and check for the setting" KeepAlive On". If KeepAlive is on, your blog is broken and you just haven't found the failure condition yet.

On my server (Ubuntu, has gone from Dapper to Lucid over the years), the package default Apache2 settings for the prefork MPM are: 15 second keepalive, 150 MaxClients. If your server has enough RAM to support 150 processes for Apache (and, if you're on a VPS, you probably don't), that will let you process a _hard theoretical maximum_ of 600 clients per _minute_. There are many, many things you can do to exceed that maximum bound: getting on the front page of Reddit or getting retweeted by Jimmy Wales at the right hour of the day both qualify.

Calculation: any client requesting any file, _regardless_ of whether it is dynamic, static, cached, generated by a PHP monstrosity, whatever, occupies one process for a hard minimum of 15 seconds. 4 clients saturate one process for 1 minute.

With special attention to fellow VPS owners: after having died hard several times when apache2 decided to use up all available RAM and then swap the machine to death, I eventually tweaked the MaxClients setting down to 24. This means that, even with KeepAlive at 2 seconds, my max throughput was 720 clients per minute. Again, that number is achievable under very plausible circumstances for a personal blog in 2010/2011.

There are a variety of countermeasures one can take against this. One is not using the prefork MPM, but you have to be a configuration Jedi to figure out how to actually do this and still run PHP on your server. "apt-get install apache2 libapache-mod-php5", which is what substantially all guides will tell you to do, will force you to use the preform MPM. If you had been using the worker MPM instead, you would have a much, much harder time crashing your server serving static content.

Another alternative: switch to Nginx. This problem goes away instantly. (If I didn't have 15 config files I would have to migrate, I would have done this years ago.)

The easiest alternative: turn off KeepAlive. This will give you a very modest throughput hit, but I'll trade "Blog stays up if mentioned in the NYT" for that hit any day of the week.

<comment><USER4> Do you run your site with keepAlive set low all the time or only when needed?

<comment><USER3> KeepAlive is off 100% of the time because "Wake up at 3 AM in morning, in response to my cell phone playing Ride of the Valkyries because a server is offline, to tweak the config file locking out thousands of people who want to see my writing" is sensible precisely 0% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, I was scared he was talking about scaling an application through most of that post. Only to finally realize it mentions its for a blog towards the end.

Its drastically oversimplified if you need to scale an application. "Step 2: Make content static". For an actual application, there is far more to say than 4 sentences.

In my opinion:

* There are few cases where Apache is better than nginx. I don't run PHP, so that may be still there. * Varnish is awesome, use it, love it. * Purely static blogs, like jekyll, are great.

</comment><comment><USER6> 600 MaxClients on a Linode box with 512MB RAM? At this point, it became quite clear that this article isn't going to be hugely useful.

<comment><USER7> what would you recommend instead?

<comment><USER6> Apache's memory usage should not exceed the available RAM on the machine. If you do that, it starts having to use swap, which drastically slows things down - if you're already getting lots of hits, it'll start a death spiral.

Apache's memory usage varies based on what modules are enabled and the code they're serving and a number of other factors.

The rule of thumb is to take the average free RAM when Apache isn't running, divide it by the average RAM usage of a single Apache process on your system, and set MaxClients to a couple under that value.

For example, on a 512MB Linode box, if you've got 450MB free when Apache isn't running, and Apache takes up 12MB per process, you'd allow about 35 at the most.

<comment><USER7> Makes sense, thanks for clarifying!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No. Stop it. Never ever scale your blog.

It sounds like the author was making the same mistake that pretty much everybody makes: Treating your blog as though it were dynamic content. But it's not. It's static HTML, and you should never have to make any modifications to anything to make it scale.

Step one: Have your blog export all entries to plain HTML.

Step two (optional): move your imagery out to S3/Cloudfront.

That's it. That will allow your little out-of-the-box slice handle all the traffic that we can throw your way.

Scaling is an issue that you're meant to have with your _product_. Because your product actually needs to talk to databases and _do things_ , it may have trouble doing those things when lots of people hit it at once. A website hosting a blog, on the other hand, needs to serve files. And that's been a solved problem for fifteen years.

<comment><USER9> If the blog supports comments, it needs to talk to databases.

 _Step one: Have your blog export all entries to plain HTML._

He did that.

 _A website hosting a blog, on the other hand, needs to serve files. And that's been a solved problem for fifteen years._

"Too few Apache threads" is a known problem, which he recognized as soon as he saw the load numbers.

<comment><USER10> > If the blog supports comments, it needs to talk to databases.

Sure, but it doesn't have to fall over. Outsourcing to Disqus is the easiest solution, but you can build your own AJAXy solution. Or just write out a new static file for each comment (if you're really overloaded, comments may take a while to be processed, but you can just serve the old page in the interim.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My number 1 tip: ditch Apache.

One of my web apps has the occasional spike in traffic that previously caused Apache to consume vast amounts of memory on my VPS, eventually crashing it due to lack of memory.

After reading many guides, experimenting, and generally getting quite frustrated (and working out what VPSs I could afford to upgrade to), I tried setting up Nginx on a separate port. It took maybe 1 hours for me to have my former LAMP stack set up and working, so I put it live, and haven't looked back since.

If you're on a VPS, use Nginx. The config file is wildly different to that of Apache, and you'll no doubt spend a few minutes cursing trying to figure out how to port over your rewrite rules, but after that it's plain sailing.

<comment><USER12> This. As an added bonus, I've also found that I prefer Nginx's configuration files.

Worst case, you can serve static files with Nginx and route dynamic requests to your Apache instance (I still do this with a few old PHP apps I have).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Using a reversed proxy (e.g. nginx's built in, or maybe varnish) is a much easier and dynamic solution then to render things to static files.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. Heroku makes it dead simple to use their Varnish proxy. Just set one http header and they'll cache the page for you. After that, your app doesn't do anything until the cache expires. This obviously won't work for highly dynamic pages, but for semi-static front pages/blog entries it can be a lifesaver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not at all familiar with Linode's iPhone app - but the bottom graph looks an awful lot like a system load graph, and not a CPU utilization graph.

"CPU utilization never exceeded 3%"? Really? Maybe the system load was at 3.0 for a few days?

<comment><USER16> Completely agree, that a system load graph not CPU usage.

<comment><USER17> No, it's CPU usage, _not_ a load average.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > With amazon's EC2 service, I'll be able to deploy as many temporary mirrors > as I need in just a few minutes

Can you go into detail on how does that work? I thought you had to have your site originally hosted on EC2 to do that ...

<comment><USER19> I'm curious about this too. I'm imagining he adds a redirect to the EC2 instance in an .htaccess file for the page that is getting hit hard?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >>(Step 1: Cut image quality) Page load time dropped from 24 to 12 seconds.

Wow. I had no idea that could make such a difference. I suppose the issue was with the low number of threads set in the Apache configuration. The server was spending its time sending out static content when it could have been doing more important things? I signed up with S3 to serve up my static content to keep that load off my server. I should probably be using CloudFront instead though.

I'm interested in looking for a backup host just in case. I currently use WebFaction and I love them to death -- but I'm worried that under incredible stress the shared hosting won't hold. With Linode, do you start from scratch with a blank OS and just install everything you need from there (Apache, mod_wsgi, etc. kind of thing) or do they have preset installs? With WebFaction I can select a particular setup and I'm up and running in minutes.

<comment><USER21> Linode offers StackScripts, which can automate a lot of the initial deployment steps. <http://www.linode.com/stackscripts/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> One [probably naive] thing that I've done in the past has been to use mod_rewrite to redirect people to a static version of a page.

Something like this would work in .htaccess

RewriteRule ^t/item/4372/$ /static/4372.html

It's saying "Hey, apache, if you see somebody asking you for website.tld/t/item/4372/, send them to website.tld/static/4372.html instead"

A blog post I wrote got about 100k hits in a day a few weeks ago, and using mod_rewrite in this fashion, I was able to keep the site running for the entire day.

</comment><comment><USER23> Nice post. It would be nice to read a comparative between apache and nginx on these cases.

</comment><comment><USER24> Those tips are obviously worthwhile, but doesn't address massive scale for heavily dynamic sites. These should definitely be at the beginning of any optimization checklist for sure.

One thing I found interesting was his remark this:

 _Google Analytics failed to detect the surge: page load time was so high that visitors were closing the page before analytics could load._

He then remarks that it took Analytics 15 hours to detect the spike, but isn't that true of all Analytics instances? I'm not sure if the author is mistaking Google Analytics' delayed reporting as a fault or if I'm missing something.

<comment><USER10> These tips are for people getting slashdotted, not people building the next Google. Your average blog simply isn't "heavily dynamic", and if you're building Google/Facebook/... there are better resources.

Google Analytics is Javascript-based and thus vulnerable to people closing the page before it loads. It's actually near-realtime, but just doesn't work if you're having this problem. I'd imagine watching free Apache instances/threads, outgoing bandwidth or probably even the Apache logs would be more useful.

<comment><USER25> > Google Analytics is Javascript-based and thus vulnerable to people closing > the page before it loads.

And people with Javascript disabled, which is a startling number. The disparity between reported views in Analytics and what I can observe from my Web server logs is amazingly large.

<comment><USER10> Are you sure those aren't bots? Analytics packages vary widely in their ability to filter out bots.

<comment><USER25> Bots have Javascript disabled too. :)

You're right, of course. I considered it and started grepping them out, but got bored and did something else interesting. From a casual glance, there were a lot more Mozilla UAs than reported views, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Where the hell have I been, didnt realize Linode has an iphone app.</comment>


Thought provoking/ motivational blogs - <AUTHOR>

There are often links posted here that are not specifically tech related but are thought provoking and generate some interesting discussion, for instance the one on the front page right now on doing things alone. My question is really, where can i find more blogs like these? <comment><USER2> I've got some good recommendations. I'm really into motivational type stuff as well, I'm sort of a personal development freak. Here are my favorites:

<http://sebastianmarshall.com/> \- Sebastian is my favorite writer. He generally discusses productivity, personal development, strategy (life and business), etc. Highly, highly recommended.

<http://artofmanliness.com/> \- The Art of Manliness is (as you would suspect), a site for men. It discusses things like: how to find your life's purpose, how to become a better man--generally stuff that isn't really discussed between men, but that men should know. They write long, well written articles that cover a lot of subjects.

<http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/> \- Steve Pavlina is a controversial dude. He writes about personal development, but also tends to throw in vegan / spirituality type stuff every now and then (which I disagree with). Overall, his writing is very great. He does long-form pieces that fully discuss an argument, and it's worth reading along.

On a lighter note, I also try to write in a 'motivational' type style on my personal site, just in the off chance you're interested: <http://rdegges.com/>

There are tons of other blogs out there (The Art of Ass Kicking, etc.), but I generally find the other options to be too 'commercialized' for my liking, and they're filled with those really short, hyped up kinda articles.

<comment><USER3> >There are tons of other blogs out there (The Art of Ass Kicking, etc.), but I generally find the other options to be too 'commercialized' for my liking, and they're filled with those really short, hyped up kinda articles.

yeah, the same here. I usually prefer authors who write for the sake of writing: the content is more "pure".

I second your recommendation on Sebastian's site. I'd add:

\- Skinner Layne <http://skinnerlayne.com/blog/> \- Games and Strategy <http://gamesnstrategy.blogspot.com/> (about strategy, lifehacks, history etc) \- The Rationalist Conspiracy <http://rationalconspiracy.com/> (For rationality stuff)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best car for programmer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Something without an onboard computer/'infotainment' system, and definitely NO internet access. You will be a HELL of a lot less frustrated that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> (symbol-function 'car)</comment>


Go Forth and WikiReadit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.brush.co.nz/2009/12/wikireader/

<comment><USER2> direct clickable: <http://thewikireader.com/>

I wasn't suprised when I read the footer of the site, which credited OpenMoko :)

They are the same guys who make the OpenMoko phones, Neo Runner and the like. So I just dug up a bit more to find out that this device, like the OpenMoko phones runs on linux. atleast thats what I concluded when I saw the source code here <http://github.com/wikireader/wikireader>

The article above says it's developed in Forth and also links to a part of the source code. Anybody has any experience with Forth?

The only caveat is this: <http://thewikireader.com/store.html>

The updates for the data in this device (all data is stored in the device), will cost you $29 per 2 updates per year. Heck, why not just have an updating software and let it update whenever it detects a wifi connection? Paid updates for an open device accessing open content sounds locked to me.

<comment><USER3> I have some experience with Forth; I have been programming a forth CPU in 2002 and got paid for it.(it's me who left a comment in the article)

The article says "the main WikiReader app is written in C" and uses forth "for testing and apps"; a fine approach if you depend on core libraries which are in C. It'll be interesting to see which functionality is done in Forth.

The article mentions that Forth is used to simplify debugging. This is traditional approach and this is what Forth proponents say. The truth is, it was more true back in the day when JTAG wasn't available. Now that JTAG is omnipresent and popular IDEs can use it, the use of fringe language such as Forth (or any software solution where hardware-assisted one is readily available!) is so much less justified.

In the quoted letter, Christopher Hall, the developer, does a nice job of explaining the use of Forth in a project. But I think many people who got the chance to familiarize with Forth, feel like this is a mere justification. Like "c'mon you can tell them what you want, but between you and me, we know that this is a good shit and you just want to try it once again" Or, like, picture Paul Graham picking a language for his next project: "Should I use Lisp or Blub? Hmm, this question needs careful consideration."

NB: Wikipedia articles for Forth and JTAG are good.</comment></comment>


Russia won't extradite Snowden to US – Kremlin - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/snowden-russia-extradite-us-634/ <comment><USER2> > "one of the biggest security leaks in the American history"

Is the prism slides really one of the biggest security leaks in the American history, comparable to the Pentagon Papers, the war logs or the diplomatic cables? The prism power point leak looks a bit tiny in comparison.

It seems to me as the reason prism get so much media attention, is that it confirmed something everyone already knew but refused to accept. That shock hit at peoples heart, and felt more than 250,000 United States diplomatic cables or 500,000 army reports. Knowing, rather than just suspecting that Google, FB or microsoft channels data over to the NSA feels worse than hearing about kids being shot at by an attack helicopter using 30 mm fire.

Still, using the description of biggest security leaks in the American history might be a bit much?

<comment><USER3> AIUI, he didn't leak any actual data. Just metadata. He leaked what information is being collected, rather than any information that actually was collected. Definitely nothing like "one of the biggest security leaks in the American history".

<comment><USER4> Metadata is data. It's a security leak for the government, not us citizens whose data they're holding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "Russia has never extradited anyone, and will not extradite," said Vladimir > Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

While part of me feels that this is good news, the other part - cynical from all the word games I've heard from my own government recently - suspects they could definitely send him back without calling it "extradition." Still, I am cautiously optimistic.

<comment><USER6> I don't think you need to be particularly cynical to assume that Russia might eventually send him away without calling it an extradition. After all, it doesn't look like Russia is interested in actively protecting Snowden. And if he doesn't get asylum in Russia neither somewhere else, it's plausible that the "default" alternative is deportation.

<comment><USER7> Russia has done spy exchanges. Snowden "is" a spy. When it's to Russia's advantage, they won't hesitate to implement an exchange.

<comment><USER8> I don't know anything about spy exchanges, but based on the term I would imagine it works the other way: an American spy captured in Russsia would be traded for a Russian spy captured in the US. Do they usually trade defectors too?

<comment><USER7> To put it more generally, it would be for an American spy in Russia for any reason and under their control, for any similar Russian spy in America. Doesn't matter whether the "spies" want to go or not, nor how they got there. The spy exchange would be just window dressing for accomplishing some thing that either or both powers want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Between this and both sides publicly announcing they're arming opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, I can't help but think the cold-war is making a comeback.

I am not saying that Russia should betray Snowden's trust and hand him over. Just that the two countries _should_ have the appropriate communication channels to sort this out, and not air to the media in PR stunts. Public diplomacy often leads to oneupmanship, and makes concessions expensive.

<comment><USER10> It's not a cold war per default, when a country refuse to do what the US demands. This is just a conflict of interest. Syria is in Russia's backyard, so of course they'll have opposing viewpoints.

Snowden and Wikileaks moved it into the public for a reason. Russia/US can't change that right now, so they have to play along, which seems like a good thing for Snowden/Wikileaks.

<comment><USER11> > _It 's not a cold war per default, when a country refuse to do what the US > demands. This is just a conflict of interest. Syria is in Russia's backyard, > so of course they'll have opposing viewpoints._

They also don't take well to fundamentalists wanting to turn Syria into Afghanistan masquarading as "freedom fighters".

<comment><USER10> Living in Europe and being engaged to an Israeli, I can definitely relate to that viewpoint.

<comment><USER12> Do you think Europe is being turned into Afghanistan and what's the relevance of being engaged to an Israeli?

<comment><USER13> Europeans, and Israeli even more, don't want an extremist Islamic state on their doorstep. Mujhaeddins in Lebanon were enough of a headache already, before their "nationalist" switch; crazies controlling a state as big (and rich) as Syria would mean years of things blowing up from London to Tel Aviv. This is also why the European establishment is quite happy with developments in Egypt.

In this sense, the US-French-British axis gambling with Lybia and Syria was incredibly risky, and could end up creating more problems than Qadafi and Bashar ever did... But that's the nature of our elites, forever playing their little Great Games with no regard for everyday people.

<comment><USER12> I don't think that's fair really.

If a military junta in Egypt suits the West as you suggest then so would Assad in Syria.

I think the west's motivations are complicated but certainly do contain an element of desire to help ordinary Syrians and also a fear the consequences of both acting and failing to act.

<comment><USER13> The problem with Assad (like originally with Qadafi) was that he was in the Russian sphere of influence, so he had to be replaced with a friendlier regime. Somehow, "we" thought the Arab Spring narration was "our" chance to achieve that. It's true that this development contains the _possibility_ of a friendlier regime, which would not have been there with the previous status quo; whether this is actually _likely_ though, it's another matter: the current track record for post-WWII regime-changes in the Middle East is dismal to say the least, and it didn't improve much in the last decade.

Call me cynic, but I believe "ordinary Syrians" are the last of "our" problems. Syrian middle-classes, like their Libyan and Egyptian counterparts, are largely compromised with the regime, and would have certainly favoured a peaceful (if lengthy) transition rather than a civil war where they stand to lose everything. Assad was not more brutal than, say, the King of Morocco, who does pretty much the same sort of thing but is in the Western orbit (and in a less strategic area).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well I guess all the bankers who destroyed our economy for a decade can flea to Russia too.

Oh wait, they don't have to flea, no-one is pursuing them and they are gearing up for the next round of destruction since no laws were passed to restrict their behavior. We have great priorities and perspective.

<comment><USER15> I hate to be that guy... the message of your post is clear, but I think it should be flee and not flea.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aflea](https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aflea)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aflee](https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aflee)

<comment><USER16> You just couldn't resist, could you. I'm shocked no regulation has passed to limit the banker's power. And I'm even more shocked none of them spent any time in jail. Seems like they really do own capitol hill

<comment><USER17> >I'm shocked no regulation has passed to limit the banker's power.

Probably because there are already a ton of regulations- the problem is they weren't being enforced. They probably still aren't being enforced.

Actually, I'd be in favor of having a lot fewer regulations, and enforcing those few very strictly.

<comment><USER18> Selective enforcement of the law is often worse than having no law at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the saying "The enemy of an enemy, is a friend" suits this situation very well.

<comment><USER20> In this case, "a pawn". I'm fairly certain the Russians are unwilling to antagonize the U.S. beyond mild annoyance (posturing, really) and if the issue is forced to any meaningful degree, Snowden is toast.

<comment><USER21> So perhaps the saying should be "the frenemy of my frenemy is my end"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what his girlfriend thinks about all this.

<comment><USER23> I don't know but here's what he father had to say: [http://www.infowars.com/snowdens-father-describes-son-as- a-m...](http://www.infowars.com/snowdens-father-describes-son-as-a-modern-day- paul-revere/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's both funny and sad to see every thread about Snowden's potential asylum outside the US turn into the good/evil dichotomy.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hard to imagine cheering something the Russian government does yet here we are. Would you trust your life to them?

<comment><USER26> This whole episode has really shown the fallacy of US = Good, {Russia, China} = Bad.

If you're an American, this might be a bit hard to understand. But for those who don't hail from any of the above-mentioned countries, it's easier to take a more balanced perspective of each.

I don't think we can really look at any country in specific good/bad terms. I personally applaud Russia's actions on this matter.

<comment><USER27> There are no good/bad people, good/bad countries, etc. Just people who do good or bad things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > said Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Hm. Interesting switch. I wonder why.

<comment><USER29> I found this interesting as well. Putin has developed a reputation for being his own mouthpiece when it comes to anything that helps to further the cult of personality he's built around himself.

In other words, I'm shocked Putin had someone else say this instead of having cameras on him while he was shirtless and wrestling a bear for control of the life of a tiger cub.

<comment><USER30> Because it's not as clearcut positive for him as feeding milk to a siberian tiger cub.</comment></comment></comment>


Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asymptotic.co.uk/2009/11/book-review-head-first-statistics-vs-manga-guide/ <comment><USER2> There are a few statistics courses on YouTube.

Joe Blitzstein's Harvard 110 Course is good. I've got a list of resources here:

[https://github.com/melling/MathAndScienceNotes/tree/master/s...](https://github.com/melling/MathAndScienceNotes/tree/master/statistics)

</comment><comment><USER3> "statistics is something of a blind spot for programmers, who tend to think of themselves as numerically proficient but often dismiss statistics as unimportant "stamp collecting" for people who can't do "real maths"" ...I've literally never heard anything like this from any programmer (or anyone else, actually). Has anyone else heard a programmer express such an attitude towards statistics? Mostly I've heard people say that statistics is hard, or counter- intuitive.

<comment><USER4> That's definitely a viewpoint amongst other branches of mathematics. Statistics isn't too bad, but _applied_ statistics is viewed as a crap shoot of confounding human factors, widely practised by charlatans trying to prove their brand of science by abusing numbers.

<comment><USER5> Isn't all of machine learning, economics, industrial engineering and statistically social science a form of applied statistics ?

That's a lot of fields to dismiss by simply handwaving.

<comment><USER4> Yes. These are exactly the sorts of soft science a pure mathematician would snub.

It's not, I think, that they're without utility, it's that the science involved in discovery is often accidental or observational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish high school would put statistics in the primary math curriculum, even over (pre) calculus. I feel a solid understanding of statistics and their occasional counter intuitive nature, and especially how to properly interpret things and significance measures would be enormously valuable to citizens of this modern information age.

<comment><USER7> Outside the U.S., I'd love to know when people learn calculus and stats. I had both as a H.S. senior, which seems very late compared to other countries.

I had a stats prof from India who always commented on how he learned calculus in 6th grade. Our "intro to stats for business majors" class had us deriving the statistical proofs with calculus... (I'm aware he's probably an outlier)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Don't forget The Manga Guide to Databases! I needed to have a good working to do some standard CRUD database things with SQL. The Manga Guide to Databases was the most fun and educational read I have ever had. It covered enough skills for me to create whatever CRUD feature my employer needed.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have seen head first books being recommend by many. The only one I ever read half way though was one on design patterns and I regretted it. When I am learning something new, I want every sentence to be information heavy. So I could learn much more efficiently. Head first books just drag on and on with jokes, unnecessary conversations, cartoons and stuff. I literally gave up and Google searched each design patterns.

All my engineers books were pretty dry and to the point.

<comment><USER10> There is a balance to strike, I'd say. I recall Norvig's Artificial Intelligence as a great text which also had some pretty funny jokes (mostly relegated to footnotes, IIRC)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently enjoying The Cartoon Introduction to Economics and enjoyed The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have A! 5!5!%

<comment><USER12> I... don't remember writing this comment. Changed my password.</comment></comment>


Cutting Health Benefits of 1,900 Workers Saved Bezos What He Makes in Six Hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/17/cutting-health-benefits-1900-whole-food-workers-saved-worlds-richest-man-jeff-bezos <comment><USER2> Moral and ethical argument aside. The numbers are extremely wrong here. This is based upon the claim that Jeff Bezos makes on average $78 billion a year. He doesn't. That was the jump in the Amazon stock price two years ago. It's actually gone down in year over year valuation since last September (~$1,900 a share then, $1,839 a share today.)

Using this metric, Bezos currently makes negative money per hour.

Appropriate compensation is an important discussion. But bad and/or misleading math to prove a point undermines the argument. If the person making the point is clearly wrong about this simple matter of economics, it should make you wonder what else they don't understand or are misleading you about.

</comment><comment><USER3> Comparing stock appreciation to benefits expenses is plain ridiculous. Are they saying Bezos should be continuously selling shares in Amazon to subsidize workers' benefits?

And will workers start paying him when Amazon stock happens to run into bad luck and he loses billions one year?

<comment><USER4> How about taxing him and others to pay for universal healthcare?

<comment><USER5> If you believe you can just tax the rich for universal healthcare, you better do the math. It doesn't work.

Taking the European model, _everybody_ will have to pay for it, on the order of 15% of income.

<comment><USER6> Funny you should say that.

But the actual numbers don't lie, Europeans on average pay less for healthcare (combined taxes + paid procedures), than Americans, yet we have an access to public healthcare and Americans need to buy priv insurance.

I'd rather pay my taxes, then hear stories of people who are afraid to call an ambulance in case they are actually not going through a heart attack.

<comment><USER5> > But the actual numbers don't lie, Europeans on average pay less for > healthcare

That's besides my point, which is that you can't just tax the rich to pay for universal healthcare. It has to come out of everyone's paycheck.

The other side of the coin is that Europeans earn less and that healthcare workers _especially_ earn less. Yet, systems such as the NHS are at the brink of financial collapse.

You couldn't achieve the same "savings" in the US without massive forced wage cuts to health care workers.

> I'd rather pay my taxes...

That's a fair opinion to have. Saying that you'd rather "tax the rich" isn't, it's dishonest (or uninformed).

<comment><USER6> > Yet, systems such as the NHS are at the brink of financial collapse.

The reason for this is the Tories are defunding it and taking stabs at it. So that NHS becomes unpopular with public and could be privatized into US style healthcare.

Its straight out of neo-liberal playbook, de-fund/cripple public institution, replace management with 'your' people who further japerdise the institution. Start PR campaign against institution to ridicule it and when people buy the PR, cut it up and sell it off.

<comment><USER5> By "defunding" you must mean a lower increase in year-over-year spending.

[https://fullfact.org/health/spending-english- nhs/](https://fullfact.org/health/spending-english-nhs/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Time and time again we see the mega corporations and the mega rich in America make life for the common person worse, while their fortunes continue to rise.

McDonalds, Amazon, WalMart, etc. These companies make billions in revenue, and plenty of profit, yet they keep paying their employees worse and worse compensation packages - packages that are completely illegal in every other developed country.

Why do Americans let this happen?

How bad does it have to get before something changes?

<comment><USER8> There is no gun to your head telling you to buy anything from McDonalds, Amazon or Walmart.

But you won't find that small profitable businesses automatically have better compensation packages either, nor even those rising star hipster burger, coffee and grilled cheese joints that are smaller than the big players but still you know, corporate chains. If you want some modicum of independence from modern American consumerism, to take a fully principled stand against the way we do business in this country, take out a loan with your morally scrupulous bank and/or credit union and start a farm with the goal of feeding yourself and your family first and foremost. Or start a small business, but then see what you can afford to pay your workers when it turns out that what you would need to charge to pay them a living wage will drive people away from your business. $15 sandwiches or whatever might be delicious, but short of some very expensive areas with very expensive leases, they won't sell in the quantities you need them to because it turns out, Americans do take a stand when it is their dollar or even just their time on the line. Which is why many of them shop at either Walmart or Amazon or even both.

They made themselves appealing by being cheaper and/or getting stuff to your door quicker than the competition. The market selected for these types of companies, and as a result they are incredibly profitable enterprises!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I guess this is what people mean by something that 'turns your stomach'?

After reading this I am literally feeling a nausea like I want to throw up! I've never had this kind of reaction to the written word before.

<comment><USER10> You ought to question your health, if hearing of a change in the lawful employment agreement of some part time grocery retail workers, juxtaposed with the increasing valuation of Amazon, induces nausea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jeff Bezos doesn't "make" 19 million dollars per hour. That's just the rate of change of his net worth calculated at some point in time. It's not income.

For most of 2018, that rate of change was negative. Yet, we don't see a headline like "Jeff Bezos lost 19 million in the past six hours".

</comment><comment><USER10> Keeping in mind that those employees are already making more money than the average person doing a similar job part time.

People shouldn't automatically be expected to pay different prices for the same thing because they have more money.

The back-of-the-napkin calculation from BI they cite to arrive at what Jeff Bezos' "makes" in an hour is tied largely to Jeff's equity in Amazon, which is not really liquid.

You can make all sorts of comparisons of this or that number to another, what matters to me is the principle of it.

If Jeff is being treated to some ill-gotten advantage, let me be the first to criticize it, but the price of part-time retail labour is up to those involved in that transaction, and to a certain extent, up to the law; and both seem to agree with the state of things.

By the same token, we are all entitled to our fair say in what the law has to say about that transaction, and if you believe the minimum price of labour should be arbitrarily increased, that's something you can argue just the same as anyone else. I just won't buy it if the argument is "Jeff's rich, so any company he operates should pay more for labour."

<comment><USER11> If the ability to sell $1.8Billion of your stock 3 days day isn't liquid, I don't know what is.

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-bezos/amazon-chief-bezos-cashes-in-1-8-billion-of-share-pile-idUSKCN1UR4ZR

<comment><USER10> He has to tell people it's for his other company, so they don't get worried; that's what I mean by _not really liquid_. If Jeff Bezos attempted to sell a million shares without any indication of a purpose, it would degrade the value of the rest.</comment></comment></comment>


Left a high paying job at Google in US to start a Startup - <AUTHOR> https://careerexperiences.in/engineering/left-a-high-paying-job-at-google-in-us-to-start-a-startup-in-india/ <comment><USER2>
       well, if you're too smart for google, just create your own startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish more and more people start doing this.</comment>


Topology Explains Why Automobile Sunshades Fold Oddly (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4797 <comment><USER3> This is the same way you coil a bandsaw blade, which has the dubious advantage of having two readily distinguishable edges. When coiled correctly, all of the teeth face the same way in the coil.

You can actually repeat the coiling process on a bandsaw blade one of two ways (theoretically, there are probably more, practically, if you have blade long enough to need to, please invite me over so I can ogle your saw):

1\. Repeat it with the whole 3 coil loop, which gives you a 9 coil loop. Uncoiling without injuring oneself is a bit tricky, as bandsaw blades are quite springy, and it's hard to uncoil the blade in two discrete steps one it's in a nine coil loop.

2\. Gather the three coil section to one side (or equivalently, extend one of the three coils) giving the gathered section about 1/3 the total size of the exteneded section, then repeat the process with the exteneded loop in one hand and the gathered coils in the other yielding a _five_ coil loop. It's still tricky to get the whole thing uncoiled in 2 discrete steps, but you've stored a bit less energy in the coils of the blade and it's somewhat less hazardous.

I wouldn't suggest trying either of these with a 93 1/2" blade (the standard size for 14" saws), but method 2 works well with a 162" blade.

I took a knot theory class in college and there are actually two characteristics, twist and writhe, that are quantifiable and can be exchanged by coiling and uncoiling (massive handwaving, bad terminology, etc. That class was a long while ago). If you've ever taken a garden hose in a flat coil (with all the coils in the same direction) and pulled it out without unwinding it, you've enjoyed an illustration of this.

<comment><USER4> Twist and 'writhe' also explain the counterintuitive 'roadie wrap' method for coiling long wires - where alternate loops are reversed, introducing twists, but resulting in a wire that can be uncoiled smoothly by pulling one end - <USER2> holding one end and throwing the coil.

<comment><USER5> It also puts less strain on the wire, making it last longer. This is really important in say a TV studio, where the cable that connects a camera can cost thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER6> yes, the naive way of bundling a wire into a coil strains the wire just like if you were to take both ends and twist them in opposite directions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's pop-up tents with a even more interesting topology. It's always fun to watch (semi-drunk) people try to fold up theirs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gp5C1dYtuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gp5C1dYtuA)

<comment> GuB-42 What is interesting is to see the evolution of the system used to fold pop-up tents.

The most successful tent in France is, by far the Quechua 2 second, by Decathlon. Go to any festival in a country where Decathlon is present and they will make up the majority of the camping ground (make sure to remember which tent is yours!).

The tricky thing, of course is to fold them back. Over the years, instructions have changed, the design also changed slightly to make it easier. In the latest version, you just have to pull a cord and you are more than halfway there.

All these improvements are not just for helping the customer. Decathlon has a very liberal return policy, and they had to deal with a huge number of broken tents because people didn't fold them correctly.

<comment><USER8> Decathlon is one of my favorite stores. I used to go there quite often when I lived in Europe/North Africa, and now that they came to Canada its quite handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Totally off-topic question, but is this website name "arXiv" supposed to be pronounced like "archive"?

<comment><USER10> Yes. From the Greek letter Chi.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_(letter)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_\(letter\))

<comment><USER9> Neat. Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very cool and digestible paper! Followup question: Is it possible to fold the shade into _n_ loops for every odd value of _n_?

<comment><USER12> Yes, see @mauvehaus's top-level comment [1] for a proof sketch. The idea is to either treat the folded shade as an unfolded shade and repeat the process, or to make one loop sufficiently large that it can be folded again independent of the other loops. Either way, imagine taping the original loops together, since they do not participate in future folds.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24407572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24407572)

<comment><USER11> Ah yes, with the second method you can always add 2 loops. The first method only gives you 3^n though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why do people publish in this awkward obsolete Letter-size paper format that is hard-to-impossible to read on modern computer screens?

Who is going to print out "College Mathematics Journal"?

<comment><USER14> Printing papers out is a great way to let your optic nerve do the work so you can save your short term memory for comprehension rather than simply recalling what the symbols are.

I absolutely love printing out shortish papers single sided and sticking every single page in order on a poster board or wall. Our eyes are made for flicking from one thing to the next, it works really well. And also highlighting and other note taking is much more direct and intuitive in this format. I also discovered I prefer a columnar format.

if I had a monitor that could display 18 pages at once at 12-14pt and was as easy to annotate as using a pen or marker then maybe I wouldn't do this, but I don't.</comment></comment>


Learning EOS?And where to start? - <AUTHOR> https://infinitexlabs.com/first-steps-in-eos-blockchain-development/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone.

Since EOS came out it has been fiercely suggested that it will be the killer of Etherieum. Therefore, as someone interested in Blockchain I feel the need to learning it so to achieve a competitive edge. I have found this tutorial explaining the very basics .. I hope it can be useful to someone else but its just one. Do you have any suggestions where might be a good place to start learning EOS development?

</comment><comment><USER2> I read the article seems someone has put effort. However, I am really looking forward to seeing the next part as this is really just the fundamentals.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I improve my impromptu speaking? - <AUTHOR> I struggle to gather my thoughts quickly when talking about random topics presented to me. <comment><USER2> In general, Toastmasters is excellent for improving your speaking skills. Find a club near you, visit them and see if you like it: [https://www.toastmasters.org](https://www.toastmasters.org)

They also do a thing called table topics where at every meeting members are asked to stand up and speak on a random topic for two minutes. Sounds scary, but if you practice it regularly, you'll be surprised how quickly you improve.

<comment><USER3> Agreed here. And also when you find a group of friends who want to achieve the same goal as you do, you'll find that those opportunities to improve your impromptu keep growing. For example when competition time comes up. I remember how we would train for those. It's all about getting into it. Once you find the flow you can decide if you want to practice more to perfect it. But otherwise it becomes more or less like a bicycle. You don't forget how to cycle. But the occasional ride to keep you fit will help :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My 0.02 What you need to do is let go of being so deliberate. Speak to your audience and stop focusing on what may be judged coming out of your mouth. Simple but effective. if you want to be interesting, be interested - "Not sure who said it"

</comment><comment><USER5> It depends if you want to be entertaining or informative/thoughtful.

For informative/thoughtful, you basically need to have coherent thoughts on a given subject before you speak. You can't just magically figure things out as you open your mouth, there isn't nearly enough time.

For entertaining effect, I guess it's more art than science. Try watching some good sitcoms and standup comedians perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER6> Practice. That's really what you need to do. There are tricks you can learn to keep up speaking while you're formulating something decent to say, but more than anything it's practice. Go to open mic nights and practice also watch/listen to other people. You'll being to see how they do it and it will help you too.

</comment><comment><USER7> I second Practice and reading whatever language you want to speak in. You could hack it by having a scenario specific list of quotes,phrases and oratorical devices in your sleeve to show off ( like a magician always has a deck of cards ready) I would suggest reading a whole lot and then going out and doing it

</comment><comment><USER8> Learn the original way. Just mumble through it, eventually you will get better.</comment>


How did you hack your way to quitting smoking? - <AUTHOR> Not tech related question I know, but I could use any help/advise I can get. <comment><USER2> Smoked a pack a day for 25 years. Quit cold turkey (for the most part) 5 years ago. Woke up one morning, was out of cigarettes and decided that was the day I was going to try. Made it through the day (although I found myself nibbling on chips and drinking a ton of water all day) without one.

The next day became an internal contest with myself to see how long I could go without having one. I had to give up alcohol (have a drink = have a smoke) to avoid that temptation. I also tried to eat smaller meals to avoid the binge eating, feeling full, craving a smoke feeling.

By day 3 my urge to smoke was diminishing, but the nervous addiction was still there. A friend recommended I buy one of the cheap e-cigarettes they sell at convenience stores to take the edge off. I did get one and every time I would crave a smoke I would take a drag off it. The nicotine levels are fairly low in those so it was just enough to take the edge off. After about 3 or 4 days the e-cig was "dead" in that the non-replaceable cartridge was empty, but I still kept it around. Every time I would crave a smoke I would take an imaginary drag off of it. After about 2 or 3 more days of not getting any nicotine or satisfaction from the e-cig, my cravings had pretty much ceased. I still kept from consuming any alcohol and trying to eat smaller meals spread out across the day. In total it took me about 3-4 weeks before any/all cravings were non-existent.

My sense of smell (I can smell someone smoking a mile away now) and my taste buds increased after about week 3. Interestingly, I still love the smell of a freshly lit cigarette, however, I hate the smell of someone that smokes and has it on their clothes (overly sensitive to this smell now). I did go back to consuming alcohol after about 6 months (not that I drank a lot before but even a sip made we want to smoke before I quit). I do occasionally crave one if I am out with friends and have a drink, but have been able to withstand those cravings. I'll still go outside with my friends that smoke and I think the smell is enough to cure the urge now.

The best advice I can give is to get one of those cheap e-cigs and go cold turkey. I have several friends who have successfully used the same method in the last couple years.

I had tried several times previously going cold turkey, using the patch, trying the gum, and even Chantix for a short stint. None worked in the long term. The nicotine addiction seemed to be the quickest and easiest to overcome. It was the "nervous" addiction of hand to mouth that was difficult and I think that is where the e-cig proves wonders.

Good luck it is not an easy task to quit.</comment>


Gail.com, the Gmail "Typo" - <AUTHOR> https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/11/gail-com-the-gmail-typo/ <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to read their FAQ, I suspect they could have made a fair bit of $$ just by placing some ads, but are not doing that..</comment>


There Are No True Rebels (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/there-are-no-true-rebels <comment><USER2> From the day of your birth, your behaviour and understanding of the world are influenced by the surrounding society and the environment. Your mind is a product of the whole environment around you. Being a true rebel is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly analysing the dynamics of that surrounding environment and questioning its norms and values. That wouldn't enable you to get fully "disconnected" from the environment, but gives you a more introspective look which leads you towards decisions and actions which can influence the environment.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author uses a silly definition of rebel, which nobody realistically uses (precisely because there are no thus-defined "rebels"). As a result, the article is rather inconsequential.

<comment><USER4> Yes, by their definition the person stranded on an island for life is the only rebel. Even then, I could see the author arguing that a habit is really just a form of conformance to the person who did the same thing yesterday (even though it was the same person).

Also, there are good reasons to park next to the first car in the lot. One side of car is "protected" for at least a time and the first person probably parked close to the entrance/exit. Although if the first car is very beat up, I'll avoid it out of the guess that if they don't care about their own car, they probably care even less about hitting mine while getting in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is mostly about influence and the importance to surround yourself with people you want to learn from.

When you start rebeling, it might be a signal that it is time to find a new environment to strive in.

</comment><comment><USER6> intervier and interviewee aren't speaking the same language

Interviewee just want to say you have been influenced, not interested in defining what a rebel is

<comment><USER7> Or "influence", for that matter.</comment></comment>


London Metro Police Deploy Facial Recognition Tech Sporting a 100% Fail Rate - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181218/16562041265/london-metropolitan-police-deploy-facial-recognition-tech-sporting-100-failure-rate.shtml <comment><USER2> It's good to see the UK finally turning into the authoritarian dictatorship Orwell knew it could be. Good for them!

<comment><USER3> I just want to bring up a difference that I've noticed living in both London and the US (Chicago and San Francisco). Note that I am also not trying to make a point here, as to what is better for a city. I think it's much more complex than spying on your citizen. Just trying to bring my perspective and things I've seen:

London is one the safest city I've lived in (along with Beijing). Chicago and San Francisco are the most unsafe cities I've lived in. People often don't realize this there, it's just that they have been desensitized to it.

I've seen countless accidents in the US, people getting bullied or mugged, cars getting broken in, homeless people everywhere (sometimes shooting themselves up with syringes). Walking in the streets at night can be really dangerous. Most people avoid public transport here and take uber.

On the other side you have London. You'd see single girls walking alone in the streets at 4am. Everyone takes the public transport, never seen anyone fight, almost no homeless people, everybody loves the cops. It's a different world.

<comment><USER4> > On the other side you have London. You'd see single girls walking alone in > the streets at 4am. Everyone takes the public transport, never seen anyone > fight, almost no homeless people, everybody loves the cops. It's a different > world.

You must have lived in the nicer parts of London, perhaps. I have a friend who has moved to London 6 months ago (her bf was already living there) and she told me that she's afraid of leaving her home all by herself after 8PM. She told me that while walking down the street she can "feel" the looks of the people whose religion I won't mention because I will probably get a ban, take that as you like.

<comment><USER5> Your friend's problem is that she's a bigot.

<comment><USER4> She had friends of the same religion here in Eastern Europe, but they were the kind of people that were staying at after parties at 7 in the morning. The people she now tells me about don't look like they have shared a drink with a woman late at night anytime during their life. It's easy to accuse someone of bigotism when you haven't interacted directly with any of the talked-about people.

<comment><USER6> I'm going to guess that the religion in question is Islam, which forbids alcohol. Her being okay with the kind of Muslim who isn't religious enough to follow this proscription doesn't disprove her being a bigot. "Doesn't look like they have shared a drink with a woman late at night anytime during their life" is a poor basis for being afraid of someone. Many don't choose that lifestyle. Some will judge you for choosing it. Fewer will physically attack you for choosing it...

If they're leering at her (she said she can "feel" their looks, which could mean looks of moral judgement or of objectification/lust), I can start to understand why she'd be afraid. But there is a subjective element to interpreting others' body language, and bringing religion into the complaint makes me think prejudice might be coloring that.

<comment><USER4> As far as I could understand by talking with other women they can feel when other men look at them in "that" way, and they can feel if they should be frightened or not, and that "way" can look the more frightening the more those men haven't had regular and normal interactions with women, no matter those men's religion, that's what my friend was afraid about. And yes, men that don't have frequent and especially normal interactions with women do look more frightening to women, and it so happens that certain religions do impose (for whatever reasons) that men and women should live almost separate lives.

<comment><USER6> I've certainly heard similar things from women about "that" kind of look, and I wouldn't have really questioned it if religion weren't brought in. They might be right about if they "should" be frightened. I'm not going to say otherwise, and I support their personally doing what they need to feel safe, based on whatever information they think is best.

However, when it comes to setting public policy that trades off against individual liberty, authoritatively stating which of N cities is safest, and so on, I think the bar should be higher. Statements should be based on hard data such as numbers of violent attacks. This isn't practical for individuals (imagine: "based on extensive personal trials, I was murdered ten times as often by people who...") but is on the scale of cities/states/countries.

<comment><USER7> Interesting thread about the relative safety of cities, but wait...hang on: now simply _looking_ at someone is perceived as threatening? Not catcalling or showing aggression... simply making eye contact?? I'll take a note to avoid all eye contact in the future. I'm not a city person so I had no idea how little it takes to be considered a threat.

<comment><USER8> In a big city it's generally considered bad form to look at others too much. Making eye contact is something I would avoid, but mostly because it can be seen as threatening (I'm assuming you're a guy) and can lead to you being ganged up somewhere dark if you do it to the wrong person.

<comment><USER9> It is not threatening in London to make eye contact with someone, however much people joke about people never talking to each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is great! When the system IDs someone, you know they're not the person you're looking for. It's a great way to weed out potential suspects.

<comment><USER11> AKA the "not a hotdog" algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The real purpose of this isn't to be accurate. The reasons are likely to make Londoners accustomed to even more surveillance and/or to give them some "legitimate" reason they can appeal to when they want to persecute someone for less glamorous reasons like ethnicity or economic status.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, it's better than them deploying a system that actually works. Unfortunately it's only a matter of time before one is developed.

<comment><USER14> Step 1: deploy crappy system, let everybody mock it and quickly forget. Step 2: update software so it actually works. People think "how accurate can it be, it was crap just a short while ago" Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.

<comment><USER15> Plot twist: it's actually 100% accurate. It knows everyone has committed at least one minor crime in their lifetimes due to a perfect mix or ambiguous legal wording, innumerable laws and ease of committing minor crimes. They'll need to tweak its tolerance level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't understand why would citizens of a country not accept a national ID system like every other country, but they're fine with CCTV and this.

<comment><USER17> [sweeping generalisations alert]

I think that a lot of British people have a set of beliefs about their country that are mostly inaccurate and increasingly divergent from reality.

One is that other countries look up to Britain and are keen to trade on terms dictated by Britain. Brexit is exposing this delusion.

A second is that Britain has a fearsome military that allows it to project its influence as a global power around the world.

A third is that Britain is the birth place of civil rights, has always fought against totalitarianism and has a legal system that since Magna Carta has always protected the primacy of the individual against the state. It's much easier to ignore the increasing number of CCTV cameras when you can just tell yourself that Britain invented Magna Carta so how could Britain's civil liberties not be the envy of the world.

With ID cards I think some of the opposition to them comes from the belief that they're the kind of thing a continental European country would do, as well as resentment against being obliged to carry something by the government. RIPA and CCTV aren't so much of a concern because they don't impose a physical obligation and so are only going to be bothersome to suspect people anyway.

I sometimes think that if/when Britain becomes a dictatorship it'll be a brutally-enforced version of Middle England, with death sentences for people who don't put their bins out properly and so on.

<comment><USER18> > With ID cards I think some of the opposition to them comes from the belief > that they're the kind of thing a continental European country would do, as > well as resentment against being obliged to carry something by the > government.

I don't keep any ID with me. I don't see government issued ID as a means to identify me on the streets, but rather as a way of identifying myself for public and private services.

I can't really wrap my head around the fact that not all countries have ID. There must be a way to know who to tax, and who to service?

<comment><USER17> As someone else said, it's mostly a figleaf because in practice the government does everything an ID requires, just in roundabout ways. For tax stuff everyone has a National Insurance number (I think assigned at birth?) so in a sense everyone already does have a unique identifier but you can't use a National Insurance card as ID because it doesn't have a photo. Instead you just have to present a random selection of documents like a driving licence, utility bill, letter from the council etc whenever you want to open an account somewhere.

I personally don't have any problem with national ID for the reasons you state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is great news - an expensive and highly publicized failure of FR means it will be a long time before other municipalities start looking to "invest" in it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Prior work by the Met includes the "ring of steel" anti-terrorist surveillance zone, and the whole dodgy business of "super-recognisers" as well as the use of face recognition on crowds of protestors.

</comment><comment><USER21> The police are very nice people assisting in the theft of peoples facial profiles. They work for a little bit of money, take on a bit of angry response and sniggers from passers ny, and hand over the data to private industry, with free pass from government to bill the tax payer billions, since the data, well, you know, needs to be kept secure. Police officer gets there weekly wage, a bit of fun beating up a few who disagree, and private security contractor makes all the money. I here them laughing now, "yeah, we monetise loads of innocent peoples face profiles, they think its to save them from terrorists lol, the police stole it for us, lol"

</comment><comment><USER22> 100% is always impressive, success of rail

<comment><USER23> Here is my 100% failure rate facial ID software

        fun scanFace(data: Picture): Person = null

<comment><USER24> //assert(scanFace(testpic) == true) assert((true) == true)

He's right everyone, the tests pass!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They forgot to put a known elephant in Cairo.

They should probably use a well-known public figure, such as the prime minister--someone whose movements can also be partially verified against public calendars--to verify that the system is working. Or just hire someone to walk a known path through camera FOVs regularly, using varying efforts to disguise appearance and at different times of day.

</comment><comment><USER26> The author of that article make it very clear he hates FR and police. To the level that his opinion overwhelms the article.

<comment><USER27> Well I'm glad somebody does! Regular people are losing big time here--facial recognition tech has a huge false positive rate, and probably a ridiculous false negative, rate, too. It's junk, but they keep pushing and pushing for it like it is some miracle tech.

I always thought the weird face makeup in those dystopian sci-fi films like Johnny Mnemonic were just there to make the street hacker type characters look edgy, but in fact, even back in the '70s and '80s, the authors were on to something.</comment></comment>


CNN and NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/cnn-and-the-nyt-are-deliberately-obscuring-who-perpetrated-the-afghan-hospital-attack/ <comment><USER2> At first I thought this article was Greenwald getting a bit overzealous, but after reading what the NYT/CNN actually wrote, I can agree that they were intentionally trying to hide the fact that the US bombed the hospital.

There's absolutely no question about who attacked the hospital, and yet both the NYT and CNN seem to hem and haw and use distracting, meaningless language to distance the US from the slaughter of civilians. I expect about as much from both of those news rags of course, but still, it seems as though for some reason they are getting their strings pulled specifically to obfuscate. Based off of the evasive language they used, I'd suspect some kind of Ministry of Culture to be patrolling-- of course, there is no such overt thing.

The bewildering part is that other mainstream media outlets that are usually of poor journalistic integrity in favor of government interests are reporting that the US was in fact the striker, unambiguously, with no pretense of deniability. Even the US military accepts that it called in a bad airstrike! This makes the exceptional effort expended on deception by the NYT and CNN very confusing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, many news topics receive very different treatment in the USA than the get in most of the rest of the world. I debate this with friends: I will point out a descrepency and they resist the idea that their news is not legit. I guess this attitude is understandable but I believe that access to accurate news is vital for democracy.

<comment><USER2> Conversely, the powers that be are likely of the view that strong propaganda is vital for democracy. See: Edward Bernays, father of PR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can only ask, who else does anybody think is flying in that area? It sure isn't the Taliban Air Force, because the Taliban doesn't have one.

<comment><USER5> Nobody. But there is more than one way to blow up a hospital, for example mortars, rocket propelled grenades, just a bomb planted in the hospital. Someone else /could/ have done it, they didn't, but they /could/ have in theory.

I have no idea why CNN and NYT are more cagy than the US military themselves about this incident. It isn't like the USG are trying to cover this up from what I can tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not too familiar with how geopolitics/warfare rules work, but will this constitute a war-crime and/or crime against humanity?

<comment><USER2> Doubtful. At the very most, it'd be considered a war crime, if intent can be proven, which it probably can't be to the standards of a court. And even then, the US won't send anyone to be prosecuted to international courts, so the best we can hope for is internal military discipline, which probably won't happen meaningfully.

I assume this strike was a mistake; hitting a civilian hospital from a multinational organization is begging for bad PR, and PR is what wins guerrilla wars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When will we stop accepting excuses?</comment>