India's Downward Spiral - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/india%E2%80%99s-downward-spiral <comment><USER2> This is an unsurprising extension into the electronic realm of India's notoriously weak support of free expression. They were the first country to ban the _Satanic Verses_ ; its import, I believe, is _still_ illegal there. Citizens are routinely persecuted under laws that literally prohibit hurting people's religious feelings (recently invoked against a researcher who exposed another fake Catholic miracle[0]). India is the most prominent example of a country with plenty of voting but no democracy.

[0] [http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2012/07/sanal-edamarukus- situ...](http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2012/07/sanal-edamarukus-situation- worsens.html)

<comment><USER3> > India is the most prominent example of a country with plenty of voting but > no democracy.

Second you on that one! I lived in various parts of rural India for a little over 12 years, and the deeper I went, the more I saw people there actively voting in droves. And the harder their life and generally poor state of affairs!

<comment><USER4> +1

sadly democracy in India only has the voting part implemented fairly well. It's a monarch until the next election. Even the voting is neck deep in corruption [1]

[1] [http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/cash-for- vo...](http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/cash-for-votes-cases- against-50-dmk-men/article5390763.ece)

<comment> bipin-nag What do you mean its a monarch until next election. Head of state is often elected for the term period. Also it maybe one of the cases reported, it doesn't imply voting is entirely corrupt.

<comment> bipin-nag Will the downvoter exercise his freedom of expression to tell me what is wrong with my comment above.

<comment><USER5> My guess is that he meant "dictatorship" rather than "monarchy". You took umbrage with his mistake rather than forgiving that and recognizing his intent, which is that the PM role in India has way too much power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In India, people are being arrested for voicing disagreement with politicians and influential people on social media. You could even be arrested for liking a Facebook post criticizing a politician.

[http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/19/indian-woman-arrested- ov...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/19/indian-woman-arrested-over- facebook-like/)

<comment><USER7> Yes, this is true. We are definitely not near the US standard on the defense of free speech.

But the case you mentioned is one of the small number of such cases (I remember one from the state of West Bengal). And in this case, the over eagerness of local authorities was criticized by both the government and public.

As of now, I would place India somewhere between UK (with its defamation laws) and US (gold standard of free speech) on the free speech issue. I do hope that the government takes steps to make sure that local authorities do not have power to override the right of free speech.

(Disclaimer: Indian citizen)

<comment><USER8> I think it's absolutely nuts that you're being downvoted into oblivion. The fact that these crackdowns were criticized widely is a good contribution to the debate.

It appears that there's people in this thread who downvote anyone who's from India and doesn't think things are as bad as suggested.

<comment><USER6> He is being downvoted because he is in a denial mode, not because he is from India. I am from India as well, I didn't get downvoted.

Many Indians think this way: "Freedom of speech, it's not that bad in India. Modi will change everything."

Shocking thing is that a lot of Indians also believe that these people deserve to be jailed for speaking against politicians. Even worse.. they are beaten by a mob and their house is ransacked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worse yet, Indian government is apparently trying hard to emulate NSA's Surveillance Programs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0&feature=youtu.be)

Here's the video's info:

"""India is currently implementing some of the scariest surveillance schemes in the world. This lecture will shed light on India's surveillance industry, its UID scheme which aims at the collection of all biometric data and on various controversial surveillance schemes, such as the Central Monitoring System (CMS).

When it comes to surveillance, the most mainstream argument is that the majority of India's population lives below the poverty line and that surveillance is an elitist issue - and not a "real" issue which affects the masses. Given that the majority of India's population has mobile phones and that the Indian government is currently implementing the Central Monitoring System (CMS) which aims at intercepting all telecommunications (and Internet communications), surveillance does not appear to be an elitist issue. Given that the UID scheme aims at collecting the biometric data of all citizens residing in India and that most BPL cash programmes require UID registration, surveillance appears to be an issue which (unfortunately) affects the 1.2 billion people currently living in India. And this is to say the least. As part of the Privacy Project, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore, India, is investigating surveillance within the country. The project is funded by Privacy International and aims to map out various forms of surveillance in India, ranging from drones, CCTV cameras and GPS tracking equipment to phone and Internet monitoring gear. This lecture aims to present the research that Maria Xynou has undertaken at the CIS so far, which includes data on the various surveillance technology companies operating in India and the type of spy gear they sell to Indian law enforcement agencies. This research also includes the presentation of India's various controversial surveillance schemes, with an emphasis on the Central Monitoring System (CMS) which unlawfully enables the interception of all telecommunications and Internet communications. India is currently implementing the world's largest biometric data collection and interception of communications schemes. The aim of this lecture is to present India's scary mass surveillance and to discuss its implications on the right to privacy and other human rights."""

<comment><USER7> This is the first time I have seen UID scheme being mentioned as a surveillance tool. The aim of the scheme is to replace the outdated mechanisms - signature, name and address papers which can easily be forged. Why poor people are encouraged to register under the UID scheme? So that the benefits provided by India's socialist governments (central and state) can reach them without any corruption or delay. The fear of it being misused is currently unjustified and without any proof.

Secondly, I think most people over-estimate the Indian government's technical ability. We are nowhere near US or China in mass surveillance. No Indian agency has the expertise anywhere near NSA or PLA Unit 61398. And unlike in China where there are many popular local tech companies, Indians use products of American companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.). So the government can neither ask the companies for data (like US) nor get the companies to actively participate in any form of censorship (like China). As long as the US companies follow basic security practices (HTTPS, SSL, 2-step verification, etc..) and don't sell out, we should be fine on the internet.

(Disclaimer: Indian citizen)

<comment><USER10> other governments have proposed similar things - in europe there is a widespread distrust of these systems because they were used very effectively by the Nazi's - record keeping in the Netherlands was very good - 75% of jews were killed, in france the people collecting data conspired to protect jews by not punching the jew slot on the punched card and only 25% were killed

a belgian company sold an ID system to the rwandan government, it was used by one tribe to find people from another tribe so they could kill them

these systems are deadly in the wrong hands - if the info is not there, it can't be abused.

<comment><USER11> > in europe there is a widespread distrust of these systems

What makes you think that? In the UK maybe, but certainly in Spain no one thinks twice about their ID cards. It's just something you have and use to identify yourself - both in public administration and in private transactions, for example paying money into a bank over the counter.

<comment><USER10> there are other countries apart from the uk and spain in europe

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also India ranks, 140 on world press freedom index 2014, if you move 7 places ahead you will be in Putin land. It became worse in the last 10 years, 120 to 140.

[http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php](http://rsf.org/index2014/en- index2014.php)

<comment><USER13> Decline of the West.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democrac...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West#Democracy.2C_media.2C_and_money)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the biggest difference between US and India is the constitution. Indian constitution does not give freedom of speech to its people. So government can pass all sort of laws.

The 1st amendment to US constitution gives people freedom of speech and ensures that government can not pass any laws against it. On the other hand all the "rights" that Indian constitution gives are subject to other government approvals which means you can have Right X to the extent that other existing laws allow.

Despite that several of laws except the IT laws are pretty good and time tested. IT law however is horrible and puts a prohibitive cost on various IT businesses.

Indian classified company Quikr (like CraigList) has hired 200 people just to screen each and every post to make sure it is not "offensive".

<comment><USER12> Is Quickr any good? From my experience, craiglist india is full of spam.. Every board is filled with men trying to hook you up with prostitutes.. No matter what board it is..

<comment><USER14> CL India is very popular if you are into illegal things.

I managed to sell my bike on Quikr so clearly it works. Indian business face trust issues by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Article is from 2012, can someone please edit the title to mention that?

<comment> bipin-nag Also downward spiral is not very clear in context the article discusses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Did anybody noticed that this article is from 2 years ago, and a lot has changed in 2 years including a completely new government??

<comment><USER17> you mean how ICMS continues to operate? How section 66A of the "IT Act" is still valid and you can be sent to jail for writing anything "offensive" on any electronic media?

Nope, nothing has changed, and while everyone had high hopes for the new govt, it will be foolhardy for any government to simply let go of such easy censorship on the public.

In India its okay to burn a bus in `protest', but not post a facebook comment to criticize some politician.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> India is a nanny state trying to save its gullible illiterate masses from cyber influences deemed bad in culture. It is not the cyber surveillance capabilities that is the problem (which is coarse anyway), but the condescending attitude of bureaucracy who can send people to jail without bail for a Facebook like or a retweet.

</comment><comment><USER19> A couple of points.

1\. This is old (2012). There was a major government change in May 2014. The earlier government censored a lot of stuff. Mainly because their performance was below average and they did not want people talking about it.

2\. The new government (led by Prime Minister Modi) is very oriented. (Checkout the central attendance system implemented by them in a couple of months: [http://attendance.gov.in/](http://attendance.gov.in/)). They have been pushing for broadband internet connectivity in villages.

IMHO This is not as applicable today as it was 2 years ago.

My $0.02

<comment><USER13> "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." \--Oscar

[http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Black-money-case-Cant- disclo...](http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Black-money-case-Cant-disclose- names-of-foreign-account-holders-Modi-govt-tells-SC/articleshow/44846119.cms)

[http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Black-money-case-Govt-not- re...](http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Black-money-case-Govt-not-reluctant-to- reveal-names-Arun-Jaitley-says/articleshow/44855638.cms)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> \- Government's support to freedom of expression depends considerably on availability of resources. If enough resources are unavailable, government has to give priority to law and order instead of freedom of speech.

\- Surveillance is bad but depending on country's internal and external security situation, it may be a necessary evil.

\- Removing content offensive to politicians is unacceptable.

<comment><USER21> US constitution was created before it became rich. Same lack of resources argument is used for not providing healthcare also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Poor people should NOT vote in elections. They're vulnerable to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Intimidation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Intimidation)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is from 2012 as others pointed, but also if you go to Google's transparency report now, there is nothing after 2012 for India. Not sure why this is trending.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority) rules India

</comment><comment><USER13> Patriotism in India is a favorite device of persons with something to sell. A true patriot honors all nations.

</comment><comment><USER23> these issues do not get noticed in India because for majority of Indians the attention to and addressing fundamental problems (food, shelter, health) are of utmost importance for time being.

</comment><comment><USER24> One day there will be a global Internet that will not be censorable.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why is so old article trending?

</comment><comment><USER26> no wonder why google don't even shows me that It needs to store cookies when you visit its Indian version of the search engine .

<comment><USER27> Do you even know that stupid cookie law is only specific to EU?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Banning "offensive" materials was a huge mistake that will haunt them for decades. Why? Because anything can be offensive.

Bacon article? A Muslim gets offended.

Computer article? A Luddite is offended.

Photos of art? A blind man is offended.

That rabbit hole is infinitely deep. Oops I just offended rabbit lovers.

</comment><comment><USER29> If Modi does an Indira (instead of a Shastri), India is doomed.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is an old article dated early 2012. The current govt is very responsive to citizens.

<comment><USER17> _LOL_

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a FEBRUARY 8, 2012 article .Why is it in spotlight now?

<comment><USER27> Anti-Indian propaganda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a FEBRUARY 8, 2012 articles. I couldn't understand why is it in spotlight now?

<comment><USER32> Same here.

<comment><USER17> because the problem still exists? ooh no wait, we Indians should just forget about it and continue being blind idiots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As someone living in India, I have considered how to set up a discussion board (like HN) that would be easy to use for users but also easy to be moderated of junk (like HN is) but still be effectively anonymous.

It would allow discussion on such topics without fear of reprisal.

With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible?

<comment><USER34> [http://hackerstreet.in](http://hackerstreet.in)

<comment><USER35> wow... was already on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838206)</comment></comment></comment>


Did the Oscars Just Prove That We Are Living in a Computer Simulation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/did-the-oscars-just-prove-that-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation <comment><USER3> I think the hypothesis that we are living in a computer "system" as opposed to a "simulation" is more plausible. In the Occam's razor sense. Similar to a computer we're all wired together in some great interconnected economy - <USER2> is nearly nowhere on earth now that you can't be instantly contactable if you want to be. The Internet joins us all together, with our phones, laptops and TVs as NICs for our consciousness. I don't think its far fetched to think that some global consciousness is emerging - in fact a few different consciousness - that are now vying for supremacy.

Some want to eat the whole cake, others just want to be left alone. Some for integration, others for separation. The fact that all these _" weird"_ things are all happening could well be linked at some systemic level that will maybe be obvious to future historians. Like how we theorize that ocean going vessels enabled the days of colonialism or the development of fossil fuels led to the industrial revolution. The discovery of semiconductor material made the IT revolution possible.

What we could very well be experiencing now is some kind of singular behaviour due to the development of these new globally linked consciences - that are elbowing for space, and resources - annoying each other and squabbling in the process. Of course to us it looks like bizarre behaviour but perhaps no more bizarre than the random bits and bytes flying through a link appear to something like a network switch (had it the sense to ponder itself).

When I run too many programs on my computer weird things start to happen. Ghosts appear on my screen, leaving a trailing residue. The screen blanks. Sometimes the mouse pointer won't respond and a strange chugging starts to come from the box under my monitor. It's not so far fetched to expect that a tightly integrated system such as the modern global economy might exhibit other equally frustrating and odd (though explainable) phenomena when put under stress.

<comment><USER4> Just as you were writing this, my WinBook Pro [1] locked up solid, for the first time ever. And it happened while I was cropping a photo of myself and blew it up on the second display. I think the self-referentiality of this was too much for the poor thing to bear.

After a hard reset, Windows 10 gave its very first BSOD. I knew it must be bad memory, a failing SSD, or corrupted software.

But one more boot and the machine is humming along as if nothing ever happened. A disk check shows no errors.

Truly, something strange is in the air.

I quickly made a backup, of course. I just hope the backup drive is in a different universe, because I'm not sure how much I trust this one any more.

[1] A WinBook Pro is a MacBook Pro running Windows 10 under Boot Camp, with one of these stickers on the back of the display to make it official:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014I1ICX8/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014I1ICX8/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in simulation theories, I recommend reading "The Simulation Argument" by Nick Bostrom [0] or watching his interview on Youtube [1].

[0] [http://www.simulation-argument.com/](http://www.simulation-argument.com/)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs)

</comment><comment><USER6> An interesting take on this is in the Culture series from Iain M. Banks. The AI minds, who for all intents run the Culture civilisation, constantly spawn virtual universes to test hypothesises.

Some shut them down after running the sim, some feel morally obliged to keep them running...

Also, if someone's suddenly jerking the strings in a game, it usually means they're bored and it's only a matter of time before they press one of the "godzilla invades", "aliens attack", "mass-tornados" buttons.

<comment><USER7> _it usually means they 're bored_

Just curious, you have experience with knowingly running in a virtual universe?

<comment><USER6> I was talking about games?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Urgh... There goes 5 minutes of my life that I'm never getting back. Seriously, don't bother reading this, as it's a whole lot of nonsense. To boil it down:

\- Unexpected things are happening, like Trump being elected president and some long-odds movie winning an Oscar.

\- If we are living in a simulation, this behaviour is easily explained as some kind of glitch.

\- Therefore, we are living in a simulation.

Betteridge's law of headlines applies here: _" Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."_

<comment><USER9> Is Betteridge's Law of Headlines always correct?

<comment><USER10> Probably not, but most 'laws' are generalisms drawn from repeated observation as opposed to iron-clad rules, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's an interesting narrative. But isn't it more likely that normalcy and predictability that we are so used to for the past few decades is the actual illusion? World is inherently chaotic and unpredictable. On top of that, human history does go through tumultuous periods where established systems are uppended.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is just a modern form of religion. Personally I don't get why people get so hyped about it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Should the Amazon S3 downtime yesterday be considered a glitch in this simulation? It is, too, one of these things that should never happen.

</comment><comment><USER14> tldr: what if we assume independent events are connected, then it must be computers, because they are connected too and bugs can explain low probabilistic events happening (seemingly more frequently). Betteridge's law applies.</comment>


A Comprehensive Guide To Debugging Rails | Jack Kinsella – Analyst Berlin - <AUTHOR> http://www.jackkinsella.ie/2014/06/06/a-comprehensive-guide-to-debugging-rails.html <comment><AUTHOR> Although I think you have pointed out some spot on concepts in diagnosing issues, I think the leading analogy is lacking. I don't think you can make such a supposition that a musician without sight is incapable of producing the music they desire. I'm sure you could come up with a much more appropriate example without trampling on musicians without sight.</comment>


Ask PG : is company culture a priority from day one - <AUTHOR>

9 months into my startup project, I've been working on and off with quite a few (expert accountant, famous author, cartoonist, developer and web designer), all volunteers. I feel now I'd better wait and find a really fitting match for me (=different skills, tech, but personality match) and for the project (=living a life coherent with the content/positive parenting). How much of a priority is it? <comment><USER2> What sort of culture is there if you have people working on and off all the time? Cultures are developed when people spend time together over time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trying people out, yes absolutely no culture yet, a precise idea of what it should be though (company not set up yet). And that means to me live coherent with the whole purpose of the company itself, no 'that's just a job', really shared beliefs and values, even in not so public functions, be ready for transparency.</comment></comment>


Tesla's automatic lane-changing feature 'far less competent' than a human driver - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/22/teslas-automatic-lane-changing-feature-is-far-less-competent-than-human-driver-consumer-reports-says <comment><USER2> Consumer Reports Not Thrilled By Misleading Navigate On Autopilot Headlines: [https://insideevs.com/news/351110/consumer-reports-tesla- nav...](https://insideevs.com/news/351110/consumer-reports-tesla-navigate- autopilot/)

</comment><comment><USER3> what mr.Bezos doesnt understand is that these systems are continuous improvement systems. Something the auto industry as a whole has forgotten about.

<comment><USER4> Mosy auto manufacturers never update their car either.

My Honda still wants to drive off the road if the exit ramp doesn't have a dashed line to keep it on the highway, no matter how many times I correct it...</comment></comment>


Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50-year run - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/30/business/tech/japanese-pagers-last-beeps-50-years/#.XZKmvC33VTY <comment><USER2> I love pagers. Sometimes I carry three for three different hospitals.

There is no risk of malfunction due to automatic software updates when the software does not update. There is no chatty distraction of text platforms. Functionality is not affected by changes to volume or mute status as it might be on a heavily used phone. The wavelengths used reportedly have better penetration deep into buildings with shielded areas like around MR machines. They are bulky, and it would be hard to forget that one is on call when they are strapped to the waistband/belt.

When the pager goes off, it doesn't bother other people because they either don't know what it is or know it's a medical issue and is acceptable.

The major problem is that I constantly 'hear' my pager going off when other devices beep in a roughly-similar fashion even when I'm not wearing it and my heart starts racing, so I have to change the ringtone frequently to de-Pavlov myself.

<comment><USER3> You're absolutely right about the various advantages of pagers over cell phones.

On the other hand, all of that medical information goes over the air in plain text. It is trivial to capture and decode POCSAG [1], requiring less than $100 of hardware: a Raspberry Pi 3 has enough horsepower to handle the 2 RTL-SDR's needed to capture both the 929MHz and 931MHz bands.

Modern security simply demands that pagers go away (or at least be heavily modified). This is not a theoretical concern [2][3].

[1] [https://github.com/pvachon/tsl-sdr](https://github.com/pvachon/tsl-sdr)

[2] [https://www.rtl-sdr.com/art-installation-eavesdrops-on- hospi...](https://www.rtl-sdr.com/art-installation-eavesdrops-on-hospital- pagers-with-a-hackrf/)

[3] [https://openprivacy.ca/blog/2019/09/09/open-privacy- discover...](https://openprivacy.ca/blog/2019/09/09/open-privacy-discovers- vancouver-patient-medical-data-breach/)

<comment><USER4> Does the paged text typically contain information that can identify the patient?

<comment><USER5> I'd imagine it to be trivial to also send malicious signals and jam the system.

<comment><USER6> That sounds like any radio frequency though. Alao a great way to get the FCC knocking on your door sooner or later.

<comment><USER5> True you could create a trash beacon for any frequency, but as you said it'd be very "loud". Disrupting service with seemingly innocent messages would be much harder to detect though

<comment><USER6> Oh I see, you're suggesting a very specified attack. Sounds like a smaller scale Stingray or something, but for beepers.

Edit: Yeah I'm not entirely familiar with interference detection, but I would always suspect some HAM somewhere will figure it out and report it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is funny to see these technologies being shut down right when they are useful for IoT.

I was building LED displays for bus stops to show information about the next bus. I found pagers to be a great match: cheap chips with integrated support for communications and displays, low costs for small text messages, great network coverage. But then the telecoms started shutting down the networks.

Now we are seeing the same thing with the push to 5G. I don't want 5G, I want 2G. Before there was TCP/IP over cellular networks, we had cellular packet data. Very power and network efficient, it was the basis for things like BlackBerry's push email. Now the 2G patents are expiring, so it could be cheap and ubiquitous, built into everything. But instead the 2G networks are getting shut down...

<comment><USER8> 4G LTE has dramatically higher system spectral efficiency (in bits/Hz) compared to 2G - over 100x [0]. That's why 2G is getting decommissioned in favor of LTE (and 5G).

NB-IoT is probably where your application would go these days. Bi directional communication, cheap chips, and data plans around $10/device/year for 12MB [1], which is a lot of short messages (though things like OTA firmware updates might be painful).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_efficiency)

[1] [https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband](https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband)

<comment><USER9> Spectral efficiency is super important. Especially with IoT, because there are going to be so many devices. Trying to do that with old pager network bandwidth would quickly overload the network.

<comment><USER7> I am not talking about using the pager network for that, I am talking about the 2G network.

I am not opposed to using more efficient network protocols, more that we are endlessly replacing old technologies with completely new systems. The selling point of 3G/4G/5G has been that they will have more bandwidth, so people can watch videos or use self driving cars.

What is more interesting to me is embedding cheap low-bandwidth smarts in more devices. The costs of the new and immature hardware gets in the way of that.

<comment><USER10> > The selling point of 3G/4G/5G has been that they will have more bandwidth, > so people can watch videos or use self driving cars.

In the cellphone commercial sure but in technical reality it's about device density. There is only one set of airspace and only certain chunks are useful for where we want to communicate; getting the most devices able to communicate has been the leading driver of RF planning and design for quite some time now. Bandwidth usually materializes out of a combination of more "slots" to talk and simply not using restrictions needed for 20 year old consumer hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do sort of miss having a separate device for work, that work paid for, and that I could turn off when not on call. The two way pagers with the qwerty keyboard were pretty nice.

<comment><USER12> I know there are companies for which you BYOD your smartphone, but then they want to MDM that device of yours to protect company data. Ha!

<comment><USER13> Google has this neat implementation on Android where your work applications end up in a seperate profile that the company can manage. They can erase that profile but they can't see or manage any data outside of it.

This is the only way I'll ever allow work things on my phone.

<comment><USER14> Are there instructions on this anywhere? I get really annoyed at the MDM from my work email, which I can just get through the browser, but without it set up, I can't get work calendar notifications, which I do actually need.

<comment><USER15> Some further info on Work Profiles from Google: [https://support.google.com/work/android/answer/6191949?hl=en](https://support.google.com/work/android/answer/6191949?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It feels as if Japan decided one day to just stop progressing. Lots of little things like this along with flip phones still being popular seem to emphasize a sort of complacent stagnation. That's probably a little to harsh, but there's definitely a feeling of slowness to me.

<comment><USER17> It is actually growing rapidly in Japan. But I think one reason that smartphone usage in adults in Japan is lower than other developed countries is because of their aging population. Their birthrates have been so low, it is hard to offset an aging population who are living longer and are unlikely to adopt smartphones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That is sad. Biggest advantage of a beeper over a cell phone? Privacy. The beeper just receives and does not send your location.

<comment><USER19> Eh. In some aspects, sure. But everything sent to your pager is trivial to intercept, as it is simply sent in clear text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I miss having a pager in the 90s and early 2ks. I basically could go anywhere I wanted, or be on the internet when my parents weren't home, and all they had to do was page me and I'd know I either needed to come home, call them ASAP or call them immediately.

I still remember the number too but don't remember a few of my phone numbers.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone got pics of how pagers looked and worked in 1968?

<comment><USER22> All I found is this:

\- Pager and It's Development: [https://youtu.be/ebtppTU_sng?t=114](https://youtu.be/ebtppTU_sng?t=114)

\- Fancy Pager1970s Columbo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybqMKo8kQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybqMKo8kQk)

<comment><USER23> Here's wikipedia on the pageboy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Pageboy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Pageboy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They should all go off at once for a last hurrah.

All ten of them.

</comment><comment><USER25> One way pagers are the last bastion of privacy friendly wireless communication.

</comment><comment><USER26> Pagers several cell tower power failures, e.g. long term disasters like hurricanes. However they can fail in satellite failures, e.g. rare solar coronal mass ejections.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to be able to ditch my pager and rely solely on smartphone apps. Unfortunately there's no way to get our alerting apps to override silent mode on iOS and they're patchy on Android. So I keep a pager next to my bed to make sure I get woken up if something's on fire.

</comment><comment><USER28> End of an Era!

<comment><USER29> Well in Japan I suppose. In other parts of the world, we have wide area paging networks that are still running strong. My team builds and maintains a paging network that covers an area around 2/3 the size of Japan.

<comment><USER30> Nice. Which protocol are you using? How is equipment availability?

<comment><USER29> POCSAG. If you mean transmitters, we have a local supplier, no issues there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


If the FCC Had Regulated the Internet A counterfactual history of cyberspace. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2279106/

<comment> T-R This article was posted a few days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2039427></comment>


Show HN: Remittr – clean intuitive fx prices - hari-allamraju

 http://remittr.com - my latest project to build a site that shows fx close prices in a clean interface. The main purpose is to help users plan their remittances at the best price. The site is still in active development and more features like buy and sell signals will be added <comment> hari-allamraju @mobiplayer51 - there is no way at the moment other than seeing the inverse rate on the EURGBP page. I will add this soon

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's no way I can see GBP vs EUR instead of EUR vs GBP, or is it?

</comment><comment><USER2> clickable link - [http://remittr.com](http://remittr.com)</comment>


Show HN: Easyfile – Python Random File Access for Humans - <AUTHOR> https://pypi.org/project/easyfile <comment><USER2> Love this, and great job with the test coverage too, I might use this in a project I'm working on right now. Is it effectively feature complete or do you have plans for more?

<comment><USER3> Is this sarcasm? I don't see how this package is of use to anyone.

<comment><USER2> It is sincere. If you are working with structured documents, then accessing only an arbitrary line of the file in a performant way (especially if the documents are large) is a useful task. I see it also has facilities for handling CSVs, where its unlikely the user wants individual lines but may in fact want "columns."

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks for clarifying. I learned something.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


American Airlines Lawsuit Suggests It Too Thinks GoGo In-Flight Broadband Sucks - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160216/11032733613/american-airlines-lawsuit-suggests-it-too-thinks-gogo-in-flight-broadband-sucks.shtml <comment><USER2> Alternate Headline & TL;DR Summary:

Airline plans to use existing contract language to opt out of current service provider in order to use alternate service provider.

Considering the source is TechDirt though, I'm not particularly surprised.

<comment><USER3> There's a much better analysis, to your point, here:

[http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/02/16/45332/](http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/02/16/45332/)

Apparently gogo _has_ a faster, better offering, so American could also just be suing to get themselves a better position in line to get upgraded, or preferred pricing on the faster service.

Or just to be able to switch, as you point out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's 2016. Why isn't there free wifi on flights?? I mean, we don't have real hoverboards and we don't have flying cars. Can't we just have this one small, actually possible thing. ffs!

<comment><USER5> > Why isn't there free wifi on flights?

Currently, in-flight Wi-Fi hums along at 3 to 10 Mbps. For the whole cabin. Pricing it at zero would slow it to a crawl. This is true for any rival good.

<comment><USER6> Well if they price it a bit more reasonably then that would work. Some of the offers out there are truly mind boggling. I seem to recall a 10meg data cap as the cheapest option I saw (15 usd or gbp).

200meg @ 5 GBP sounds more reasonable...enough to surf a decent bit but not enough to affect overall speed.

<comment><USER7> At least flying domestic within the US, I've never seen in-flight wifi with data caps.

They do, of course, restrict video streaming services so as to not let one person consume the whole downlink, but that seems like a reasonable tradeoff given the bandwidth limitations on satellite internet. Many airlines now have onboard video-on-demand services anyways, which fills the streaming niche for most people.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Teams using AWS, are your i3 instances dying at abnormal rates? - <AUTHOR> We've had several i3's (2xl and 4xl's) die in the space of several days on critical pathways, out of about 18 that we have in service right now. Our AWS rep has given nothing but non-answers and nervous comments.
We love the i3 because of the cost/compute value, but we need to pull them out of the fleet if they're on fragile hardware.
HN SRE's/devops/infeng people, have you experienced similar? <comment><USER2> Anecdata:

We've had a mix of ~40 t2.u & c4.l instances running for a year with no downtime. Our i3.4xl has fully borked twice (memorable when we lose the ephemeral drives and need to reconstitute the analytics data).

Though it will be much more expensive and less performant, we're moving the system to an RDB-backed c4 soon for reliability, the people time to recover is too expensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> AWS has recommended for us to move back to i2s. Geez, thanks</comment></comment>


The Security Impact of HTTPS Interception [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/interception-ndss17.pdf <comment><USER2> I was surprised by this note (on page 2):

> Contrary to widespread belief, public key pinning [19] — an HTTPS feature > that allows websites to restrict connections to a specific key — does not > prevent this interception. Chrome, Firefox, and Safari only enforce pinned > keys when a certificate chain terminates in an authority shipped with the > browser or operating system. The extra validation is skipped when the chain > terminates in a locally installed root (i.e., a CA certificate installed by > an administrator).

Seems like a strange default to me. I feel like the user should be notified of this, for instance if they're using a work computer to access their bank account or something like that.

<comment><USER3> Trying to fight a local attacker with root (which is necessary to add a certificate to the trust stores on most platforms) isn't worth the effort. It's easy for the admin to bypass and would cause even more warning fatigue.

That's not to say I disagree with the sentiment that this is something employers (and other organizations providing access to devices) should be obliged to disclose, but that is perhaps more of a legal and educational issue.

<comment><USER2> > It's easy for the admin to bypass

If it involves patching and recompiling the browser it wouldn't be that trivial for your average sysadmin. Besides I don't see why the admin would be hostile to the users being aware that they're being monitored. As you point out companies generally disclose that anyway.

<comment><USER4> No, sysadmins don't patch browsers. Endpoint security products do. Patching browsers to implement TLS interception is table stakes for security products. Local pin enforcement would in fact result in million more surreptitious browser patches.

<comment><USER5> Maybe on windows. Do you know of any Android security products which do this? Why does Chrome for Android not implement this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the conclusion:

> We deployed these heuristics on three diverse networks:

> (1) Mozilla Firefox update servers,

> (2) a set of popular e-commerce sites, and

> (3) the Cloudflare content distribution network.

> In each case, we find more than an order of magnitude more interception than > previously estimated, ranging from 4–11%.

> As a class, interception products drastically reduce connection security. > Most concerningly, 62% of traffic that traverses a network middlebox has > reduced security and 58% of middlebox connections have severe > vulnerabilities. We investigated popular antivirus and corporate proxies, > finding that nearly all reduce connection security and that many introduce > vulnerabilities (e.g., fail to validate certificates).

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll jump on my current soap box, which is that we need a standard to allow MITM blocking, without interception, and a nicer user experience.

This won't solve all use-cases, but selfishly, It will solve mine at DNSFilter: If a browser could recognize our SSL cert, or a special field in our cert, and present the user with a block message, and a static link to learn more, it would eliminate the need for us to have our customers install a CA of ours, and MITM traffic. We have not yet done so, and I'd prefer not to, but it seems to be the industry standard way of avoiding users being confused by errors when we block/MITM an SSL site.

<comment><USER8> I've written a proxy that uses SNI to filter outgoing connections based on the domain name, without decrypting the traffic. It's not exactly user-friendly as you'd like, but it's a good solution to our use-case.

I might open-source it if there's interest but it's relatively basic.

<comment><USER7> I'd be interested in seeing what you've got -- I have on my list to look into doing so with HAProxy per the link here: [http://serverfault.com/questions/628147/nginx-proxy-based- on...](http://serverfault.com/questions/628147/nginx-proxy-based-on-sni- without-decryption)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Its sad that interception receives such a bad reputation because of broken security products. Yes, a proxy is a weak link. But if implemented properly and in a trustworthy way, then its better than having endpoint security, which is often worse. And no, the proxy does not belong on the endpoint itself! If organizations with proxy interception are not able to scan traffic, they will just drop the traffic. Instead of using MITM mitigations that don't allow interception at all, we need better user experience (with choice) and safe(r) products.

I have a little side project where I try to implement a proxy for myself. I want to remove ads and be able to scan and cache downloads. I trust the adblock plugins and endpoint security products far less than a MITM proxy, I wrote myself.

<comment><USER10> Why does the proxy not belong on the endpoint?

<comment><USER9> For various reasons: you probably have more endpoints on your network than proxy servers and thus a bigger attack surface. Keeping the endpoints up-to- date is harder (e.g. laptops that are not permanently attached to the network to receive updates). If your endpoints are workstations, human interaction (e.g. installing malicious software, opening malicious attachements) and the overall complexity of the system (e.g. GUI, multiple users) makes it weaker than a central, dedicated, isolated, stripped down and locked down set of proxy servers. And finally, process isolation is really, really hard (if your countermeasure _only_ runs on the target (endpoint), you already weakened your position).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a website you can visit that will tell you if your TLS handshake doesn't match your browser's user agent?

Maybe this will have to wait until after the team from this paper releases their fingerprints: [https://github.com/zakird/tlsfingerprints](https://github.com/zakird/tlsfingerprints)

<comment><USER12> [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html) tells you what your client handshake looks like, and [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/clients.html](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/clients.html) shows the usual handshake for several popular browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another blow to the utility of AntiVirus.

I hate the AV industry in infosec. It does not work well and in most cases, refundes security. Unbelievable that it's still required for a lot of compliance veers.

</comment><comment><USER14> What is the meaning of the "AS" acronym that the paper uses (seemingly representing network providers)? I didn't see it explained anywhere and it's not ringing any bells with me…

<comment><USER15> AS refers to the Autonomous System. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_\(Internet\))

It's an IP routing concept. AS Numbers are used to refer to different networks (run by different ISPs and providers) on the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised by the contrast between the best products in each category and the average standard. The few good ones show what is possible, yet the vast majority seem to be sub-standard or outright dangerous. I wouldn't have been surprised by the odd outlier where someone dropped the ball, but I expected much higher general standards.

<comment><USER17> > The few good ones show what is possible

If you've read that out of the paper you read a different one. Quote:

"Our grading scale focuses on the security of the TLS handshake and does not account for the additional HTTPS validation checks present in many browsers, such as HSTS, HPKP, OneCRL/CRLSets, certificate transparency validation, and OCSP must-staple. None of the products we tested supported these features."

Read: Some products got the absolute basics right. None of the solutions did anything that can reasonably be called "good".

> I expected much higher general standards.

I didn't. I don't expect anything from security appliance vendors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yep, HTTPS is a joke. Always secure your own transport if its sensitive.</comment>


Introducing the Javascript behind HN's upvote system - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/58808364#

<comment><AUTHOR> our co-founder put this up about 7 months ago.

Anyone know how "powerful" one has to be to have access to the "downvote"? I didn't even know this function existed before digging up this video.</comment>


Ask HN: What's something you'd like that programming languages don't do? - <AUTHOR> For example Andrei Alexandrescu likes how much you can do with static if in D however he thinks languages needs to have more powerful reflection.
Jon blow wrote his language so he can both modify the AST during compile time and write compile time rules without writing a plugin
I'd like more errors and warnings to be in a language, such as when I modify array [0] and [2] but not element [1] and extra warnings when I do strange things with a bunch of if's (hard to explain so I'll spare you).
What are yours? <comment><USER2> I would like setjmp/longjmp with the ability to catch and continue in order to execute cleanup actions. Most programming languages have one or the other, not both. But, consider that A calls B and B calls C, which uses longjmp to return to A, but B has to clean up some resources, it should catch and continue.

Another thing I would like to have is better bitwise manipulation operations. I find the MOR instruction of MMIX is sometimes useful, and so is the ~ operation of INTERCAL. I also thought of a operator which can be like any one of the C operators + or | or ^ since it is assumed the result is the same in all cases (which will be the case if the bitwise AND of the left and right operands will be zero).

I also agree I want to modify the AST during compile time, using macros.

Many modern programming languages lack a GOTO command, but I think that imperative programming languages should have a GOTO command.

Something that I might want to have is something like LLVM with macros added, although LLVM is itself deficient in some ways (e.g. no support for decimal arithmetic, no support for overlapping data with instructions (e.g. reading/writing immediate operands of other instructions), some calling conventions are missing, and you can't make stable undefined values longer than one bit).

For GPU programming, I think to want something like Checkout.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like a compiled language that feed optimization strategy notes to the editor, so the editor can describe to the programmer what the compiler plans to do to optimize features of your code.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good idea. That's what I use compiler explorer for but I do it poorly. CC: llvm

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Algebraic effects is very interesting to me.

A try...catch block allows one to define how an exception is handled within a given block. You can take the same function, and wrap it in a different try...catch block, and have the exception handled in a different manner.

Algebraic effects would allow one to define how a side effect (e.g. database queries, logging, etc) is performed within a given block. You can take the same function, wrap it in a different block, and have its side effects handled differently. You could have Logging effects write out to stdout in tests, and write to Splunk in production code, for example.

This would give a nice language-level, type-safe construct for implementing dependency injection, without the usual kludges of traditional DI frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Delayed function argument expression evaluation. Only evaluate the argument if the result is consumed.

You can get close using Callable<V>/.call in Java or better with 'lazy' in Kotlin, but I want it to be default behaviour. Even 'let' in Lisp/Clojure is sometimes annoying being eagerly evaluated.

2\. 'var' function argument and return types. Basically allow type inference to work through a call stack.

Basically I want F# features to be in more popular languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish I could code in Python and compile down to run natively like C, or even Go. The more I've used the language, the more it just feels natural, but it's so limited in A.)native compilation and distribution, and B.)multithreading/processing just sucks so bad.

</comment><comment><USER7> Tooling in mind, and assume that the language is not the only language in existence. A large part of my career has been spent writing scripts to duct tape together tools from different languages or write custom tools to deal with friction in a development environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you get a little more into this? I never had to do anything like that since all my workplaces only used 1 language + js

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd like a language that allows me to explicitly annotate my code for vectorization/SIMD. Too often compilers aren't able to vectorize efficiently because the heuristics don't detect the opportunity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had a thought on this but it's alot of work for one person and IDK if anyone would use my language for that.

I agree tho. I been learning SIMD and the operations it supports are pretty neat

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> (possibly optional) full determinism, serializable threads for mobile agents, recursive sandboxing for running untrusted code</comment>


So, is anybody applying to YC with a plan for a business in Second Life? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'm not applying to this cambridge based YC, but I'm going to apply for the next bay area YC. I'm not going to have an entire business built in second life, but will use it as just another way get traffic/users (new approach to online gambling). You might want to make your idea seem more "robust" and not entirely dependent on another platform.</comment>


AI used to hunt dinosaur bones - <AUTHOR> http://news.techeye.net/science/ai-used-to-hunt-dinosaur-bones

<comment><USER2> Besides article being interesting, it's an interesting approach of presenting computer science to my dinosaur obsessed son.</comment>


MiFi: Wi-Fi to Go, No Cafe Needed - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/technology/personaltech/07pogue.html?_r=1&em

<comment><USER2> _(250 megabytes of data transfer, 10 cents a megabyte above that)_

Some day we'll tell our kids we paid 10¢/MB for a ubiquitous Internet connection and they'll commit suicide.

</comment><comment><USER3> My wife and I were just discussing this... it started out with the fact that we're part of the 20% of US households that don't have a land (phone) line; just cell phones.

After discussion, we concluded that we'd ditch our land internet connection once we could get an all-you-can-eat data connection, such as the one mentioned in the article, for $50/person, and not have our data connectivity costs go up.

Looks like this will become a reality once the price drops by 50% (and this becomes integrated into an iPhone/android-based phone).

<comment><USER4> Your last line got me thinking: aka Rabid speculation time.

What if the Apple 'Media Tablet' that is supposed to launch with Verizon service had this same feature? It's got an internal 3G connection but it can also broadcast a Wifi hotspot with Bonjour!

That would be an amazing gadget.

<comment><USER5> It's not so much a matter of capability as it is a matter of carrier restrictions. The carrier restrictions keep an app that does this for the T-Mobile G1 from being easily distributed (and I think it requires rooting your phone, last I checked). So the amazing gadget already exists, it's the contractual agreements that need to be made amazing.

<comment><USER3> _...it's the contractual agreements that need to be made amazing._

I hope Google still has secret plans for entering the wireless space, or buying a company in the space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This RRW article about the Mifi hardware says it runs linux and is capable of hosting applications.

Very cool: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/watch_out_wifi_here_com...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/watch_out_wifi_here_comes_mifi.php)

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool, but one of the weaknesses of Wi-fi has turne dout to be the security. Of course you want your connection secure. And of course you _don't_ want some creepy guy surfing kidde porn from your IP.

But as implemented, in a lot of places there's extensive wi-fi connectivity and unused internet bandwidth but it's all private. How great would it be if every router gave 90% of the bandwidth to the owner and leaked 10%, with some sort of packet-tagger to say 'mobile origin'.

We nearly had public Wi-fi in San Francisco but one group of citizens wanted it publicly owned or nothing, and wouldn't tolerate a private service subsidized by ad frames or similar. Classic case of perfect as enemy of the good. Community peer wifi has been tried but I signed up 18 months ago and heard nothing since.

<comment><USER7> > But as implemented, in a lot of places there's extensive wi-fi connectivity > and unused internet bandwidth but it's all private. How great would it be if > every router gave 90% of the bandwidth to the owner and leaked 10%, with > some sort of packet-tagger to say 'mobile origin'.

This already exists: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great, one more device to carry around... Why is this not just a software addition to existing 3G/wifi phones?

<comment><USER9> <http://www.joikuspot.com/aboutJoikuSpot.php>

And a very handy piece of software it is too! Murders the battery life on my N96, though, as if it wasn't pitiful enough. Still, a couple of spare batteries beat the MiFi hands down for price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been doing exactly this for almost six months using my jailbroken iPhone and the PDAnet app. It turns my iPhone into a personal wireless router which I can connect to with my laptop. Works great (in the SF Bay Area, anyway).

PDAnet: <http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/index.php>

<comment><USER11> Doesn't it suck juice like crazy?

It was the only reason I jailbroken my iPhone a year back. Tried it, the phone was hot after half an hour and the drain incredible. I'd never jailbreak ever since.

<comment><USER10> About 30% per hour. I only use it an hour at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I read about this yesterday just as we were mulling over an $8k internet connectivity bill for a conference we hosted. It got me thinking that a tool like that would pay for itself within 1/2 day of use if we could get 3G connectivity in an exhibit hall -- which admittedly may be sketchy.

</comment><comment><USER13> My beef with current wireless options is not the hardware, but the stifling bandwidth limits and obscene overage costs.

I would carry around a cerealbox-sized modem if it meant unlimited broadband everywhere for a reasonable flat price.

</comment><comment><USER14> _"If you type 192.168.1.1 into your Web browser's address bar - a trick well known to network gurus - the MiFi's settings pages magically appear."_

Yes... it's entirely magical and meant to be a secret. Surely this thing defines a hostname like 'mifi' that you can type in instead of the IP.

Cool device, but four hour battery life is kinda slim. Wonder if you could dial down the power on the Wifi transmitter so it only worked within about 8 feet and extend the battery life a little.

You could also slap this on the back of an iphone with skype and _poof_ , iPhone on the Verizon network, if you really dislike AT&T.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a ctr500 from Cradlepoint. ([http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/ctr500-mobile- broadband-...](http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/ctr500-mobile-broadband- router)) + a sprint express slot EVDO card for about $68/month. It works really well and is very small. The cool thing about this is it has a NIC built in so you can light up a network if you really need to. Of course the hardware subsidy from the phone companies is pretty attractive. The cradlepoint was about 200 bucks and the card was probably 300 when I got it about a year ago.

<comment><USER16> These are interesting devices. I've been working on utilizing them as a data transfer option for non-cellular handhelds used for data collection in clinical drug trials. The device has an API for managing the ExpressCard connectivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This would be a simple iPhone app, if Apple and AT&T would allow it. You can do this by jailbreaking your phone, but it's a complicated ordeal.

<comment><USER18> But what would the battery life be?

<comment><USER19> So plug the iPhone into the wall when you're sharing internet over wifi. Anyway, the article claims that the device gets only four hours of continuous use. I imagine this is better than an iPhone using wifi constantly, but is it really _that_ much better?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> it's funny: "a U.S.B.-stick version, which cries out to be snapped off by a passing flight attendant's beverage cart."

since when could you use satellite wifi on a plane?

<comment><USER21> It's not from a satellite, it's through the cell network.

As for the flight attendant thing, lots of people leave their dongles attached to their notebooks. Also, the author discusses using the MiFi while waiting on the runway for take-off.

Given all that, the plane use case does seem pretty weak, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> marginal value-add over 3G modem

<comment><USER23> That margin makes all the difference for people who move around a lot.</comment></comment>


Quasar: a window manager for your (jailbroken) iPad - <AUTHOR> http://thebigboss.org/quasar-a-window-manager-for-ipad

<comment><USER2> While its interesting, and I'm sure there are people who will love it, I'm not sure I'd really enjoy interacting with my iPad in a multi-windowed environment. There's something to be said for the simplicity of devoting my attention to one app at a time.</comment>


Redfin speak up about Tracey Foley - <AUTHOR> http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2010/06/tracey_foley.html

<comment><USER2> This woman showed a house (in Somerville, MA) to my wife and me in April.

She was indeed a very good agent. She was very friendly and mentioned that her family had lived in France before they moved to Boston. She had a slight Russian accent (I noticed because my parents are from Russia) but I didn't ask about where she was from.

It's weird to have such a random connection to this strange story. I don't know what outcome to hope for.

<comment><USER3> How good of an agent can she be if she was caught?

<comment><USER4> I'd say very good. The value of a spy is in the information distributed not not getting caught. The other problem is the vast majority of the performance data we have is from agents, who were caught, so it's difficult to compare and contrast agents who were caught vs. those that aren't. We also don't yet know what information they passed.

"possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen>

<comment><USER5> shimon wrote "agent" meaning "real estate agent", as the article did.

ehnus' comment is a pun that uses "agent" as in "spy". </joke_explainer>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> are there actually people who are trying to put some fault on redfin for hiring a spy?

i mean, if the russian government trains and backs a spy, and they're not even able to land a job working as someone who shows real estate on a contract basis, i don't know how they'd expect to be able to pull meaningful governmental information.

<comment><USER7> Nah, this is most likely at least partly meant to be linkbait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mahalo has an opening for two Russian Spies.... if it will get us on the homepage of Hacker News we're in!

</comment><comment><USER9> It's amazing how close to home a Russian spy can be! Spooky</comment>


Show HN: Dog Time – New Tab Video Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dog-time/ipankfhoddgigbfcolfkfoelafapfhpo

<comment><AUTHOR> Dog Time gives an amusing and playful dog video with each new tab load, along with some helpful information.</comment>


Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.darlinghq.org/ <comment><USER3> I am hoping that with cross platform Swift we can start seeing more libraries to help us port Mac apps to Linux. I am a Mac developer but I'd love to make stuff available on Linux.

I really like Linux as a backup plan, in case Apple totally drops the ball on professionals on the Mac.

The Linux desktop is getting pretty good, but it lacks well designed high quality GUI applications. If porting to Linux was done easier that could change.

<comment><USER4> > it lacks well designed high quality GUI applications. If porting to Linux > was done easier that could change.

Fundamental to most peoples complaints about desktop Linux applications is the lack of look and feel cohesion across all permutations of distro, desktop, and toolkit.

Wine applications using the Windows APIs look like complete garbage and fit in nowhere. The same would be true of OSX Cocoa apps - they wouldn't mesh well at all, and it would be practically impossible to skin them with toolkit theming.

That, and recent efforts by Gnome and KDE have been producing tons of good new applications with modern GUI. They just aren't _all_ the applications yet.

<comment><USER5> I think a better way to handle this is to show people how to use the command line. That does have a cohesive look and feel and is generally very well behaved compared to nearly anything else.

Unfortunately that seems to scare people away so everyone hacks GUIs together to keep them from running and that's how we got to where we are now.

<comment><USER6> Have fun editing HDR footage or cutting samples on the command line. Don't get me wrong, but MacOS is exactly my platform of choice because I can have a sane POSIX command line as well as a color managed display and high resolution, low latency multichannel audio on the very same computer and can switch effortlessly.

<comment><USER5> You're actually manipulating graphical data though, in that situation a GUI makes a lot of sense. Using a GUI for editing E-mail or joining a WI-FI network is silly, just like it is for most things people do with computers.

<comment><USER7> Are you truly managing email through a command line interface? Or are you using something like Pine? Isn't Pine just a GUI created out of characters instead of graphics? True GUI interfaces compared to ncurses type solutions offer way more fidelity and power.

<comment><USER8> nmh FTW!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Since the most painful area is still the missing Cocoa implementation, > hackers are welcome to explore the following possibility

I wonder why they suggest trying to rebuild Cocoa on top of Qt, rather than starting with the existing GNUstep?

</comment><comment><USER10> It'll super useful when/if it supports XCode + Mac Developer Tools for iOS development. I think that's the main thing keeping app developers on their Macs.

<comment><USER11> That simply is not true. Most of the people that likes commodities of UNIX, nice UI and long battery life in combination with nice hardware uses Macs. Even people who do not do any iOS development. There is no such thing as Mac Dev tools, (maybe just iOS related but there aren't many that you do for that process besides Xcode). I use my Mac like I used Linux and FreeBSD, package manager check, nice terminal check, Emacs check, clang check, JetBrains' stuff check. (only two programs that are exclusive to macOS are Xcode and iTerm2, at least in my case).

Edit: OK why downvotes? Did I say something that is not true? Matter of taste, but seems like it's new trend to hate on Apple computers. Its cool now right? Why can't people just move on...

Edit2: Forgot that this is HN and that every word is meant literally. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER12> No, Windows had an Unix subsystem since forever, and WSL helps switchers more than ever actually.

<comment><USER11> And that is related to which part of my post, because I do not see the connection? I didn't mention Windows. And good luck with wrestling with Windows doing UNIX things. It had it, but it was not comparable to Linux and BSDs. Now it is better situation, much better, but still I would rather spin some BSD based system in VM, than try and use Ubuntu through WSL.

<comment><USER13> My Ubuntu VM hasn't been spun up since I started using WSL. I've encountered a few bugs with WSL but it works amazingly well even for GUI apps.

<comment><USER11> I didn't like Ubuntu even back then when Linux was my main workspace. Used Gentoo and Arch most of the time, Ubuntu felt like too much everything for my taste. Is it possible to use other Linux distros through WSL?

<comment><USER12> yes, an Arch port to WSL was written

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is neat, but I can't think of a single non-GUI tool on OS X that I need or doesn't have an equivalent in Linux...

<comment><USER15> Photoshop?

And Scrivener. The OS X variant is a full major version ahead of Windows, and it isn't even supported on Linux.

<comment><USER16> "non-GUI tool" \- Photoshop is very much a GUI tool.

<comment><USER17> You can actually use the features of Photoshop in scripts without the need of the GUI. Being able to do that on Linux would be great!

[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/scripting.html](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/scripting.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Back in the PowerPC days, there was a thing called Mac-on-Linux [0] that allowed GUI Mac apps to run in Linux. It worked pretty well. I wonder if that code base would be helpful. [0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac-on- Linux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac-on-Linux)

<comment><USER19> MoL was PPC only, and didn't do any transformation of Toolbox calls to Linux native calls.

It was essentially a hypervisor.

[https://sourceforge.net/p/mac-on- linux/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/](https://sourceforge.net/p/mac-on- linux/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there anything the other way around? Running a Linux binary on MacOS? Sometimes the source isn't available so recompiling isn't an option.

<comment><USER21> I don't think such a thing exists, probably because there are few/no applications that target Linux and not OS X that aren't also open source. Can you give an example of an app that is only released as a compiled binary for Linux and not OS X?

<comment><USER22> FPGA development tools from xilinx or altera are one example.

<comment><USER23> Pretty much all HDL tools. I've heard on the grapevine that Apple's own internal chip teams have to use Linux or Windows because the HDL vendors won't port to OSX, even with Apple willing to fund the effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Another similar project was Magenta OS: [http://crna.cc/cat/open- source](http://crna.cc/cat/open-source)

>Magenta was my attempt at implementing a mach compatibility layer on top of the Linux kernel.

The 2012 archive.org cache of this page has some details: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120619162157/http://crna.cc/ma...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120619162157/http://crna.cc/magenta.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> This project has been around since 2012. I'm glad to see it's getting some momentum!

<comment><USER26> Repo even starts in 2011.

The commit log doesn't look like momentum at all though...

[https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/graphs/commit- activity](https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/graphs/commit-activity)

<comment><USER27> That's because I (the author) still work on it alone and nobody wants to contribute. I receive tons of e-mails that go like "when will it run XYZ", but practically no pull requests.

<comment><USER28> You might find the LGPL used by the Wine project to be more attractive to potential contributors. The first thing I thought a few years ago when I read that your project was GPLv3 was that any code that I develop using it would have to be GPLv3. Even if the GPLv3 itself might not force that for "system libraries", the harassment from armchair legal experts would. As much as I like OSS licensing, I do not like having my choice of OSS license forced on me. I am probably not the only one who feels that way. The LGPL is a far better choice for this kind of project.

For what it is worth, that is from personal experience. I went through the trouble of re-licensing a script with consent from all contributors from GPL-2 to BSD-2 in a package in the past because of harassment from armchair legal experts. It had been mistakenly marked GPL-2 when it should have been BSD-2 to match OpenRC. It had been included with binaries under the CDDL. There was no incompatibility and the GPL FAQ even talked about the case under mere aggregation, but that did not stop the harassment from the stream of arm chair experts rushing to tell me that I had committed some egregious offense for having the package marked both GPL-2 and CDDL. Relicensing the script to the license it should have had in the first place put an end to it and created one less GPL licensed thing in the world.

Anyway, switching to the LGPL now would be easier than switching later. It only gets harder as a project ages because you start to lose contact with past contributors.

<comment><USER27> It doesn't make much sense to target Darling as a development platform - <USER2> "winelib" \- which is why I stick to GPL. I don't want any company to ever use Darling for "porting" their app to Linux, because I consider this an abomination when done with Wine. I think it's fair to say "our app also runs under Wine/Darling", but it's unfair to produce a binary with bundled Wine and say it's a Linux version.

I also want to avoid the inception of businesses providing enhanced Darling for money without releasing the full source code (think Cedega), because in my view, that's akin to a fraud committed on other developers who invested considerable time and didn't ask a dime for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Why "Darling"?

>The name Darling is a combination of "Darwin" and "Linux". >Darwin is the core operating system OS X and iOS build on.

If that's the case, why not Darlin? But then, I'm southern so that's why it makes more sense to me.

<comment><USER30> I was looking at emacs documentation the other day and thought that RMS is probably right that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. In that case, newcomers to this project might ask "What's GNU Darlin?

<comment><USER31> Gnu/Linux/Darwin == Gnarlin?

Seriously though, i used to think GNU/Linux was just envy of linux' success, but Gnu basically IS OS without a kernel (Herd, where art thou?).

<comment><USER32> If you're using a distribution like Alpine Linux, which uses musl libc and busybox en lieu of much of the GNU userspace, it's not really a GNU/Linux by any definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wouldn't be a terrible idea to do something similar for the BSDs, particularly FreeBSD. A lot of the syscalls would be passthroughs, which would make things a little easier at least.

<comment><USER34> Go and whisper in these people's ears. (-:

* [http://www.nextbsd.org/](http://www.nextbsd.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Related: [http://www.puredarwin.org/](http://www.puredarwin.org/), partial OS built from open-source Apple libraries / kernel.

The problem with both of these is re-implementing the Core Foundation (only partially open-source; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Kit#Major_implement...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Kit#Major_implementations)) & proprietary Cocoa API's that almost all GUI Mac apps use. Wine has done the equivalent for Windows, but so far nobody wants to do all the hard work of bug-for-bug compatibility. Probably because Apple is already becoming irrelevant, and almost every Mac product has a corresponding Windows equivalent.

</comment><comment><USER36> If there were build tools that could help deploying to the App Store/Google Play/Windows Store/Amazon Marketplace in a straightforward way, this would motivate people to write more portable software.

Those marketplaces are not only places to buy applications. Many applications there are free. They are also distribution channels that help people finding and installing your app.

</comment><comment><USER37> Hmm. I guess many developers use just the right amount of MacOS specific tools to justify this now. The git client Tower is something I've eyed before, but most tools I use are available on Linux, and I say that as someone who uses a Mac at work.

<comment><USER3> So many awesome GUI tools for developers on Mac, I can't find on Linux. E.g. OmniGraffle is fabulous for doing diagrams. I have not found anything as well designed and functional on Linux.

You got so many nice git clients: Tower, Gitup, GitX etc. There are awesome diff tools like Kaleidoscope.

There are a lot of good tools for keeping all sorts of notes, programming snippets etc. My life is pretty much centered on Ulysses, which has a very good way of organizing and searching for notes.

Linux does of course have vim, emacs, etc but I'd say if you want a more modern feeling editor you got a lot more choices on Mac: TextMate, Sublime, SubEtaEdit, Smultron, Coda, Chocolate etc.

Then there are all sorts of specialized tools, e.g. I use a Dash a lot of looking up developer documentation. Paw is pretty neat for working with REST APIs. Base is great for looking at and manipulating SQLite databases.

Especially for any kind of graphical work, say you got to modify some application or toolbar icons, then you have a lot of great choices on Mac. Not only do you have the big powerful tools like e.g. Photoshop and Affinity Designer, but you to also small neat little tools like Pixen.

It really depends on how long you worked on the platform. I didn't use nearly as many of these tools some years back. But the longer you stay on a platform there more tools you start using as particular needs arise.

I've worked with plenty of colleagues who have used Macs for years, but who aren't really mentally into the whole Mac eco system, and so they often use various cross platform tools, websites etc before they actually explore the rich collection of desktop apps available on the Mac.

<comment><USER38> Minor note: Sublime also runs fine on Linux and Windows.

<comment><USER39> People still use Atom? I switched to Atom ~1 year ago, and my life has drastically improved. The in-app plug-in store is one of the greatest innovations. Anytime I encounter a situation where I wish my text editor did something a little better, I have been able to find a suitable plug-in, install it, and get back to work all without closing the app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's a shame that you can't run a container with MacOS installed and just run the apps natively.

Unlikely to ever happen though. You'd have to run the MacOS kernel and Mach concurrent with the Linux kernel without virtualization (something I am not sure is possible). At that point, you might as well just bite the bullet and run a VM.

<comment><USER15> I'd be happy enough if I could run the VM.

<comment><USER41> Do you mean legally, or at all? Because if it's "at all" I believe there is a very vibrant community who have a lot of tutorials for doing that

<comment><USER42> There's a nice (pretty inclusive to beginners I might add) community for mac VMs on other OSes, but I've tried using such VMs for the past 4 years and each year I've had worse results.

* Is it usable for dev work -> yes * Is it like using a mac -> no

Usually When I'm on windows, I generally just run a Ubuntu VM and live inside it.

That is not something you can generally do on an OSX VM.

(just to add, my opinions based on my experience - your milage may wary)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Very impressive. I wonder how useful the existing GNUstep libraries would be for supporting at least some subset of GUI apps. I wonder how far at this point OS X's CoreFoundation etc. differ from what's in GNUstep.

<comment><USER44> GNUstep is stuck around half supporting Panther, if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER45> They forked GNUStep for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is great. But I can't think of a single macOS-only app I'd like to have in Linux, other than Terminal.app, Control Panel, Activity Monitor, etc. Everything else I use already runs in Linux.

<comment><USER47> Sketch is probably the only reason I'm not 100% Linux at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is there a licence issue preventing the use of [http://www.cocotron.org/](http://www.cocotron.org/), an existing Cocoa for Windows/Linux?

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't think the virtual esc key is going to be an issue. The placement actually seems more convenient than the current esc key location.

I am going to miss a regular USB port and MagSafe.

<comment><USER50> Maybe this might work as a replacement for MagSafe?

[https://www.amazon.com/Griffin-BreakSafe-Breakaway- Chromeboo...](https://www.amazon.com/Griffin-BreakSafe-Breakaway-Chromebook- replacement/dp/B01CQTK6GU)

I haven't tried it myself, so it probably does not feel as fast and fluid as MagSafe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Oh this looks excellent, I was thinking of trying to make something like this work for running the Bonjour Compatability Suite for automated testing against Avahi.

</comment><comment><USER52> Just an amusing thing to notice: 大零 ''da ling'' means "great zero" in Mandarin Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER53> Darling has been around for sometime. In my experience it's buggy and not nearly as far along as Wine.

</comment><comment><USER54> 80% of my apps i use run on electron :D

<comment><USER55> So _thats_ why people need more than 16GB of memory on their MacBook Pro.

<comment><USER56> A general rule I follow on my Mac to minimize memory and power consumption:

\- Use Safari

\- Avoid web based desktop app like Atom, Slack, etc.

\- Limit maximum of 3 app open, e.g. Xcode + iTerm + Safari. Bonus: I can focus my mind on the things that I need to do.

\- Limit maximum of 3 open tabs on my Safari.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> iTerm finally!

<comment><USER58> Nope. That's a GUI app :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> > "At this point, does not yet run macOS application with a GUI"

Great, so I can run OS X's shitty versions of Linux utilities... on Linux.

<comment><USER60> Technically, they are't really OS X's shitty versions of Linux utilities but rather the BSD versions of GNU utilities.

<comment><USER59> Technically, those utilities were originally BSD, but Apple took them and modified them and did not release the sources back into BSD. So they're not really BSD anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It would be really great to be able to build macOS-only open source apps on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER62> Maybe this will some day mean Imgix can stop racking mac pros.

</comment><comment><USER63> what can apple's lawyers do to kill this project?

<comment><USER64> Pivot their career as engineers and make better professional hardware at Apple so nobody will consider using this project?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why can't I write a int literal like 2,333? - <AUTHOR> Why don't more programming languages support numeric literals written with comma separators (or periods for europe. <comment><USER2> Because:

a) comma has already defined meaning so it could be ambiguous - it would mean tuple (2,333) in python for example

b) even if its not the case, its easy to confuse it with floats, and you do not want apply local numerical conventions to code and discover one day that all your ints are floats because some setting was different

c) you can write it as 2_333 in growing number of languages

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh yeah, let's have more of the ambiguity that CSVs have: is it a comma between arguments? Is it a decimal comma? Is it a thousands separator? Is my locale correct for parsing this? What was the author's intended and actual locale?

On the other hand, what improvement does this bring? ... "it is supposed to look pretty."

</comment><comment><USER4> What syntax would you then use for calling a function with multiple parameters? Function f takes two ints and I call it like this: _f(3,456,789)_

What are its parameters?

<comment><USER5>
      f (3,456 789)

or

      f(3 456,789)

or

      f(3,456,789)

depending on intent. I mean the requirement of a common as a separator seems superfluous -- particularly in languages like Python which rely heavily on semantic whitespace.

<comment><USER6> True, but now you're asking for a change in function call syntax, just so you can print integers in a format that some people find more readable. That seems like a bit overkill...

<comment><USER5> I've been reading Steele's _Common Lisp: the Language_ and one of the ideas I'm currently working out is based on how it talks about users and not programmers. I think this is an effect of the fact that using a Lisp on a Lisp Machine was just 'using the computer' like using DOS on a DOS machine or CPM on a CPM machine. Emacs Lisp is another example of a language conceived as a way of using a computer (in its case editing text) rather than for writing programs.

Anyway, baked into the question is the idea of localization (comma or dot) and under the computing language as a means of using (rather than programming) a computer, that makes perfect sense under modern practice. Even my phone does it.

I'm not expecting Python to change its function call syntax, and if I were able to change one thing on that scale it would be C's null terminated strings (in a New York minute). On the other hand, breaking changes to Python are not without precedent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In C++1y/C++14, you can use the apostrophe. i.e. 2'333

They took a backward compatible approach by using a symbol that's not already used for other operations, like "," or "." or ";" The grammar would be non- trivial or too restricted otherwise, IMO.

<comment><USER8> Recent Java versions did something similar, allowing underscore characters, e.g., 7_000_000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Factor ([http://factorcode.org/](http://factorcode.org/)) supports that syntax:

      3,400,000,000 3400000000 =
      9,312 9312 =
      4,294,967,296 4294967296 =

It's pretty useful for writing large numbers.

</comment><comment><USER10> In Python you can do this:

1_000_000

[https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0515/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0515/)</comment>


Show HN: BungoSearch – Search free e-books by time-to-read - <AUTHOR> https://search.bungomail.com/en <comment><AUTHOR> Bungo Search lets you search free e-books on Project Gutenberg by Time-to- Read. You can search for example: Mark Twain's short-short works of 10min to read.

I created this because I wanted to read books more (and for free!) but can not choose the right one to read.

There are over 60,000 free e-books on Project Gutenberg, but it's a bit hard to choose the right one from such many books.

With BungoSearch, you can search books by the estimated time to read. If you only have 5 minutes of spare time, just select "5mins" and you'll find the great short stories :)

All the books are ordered by the popularity in Project Gutenberg, so just pick the books from the top page of the search result, and you'll never be disappointed ;)

Hope this helps your reading life!</comment>


Raspberry Pi Model Railway Automation - <AUTHOR> https://phwallen.github.io/smrc/ <comment><USER2> May I suggest more than one magnet per train to differentiate them.

Simplest way: number of magnets corresponds to train ID. Small space between magnets (calculated from Hall sensor refresh rate and max train speed). Count number of Hall sensor trips (maybe with debounce) within some time period (calculated from the minimum train speed during crossing and the magnet spacing). Disadvantage: Train minimum speed must be reasonable. Requires n(n+1)/2 magnets, or 36 for 8 trains.

More reliable way: two columns of magnets, slightly offset, spaced as above. Two Hall sensors in a row under the track. Col 1 is clock. Col 2 is data. Whenever Hall 1 (clock) goes high, read Hall 2 (data) (maybe for a short period for debounce). To keep things simple and stay away from speed assumptions, put the same number of clock magnets on all trains: log2(train count), rounded up, for example 4 for 16 trains. Disadvantage: Requires twice as many Hall sensors. Requires about log2(N) _1.5 magnets per train, so 96 magnets for 16 trains, as opposed to 16 for the original method. Those tiny neodymium magnet bars are cheap, though. BONUS: Train speed measurement. Speed is the clock magnet spacing divided by time between clock Hall trips. Now you can run a Pi algorithm (e.g. PID) to move trains at a target speed regardless of load, at least in the regions with Hall sensors.

If you are willing to assume the train speed is constant while passing the sensors and do more complex signal analysis on the Pi, the intermediate clock magnets can be removed, reducing the magnet count to N(2 + log2(N)_0.5)=64.

<comment><USER3> If you wanted to avoid the clock thing, you could probably do something like this.

Have two rows of sensors set up like this:

        * * * * * * * *

        *             *

When both of the second row of sensors are high, read an 8 bit binary number from the first row of sensors. This allows you to have up to 255 different IDs with 10 magnets per train. First row is data, second row is alignment. Fast moving trains might have issues with this kind of setup though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If anyone curious about railway modelling, I think, the game "Rolling Line" is an interesting simulation of it, including VR support, it is available in Steam.

[https://youtu.be/UjfsRfxOtU8](https://youtu.be/UjfsRfxOtU8)

</comment><comment><USER5> There was a model railway show in London in the mid 70s that my grandfather took me to.

The least decorated layout there was the most interesting, as it was computer controlled. Even better, a small child could program it by writing instructions on paper and handing them to the controller who then put them into the computer

For a 10 year old, this was magical! This may have triggered my interest in computers

</comment><comment><USER6> Bit off-topic but my friend uni's RTOS course was all about train scheduling, which seems like a fun way to teach it (not sure if it was Hornby 00 Gauge like this)

<comment><USER7> Sounds like the infamous Trains of CS452 at the University of Waterloo. There's a class the ruins people; it seems they do nothing but live in a lab for three months.

They walk away having written a bare-metal real-time operating system, so I guess that's something. I stuck to the less soul-destroying classes.

<comment><USER8> Soul destroying? Learning to write a bare metal RTOS that controls a model railway sounds hella fun.

<comment><USER9> If you're interested in reading more, there's a student's write-up of the course here:

* Impressions [0]

* Optimizing The Kernel [1]

* The 72-hour bug [2]

* Train Tracking [3]

Notably, QNX started as a CS 452 project.

I'm not too sure about the future of that course. The last I heard (Winter 2019), the professor, Bill Cowan, had decided to stop teaching. Last term, they were clearing out the CS 452 lab and were moving the trains elsewhere. I had wanted to take the course then, but unfortunately the course wasn't being offered, and it was my last term before graduating.

[0] [https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-impressions](https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-impressions)

[1] [https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-optimization](https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-optimization)

[2] [https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-72-hour- bug](https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-72-hour-bug)

[3] [https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-train- tracking](https://www.taylorpetrick.com/blog/post/cs452-train-tracking)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for these links. As a UW CS alum who didn't take the CS452 and now regrets it a little bit, this was fascinating reading – especially when he gets to the modelling aspects (last link).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There seems to be a nexus between model trains and computing [1].

I get that one can be seen as a simplified model of the other, but can anyone expand further on the attraction?

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

<comment><USER12> > I get that one can be seen as a simplified model of the other, but can > anyone expand further on the attraction?

Program errors are much more fun with trains. :)

<comment><USER13> Because logic errors are no longer simple "restart and try again" incidents, instead leading to derailments or head-on collisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of the trains you can buy now are amazing.

I pass the physical presence of this place frequently [https://railsofsheffield.com/](https://railsofsheffield.com/) & their window displays make me drool.

I guess my loft is going to be repurposed when I retire :)

<comment><USER15> I remember that company, much airtime in the TV show [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00037sz](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00037sz) which was focused upon Hornby and most insightful. Rails had there own design of train coming out for some model that was a gap in the market, whilst Hornby was secretly working on their own version and both came to market around the same time.

Might of been in part one, but if you're even remotely into model trains or just a passing fascination into them, well worth a watch. But a most enjoyable documentary and a style that will fit even the non-train buffs abound.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the tip - i'll definitely try and find that show

<comment><USER16> The host is James May of Top Gear and The Grand Tour. He does a lot of quirky documentaries for the BBC like "Big Trouble in Model Britain." It's two episodes and pretty interesting and I have minimal interest in model trains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I regret, though should be grateful, that I live in a space too small to fit my own model railroad setup.

Been thinking about building an El onto the crowning for a while, though.

</comment><comment><USER18> Somebody should work on proving that train systems are turing complete. That way we can compute with rails.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.cr31.co.uk/stagecast/trains/tt3_ham.html](http://www.cr31.co.uk/stagecast/trains/tt3_ham.html)

[http://www.monochrom.at/turingtrainterminal/Chalcraft.pdf](http://www.monochrom.at/turingtrainterminal/Chalcraft.pdf)</comment></comment>


Six popular myths about healthy diet get debunked - <AUTHOR> http://cartesianproduct.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/dietary-myths-debunked-by-the-new-scientist/

<comment><USER2> So, we replace unsubstantiated claims with "opposing" unsubstantiated claims?

We know so little about proper nutrition, especially in the context of obesity and fitness that anyone who tells you they have the "answer" is probably just trying to sell you something.

Everyone's metabolism is just slightly different for there to be things that work for them and not for others. Experiment and track your results.

I used to think I was gluten-intolerant, now I'm not so sure.

What I do know is that alcohol isn't good for my digestion and sugar in high doses causes me to gain body fat. When I eat meat, fish, vegetables, and small amounts of carbohydrates from rice and potatoes, I get stronger, feel better, and have fewer problems with digestion.

My wife can't touch bread or she'll be sick for a day. She had crazy vitamin deficiencies and hormone dis-regulation from years of eating low fat meals, gluten-heavy food, and not enough protein. Six months, and 50 lbs of body fat loss later, she's feeling better than ever with a greatly improved mood.

YMMV.

<comment><USER3> Looks like the linked article is a summary of one in the New Scientist, so perhaps there is some amount of substantiation there? The NS original requires registration to read so I've not checked.</comment></comment>


Should the Modern Corporation Maximize Shareholder Value? - <AUTHOR> https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2020/05/18/should-the-modern-corporation-maximize-shareholder-value/ <comment><USER2> Enforcement of policies and laws is rather weak and varied. In this world, even penalities imposed by courts for violations are hardly deterring big corporations, there are plenty of recent examples for this. This article fails to convince me about the effectiveness of the principle.</comment>


Top Five Integrated Development Environments - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2010/08/24/top-5-integrated-development-environments/

<comment><USER2> What a great Top 5 apples and oranges article. kate and GEdit - two text editors - are there, but not vim and emacs? Where are IDEs like Xcode, Dreamweaver, or even Code::Blocks? Somebody needs to get it together.</comment>


Aeroflot Flight from Moscow to Havanna avoided US airspace yesterday - <AUTHOR> http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130711/1005Z/UUEE/MUHA

<comment><AUTHOR> Compared to the previous days flights, which all crossed the US. Might just be turbulence though.

</comment><comment><USER2> Also made a landing at L.F. Wade International Airport, Bermuda apparently.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could have been a dry run to test US response.</comment>