Hong Kong's protesters use AirDrop to spread information to mainland visitors - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1660460/hong-kong-protesters-use-airdrop-to-breach-chinas-firewall/ <comment><USER2> Worth mentioning in case anyone in HongKong or China needs it: Streisand can help you set up a VPN to avoid censoring[1]

[https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand](https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand)

<comment><USER3> Isn't naming an anti censorship tool "streisand" similar to naming an anti- facism tool "hitler"?

<comment><USER4> Not really. Streisand Effect is defined as "a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely."[0], so it seems to fit perfectly

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

<comment><USER3> Sure. And the "Hitler Effect" is defined as "a phenomenon whereby an attempt to create a genocidal fascist government has the unintended consequence of uniting nations of the earth committed to the destruction of said government"

I was just pointing out the irony that an anti-censorship tool was named after a pro-censorship person

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me of people who say that we can free North Koreans by (physically) airdropping tapes and books on Pyongyang - surely the only reason they support their government is because they're heavily censored, once they see the truth they'll rise up in arms!

It's a narrative that's somewhat condescending. It makes it seem like all these people are just being held hostage by their governments. The reality is that people in China or North Korea are like people everywhere else -- either they're deeply uninterested in politics, or they are, in which case they probably have a more sophisticated view of these issues than assumed. Some information freely available via VPN isn't going to change anyone's mind.

<comment><USER6> Most protesters never try to investigate the real thoughts of ordinary mainland people, who are just regarded as a stereotype of ignorance, impoliteness, nouveau riche, and pathetically waiting to be enlightened. Protesters know mainland people as little as, if not less than, ordinary mainland people know them. This is not a big deal in daily life, but could severely diminish the effect of the propaganda towards mainland visitors.

<comment><USER7> This comment is based on the peculiar notions that 1) it is possible to intimately understand the thoughts of over a billion people and 2) this understanding is necessary for propaganda to achieve its effect.

More importantly, it quietly dismisses the vast moral chasm between the CCP's propaganda and that of the protesters. One aims to restrict information (and spread misinformation) to advance the control of a state over its people, while the other aims to expose that restricted information to protect civil liberties.

<comment><USER6> Correct me if I'm wrong, this is a political movement aiming at winning more support and allies from people of mainland China, and hence putting more pressure on the government. My comment just points out there are some negative factors for current organizers. They could have done better.

Information freedom is politically correct, but that doesn't mean tactics or investigation isn't important before conveying information to certain group of people to achieve a political goal practically.

Btw, CCP puts great stress on these two peculiar notions. Propaganda appears far more than restriction and misinformation.

<comment><USER8> > They [the current organizers]could have done better

Interesting. Very specifically, how?

<comment><USER6> Some opinions of mine. Any criticism is welcome:

A large portion of tourists do know there are protests in Hong Kong lasting for a few weeks and it's about the extradition bill, where criminals as defined in both Hong Kong and mainland at the same time could be transferred to Beijing with Hong Kong judges' approval. These are publicly reported in mainland. It's useless just retelling the story itself, or even worse in a sense of superiority (as pointed out in a twitter comment) saying "did you know? oops, sorry for you".

I think open-minded mainland people would prefer a thorough and better explanation of the opposition. Because from many ordinary people's perspective, Hong Kong still keeps legal control over the extradition under the bill and it would help the fight against corruption since Hong Kong is regularly involved in economic crimes committed by mainland citizens. "Extradition bill threatens your property in Hong Kong", appearing in many flyers, just looks like some kind of evidence supporting it for ordinary people.

Also, mainland people worries about stability and order of Hong Kong as much as protesters concern about freedom and democracy. Even if they disagree with each other on the order of importance, protesters could express a little about the shared value for long-term law and order in Hong Kong to dispel some concerns. Stressing only on freedom towards mainland people sounds as horrible as stressing only on order towards protesters, let alone storming the building of Legislative Council or attacking the police with bricks.

As is well known to mainland people, in the colonial era, the Hong Kong governor was appointed by British monarch and no democratic legitimacy existed until Britain started preparing the handover to China in 1980s. There were also multiple bloody riots crushed in the colonial history. It's really confusing for tourists to see protesters weaving flags of colonial or British flags without further clarification, for what these flags stand for besides asking for Britain's direct interference.

Lastly, truth is powerful enough. There is no need to exaggerate the numbers.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for voicing out your view, very much appreciated.

> A large portion of tourists do know there are protests in Hong Kong lasting > for a few weeks and it's about the extradition bill, where criminals as > defined in both Hong Kong and mainland at the same time could be transferred > to Beijing with Hong Kong judges' approval. These are publicly reported in > mainland. It's useless just retelling the story itself, or even worse in a > sense of superiority (as pointed out in a twitter comment) saying "did you > know? oops, sorry for you".

I think the version of the opposition as presented by the Chinese media is not the full picture.

Case in point: even though the court of Hong Kong would be involved in the extradition, they could only examine _prima facie_ evidence, a much lower bar than guilty beyond reasonable doubt. After all, Hong Kong does not have a near 100% conviction rate, showing the huge gap between going to court ( _prima facie_ ) and conviction (guilty beyond reasonable doubt).

And the _superiority_ in legal system in Hong Kong with respect to China is the independent jurisdiction and respect for constitution (for those who know, see 零八宪章 Charter 08 manifesto on constitution and 709大抓捕 709 crackdown), so that the law does not serve politics. Arguably, if and when China catch up on these two aspects, the opposition in Hong Kong would be much smaller.

> I think open-minded mainland people would prefer a thorough and better > explanation of the opposition. Because from many ordinary people's > perspective, Hong Kong still keeps legal control over the extradition under > the bill and it would help the fight against corruption since Hong Kong is > regularly involved in economic crimes committed by mainland citizens. > "Extradition bill threatens your property in Hong Kong", appearing in many > flyers, just looks like some kind of evidence supporting it for ordinary > people.

For those who want a more thorough explanation, see the article by Leung Kai Chi (in Chinese [1], a rough translation in [2]). This article likely does not fit into a leaflet, but thanks for suggesting to use this version for open- minded mainland people instead.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@leungkaichihk/反送中答問集-9841974d889c](https://medium.com/@leungkaichihk/反送中答問集-9841974d889c)

[2]: [https://pastebin.com/6JqR1EsR](https://pastebin.com/6JqR1EsR)

> Also, mainland people worries about stability and order of Hong Kong as much > as protesters concern about freedom and democracy. Even if they disagree > with each other on the order of importance, protesters could express a > little about the shared value for long-term law and order in Hong Kong to > dispel some concerns. Stressing only on freedom towards mainland people > sounds as horrible as stressing only on order towards protesters, let alone > storming the building of Legislative Council or attacking the police with > bricks.

Concerning stability, Hong Kongers are arguing that a proper legal system (independent jurisdiction and respect for constitution) and accountable democracy are the key to long term stability, and are one key issue underlying this protest.

Relatedly, note that storming local government and attacking police with bricks in protests also happen in China (and they sometimes turn cars over and set fire), but those do not get much media attention and are often censored (search for 群体抗暴事件). If mainland people do worry about such stability, those mass protests in China shows that what China is doing is not enough, and a better legal and political system is the key.

> As is well known to mainland people, in the colonial era, the Hong Kong > governor was appointed by British monarch and no democratic legitimacy > existed until Britain started preparing the handover to China in 1980s.

Britain wanted to give more democracy to Hong Kongers, but got opposed by Beijing [3]. Again, those "wellknown" as presented by Chinese media is not the full picture. These AirDrops are trying to counter the disinformation and censorship.

[3]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began- pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-push-against- hong-kong-elections-in-50s.html)

> It's really confusing for tourists to see protesters weaving flags of > colonial or British flags without further clarification, for what these > flags stand for besides asking for Britain's direct interference.

Don't know if it is related to the flag, but after the 1 July protest Britain just defended the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration concerning the autonomy of Hong Kong from Beijing's influence [4]. It is hard to fit so much context into a small leaflet.

[4]: [https://www.ft.com/content/429886f4-9cd1-11e9-9c06-a4640c9fe...](https://www.ft.com/content/429886f4-9cd1-11e9-9c06-a4640c9feebb)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for your patient and kindy reply. I believe many people in China, especially young students or businessmen have read or heard what you mentioned more or less. People from mainland definitely know the official news is not the full picture. But just don't simply assume they have no picture at all or their knowledge is totally incorrect without anything in line with the facts. That's my core point.

> They could only examine prima facie evidence, a much lower bar than guilty > beyond reasonable doubt.

How low is that? Do you have some serious materials easy to read on this issue?

I think mainland people never deny Hong Kong's superiority on juridical system. Tourists would have a great interest knowing how it works and make Hong Kong a great success in business. However, it's superficial and hateful to propaganda just by focusing on familiar things and pretending nobody knows.

> a proper legal system and accountable democracy are the key to long term > stability

Every sensible protester knows the importance of stability. But to get more support by propaganda, instead of taking it for granted, there's a lot to explain along the way between their behavior and the value both side shares. For certain group of people, it's not as obvious as the protesters see.

>Britain wanted to give more democracy to Hong Kongers, but got opposed by Beijing

Notice Britain could have given more democracy for Hong Kong without China's pressure before 1980 but she didn't, like Young plan. My point here is, according to history, the colony is not a better symbol for freedom and democracy than the SAR in mainland people's eyes, but more like a symbol for independence.

<comment><USER8> > Notice Britain could have given more democracy for Hong Kong without China's > pressure before 1980 but she didn't, like Young plan

The link from hker's extensive post (thanks man!) [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began- pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-began-push-against- hong-kong-elections-in-50s.html) specifically says this

"But documents recently released by the National Archives in Britain suggest that beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing"

Do you accept britain actually tried to do what you say it didn't? (edit: I'm not denying we did some really bad stuff, but we may have got it right that time)

Also in your original post you said

> Stressing only on freedom towards mainland people sounds as horrible as > stressing only on order towards protesters

This is very hard for me to understand as a westerner. 'Freedom' means the ability for me to choose, as an adult individual, what I can do (within the constraints of not messing up the lives of others; basic morality). You seem to be saying that mainlander chinese are actually afraid of or repulsed by that? That they do not wish to have that ability to be themselves? I think I'm reading you wrong, could you give me an idea of what you're trying to say.

<comment><USER6> > Do you accept britain actually tried to do what you say it didn't?

I tend to believe whatever a serious official document says. But notice there was serious corruption in the government of Hong Kong before 1970s and pressure also comes from British officials and businessmen. It's hard for me to imagine Britain would just abandon democracy mainly because of Beijing's pressure while at the same time be an anti-communism fortress for western bloc and proactively impose sanctions against mainland. On the other hand, it's well known there are some controversies between London and Beijing in 1980s after the handover was determined. I think this sentence mixes these two periods together and is misleading if no further new evidence is provided.

> This is very hard for me to understand as a westerner.

It's just an analogy. Is order a bad thing for you? Of course not. But I think most westerners wouldn't regard "order only" in political background as just respecting rules and keeping tidy. Many words are sometimes overused with political agenda behind. Stressing ONLY something means extremism and no compromise at all for other good. I can't follow your logic from this analogy to these weird conclusions. Chinese like freedom as much as you.

<comment><USER8> > I tend to believe whatever a serious official document says. [...] and is > misleading if no further new evidence is provided.

OK, so you accept it but reject it. OK. In case you're interested, if you'd followed the link you'd have seen this

"In it, Zhou says Beijing would regard allowing Hong Kong's people to govern themselves as a "very unfriendly act," says Cantlie. Not long thereafter, in 1960, Liao Chengzhi, China's director of "overseas Chinese affairs," told Hong Kong union representatives that China's leaders would "not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories liberated" if the Brits allowed self-governance:"

and also the original typewritten docs [https://qz.com/279013/the-secret- history-of-hong-kongs-still...](https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of- hong-kongs-stillborn-democracy/) faded but readable.

> I can't follow your logic from this analogy to these weird conclusions

It wasn't a conclusion, only questions. I just didn't understand what you're saying. I still don't. I was just asking for clarification.

> and proactively impose sanctions against mainland

As someone aware of british abuses of power (opium war etc) and like to know more, would you be kind enough to link to something showing that china had sanctions imposed on it by the UK at the time. I did some googling but found nothing (probably looking in the wrong place).

<comment><USER6> > OK, so you accept it but reject it.

I had read them in Chinese. I accept these documents confirm Beijing opposed turning Hong Kong into a self-governed Dominion, which would probably soon become an independent country like Singapore. Very likely Beijing believed it's harder to integrate an independent polity than a handover from Britain in the future. It's more like a concern against independence in my opinion.

The opportunity for democracy I referred to is the kind of attempts like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Plan_(Hong_Kong)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Plan_\(Hong_Kong\)) . Pressure from Beijing doesn't always make a proper excuse. It's misleading to dismiss the resistance and obstruction from Britain side. I am not trying to argue who is responsible, but considering the final results we have in history, the colony failed to justify with practical actions as a much better light of democracy as some protesters might think.

> I still don't

Some people may think "freedom" is freedom and "order" is order. But through radical propaganda, these could sounds like "freedom" is about riots and "order" is about crush for other people. That's why there should be some talking about shared values instead stressing only on one of them, even if it is absolutely good.

> would you be kind enough to link to something showing that china had > sanctions imposed on it by the UK at the time.

My mistake, it's not just sanction but embargo. see [https://www.mardep.gov.hk/theme/port_hk/en/p1ch6_1.html](https://www.mardep.gov.hk/theme/port_hk/en/p1ch6_1.html)

<comment><USER8> > I accept these documents confirm Beijing opposed turning Hong Kong into a > self-governed Dominion

It didn't say that, it said it was an extension to introduce more democracy. Not 'self-governed Dominion'.

But the point was britain tried to give in the 1950s what you say it didn't until the 1980s, and it was down to chinese pressure - they threatened to invade!

I'll read up on the link to the young plan, thanks.

> It's misleading to dismiss the resistance and obstruction from Britain side

You keep throwing in this stuff without telling me what britain actually did. I can't respond - or learn - unless you give me proper information.

> the colony failed to justify with practical actions as a much better light > of democracy as some protesters might think

Again, justify what? What practical actions? What do the protestors think? I literally don't understand what you're saying. I realise your english is infinitely better than my chinese is ever likely to be (regrettably!), I'm not criticising that, just asking you explain what you mean.

> But through radical propaganda, these could sounds like "freedom" is about > riots and "order" is about crush for other people

Okay, you are exactly right, we have to be precise about meanings, and propaganda distorts. But I spelt out what freedom meant clearly, and I very carefully excluded rioting or other destructive behaviour. That is not tolerable in the west, same as anywhere. The reaction of UK politicians to images of that were real dismay and shock.

And I can (theoretically) make the case for chinese communism as a source of stability. Whether that kind of stability (which places the state above the individual) is something I would wish to live under or impose on others is quite another matter.

So let's talk - what are those shared values between east and west? This is a very important point you raise and I'd like to know because other than trivial stuff (looking after your kids etc) it would be important for me to understand where we unite, and divide.

> My mistake, it's not just sanction...

From memory, as I can't find the link, china was considered an aggressor by invading north korea, and it wasn't just the UK but a large collection of countries that embargoed/sanctioned it (seems the words mean much the same thing here, I had to look up the distinction!). It wasn't just the UK by any means (if you want a ref, just ask, I can't find it right now).

But yes, rights and wrongs aside, the fact there was a uk-supported embargo and china still threatened to invade, is interesting and I can't explain it. Point taken.

<comment><USER6> Sorry for my bad English! I will try my best to explain everything you don't understand although I can't promise I could make it. First of all, I have been concentrating on the topic of a more effective propaganda. Whether you like or not, these are the real thoughts of a portion of people targeted. Please pay attention to tell apart the discussion of tactics of propaganda from my personal political view.

> It didn't say that, it said it was an extension to introduce more democracy. > Not 'self-governed Dominion'.

Read the first image of [https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong- kongs-still...](https://qz.com/279013/the-secret-history-of-hong-kongs- stillborn-democracy/)

> You keep throwing in this stuff without telling me what Britain actually > did. I can't respond - or learn - unless you give me proper information.

Read the Young plan.

> Again, justify what? What practical actions? What do the protesters think? I > literally don't understand what you're saying.

Some protesters think the colony is a good symbol of democracy. Many mainlanders disagree. Because to prove colony really cared about democracy, abandoned plan is not enough, and practical action records are required, like limited democratic legitimacy for a small area within Beijing's tolerance. I can't see how China wound invade just because of any small-scale democratic experiment.

> But I spelt out what freedom meant clearly, and I very carefully excluded > rioting or other destructive behaviour.

I noticed that. I believe we would agree with each other on freedom and many other values most of the time. I am not arguing with you on the difference between us or between protesters and tourists. The point I raised is that some propaganda towards mainlanders did distort, without spelling out the meaning clearly and excluding extremism carefully, and this is bad, even if their heart is good, that's all.

> From memory, as I can't find the link, china was considered an aggressor by > invading north Korea, and it wasn't just the UK but a large collection of > countries that embargoed/sanctioned it (seems the words mean much the same > thing here, I had to look up the distinction!). It wasn't just the UK by any > means (if you want a ref, just ask, I can't find it right now).

Nobody denies this. It's in the name of United Nations and everyone knows Uncle Sam is the leader of the embargo. What I want to say is, Hong Kong was strong enough at that time to neglect certain pressure from the mainland and push Britain's policy.

<comment><USER8> You have nothing to apologise for in your english, don't worry.

OK, let me read your links and I'll get back to you.

thanks for your patience

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still don't understand why the use of AirDrop is necessary. These Chinese tourists have already crossed into Hong Kong, a land that currently enjoys freedom of speech. Why aren't traditional methods like banners or brochures or flyers be distributed to tourists from the mainland? Is AirDrop faster and more effective?

<comment><USER11> Not everyone picks up fliers. They're also not anonymous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What about airdropping across the river to Shenzhen? For that matter, what about setting up Gotennas for some communication?

<comment><USER13> No need. Shenzhen is probably the most VPN'ed city in China. Most of companies/universities have VPN connection(like the one i am using now...)

<comment><USER12> I was reading on Hacker News several years ago that the Chinese government was slowly winning the war on the VPNs. What's the story lately?

<comment><USER14> While it's purely anecdotical, in my experience vpns are blocked differently depending on where you are. It seems that vpns always work better in Shenzhen...

<comment><USER12> Maybe they figure people closer to HK are more aware of what goes on on the outside anyway, so they don't put in the effort to block?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is fascinating and scary at the same time. As we slide in a surveillance global system too busy to notice, Hong Kong is showing us the possible future of Western societies. Maybe time to cancel extradition agreements with the US?

<comment><USER8> The only way to change things is to fight back legally. I've done so and if I'm pretty much the only one to bother the government or the press then nothing will happen.

My absolute frustration, and reason I'm close to giving up, is I see people posting warning of bad things to come, politically, ecologically, technically, but they do nothing. One person alone usually can't change much. A few _can_ but even getting a few to do anything is nearly impossible. If everyone just wrote a single letter a year to their mp/representative/whatever, even just phoned up a business about excessive packaging, things would start to move.

It's in your hands basically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> is there any open source alternative to firechat ([https://www.opengarden.com/firechat/](https://www.opengarden.com/firechat/)), which seems to now require internet account creation prior to use?

something imbued with cryptography that communicates purely via local peer discovery/hopping such as wifi/bluetooth/optical signaling, etc.

<comment><USER17> This is one of the edge cases that makes me dislike Apple's walled garden. The Chinese gvt can simply request that Apple remove firechat and other decentralized chat apps from the App Store and that's that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remember getting bluetooth spam in Chinese malls like 10 years ago.

Used to be near impossible to walk around with bluetooth on, then the popularity of Android and Iphone (both of which don't support obex or obex ftp) quickly drove popularity of spam devices to nil

<comment><USER18> I knew a Panasonic guy who worked in Shenzhen. He worked on their Android phones.

I recall he was complaining how Google was vehemently opposed to any kind of "mainlining" IrDA support in Android. He says that Google was ok to support a semistandard API for IrDA just for the Japanese market under agreement that Panasonic would not market such phones outside Japan.

Panasonic laobans scratched their heads for a minute, and sput on that request, deciding to move with their own, self supported APIs.

<comment><USER19> And why did Google oppose it?

<comment><USER18> That's a mystery. Maybe because of the same reason they axed obex

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I see several people discussing VPNs in the comments, but I'm surprised no one is mentioning Tor. Is Tor identified and blocked reliably by the great firewall, even with bridges?

(The Tor UI claims meek-azure works in China, is this not accurate?)

<comment><USER21> Tor is identified and blocked reliably, whether using bridges, relays, or anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The reality is that mainlanders want prosperity and stability over democracy. Unless protesters could prove there is a better way to bring prosperity, the propaganda efforts would be futile. It is not 1980s any more.

VPN would not help. I learnt about what happened to Tiananmen Square, but I also learnt there is CIA agents behind a lot of these incidences. Real world is complicated. Politics is pragmatic.

I do hope different countries could put their trifles aside and focus on the big picture as a specie. But it will be a long way. Too much pride, too much at stake. Power struggle is too deep in our genes.

<comment><USER23> Would millions of minority citizens interned in "re-education" camps count as "trifles" in your estimation? Because a lot of people internationally are not fans of that, and it's hardly a matter of pride or power struggle. It's an authoritarian government mistreating its citizens without due cause. That's exactly what HK people are trying to prevent happening to them...

The old guard, many immigrated from the mainland, strive to one day democratize China. Hong Kong's youngsters say "screw that, let them keep their dictatorship, we just want to be left alone with the freedoms we've got"

<comment><USER22> I fully understand your hatred towards the Chinese government.

I want to point out what I believe is the root cause. It has nothing to do with communism. Chinese has a deep rooted culture of long range thinking (think "Sun Tzu"). It has always been willing to sacrifice piece for the whole, sacrifice short term for the long term. We read those historical stories as we grow up. It is very scary at times, especially when you end up at the wrong side of the table and you are being sacrificed. This moral code probably is very different from yours. From your perspective, what happens in Xinjiang is severe violation of human rights; from those top guys' perspective, this is sacrificing the freedom of a minority for the stability and prosperity of a whole people. I am not saying I approve this policy as I certainly do not want to be those interned. And you might argue that this "long range thinking" is really servicing communism party's self interest. But your response demonstrates that the chasm is deep. And the chasm is on a cultural level and wont bridge easily.

What this trade war scares me the most is also related with this chasm - it is just so hard to transcend cultures and reach slightest bit of mutual understanding. For a while west thinks China could turn, but now it is really starting to realize there is fundamental difference. It is very scary to me. Like most people on this forum, I do not want to see any escalation in any form of conflict. I just want a peaceful globe and we could continue do our thing that occasionally crosses border.

And speaking of this Hong Kong protest, many Hong Kong friends disapprove it. I read WSj every day and there is no mentioning of what a normal Hong Kong resident think of it. In the end, what do you expect a 18 year old high school protester to understand in regards to what "democracy" mean? At that age, we easily aggrandize our self-righteousness and self-importance and are easily influenced. It is a matter of age. I think fundamentally what is driving such grievance is that Hong Kong is no longer as important as before. And younger generation see no hope. But this is simply inevitable capitalistic evolution. Smart young Hong Kong natives are now looking for opportunities in Beijing. This is the future and we have to embrace it.

<comment><USER23> Your dismissal of the protesters is so arrogant I'm struggling to think of a cogent response.

I've seen the argument by mainlanders often that these protests "don't represent the opinion of the people". You know what would reveal the opinion of the people? Universal suffrage and free choice of legco candidates, or Legco elections where the people could vote in a true majority (i.e. abolishing functional constituencies). Until then the only way people can make their voices heard is protest. And with two million on the street a few weeks ago, an unprecedented turnout as a share of population for any kind of protest anywhere in the world the opinion of "normal Hong Kong residents" is clear. But again, want to find out for real? Democratize HK and find out. But we all know what the result would be, including Beijing.

While a majority don't actively support storming LegCo or clashing with police, the majority definitely are against the extradition bill and further mainland encroachment, and they empathize with the protesters' intentions. That is abundantly clear.

Hong Kong is separated from China by a long period with a different value system. While mainlanders might be happy to sacrifice the minority (the "others") for stability—a preference well explained by turbulent Chinese history—the people of Hong Kong most firmly don't. And never will.

I don't hate the Chinese government, although I despise many of those in power there. Overall it's done well in modernizing the country and bringing people out of poverty. And they have done so in part by restricting civil liberties, some might say it's worth it. But interning millions of people or denying due process to dissidents is a red line for me. I cannot accept any justification for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> btw.. maybe this is a solution to the firewall... Just create a super cheap wifi device that has 64-256GB of storage and you can leave it 'open' so that people could use it as file storage caches.

Maybe some sort of web of trust to validate things like binary file integrity otherwise the state could inject malware.

<comment><USER25> That just centralizes and adds more vulnerability to the person who bought the device (vs something more ephemeral and software based where you have more plausible deniability).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Curious if China will demand that feature be removed from the Chinese version of iOS now.

<comment><USER27> I don't think they will, but as a security concern, maybe have receiving content set to "Contacts Only" by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In addition to fake news problem, real news problem.

</comment><comment><USER29> airdrop is actually like a security hole when Apple set "open to everyone" by default. There are already quite some cases using it to send __* photos as sex harassment. Apple should set default to "only contacts".

<comment><USER30> I'm pretty sure it defaults to contacts-only by default. At least it did on my devices bought in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is fascinating. I actually started writing a scifi novel about zombies that had something similar called ripple. The state wasn't talking about the outbreak but the videos spread through ripple and people were freaked out.

<comment><USER24> Actually.. I was wrong. I called it 'Cast' and it was just a small part of the book. I wrote it back in 2013 but never published it.

....

The government tried to prevent the mainstream media from showing the pictures but with the Internet this was impossible.

At least until the Internet fell...

It was still all over Cast though. It was encrypted, onion routed, wireless, and distributed. Cast eventually destroyed all the social networks like Facebook and Twitter and left then in the dust like so many Friendsters.

Pictures and videos of small outbreaks spread over Cast like ripples in a vast pond. Except these were more like information tsunamis. They just kept coming.

You would bump a video and send it to your friends only to find another video a few moments later.

Something was happening and we all knew.

You don't expect the speed at first. You can't outrun them. My theory is that the virus evolved to spread through accelerated replication. A long life is not a problem so burning out the body isn't an issue.

When a virus first mutates into an effective form, and the host population is extensive, it's usually fatal.

The only goal of a virus is replication. If it kills the host but can replicate faster then that's the strategy that will be selected. Especially when there are plenty of hosts.

And that was the problem with humanity. There are billions of people on the Earth. Most of which live in the cities. None of which have any immunity to H.

Evolution is a bitch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think they're all valid points worth debating but wrt this article's framing, the contents of the AirDrop don't seem to have anything to do with the Hong Kong protests. Infant milk powder, train ticket score etc could just as well be in random Falun Gong pamphlets you get in Chinatowns abroad.

At this point, I'm not even sure the protest (communist black helicopters will come pick you up to CCP black sites where you'll get waterboarded for criticizing China) has anything to with the thing being protested (extradition for crimes punishable under HK laws with 7+ years in prison (which criticizing China hopefully is not)), but that's a different story.

<comment><USER31> Last article I read said the mainland had a 99% conviction rate. Anyone going over there isn't getting a fair trial. They'll just be canned and counted as some official's crime fighting spree no matter if they did it or not or whatever political purpose their bodies can be put to.

<comment><USER32> High conviction rate is not something unique to China - Canada and Japan are also at 97% and 99% respectively

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

<comment> Engineering-MD The difference is the conviction rate in China is over 10 times higher than that at 99.9% [1,2] and thought to be driven by political interference/corruption rather than only targeting high yield cases. Bear in mind the context of china's top court rejecting the notion of an independent judiciary [3], it is clear there is a difference between a high conviction rate in these countries and China.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/03/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/03/11/china-scored-99-9-percent-conviction-rate-last- year/?noredirect=on) [2] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/121932...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/12193202/Chinese- courts-convict-more-than-99.9-per-cent-of-defendants.html) [3] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/chinas-top- cou...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/chinas-top-court- rejects-judicial-independence-as-erroneous-thought)

<comment><USER32> >The difference is the conviction rate in China is over 10 times higher

Actually, it's not over 10 times higher; I double checked, Japan's is also 99.9% and has been for some time.

From: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan)

Statistics from Wikipedia link: [http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/en/61/image/image/h002003001001h.j...](http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/en/61/image/image/h002003001001h.jpg)

If you just take guilty/not guilty, the % is actually 99.98% in Japan (e.g. 2011, 77 Not Guilty, 432,050 Guilty)

<comment> Engineering-MD That's interesting, thanks for the correction. That's actually also concerning. Either they are are prosecuting enough people, and letting criminals go free, or the legal system is broken (or perhaps a huge cultural difference I'm missing). What is the point in hiring a defence lawyer if the chance of successful defence is so low? I can't think of any test in my area of expertise (medicine) that has such a high success rate, meaning that false positives must be much too high for comfort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems like a click bait article, there's no China firewall in Hong Kong and plenty of free Wifi spots.

<comment><USER34> Ok, we've taken the firewall out of the title above.

<comment><USER17> "Hong Kong's protesters use AirDrop" seems a drastic redaction. It would be helpful to know _what_ they're using AirDrop for.

How about "Hong Kong's protesters use AirDrop to spread their message to Mainland tourists"? "Hong Kong's protesters use AirDrop to inform tourists why they protest"?

<comment><USER34> Ok, we've added an extra phrase from the main text that conveys this.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, appreciate you taking the time! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Um, Hong Kong is OUTSIDE the Chinese firewall (for now)

More likely they are doing this to preserve anonymity

<comment><USER36> This is about protesters subverting the purpose of the firewall, not a technical loophole. Tourists from mainland China might not know about the protests, because of the firewall. Protestors are using AirDrop to directly deliver photos and information to the tourists, which is probably much more effective than physical posters that people can ignore or rip down.

<comment><USER37> Question--could a directional wifi antenna be used (plus amplification) to AirDrop things from HK across the border into Shenzhen?

On that note, I stayed at an international hotel chain on the Shenzhen side's border that had terribly slow but unfiltered internet. Google.com auto- redirected to Google.hk. I always wondered if they used a VPN or maintained a covert internet beam from across the river...

EDIT: Derp--another comment already posted this question.

<comment><USER38> If it's an international chain they likely have VPN set up at the edge, and have licences allowing their VPN connection filed with the party</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Should a Billionaire Give–and What Should You? (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually found this in the "Best American Essays 2007" [http://www.amazon.com/Best-American- Essays-2007/dp/061870927...](http://www.amazon.com/Best-American- Essays-2007/dp/0618709274)</comment>


Exploiting systemd-journald Part 2 - <AUTHOR> https://capsule8.com/blog/exploiting-systemd-journald-part-2/ <comment><USER2> As if the huge gutters to the left and right on a 16:9 display weren't bad enough, nearly 3/4 of my browser window is consumed by the header and a giant unscrollable blue rectangle with a menu surrounded by large amounts of padding in it, leaving the article in just the bottom 1/4.

Putting my hand up against the screen to cover the entire visible part of the article reveals that I am reading from an area the size of my hand ... on a desktop PC with a widescreen monitor and a fully maximized browser window.</comment>


April 11, 1954 was most boring day in history - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/April-11-1954-was-most-boring-day-in-history/articleshow/6994947.cms <comment><USER2> In the 20th century. Also, I wonder how much increasing access to information increases amount of news. If one were to count today, or any day within a small radius of today, how much would be considered newsworthy in 1954? How would the reverse be true? What events significant be today's low standards were missed?</comment>


Why GNU grep is Fast - <AUTHOR> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2010-August/019310.html <comment><USER3> I tested string searching algorithms a few years ago[0][1], and Brute Force was surprisingly performant, enough that picking a string searching algorithm becomes an engineering tradeoff. It found a sentence fragment at the end of Moby Dick within 8ms, 7 times slower than Boyer-Moore. But most of us aren't searching Moby Dick, but rather a HTTP header, some user input, or a paragraph of a document. Even long-winded users won't write Moby Dick into your <textarea>. Most languages and libraries use brute force for this reason - initializing and using Boyer-Moore may be slower than brute-forcing the text. Sometimes "practically nothing" is just a brute-force search.

But Boyer-Moore is the perfect choice for Grep! The likely inputs on Unix are all huge: log files, entire directory trees, output pipes from loud programs, etc. The cost of initializing a small skip table is overwhelmed by the cost of I/O and the potential volume of text. It's not surprising that they've gone to some lengths to optimize the core inner loops and the I/O in that context.

[0] [http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/11/fun-with-string- se...](http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/11/fun-with-string-searching/) I've declared bankruptcy on broken TeX and code examples... WordPress mangles them every few updates.

[1] [http://www.lysium.de/blog/index.php?/archives/201-Fun- With-S...](http://www.lysium.de/blog/index.php?/archives/201-Fun-With-String- Searching.html) A few improvements to the code in my post

<comment><USER4> > Brute Force was surprisingly performant, enough that picking a string > searching algorithm becomes an engineering tradeoff. It found a sentence > fragment at the end of Moby Dick within 8ms, 7 times slower than Boyer- > Moore.

I think that line of thinking is actually symptomatic of producing the kind of software that eats up our present day powerhouses and makes them dog slow.

<comment><USER5> His next line was "But most of us aren't searching Moby Dick, but rather a HTTP header, some user input, or a paragraph of a document."

A HTTP header is several orders of magnitude shorter than Moby Dick.

<comment><USER6> The chances of analyzing just one HTTP header in an application are almost nil. Use a boyer-moore skip table.

<comment><USER7> This assumes that you are going to the trouble of initializing your skip table once and re-using it. Now you have state to maintain beyond the life of the function call, or else your performance is slower than brute-force. That, in addition to probably needing to write the function in the first place, means you've got all sorts of bugs to find and fix.

And anyway, what are you doing searching HTTP headers in anything more than a one-off script? More likely, you are parsing the whole header and sticking it in a hash table. So, not only aren't you searching, but even if you were, that's not the hard part. And even that is dwarfed by the application that's going to service the HTTP request. (Unless you are Google, in which case you don't need my advice.)

Searching HTTP headers is not your bottleneck. Use your language's built in string search. Premature optimization makes code slower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Boyer-Moore is one of the examples that made me realize clearly that on the larger scale of programmer competence I'm nobody special. Some algorithms show such out-of-the-box thinking that it blows your mind.

The most interesting thing is that most pattern matching algorithms up to then got slower with longer match strings, but Boyer-Moore actually got faster!

To quote Majikthise: "Bloody hell, now that is what I call thinking."...

<comment><USER8> If you think Boyer-Moore is trippy, try to understand the partial match lookup table creation algorithm in Knuth-Morris-Pratt: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth%E2%80%93Morris%E2%80%93Pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth%E2%80%93Morris%E2%80%93Pratt_algorithm#.22Partial_match.22_table_.28also_known_as_.22failure_function.22.29)

<comment><USER9> They're about the same amount of trippiness. Boyer-Moore makes the same kind of jump table, except Boyer-Moore starts comparing at the end of the search string.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This:

      > The key to making programs fast is
      > to make them do practically nothing.
      > ;-)

is a paraphrase of something I posted here a long time ago:

      > You can't make programs run faster,
      > you can only make them do less.

While not entirely true (and Ph.D. theses have been written about the corners where it's wrong) it's an excellent start when you have to make a program run faster.

<comment><USER11> _While not entirely true_...

One counter-example I can think of is that of Judy trees - <http://judy.sourceforge.net/> which uses more instructions to try to keep the data in cache for as long as possible.

 _A (CPU) cache-line fill is additional time required to do a read reference from RAM when a word is not found in cache. In today's computers the time for a cache-line fill is in the range of 50..2000 machine instructions. Therefore a cache-line fill should be avoided when fewer than 50 instructions can do the same job._

More info at <http://judy.sourceforge.net/doc/10minutes.htm>

<comment><USER12> > One counter-example I can think of is that of Judy trees - > <http://judy.sourceforge.net/> which uses more instructions to try to keep > the data in cache for as long as possible.

It's not a counter-example. The cost of running a program includes the cost to access memory as well as the cost of executing instructions. It also includes the cost to access disk/flash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the issues of Apple's Develop magazine a long time ago explained the Boyer-Moore, the Tuned Boyer-Moore, and the Self-Tuning Boyer-Moore, which is what I used for a C library I was working on at the time.

If you think Boyer-Moore is a trip, check out Self-Tuning Boyer-Moore. There's actually a really good writeup on it at <http://www.grouse.com.au/ggrep/string.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> Boyer-Moore is a great algorithm, but it's for fixed-string searching. grep, in the general case, handles regular expression searching. Is there some way to extend Boyer-Moore to regular expressions that I'm unaware of? Or is GNU grep's use of Boyer-Moore limited to when the search string is just a literal?

<comment><USER15> In practice, most regular expressions contain some literal strings. You can use Boyer-Moore to anchor the match, then do a full regexp match from there.

<comment><USER16> ..and the classical answer to implementing full Regex is finite state automaton, correct? At least, there is a one to one correspondence.

I'm curious, though, about what tricks are used in actual implementations to speed things up, and what modern Regex features necessitate climbing further up the Chomsky Hierarchy. (I seem to recall reading about features getting slipped into Regex engines that made them no longer finite state, but can't recall what they were, right now.)

<comment><USER17> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shift-or>

Check out Shift-Or: used in agrep, and another example of a very clever algorithm. Rather than translating a non-deterministic finite state automata to a deterministic one, it uses the boolean operations of the hardware to simulate the NFA directly. Result: linear time regexp for patterns that have less than the bit-length of a machine's registers. I.e., 32 bytes on x86, 64 bytes on x86_64, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there a simple generalization of Boyer Moore to regular expressions? Can something be said about the optimality of string searching, for example by assuming a probability distribution of input texts?

</comment><comment><USER19> "The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing. ;-)"

In a prefect world, I would prefer many programs that did nothing and worked together, than a monolithic program that does anything (and even contains a kitchen sink!) but is slow.

So come on fellow developers, let's make a bunch of nothing!

<comment><USER20> This is essentially the same as the "RISC patent" - a patent that essentially said "if you make something simpler, it'll go faster"

Quoted from James Gosling, <http://nighthacks.org/roller/jag/entry/quite_the_firestorm>

Also, kudo's to the 15 years maintainer of GNU grep.

<comment><USER21> Isn't that a big part of the GNU mentality too? Lots of little programs that can be easily chained together.

<comment><USER22> _Lots of little programs that can be easily chained together._

I think that's usually described as "the Unix philosophy." It's not limited to GNU (nor does it originate with GNU). See, for example, the Wikipedia article on "Unix philosophy"[1]:

 _Doug McIlroy, the inventor of Unix pipes and one of the founders of the Unix tradition, summarized the philosophy as follows:[2]

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.

This is usually abridged to "Write programs that do one thing and do it well"._

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#McIlroy:_A_Quar...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#McIlroy:_A_Quarter_Century_of_Unix)

[2]<http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html>

<comment><USER4> There is this strange wall between 'program' and 'subroutines' that at times feels completely artificial.

Why shouldn't 'grep' be automatically available as a routine once programmed?

I can see some of the charm of 'images' such as used by smalltalk.

<comment><USER23> There are benefits to both approaches.

An external program communicating over pipes can let the OS handle buffering, run on another process core, be swapped out for another program that speaks the same protocol (perhaps in a faster language), won't crash the whole system, etc.

A program running as a library subroutine has a bit less overhead, and can use more context (library-native data structures, rather than piped text), but this is also usually more language-specific. Working within a "full environment" language like Smalltalk has a lot of advantages, but it also needs comprehensive libraries for your problem domain, or you're back to using external programs.

There's an insightful aside about this in Joe Armstrong's _Programming Erlang_, in the chapter about ports - Erlang code can load foreign code as linked-in libraries, but a buggy library will make the whole system unstable in a way that code running in a foreign process and communicating via message passing will not. He argues for running code in an external process (a "port") by default.

Of course, having a comprehensive (but low-level) library in C with wrappers in higher-level languages is an option. High-level languages' type systems / object models can be very different, though, and it takes experience to translate a C API to feel native to Python/Lua/Ruby/etc.

It also works to structure a program as a C library, but provide a small standalone program which gives it a command line interface. SQLite and Lua are good examples of the latter approach.

<comment><USER4> I (still) think that message passing is a vastly undervalued mechanism. Erlang is a really interesting language by the way, I wished I had more time to devote to learning it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Everybody should read the great post "The Treacherous Optimization" about `grep` at [http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/archives/2006/05/30/old- age-a...](http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/archives/2006/05/30/old-age-and- treachery/).

</comment><comment><USER25> ack (<http://betterthangrep.com>) is a great alternative to grep, although certainly slower as its written in Perl. Great for working with smaller files such as source code though.

<comment><USER26> It's faster when you are trying to skip .svn directories, and certainly easier on the fingers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The Security Now podcast did an episode on the Boyer/Moore algorithm. Not the most information dense way to learn about it, but might be of interest.

( Starts at 34m10s -- <http://twit.tv/sn203> )

</comment><comment><USER28> Speaking as a guy who writes in assembly too, I'm not sure that much can be gained by BM at least on modern out-of-order processors. The cost of comparing every byte is low, and to skip a few bytes can cost more in additional instructions which can slow the pipeline than it would be by just searching through every byte for the first one. Other speedups (mmap) sound reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER29> Plan9 grep is competitive in my simple test, often faster. It is also immune from the pathological data that will kill GNU grep - <USER2> <http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/> and the BUGS section of your local GNU grep

        #!/usr/local/plan9/bin/rc

        fn 9grep { /usr/local/plan9/bin/grep '2010-[0-9][0-9]-23 02:01:57' /home/maht/lighttpd.error.log > /dev/null }

        fn ggrep { /usr/bin/grep '2010-[0-9][0-9]-23 02:01:57' /home/maht/lighttpd.error.log > /dev/null }

        fn mgrep { /usr/bin/grep -mmap '2010-[0-9][0-9]-23 02:01:57' /home/maht/lighttpd.error.log > /dev/null }

        switch($1) {
        case -9
                9grep
        case -g
                ggrep
        case -m
                mgrep
        case *
                ls -l /home/maht/lighttpd.error.log
                time /tmp/gtest -9
                time /tmp/gtest -g
                time /tmp/gtest -m
        }

        /tmp/gtest
        -rw-r--r--  1 www  wheel  1113325534 Aug 23 18:51   /home/maht/lighttpd.error.log
               23.67 real         3.88 user         3.74 sys
               24.28 real         0.63 user         3.89 sys
               23.09 real         0.56 user         3.87 sys

<comment><USER30> It looks like all three of your grep commands there are I/O-bound (where are you getting a machine with much less than a gig of RAM, but 50 megabytes per second of disk streaming? Is this an old server with a RAID?), but plan9 grep uses six times as many CPU cycles as the other greps.

I wouldn't call that "competitive", even if system-call overheads _does_ knock that crippling slowdown down to less than a factor of two.

Also, what kind of kernel are you running there that would peg your CPU with a mere 300 megabytes per second of disk I/O? Is DMA disabled on your disk or something? Surely not, because there aren't any IDE PIO modes that are anywhere close to 50 megabytes per second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> i heard most of the editors use Boyer-Moore, somebody please confirm me. :(</comment>


Ask HN: How to profit a large hack if there is no bug bounty? - <AUTHOR> Let's suppose someone hacks a big and notorious company, and this hack might expose private customer details and bring down the company. How can this be profit, without breaking the law, if there is no bug bounty program? <comment><USER2> Hacking a company is against the law. Full stop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just want to understand, does this mean that a Hacker (white hat one) cannot play and hack a 'Big Web' that does not provide a sandbox? We are curious, right?</comment></comment>


Re: My Space - Making .NET a Star Performer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mythz/ScalingDotNET

<comment><USER4> This just left me scratching my head.

But really, why is this argument even important? .NET can scale, if you toss out the religious arguments then you realize that just about anything can scale if you do it right. Which is the key point isn't it? The great startup lesson is that the PEOPLE are far more important than the technology.

<comment><AUTHOR> At a high-level its always not obvious what the best choices are and occasionally, certain products encourage you down the wrong path - <USER2> not-so-stellar end-user experiences.

I just wanted to share what I learnt in my research and provide as much awareness and guidance as possible so that .NET developers can use this as an entry/jump point into their own research.

Also in a round-about way prove that it is possible to do in .NET and what technologies you should look at to get there. Pure, free-flowing guidance / research on this topic is not always plentiful.

<comment><USER5> I generally find that if you are well read the first steps towards scaling ASP.Net / IIS are reasonably well guided. E.g. we've had things like solid caching support at a variety of different levels (app, cache, output etc) built right into the server / framework for a long time.

The web forms model has been a huge issue for programmers who are not mindful of its consequences and I'm glad MVC is making headway. I'm also happy to see MS starting to think about more developer oriented tool sets with projects like Nuget and Entity Framework Code First.

Scaling to higher levels is always going to require an awareness of design and architecture more fundamental than knowing any particular technology well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah that "premature optimization..." trope always bugs me. It is not a license to write the most non-performant code you can think of and then spend hours and hours tuning it later. That phrase was coined back when optimization meant inlining assembly, not simply putting some thought into your algorithms.

Part of the problem is TDD, people see the green bars fill but the customer regects it because guess what. In real world usage we arent running the method once, we are running it millions of times.

<comment><USER7> The operative word is "premature". Optimize when it is time to optimize - <USER3> OP touches on that.

If you know a given routine will be run a lot, then some optimization right off the bat is a good idea.

Now, that "knowing" is a little more difficult, but comes with user feedback and experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just finished re-writing a wcf service using a home made async socket server over TCP. WCF is just way to complex to get right. By default, out of the box is it scaled down and slow. You have to do all kinds of config magic to get it to perform or send large amounts of data.

It took me a couple days of coding to have an async socket server (using .net async IO) up and running. It was so much easier.

Contrast that with several weeks spent learning WCF and then searching through blog posts to find the correct config example to handle problem after problem.

Caveat: I don't need to switch between different providers, manage security, etc, etc which WCF can do out of the box. I just needed a way to get data from a long running server to a web page. I just wanted some simple IPC, which WCF is not.

I need to write up a full post-mortem on this at some point, but I just needed to get that off my chest.

<comment><USER9> I know what you're talking about. WCF config doesn't come across as easy - sometimes you just wanna say "listen on port 1234 for these messages". The complex capabilities combined with some stupid default settings makes it much more daunting than it should be.

That said, after you get a few basics down, it really is rather straightforward. The gain for me is not having to manually write code to deal with security/encoding/serialization/exceptions. I mean, you define an interface, slap some attributes on, add 5 lines of config, another 5 to start the server, and that's pretty much it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The section on non-blocking servers is just plain wrong. .NET and IIS have had this feature for at least ~8 years now. ASP.NET Webforms and ASP.NET MVC both have great support for various asynchronous patterns to support non-blocking operations. ADO.NET also has this built-in. I've been involved with projects that have used these features to great effect scaling into tens of thousands of simultaneous connections per server.

<comment><AUTHOR> The IHttpAsyncHandler doesn't work the same as the non-blocking event loops in Unix which only uses a single process for all requests. We actually didn't fare to well ourselves and had a poor experience trying to debug them in IIS, in the end we moved to a bespoke windows service to service our comet requests.

But you're right it should be included - care to contribute a piece on the topic?

<comment><USER10> True, you won't get a single thread. You'll get a Threadpool. But we did like the flexibility of the Threadpool for things that had to be done synchronously or were not worth optimizing. It also allowed apps to take advantage of all CPU cores without extra configuration. With the new IIS you have a lot more control over the threading context (you can even run things straight on your IOCP thread if you want).

<comment><USER11> > With the new IIS you have a lot more control over the threading context (you > can even run things straight on your IOCP thread if you want).

I am curious about this, can you provide a link or reference with more information?

<comment><USER10> [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tmarq/archive/2007/07/21/asp-net- thr...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tmarq/archive/2007/07/21/asp-net-thread-usage- on-iis-7-0-and-6-0.aspx)

"... If you're curious to see how much faster ASP.NET requests execute without the thread switch, you can set the value to 0. This will cause the request to execute on the IIS I/O thread, without switching to a CLR Threadpool thread. ..."

Of course you would only ever set this if you are really doing every bit of I/O asynchronously in your application. Otherwise bad, bad things would happen (deadlock under load).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've written some very high scale .NET socket/server code and this article left me scratching my head. In particular, the section on Blocking IO is confusing at best. I'm especially surprised to not see any mention of IOCPs and how they work in .NET since they're so core to any high scale server code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically, it's because I have never developed with IOCP's before and their reliance on P/Invokes means its not a very popular option in .NET.

However I very much welcome any clarifications/contributions on this topic - please do send me a pull-request :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice blog post. But why is it hosted as a GitHub readme?

<comment><AUTHOR> well it's a personal real-world study to see if the Git/Hub workflow model works in collaboratively editing documentation :) especially since the audience that can help are going to be members of GitHub :)

<comment><USER14> I appreciate it. Using tools in ways not originally intended is a good thing. I'm curious if anything evolves from your idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I read it correctly he's basically saying that, no, .NET doesn't really scale. Which seems to be the opposite of what he's wanting to say?

<comment><USER16> Where does he say that?</comment></comment>


Made in Weebly. - <AUTHOR> http://www.relevantm.com/ Just happened to like this site simplicity, and found that it was made using Weebly. Good tool. <comment><USER2> If you're a company that's going to "drive a new approach to social networking and solve key problems holding back the advancement of the semantic web" shouldn't you make your OWN website.

That is the problem I have always had with website creators. If you're trying to do something technical you're going to be looked down upon for using them to make your site. If you were going to sell running shoes to people then yeah it's great, but I don't think Weebly has a plug-in to solve the problems of the Semantic Web.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really. It's like asking an architecture firm to not rent office space.

<comment><USER3> This metaphor doesn't work as well as it seems. Architecture firms don't personally build the buildings they design. It's probable that someone dealing with "the semantic web" and fitting in with "new media" companies actually _should_ build websites.

Even if they're only working on the back-end solutions, having a poor website is more like an architecture firm having a terribly designed office which undermines the customer's confidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. It's not so good.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone rewriting Java code due to new license costs? - <AUTHOR> With Oracle's new terms for commercial Java license, are commercial software being rewritten to another language? Time to bring back C :-) <comment><USER2> Just use OpenJDK, Azul, Corretto, etc...

There's absolutely no reason to pay for Oracle's JDK unless you want Oracle's support.

It was probably intentional, but Oracle really fucked up the marketing on this change and as a result a bunch of FUD has been spread throughout the Java ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> Oracle really screwed themselves here. Everyone is jumping ship to other JDK vendors, making them even less likely to pay for Oracle support

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even if there were no free alternatives to Oracle's JDK (there are plenty), who looks at the cost of engineering time, opportunity costs, and thinks "yeah, this is way cheaper than paying Oracle"?

</comment><comment><USER5> It's probably cheaper to just use OpenJDK.

<comment><USER6> The past two companies I've worked for are forcing teams to move to OpenJDK and one was far more diligent about conducting audits for this than they were for GDPR.

<comment><USER5> I'm mostly ignoring it, myself. If it becomes a problem I'll switch.

<comment><USER3> If it becomes a problem it will be too late to not pay Oracle huge fees/fines for using it against the license. Oracle is known for their license enforcement, it might even bankrupt your company.

<comment><USER5> We hardly have any servers and are using an old version of JDK 8 under the old license. It does not keep me up at night.

<comment><USER3> In that case you're fine. I would still be wary of people accidentally updating. We IP blocked Oracle download servers from corporate network lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not here, we've migrated to OpenJDK binaries maintained by Red Hat and Azul (depending on OS). They're still FOSS so it hasn't affected us, yet at least.

I have never seen an issue from switching Java SE->OpenJDK. We did the whole company in one day without outages. I'm convinced that incompatiblies don't exist in practice.

<comment><USER7> There are some incompatibilities. The com.sun.net packages come to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No need to change to another language, as has been pretty much outlined by previous posts Java is driven by the changes added to OpenJDK. Even Oracles commercial binaries use the OpenJDK code repository, compile it and add some support. Use one of the other vendors (Corretto by Amazon is freely available)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't actually write in Java but I keep hearing about: [https://openjdk.java.net/](https://openjdk.java.net/)

<comment><USER10> no good at all .. its Red Hat product now , which they can decide to not support it any more when it not going to meet their business model

<comment><USER11> It's open source, so if Red Hat stops supporting it then others can pick it up. On top of that, there are 8 other groups that are offering builds which means you can just switch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hardly ever write Java for work anymore, but the situation has inspired me to start looking into .net for the first time since college. Unfortunately, the ASP.net ecosystem on Linux is still a bit lacking compared to JavaEE (or is it JakartaEE yet?).

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm surprised nobody mentioned Kotlin. It's similar but better, simple enough that reading/writing code is close to pseudocode. Google has moved towards officially supporting Kotlin instead of Java for Android development.

<comment><USER14> What do you mean by "instead"? It seems to me they support both languages as equals (the Android documentation contains examples in both languages) and have no plans of ditching Java.

<comment><USER15> A month ago ([https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/google- io-...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/google- io-2019-empowering-developers-to-build-experiences-on-Android-Play.html)):

 _"Today we're announcing another big step: Android development will become increasingly Kotlin-first. Many new Jetpack APIs and features will be offered first in Kotlin. If you're starting a new project, you should write it in Kotlin"_

"Just use Kotlin" doesn't help for the licensing issue, though, if you keep using Oracle's JVM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know of companies that are paying because too much money is on the line.

My good friend is a senior Oracle sales person and he felt like they stabbed him in the back when they did it. He spent years developing good relationships and now this.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes. Goodbye, Java. It was a fun ride. Given dead end for iOS and Oracle's licensing strategy, I will use compile-to-native languages for all new projects.

</comment><comment><USER18> No need to rewrite anything. There is an excellent summary here: [https://medium.com/@javachampions/java-is-still- free-2-0-0-6...](https://medium.com/@javachampions/java-is-still- free-2-0-0-6b9aa8d6d244)

the tl;dr is that there are multiple OpenJDK vendors now, Oracle just happens to charge for their JDK distribution, but you can choose from several vendors (Azul, Red Hat, IBM, AdoptOpenJDK, Amazon Correto, etc)

</comment><comment><USER10> Im interested very much in this subject also , what is the future of java . as java dev for 15 years i don't know what will be with java in about 10 years .</comment>


Monetary profit should be our new moral code - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/16/brook.moral.code.outdated/

<comment><USER2> Damn, I submitted this, only to find it was already here but with the title editorialized to drastically oversimplify what is a well-reasoned and important argument. Now I have to flag it. That makes me a sad panda.

<comment><USER3> I don't see how it's either reasoned or important. All I see is rubbish.

Giving Objectivists the benefit of the strongest argument, what the author is saying is that Men Of Industry move humanity forward by virtue of their rapacity. Greed as a motivator causes them to bring together knowledge and production. By combining knowledge and production, humanity can in some wise advance to a "better" existence, and so this greed, while unseemly to parochial minds, is really a good thing.

At what expense, though?

Industrial greed was responsible for the Cuyahoga River repeatedly catching fire (!). It was responsible for GE dumping PCBs into the Hudson River, for Union Carbide in Bhopal, for the fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico, for Mercury poisoning of hatters, for locking seamstresses in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory while it burned, for Phossy jaw, for countless industrial deaths and disfigurements forcing the creation of OSHA, for the CIA overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in 1952 at the behest of United Fruit, the dot-com and housing bubbles, and a litany of other industrial fiascos and most of the wars of the 20th Century.

This is what greed gets you. This is all in the pursuit of the production of stuff.

What it doesn't get you is the discovery or invention of stuff. Yes, industrialists have in the past provided large sums of money to fund R&D -- which goes to support people whose motivation is discovery and reputation, not money. Presumably most of us here have either been to or are currently enrolled at a legitimate college or university. How many professors or PhD students are motivated mostly or entirely by money? By the rapacious need to have more cash than someone else in the department?

Galileo and Darwin were in it for truth (and possibly fame).

So was Tesla.

Edison? He screwed Tesla out of promised money for improving Edison's (crappy) products.

The people who get the money aren't the people who discover the knowledge, or invent the device. So we shouldn't pretend like they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I for one welcome our new anarcho-capitalist overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a anonymous internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Really, I'm not sure what to say to this, other than wonder why CNN is giving space to objectivists.</comment>


Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told? - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told <comment><USER2> There is a sad history in Australia of treating the indigenous population as nothing more than a bunch of savages. This had its origins as a kind of reality distortion to justify taking their land and in some cases, exterminating them entirely as happened in Tasmania. There is still this perverse incentive today, since acknowledging that there was a full blown civilisation with a very long history present before English colonisation means we are a morally bankrupt nation, and also invites discussion of reparations.

<comment><USER3> Rural Australian whites were shooting Aboriginals like Animals few decades ago :(

back on topic, we are still discovering new things about the aboriginal civilisation [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-19/fire-reveals- further-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-19/fire-reveals-further- parts-of-6600-year-old-aquatic-system/11876228)

<comment><USER4> > shooting Aboriginals like Animals few decades ago

Is this really true? I know there's a terrible history of massacres and unpunished murders, but was that sort of thing really going on so recently?

<comment><USER5> Yes. The government paid a bounty in the Northern Territory for myall (wild aboriginal people) scalps until well into the 20th century.

<comment><USER4> I interpreted 'few decades ago' to mean, roughly, within 30-40 years or so. Second half of the 20th century at the very least. (I'm not being pedantic for the fun of it, let alone because I want to downplay the atrocities that have been committed. I want to know if I'm ignorant of some important recent history; if not, I guess I want to point out that our _recent_ history isn't quite as bad as the parent comment seemed to indicate.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano?

As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape.

I can't find a retelling of the Budj Bim story - are there elements of the story that are qualitatively different from stories about Paul Bunyan?

Or is it more that the local population has been in place for 40k years so these stories _could_ be that old?

<comment><USER7> For context there's a pseudo debate going on in Australia about whether the indigenous people had large-scale agri- and aquaculture. A book, highly recommended, called Dark Emu quotes primary sources from early settlers and white explorers clearly describing an agrarian economy that was rapidly wiped out by invading settlers and their livestock. If true, and it's a convincing theory, the indigenous first Australians had a completely different culture to that we've all been taught. Settled agriculture actively managing the land as opposed to hunter gatherers. And the history goes back 50-60k years.

This idea has touched a nerve with the Murdocracy who opened a new front in their culture wars attacking the idea without really attempting to refute it from historical sources.

So I think reading this piece in that context is helpful.

<comment><USER8> Related: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/australian- bushfir...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/australian-bushfires- uncover-hidden-sections-ancient-aquaculture-system-180974028/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone paying attention to the FNP saga, have known for a long time that there is more to the tale of their civilisation than we have been willing to admit.

The FNP had the worlds largest trading network for tens of thousands of years. They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes. They farmed and tamed the landmass of the Australian continent with fire, turning it into a self-replenishing paradise for many millennia. They still operate human-kinds oldest, productive ore mine - Wilgie Mia, 30,000 years old. Theirs was the first school in the world - Gabarnmung, 35,000 years old - recently re-opened for the traditional owners after a few decades of neglect during colonisation. As the article states, they have the longest record of history passed down through oral tradition of any human group - 37,000 years is a long time to be telling the same stories. We (Europeans) can hardly do it for 200 years ..

There is so much to learn from these people - alas, it requires a very bright, scientific mind to do so, because the prejudice against them has been so rigidly enforced in modern Australian culture that it is an uphill battle. However, I would really encourage anyone with an interest in the longest history of humankind, to learn a few of the FNP's songs and stories. They are truly an amazing civilisation.

<comment><USER10> My guess based on context is that "FNP" refers to the indigenous people of Australia [maybe 'First Nations People?' \-- however that term is more generally used in North America, to my knowledge], but that acronym isn't present in the article. Would you clarify for our benefit please?

<comment><USER9> It does indeed refer to the indigenous people of Australia, and is a general term used by many indigenous people who were displaced by colonisation in Australia, the USA and Canada. Australian Aboriginal People use this term freely - I believe it is politically leveraged in a contemporary context to indicate alignment with other displaced peoples around the world. Euro- Australians are generally not as content with the use of this phrase, since it indicates a path to sovereignty and serves as a reminder of Australia's rough past.

However, from the FNP-side, it is considered better than the phrases "Aborigine" or "Indigenous", since these phrases can be used to refer to the condition of various flora and fauna, and thus de-humanizes the subject. The FN people in my family prefer that I refer to them thus as FNP.

There is a better guideline for how this should be addressed, because as you no doubt can understand, its a sensitive issue:

[https://www.actcoss.org.au/sites/default/files/public/public...](https://www.actcoss.org.au/sites/default/files/public/publications/gulanga- good-practice-guide-preferences-terminology-referring-to-aboriginal-torres- strait-islander-peoples.pdf)

See also:

[https://www.commonground.org.au/learn/aboriginal-or- indigeno...](https://www.commonground.org.au/learn/aboriginal-or-indigenous)

 _" Similarly to above ('First Australians'), 'First Nations' recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the sovereign people of this land. It goes further than 'First Australians' as it recognises various language groups as separate and unique sovereign nations. It is widely used to describe the First Peoples in Canada and other countries across the globe. Over recent years, the use of this term has grown in popularity. It is a better choice than many outdated and offensive terms described above."_

<comment><USER11> I haven't once heard 'First Nations People' used on the ground other than by visiting speakers (usually from overseas). Indigenous & Koorie are the most common terms used here (I live in the Northern Rivers - Bundjalung country).

<comment><USER12> The "first nations" phrase is used frequently on aboriginal radio in perth (Noongar fm 100.9) At least half the people they talk to are from the eastern states, so I don't think that the phrase is unusual (at least among the sort of people who get interviewed on radio stations).

<comment><USER11> Sure, I'm just saying I don't hear it 'on the street' where I live. I honestly find the whole officially-approved nomenclature issue a bit overblown anyway. I'm completely happy to use whatever people prefer, but have known enough rednecks who can inflect racism into entitrely innocuous language, to feel that 'correct' word choice is a pretty small determinant of what's communicated. At least beyond the twitterverse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mazama#Human_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mazama#Human_history)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake#Sacred_significanc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake#Sacred_significance)

the indigenous peoples near Crater Lake in Oregon have passed down stories relating to its eruption nearly 8000 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER14> Aren't these the people who have a hunting dance, with one section detailing the hunting of a giant bird on two legs with giant claws? Bringing to mind the Dromornis stirtoni, or "demon duck of doom" which has been extinct for 37,000 years.

<comment><USER15> Could the bird be a cassowary? Those still live in Australia today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another one that would be fun to believe [https://aeon.co/ideas/investigating- homo-floresiensis-and-th...](https://aeon.co/ideas/investigating-homo- floresiensis-and-the-myth-of-the-ebu-gogo)

<comment><USER17> I would love for this to be true, but I'm suspicious because the figure of a women "troll" which trows her breast over her shoulders also exist in Scandinavian folklore ("slattenpat").

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remembered the article[1] talking about data as its own being, even maybe a separate consciousness. And, then I thought a story dated back that many years should be, arguably, the oldest preserved data that the intelligent life on earth ever had so far. I am excluding the language itself, of course.

So, this makes it the most ancient branch of Dataome. It is quite cool to observe the baby steps of the next evolutionary path.

[1][https://nautil.us/issue/65/in-plain-sight/the-selfish- dataom...](https://nautil.us/issue/65/in-plain-sight/the-selfish-dataome)

</comment><comment><USER19> What's the word for this? Where you tell or get a generic story then fit it to specific objects or events?

They use it in Astrology all the time. So do Mind readers.

Jordan Peterson does this a well. I think what he does in general is based in science, but his interpreting old stories is scientific nonsense, but entertaining.

It is funny how people rail up against the colonial past, but then still treat the natives like a different species exactly like the colonials. A mythical tribe who could keep stories alive longer than 3 generations.

Even in societies with writing, stories corrupt after a hundred years. Look at Grimm Fairy tales and the before and after versions we can find written. They also had oral as well as writing but still couldn't hold it together.

<comment><USER11> There's a phenomenon where people who know the least about a topic seem to make the most confident pronouncements. It betokens a sad lack of curiosity.

Do even 10 minutes of reading and you'll find out that there are many cases of scientists & ethnographers in Australia corroborating traditional story details over thousands of years. Another 5 minutes and you'll find, again, cases where indigenous elders have traversed country they've never been in before, and gone straight to the only water sources existing in hundreds of surrounding square kilometers. All based on traditional stories. Probe a little further and you'll find out that much (though not all) is known about the cultural technologies that have been used to keep the stories alive and accurate over multiple generations.

Indigenous Australians aren't a 'different species'. But they do represent a distinct civilisation, which has thrived all the way across a continent for 40-60,000 years. Part of how they have done this is by maintaining stories about the land. This has little in common with industrial era unsubstantiated superstitions about indigenous peoples' 'oral stories'.

<comment><USER20> With 10 minutes of reading (and I suspect anything less than many years of study) I can't find out what the hit rate is. How many stories do they have? How many describe verifiable events?

A single story that happens to correlate to a verifiable event is just cherry picking and doesn't prove anything. And from what I've read from other similar articles they just cherry pick a single story, correlate and call it proof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe there were the more recent flows from this volcano?

I could not find info on when it went extinct.

<comment><USER22> > There have been no other large volcanic eruptions in the area in the > intervening years that could have provided inspiration for the stories

It's literally in the article

<comment><USER23> Not completely correct.

The Mount Gambier eruption (VEI 4) was about 5,000 years ago and it's only 100km away, so it's possible they had contact with people fleeing that area, along with ash fall and a 10km high plume. VEI 5 and you have a Mount St Helens scale event.

A similar eruption (and one of the more likely to occur in Australia) would be catastrophic with the town literally built around the crater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So there's a story about a volcano and there happens to be an old volcanic formation nearby, therefor the story depicts an actual event an implausibly long time ago. I find this as believable as Noah's Ark because there was a big flood once. Show us more than just a single coincidence on an entire continent of peoples.

<comment><USER25> The article itself provides more than one coincidence, but they are making some assumptions that seem to be stretching what the evidence is able to provide.

I dug a little deeper and found a host of interesting things but like the article, there seems to be a bit of embellishment in what they can know with the evidence provided.

The important take away is that we shouldn't assume less technologically advanced civilizations don't have complex systems of communication. I think much of the stories of our past are important, even when they seem to be fantastic.

If Aboriginal storytelling has the ability to stay consistent over time, the structure of such a thing would be valuable to the modern world.</comment></comment>


Amazon invested in startups, gained proprietary info, then launched competitors - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-startup-investment-competitors-wsj-report-echo-nucleus-ubi-2020-7 <comment><USER2> Although the story is from a different source, the discussion is over here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929044)</comment>


FBI admits it uses stingrays, zero-day exploits - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/fbi-admits-it-uses-stingrays-zero-day-exploits/ <comment><USER2> Also reported by Engadget yesterday: [http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/08/fbi- says-it-uses-zero-day...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/08/fbi-says-it-uses- zero-day-exploits/)</comment>


Empirical study of HN: Best time to post, and other time-effects - <AUTHOR> http://foundation.logilogi.org/2011/5/9/the-best-time-to-post-on-hn-and-other-time-effects

<comment><USER2> Interesting that you didn't mention something that overlaps with this substantially:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022547>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for noting this. I added a link to it from the post.

<comment><USER2> No problem - I'm reading the PDF now.

...

OK - now I've skimmed the PDF - interesting read. I'd like more time to analyse it, but I'm too busy right now. Nice work, though. Good luck with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback.

Especially as ironically enough the post does not seem to have made it to the frontpage, so yours is pretty much the only feedback it received ;)

(...guess my post was too academic even for HN users' taste...)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


European officials draft radical plan to take on Trump and U.S. tech companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/22/europe-plan-trump-tech-companies-1472326 <comment><USER2> I would be broadly supportive of this, but with noted exceptions: the dependency by individuals on their gmail and like service is now very high. "I'm sorry, we can't service you" is a huge back-bite risk which makes this high-stakes: there is no contract enforcement which can make FAANG meet both the end user and the state obligations.

Overall, I think the tax issue is bigger than the tariff issue: The ludicrous inter-entity transfer pricing models have to end. Likewise the extra- territoriality of US data law has to end.</comment>


What Did Tommy Read? - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/soldiers-reading-western-front/ <comment><USER2> The lack of a concrete conclusion was unsatisfying but it does play to their larger point. Overall it was an interesting summary of reading during a period of history and I respect they attempt to make no conclusions of their own except "it was complicated".

<comment><USER3> The article failed to mention enough titles and authors by name, that would have atleast helped the modern reader to try some of them.</comment></comment>


This American Life: Last Man Standing - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/421/last-man-standing <comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to share a beautiful episode of This American Life (1hr, audio), which I think is very relevant to this community, especially Act II. Tackles perseverance, failure and drive.</comment>