Ask HN: Review my app: Search expired/available short domain names - <AUTHOR> http://scoretool.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea but the source whois data seems quite inaccurate.

It said that digit.com and 6af.com were both free (which I obviously jumped on) but turns out they are actually registered and not due to expire for some time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand that's annoying, and hope to improve it. The system reports digit.com free because it doesn't have an A record, but I will fix this by checking SOA records in the future. I'm not sure why 6af.com is reported free, maybe there was a temporary DNS problem when I checked it. It should be updated in a couple of days.

<comment><USER3> You could first try the ANY query (which won't return all records though) and then a whois query on failed ones to be sure. Combined with some smart caching and affiliate/click tracking (to see if a new domain gets registered).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very cool. TheMargarine.com is available--startup millions, here I come!

Edit: Seriously, great work. Have bookmarked and will be back for my next domain search.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, this is very cool and elegant. I really like how the UI is simplistic and functional. Thank you for making it open source too.

One small idea might be to add slider bars to adjust the weights. That way, one can drag these sliders and see the rankings update on the fly. Maybe these bars (vertical?) can be displayed next to the textbox when user clicks in the textbox. Or maybe you can place the bars (horizontal) in the right column where you currently have feedback.

Additional cool features might be the ability to "watch"/receive notifications for new domain names that satisfy specified weights. Maybe automatically tweet the user or implement it as an RSS feed.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great tool. I have one minor criticism - the domain availability seems to be just inaccurate enough to be annoying. The first few domains that caught my eye appeared to be free but were actually taken.

</comment><comment><USER7> Somewhat off the main topic: I really like the feedback form, very elegant and to the point. I think Dropbox does something similar for their feedback. I might try something like that in my app.

<comment><USER8> Went back and looked at the page. I agree, its very elegant and to the point. Good job!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool, as someone who has been searching for domains recently I can really appreciate the functionality.

As for feedback, I think having the text boxes at the top for weighting treated graphically might be better. Either some up/down or +/- icons to just tweak those might be cool. (maybe an ajaxy slider that pops up?)

But otherwise dig the concept. +1

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems to be missing some short names --- for instance, while diiq.com and diiq.org are owned, diiq.net is unclaimed --- but 'diiq' does not appear at all, despite being four characters long. What qualifies a domain name to appear in your list?

<comment><AUTHOR> My list is a fairly random sampling of the huge search space of available domain names. I'm planning to keep adding more names in the future, trying to strike a balance between good names (short but readable) and more names (requiring more storage). Fortunately, the App Engine Datastore has linear complexity for the number of query results, so adding more names doesn't slow down the searching.

<comment><USER11> i'm surprised that you don't dynamically extend your database if you have a miss. did you try that? if so, i'm curious why it didn't work out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because we can't run DNS queries inside Google App Engine. Instead, I query the DNS results from my home computer and feed them into the datastore using remote_api.

<comment><USER11> ah, ok (thanks). did you see the recent post here about someone exposing dns over http? although i have no idea if you could call that either...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a way to sort out domains with numbers + hyphens in them? I imagine most people are most concerned with llll.com domains.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can enter very negative weights in the input boxes for digits (numbers) and dashes (hyphens). Then these domains will be sorted down to the end of the list (below the end of the page).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is fantastic. Otherwise I use freshdrop.net, but this is surfacing good domains more quickly. Well executed.

<comment><USER14> I use freshdrop.net too. There are a lot of domain names on there so here's a good filter:

      * exclude all but .com
      * exclude hyphens and numbers
      * set char limit to 12
      * click "Geo" at the top of the page

_results right now_ : tipolo.com, treeville.com, umoru.com, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very cool. Two thoughts:

1) I wouldn't call the numbers you enter into the boxes "scores." They are really weights - I don't know about others but I got confused by that at first.

2) Is there a way to substring searches? E.g. If I type in "debate" I might want "mydebate" to come up...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for the great feedback!

1) You're right, but the boxes (and columns of numbers) are probably going to disappear in the next version. Maybe we'll have sliders or radio buttons to adjust between "Important" and "Don't care" for some properties.

2) Real substring searches are not supported because they are expensive. But your example is supported: type "debate" in the second keyword input field for suffix matches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another useful tool along these lines is <http://domai.nr/>, which searches all the available TLDs, not just the big 5. However, it expects you to have a full word in mind rather than suggesting things.

</comment><comment><USER17> use different colors for .com, .net, etc columns.

if it is free, use the black text "free". if it is taken, grey out that cell, with no text.

that will make it much easier to scan with the eye

</comment><comment><USER18> I like it a lot; however, it seems that if I type, my name, for example (my actual name) it doesn't check it. It seems like there is a very limited list of domains? Although I like it so far.

</comment><comment><USER8> The scoring mechanism is weird, and not quite intuitive. However, I played around with it for a few min and it started to make /some/ sense.

Overall, very useful for finding short names.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why does it say magic.com is free? Or am I doing it wrong?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because magic.com doesn't have an A record. If you click on the "free" link, the registrar (moniker.com for now) will tell you that it's taken. I know this is disappointing, but I haven't found a good way to do bulk whois for millions of names, DNS is much easier.

<comment><USER20> How about doing a DNS lookup but for a SOA record type, instead of an A record? I'm fairly sure that will either give you a record or an NXDOMAIN.

      $ dig magic.com SOA
      [snip]
      magic.com.              21600   IN      SOA     auth03.ns.uu.net. hostmaster.uu.net. 990605 21600 3600 1728000 21600

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds good, I'll look into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really like it... it would be great, as I'm sure you know, to tie in registration.

On that note, who is everyone using for registration these days?

<comment><USER22> just moved everything from godaddy to namecheap. It was a good bit of work, but glad to have finished it.

<comment><USER23> I did the same about a year ago and overall I'm quite pleased. After a year they're bugging me to renew whois-cloaking thing on namecheap, but orders of magnitude less irritating than godaddy in all sorts of ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You need better moderation of the suggestion feature along the right. I doubt you want it saying random garble and things like "gay hot lesbians."

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. At some point I'm going to start using <http://getsatisfaction.com/> or think about moderation/filtering. But for now I really like the direct feedback from users, so I'm going to delete bogus entries manually from time to time.

<comment><USER24> That makes sense. In the meantime it must be frustrating that there are so many irresponsible people who make more work for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Was going to suggest a feedback/comment section but I see you already have it. An excellent way of getting responses from the end user.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very cool. What is the backend written in?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's written in about 2500 lines of Python, using Django 1.1 (app-engine- patch) on Google App Engine. Full source code is here: <http://github.com/jcrocholl/scoretool>

<comment><USER27> Out of curiosity, why did you settle on app-engine-patch rather than use_library()?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because app-engine-patch includes more than just a zipped package of Django 1.1. It comes with jQuery, the Blueprint CSS framework, a media generator to join and minify your CSS and JavaScript, automatic URLs for each app (using urlsauto.py), and helper functions like ragendja.template.render_to_response and ragendja.dbutils.get_object_or_404.

<comment><USER27> Got it. I just wondered if there were standard-Django features you wanted to use, but couldn't (easily) without AEP. It sounds, however, like it was all the other in-package goodies that made AEP desirable.

If there were a "GAE django starter project" that included jQuery etc. but made use of use_library(), would that be interesting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that would be interesting because the startup time for loading the zipped Django 1.1 package is significant. Maybe app-engine-patch can be tweaked to use_library()?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you can make it work that would be cool. Currently there are too many reported free that are actually taken.

</comment><comment><USER29> Very nice. I would like to be able to see more results at once.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is very interesting. Where are you sourcing the data from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of the names are made up (combinations of letters or short dictionary words). The expired names are from <http://namejet.com/Pages/Downloads.aspx> and I'm planning to keep adding more names in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> awesome! just bought beltoo.com from it. thanks :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Congratulations to our first customer! Since my post on HN we had 612 hits on moniker.com, with 1 conversion for $0.31 commission. I also spent $1.60 today for 22.43 CPU hours on Google App Engine. Almost all of the 17k requests today were AJAX queries for domain searches.

<comment><USER32> I logged on to see what your application was like, and ended up buying a two- syllable, two word com and .co.uk domain (not sure how long the registration process takes) that would be a good project name.

So, yeah, I think your project is great. A couple of things:

* Hire a graphic designer

* Your affiliate hosting company wanted me to enter a US state when paying with my credit card. I entered Armed Forces overseas, it still went through, but it wa annoying

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just played around with it. Nice work.</comment>


IBM's rendition of the World Factbook - <AUTHOR> http://visunetdemos.demos.ibm.com/blogsamples/factbook2/FactBookSE.html <comment><USER2> US population way out of date (ditto for Canada)</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a good list of usernames to block such as 'about' and 'legal' - <AUTHOR> I'm planning on launching an site with vanity urls (url.com/username), and I don't want someone grabbing something like url.com/legal for their user profile.<p>I've googled and found 1 or 2 lists for usernames block impersonation in posts (like 'admin' and 'moderator'), but the vanity URL introduces even more concerns. <comment><USER2> [http://www.quora.com/How-do-sites-prevent-vanity-URLs- from-c...](http://www.quora.com/How-do-sites-prevent-vanity-URLs-from- colliding-with-future-features)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great link. The top answer from GitHub nailed it. None of the proposed lists included 'legal' which I would consider the top priority. You can't guess every possible problem, so don't try.

Also, after wire framing, I also found I needed the title "Profile" above the username anyways. T-minus 10 minutes to a user named "free iPad 2!" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Finding a complete list is going to be tough. Why not some indicator that is out of band? Something like all vanity URLs are at url.com/users/username. That way there will always be a way to establish official URLs from vanity.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but the indicator makes the URL a little unseemly. In Facebook's example, some companies have stopped putting their URL in commercials altogether, instead relying on "www.facebook.com/doritos" (arbitrary example), simple and clean. "www.facebook.com/corporatepage/doritos" would not have the same cleanliness nor usefulness. This is probably a huge point in Facebook's favour.

<comment><USER5> A prefixed tilde is often associated with user content and keeps the URL short: "example.com/~doritos".

<comment><USER6> what about the opposite? example.com/johndoe, example.com/~about, example.com/~legal

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side note: please don't forget that some people have real names that are often blocked:

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Cocks>)

</comment><comment><USER8> You'll also need to be careful about homographic characters. I've implemented a small solution internally for this but I'll try and clean it up and get it put somewhere public.</comment>


Early Celts believed wine should be for all - <AUTHOR> https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/early-celts-believed-wine-should-be-for-all <comment><USER2> At least in Italy, wine was used as a store of primary calories. The grape harvest only lasts for a few weeks out of the year. Winemaking was a method to buffer those calories at harvest time and consume them throughout the year. So yeah, everyone is drinking wine.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Celts were lots of independant nations, so would Scottish Celts and Irish Celts be likely to share this custom with their Alpine counterparts?

<comment><USER4> One of the measures of being an ancient celt was culture more than ethnicity. In the same way that the Britons became Anglosized after the fall of Rome so the Picts has became Celticized centuries earlier.

One of the pythons did a really good series on the celts and I think it's on YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Standard pop-archaeology stuff. Sweeping conclusion based on ambiguous data from one particular site, check.

The meat of the real data here seems to be that, before there were fancy drinking vessels reserved for the purpose of drinking wine from, people drank wine out of any old bowl or jar that was handy.

<comment><USER6> It surprises me the sort of conclusions that some scientists draw from data. Considering that modern people in prison make wine from grape juice and old pieces of bread, why would random people living in isolation 4000 years ago not make their own wine?

As far as vessels, anecdotally, I make fancy wine glasses, but personally drink wine out of coffee cups from the thrift store or whatever is handy.

<comment><USER7> Standard HN comment stuff. Making comments ignoring the gist of the article, check.

Sorry for the sarcasm, here are the relevant quotes:

> There is no evidence of grape seeds or winemaking in central Europe, the > authors note, so it must have been imported

> Tartaric acid is usually considered to be a grape product/wine marker > because of its high concentration in grapes in contrast to other fruits > available in Europe during the Early Iron Age

<comment><USER6> Thank you for devoting your valuable time to setting me straight.

Complaining about the quality of HN comments while commenting on HN is pretty standard HN comment stuff.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Project Austral – Explore Attitudes on Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://projectaustral.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice work! Though it might be helpful to have some info on 'sentiment' and 'subjectivity' in the About page, e.g., how they're measured, what are 'good' or 'bad' values, and what might be inferred from the results - even a small toy example would be sufficient.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call, we definitely need to document things a little better. Thanks!</comment></comment>


What Happens When Housing is Cheap? - <AUTHOR> http://www.byrneseyeview.com/marketview/what_happens_when_housing_is_c.html <comment><USER2> I was talking with my mom about this the other day, following the exact same chain of reasoning, and came up with this:

This housing boom has left a huge number of McMansion developments that will soon be unsellable at any price, because there are no buyers in their demographic. The baby-boomers who built them will soon be empty-nesting and moving to Florida condos. The Millenials that are entering the workforce now seem to prefer city-living and have no desire to live in a 5000 square foot monstrosity in the suburbs. The Gen-Xers who are having kids now just don't have the numbers to fill them.

Meanwhile, firm size is decreasing, more people are working from home, and the economy is shifting from machine-intensive manufacturing to knowledge- intensive professional services. If YCombinator is right, the next decade will see an increasing number of small startups, independent consultants, and homesourcers. Many of these people are interested in coworking, because it's a lot less lonely than spending all day at home.

So, my proposal is to buy up whole developments worth of McMansions, convince the local government to convert the zoning to mixed-use (perhaps they could create a new "professional" zoning category, for businesses that don't generate much physical commercial traffic), and then rent them out en-masse to small firms. Many of the McMansions being built today have 5 (!!) bathrooms, one per bedroom, so it wouldn't be too complicated to split them up into apartments with a shared kitchen & common area. People could roll out of bed and run next door to work. We could partner with ZipCar so that transportation would be available if yoou wanted to go to the supermarket or out for a weekend. There'd be community events so you could bond with everyone in the development and not just your coworkers.

This'd solve a number of problems at once. It eats up the unused housing stock in the suburbs. It provides an alternative for young urban professionals who don't want to live in urban areas. It builds on the coworking trend, providing cozy office space to single professionals or small firms. With gas prices rising, it'd cut commuting costs to nearly zero. It lowers the trouble of finding a place to live and an office to work for all your employees, many of whom are increasingly mobile these days. And it offers a sense of community to people who are often either increasingly isolated (if they live/work alone) or increasingly alienated (if they live/work in the city) these days.

Would folks go for an arrangement like this? Personally, I hate the city and can't stand living without some greenery in my life - but I also hate having an hour commute and no young people in my area. I'd love an arrangement where I could walk to work and knew my neighbors. Other opinions?

</comment><comment><USER3> From the article: "Hypothesis: every boom, ever, leaves behind an infrastructure for steady, above-average growth in some other industry"

Have you considered the tulip boom that happened in the Netherlands in the 1600s? I'd be curios to find out what industry that helped after it collapsed?

In any case, I doubt that this thesis holds for housing.

<comment><AUTHOR> My guess is that it helped financial derivatives take off. I've read about people trading puts and calls on tulips -- and then when that got boring, trading the same instruments on commodities and stocks at more legitimate exchanges.

But my timing could be off.</comment></comment>


German NSA Committee May Interview Snowden - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fdeutschland%2Fbundesgerichtshof-nsa-ausschuss-darf-edward-snowden-vorladen-a-1122370.html <comment><USER2> Some background info:

After the 2013 Snowden disclosures, Germany started a Parliamentary Committee [0] to investigate the extent and background of foreign secret services spying in Germany. In fact, they ended up revealing a lot about Germany's own secret service, BND. The committee consists of 8 members: 6 govt, 2 opposition.

They all agreed they should interview Snowden as a witness, but it was unclear where this would happen. Govt members voted to not interview him in Berlin and instead do a video conference to Moskow, which Snowden rejected.

The opposition then sued govt parties and the committee for not inviting Snowden to Berlin. They also sued chancellor Merkel for not supporting the committee.

The committee also agreed on interviewing Snowden in Moskow locally, which Snowden also rejected.

Also, the US allegedly threatened Germany to stop notifying them about "plots and other intelligence matters" should they give Snowden asylum. [1]

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

1: [https://theintercept.com/2015/03/19/us-threatened-germany- sn...](https://theintercept.com/2015/03/19/us-threatened-germany-snowden-vice- chancellor-says/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The translation didn't make things terribly clear for me.

It seems the USA is trying to convince Germany to extradite Snowden from Russia...? Is that even a thing? Russia will agree to extradite people to EU, but not to USA?

<comment><USER4> As far as I know, Russia has never given anyone up.

<comment><USER5> There are plenty of counter-examples to this, in both post-Soviet and more recent times. Basically, the authorities are happy enough to "let someone go" (read: GTFO) once the political cost of keeping them outweighs the perceived benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why does he need to be physically present to testify?

</comment><comment><USER5> BTW, instead of "intercepted", the translation should read "be brought in to testify."</comment>


Show HN: Call GitHub (or other) API from the browser (like a mini-Postman) - <AUTHOR> I wrote a short (100-line) JavaScript snippet to call the GitHub API.
It runs in your browser like a browser extension. In fact, it can easily be turned into a browser extension.
Setup and usage instructions are in the file.
Check out gabrielsroka.github.io/GitHubAPIExplorer.js or to view the source code, see GitHubAPIExplorer.js on github.com/gabrielsroka/gabrielsroka.github.io <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links:

Check out [https://gabrielsroka.github.io/GitHubAPIExplorer.js](https://gabrielsroka.github.io/GitHubAPIExplorer.js) or to view the source code, see [https://github.com/gabrielsroka/gabrielsroka.github.io/blob/...](https://github.com/gabrielsroka/gabrielsroka.github.io/blob/master/GitHubAPIExplorer.js)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A short writeup and some screenshots: [https://gabrielsroka.github.io/APIExplorer](https://gabrielsroka.github.io/APIExplorer)</comment>


Paths – Covid-19 Job Stats - <AUTHOR> https://coronavirus.paths.in <comment><AUTHOR> OP here - My coworkers at HiringSolved have been developing Paths and they started seeing the first signs of COVID-19 job postings a few weeks ago.</comment>


InstaNerd - <AUTHOR> http://instanerd.me/ <comment><USER2> I like the idea, but the branding/execution is a little off-putting. Memorizing obscure facts won't necessarily make me smarter, and honestly I don't know exactly what would be involved in literally making a person smarter, but I would _feel_ smarter if instead of obscure random facts I got obscure random teachings.

Examples:

A brief explanation of A^2 * B^2 = C^2, followed by a link to the relevant Wikipedia page.

A formula for approximating the volume of a cylinder presented as an easy-to- remember mnemonic, like pi * z * z * a where z = radius and a = height.

These are primarily math-based examples, but anything that tells more about how the world works than which movie happens to be the highest grossing or which dinosaur happened to be the biggest would be more what I would expect.

<comment><USER3> In "The Book" Alan Watts discusses how he would write a book to his children explaining things like morality, reality, etc. He decides that things like the Bible, books on secular moralism, etc are pretty useless because they just list a bunch of rules or ideas.

He explains that you can't just say things, valid or not, but that you need to enable the cognitive tools and perceptions to see these things oneself. This is how people really learn, by practice, lessons, challenges, etc via some guiding teacher's hand. Writers call something similar to this, "Show, don't tell." Turns out we like to learn by solving puzzles. We just need to know the basics of how the puzzle works like its mechanics, how to start, and what being solved looks like.

I'm surprised to see this trivial quote generator on the top of HN. Its all the things we make fun of, like the word a day calender your friend owns and everyday uses an archaic word in an ill-fitting way to never use it again. Or how we mock the idiocy of the lazy didactic learner. Or the buzzword memorizer. We're supposed to be doers right? Coders, creators, etc.

I guess the facts are kinda cute, but some of these I've seen debunked in some way in the past or are written in a generalist 'know it all' way that doesn't apply to all examples of the thing explained. Everytime I encounter a person who has these memorized I know I'm not dealing with someone fascinated with nature or science or whatever. Just someone who found an easy way to not be so dull and can't really discuss these things past just quoting the 'fact.' The same way uninteresting young people pretend to have humor by memorizing Monty Python lines and repeating them ad nauseaum.

Unfortunately, this does create 'nerds.' The Python quoting kind I mentioned above. Not the kind up all night excited to play with their new arduino kit or with some new framework or language. I know the above sounds elitist, but the fact that they couldn't be bothered for sources really kills this for me. It just seems like a way to spread disinformation and heaven forbid you try to argue against someone parroting these lines in the future. Afterall, he learned it as fact from a fact site. It can't be wrong!

<comment><USER4> TLDR: Instanerd is camp (in postmodern sense) WRT a kitsch viewpoint of what a non-nerdy person would think would be nerdy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is cute. I think the "Be smart, instantly" tagline is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek because, yeah, probably memorizing a bunch of facts doesn't necessarily make you "smart," whatever that even means.

Simple design. Simple controls. I like how each fact is associated with a picture, which makes reading feel less rote and more of a pleasant experience.

For some pages, I would actually like to see the source. For example: [http://instanerd.me/v/81](http://instanerd.me/v/81). Was there a study performed that showed people act less irrationally when they see themselves in the mirror?

I'm not displeased with my sunk 10 minutes. Not bad.

<comment><USER6> ha, I read the same one and thought, "I would like to see the source for this one..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://instanerd.me/v/48](http://instanerd.me/v/48)

        It is possible to create a plant that
        grows potatoes above the ground and
        tomatoes below, by grafting a tomato
        plat stem onto a potato plant stalk.

Don't people usually want tomatoes above the ground and potatoes below?

<comment><USER8> That seems like a quintessential nerd factoid to me. It's clever, unusual, almost practical, and displays a knowledge of obscure topics while completely ignoring common sense knowledge like the fact that you don't grow tomatoes under the dirt.

<comment><USER9> 'Factoid' was coined by Norman Mailer to mean something that appears to be true but really isn't. If this really works, then it isn't a factoid.

<comment><USER8> I used that term on purpose precisely because it's _not_ correct due to the whole above/below mixup. The fixed version would indeed not qualify as a proper factoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sources are essential for something like this. Were there links I was missing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. But there are no sources available.

<comment><USER11> really? then where did you get all these facts?

<comment><AUTHOR> Pardon me!! I found this and shared with HN. I am not the author of this :)

<comment><USER11> ah, sorry about that then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find these sorts of things amusing (they come in book form too: [http://bookoutlet.com/Store/Details/_/R-9781606521328B?gclid...](http://bookoutlet.com/Store/Details/_/R-9781606521328B?gclid=CLfH66u57b4CFRWVfgodsEYAzg)). And of course they are a trap since if you memorize a bunch of trivia and then pose as a 'nerd' or what ever, when you come across someone who actually learned this stuff because they were fascinated with it, and invested the time, they will rapidly spot you as a 'poser' or a fraud. And then they will be less likely to be friends with you than had you simply not attempted to put on the mantle of 'nerdness' or whatever.

Early in my life my wife pretty much cured me of 'male answer syndrome' which occurs whenever a suitably attractive female asks a question, the male is compelled to respond with an answer, regardless of the depth of knowledge on the subject and present it as authoritative. Sometimes you can pull that off, but if the person you are trying to impress is smarter than you, it tends to backfire horribly :-)

<comment><USER13> > if the person you are trying to impress is smarter than you, it tends to > backfire horribly :-)

That's when you turn on the charm, admit you have no idea what you're talking about, and openly work through the "problem" and try to figure it out on the spot.

<comment><USER14> You risk to look sleazy in addition of bluffing previously. Men (or woman really) pretending they know the answer are annoying. The worst is if I really need the answer - then they are both waste of time and source of misinformation.

Trying to charm me afterwords will not help. It is more like huge neon writing over your head: do not trust me.

<comment><USER13> Actually the exact phrase I usually use is "I don't know, but ...". Tends to work pretty well in these situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I found this to be curious(and interesting): [http://instanerd.me/v/55#you- made-it](http://instanerd.me/v/55#you-made-it)

       WWOOF is a international program that allows you to travel the world, with food/accommodations covered, in exchange for volunteer work.

That was the only page with that message in the url. Made me wonder if that page is the point behind the website.

Genius move if it was.

<comment><USER16> It was different for me: [http://instanerd.me/v/93#you-made- it](http://instanerd.me/v/93#you-made-it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A lot of these "facts" seem like they came from a Quora article from several months ago. Even the wording is similar on some of these, including "If you ask someone a question and they only partially answer, just wait. If you stay silent and keep an eye contact they will continue talking" which is word-for- word what was posted there.

I mention this because some of these seem dubious, and I'd have loved sources. If they came from potentially unsourced Quora answers, the dubiousness just gets passed along.

Link: [http://www.quora.com/Tips-and-Hacks-for-Everyday- Life/What-c...](http://www.quora.com/Tips-and-Hacks-for-Everyday-Life/What- can-I-learn-right-now-in-just-10-minutes-that-could-be-useful-for-the-rest-of- my-life)

</comment><comment><USER18> User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

<comment><USER19> Oh, I shouldn't have pressed "Next" for so many times, I guess :-0

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There goes the rest of my day.

One UX thing that I thought of when doing this: you may want to take a page out of Facebook's bag of tricks; they preload the next image (when browsing an album).

Just a thought. Love it!

</comment><comment><USER21> Cute though the lack of citations is a huge turn off. Not only does it cost you in trust/authority but if this is supposed to actually help users learn more you should offer a way to dig deeper into the subjects.

<comment><USER22> If there were citations, I would not only consider this for our service, but it would indeed allow for further investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The facts are questionable ....

"Beer can reduce the risk of heart disease, by slowing down the digestion and absorption of food and reducing cholesterol levels. A liter of beer contains an average of 20% of the recommended daily intake of fiber and some beers can provide up to 60%."

[http://instanerd.me/v/28](http://instanerd.me/v/28)

Guinness has 0 grams of fibre.

[http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/guinness- draught-s...](http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/guinness-draught- stout-1-pint-16-oz-58070024)

</comment><comment><USER24> Knowing random bits of trivia does not necessarily make one smart--and _definitely_ does not make one instantly smart.

<comment><USER25> We removed "Be smart, instantly" from the title. (The HN guidelines call for changing titles that are misleading or linkbait, and this is arguably both.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

</comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't have anything to do with being "smart" or getting smarter. At best, it's a trivia site (and of not very interestign or thinking enhancing trivia at that).

Also: "Genghis Khan was the founder of the Mongol Empire. He was responsible for the death of so many people that the Earth's carbon level dropped by almost 700 million tons".

Really? I seriously doubt that -- including doubting the fact that it uses a meaningful metric.

</comment><comment><USER28> You might need some fact-checking.

Looking at the "highest recorded temperature": [http://instanerd.me/v/97](http://instanerd.me/v/97)

The 1922 temperature record was recently judged to be most likely erroneous, which makes the Death Valley, CA reading the highest.

[http://wmo.asu.edu/world-highest-temperature](http://wmo.asu.edu/world- highest-temperature)

</comment><comment><USER29> >User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

whoops

</comment><comment><USER30> User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

ooops

</comment><comment><USER31> Raw copy of Ultrafacts (and many others) [http://ultrafactsblog.com/](http://ultrafactsblog.com/) These facts, won't make you smarter, just a little bit curious.

</comment><comment><USER32> :(

Warning: mysql_connect(): User instanerd already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /hermes/bosnaweb04a/b1254/dom.mightyalexcom/public_html/instanerd/db.php on line 2 Warning: mysql_connect(): User alex already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /hermes/bosnaweb04a/b1254/dom.mightyalexcom/public_html/instanerd/db.php on line 7 Could not connect: User alex already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections

</comment><comment><USER33> "People with crossed arms are closing themselves to social influence."

I cross my arms because I have poor circulation and it keeps them warm. Not everything you read on the internet is true.

<comment><USER34> It's funny you should say "Not everything you read on the internet is true." while on the internet and trying to prove something is not true.

<comment><USER4> I can see where this is headed, and tail call recursion would save us considerable stack space.

There are heuristic ways to get around the undecidability of the halting problem, and in this case we're in danger of an infinite loop

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35>
      [[citation needed]]

I would like this site more if I could click through to a Wikipedia article or something containing the fact.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can't find a reference for 'When people see themselves in the mirror, the chances of them to behave irrationally lowers significantly. That's why it's a good practise to have a mirror behind the counter at a bar or customer service of any kind.'. It seems to be something only quoted on reddit and lifehack blogs as far as I can see.

</comment><comment><USER37> First thought: Why are there no references anywhere? Second thought: Must be because it's so difficult to put links in a webpage.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think this little toy could benefit from Wikipedia links. Take [http://instanerd.me/v/17](http://instanerd.me/v/17), for example. Wouldn't you want to know what this Dinosaur was actually called? A Wikipedia link would be helpful. This seems to be the case for most of these flashcards.

</comment><comment><USER39> > Fingers prune underwater not because of them absorbing water or washing away > oil, but because of an evolutionary trait caused by the brain to enhance the > grip of your finger underwater.

Are those mutually exclusive? Can it not be an evolutionary trait AND be caused by some process?

</comment><comment><USER40> Pretty Enjoyable. Let me login using Google etc., and then don't show me the same trivia again.

</comment><comment><USER41> I kept expecting it to turn into some kind of message-retention quiz. The kind that would prove we only absorb 10% of what we're shown, or some other counterintuitainment.

Nice typography and highlight hue.

</comment><comment><USER42> The one thing I would probably add is a source citation for each fact.

</comment><comment><USER43> The interface, at least on Safari on a 13" MBP, requiring scrolling to go to "next" is a bit clunky. I stopped looking after a couple of the items because of it.

</comment><comment><USER44> #84 advocates giving loaded questions [http://instanerd.me/v/84](http://instanerd.me/v/84)

</comment><comment><USER11> These are pretty enjoyable to go through. given the varied size of each panel, perhaps place the next button on the right vs. bottom.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's not right is it? [http://instanerd.me/v/61](http://instanerd.me/v/61)

</comment><comment><USER46> "User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)"

</comment><comment><USER47> "Tigers, leopards and jaguars" are illustrated by a picture of a cheetah.

</comment><comment><USER48> Typos and no sources. Why not just go to random Wikipedia pages?</comment>


First Evidence of Entanglement in Photosynthesis - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23581/

<comment><USER2> Note that this article is from 2009. A pretty important thing to say, with a headline like this - my first thought was "wait, I _know_ that I've heard about evidence for this before."

</comment><comment><USER3> It certainly is an interesting possibility that quantum entanglement could play a role in the brain, but my understanding is that a member of an entangled particle pair would still need to be mechanically transported to a different location in the brain to really take advantage of any entanglement effects, right? Also, if I understand correctly, you can only "use" the entanglement once, so there would need to be a constant production of entangled pairs and transport of them to appropriate parts of the brain.

<comment><USER2> A lot of people believe in it - and it's the basis for a lot of woo. The hypothesis is generally referred to as the Quantum Mind, if you want to read more about it. Its supporters generally don't think that that the entanglement effects are being used to transmit information; rather that the brain functions with quantum computing as a basis for consciousness - so, if this is true, you would have quantum effects determining, on some level, whether neurons fire or not.

Anyways, while this is an interesting topic, I'm not quite sure how you got to it from Photosynthesis. This article isn't putting forth the possibility that quantum entanglement is involved in the brain, although the last sentence does suggest that the reporter thinks that it might be.

<comment><USER3> That's what I was going off of. It's a pretty big "dot dot dot" on the end of the article.</comment></comment></comment>


Predict the next President using NLP - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/08/07/how-mathematical-modeling-of-speech-text-can-predict-presidential-election-outcomes/

<comment><USER2> It would be more interesting if the author generally stated his method of weighting the word frequencies, and the results to WIN/LOSE. I wonder if his method takes into account the year of the election, I would think that a speech from the 1960s would be less relevant now, than it was then.</comment>


The First Time America Freaked Out Over Automation - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/rick-wartzman-book-excerpt-automation-donald-trump-215207 <comment><USER2> Don't think this is accurate. I feel here "this time it's different" does apply.

Previous automation waves focused on taking a mechanical task a human was doing and making it faster by mechanical means. Compare that to the modern AIs outperforming highly trained doctors in diagnosis. Fundamentally different - instead of optimising a physical task we're replacing the need for a thinking human.

It's also worth noting that the response to previous waves was a shift to knowledge work. Now that is being threatened too. Short of moving to basic income I don't see where humans are going to go next.

<comment><USER3> Counterpoint: even if it is different this time, it's different in a good way.

As the need for human labor decreases, costs fall to the floor. This is specifically true for knowledge work that is not constrained by resource inputs. Imagine how much HN would cost to run if it was a newspaper or magazine? This may seem like it's still bad news for humans, because where do the new jobs come from? Yet we regularly see an increase in consumption to compensate for the reduction in production costs. This increase in consumption generally overruns the job reductions due to efficiency. The number of newspaper writers may drop, but the total number of employed writers goes up.

We also see this trend in technology. Early computers took a highly trained team to keep a single computer operating. Now technician to computer ratios can be 1000:1 or more. Yet we seen an increase in total employment rather than a reduction.

> the response to previous waves was a shift to knowledge work.

Computer assisted knowledge work may be precisely the answer to the unskilled and unemployed. Ubiquitous computing made it so that your banker only needs 1/10th the knowledge in order to be effective (when was the last time you calculated an amortization schedule by hand?).

Make it so the "knowledge work" is done by the expert system and the human simply operates the expert system.

<comment><USER2> >Computer assisted knowledge work may be precisely the answer

No but that's the entire problem. Why computer "assisted" when computers are getting to the point where they can do it on their own completely?

Robotics already outperform humans physically, and AI is (in many areas) approaching humans. So the risk here is complete replacement, not supplementing.

In the near term your solutions are solid, but that's a band aid. Humans will soon simply no longer be able to compete at all except for niches.

>the human simply operates the expert system.

Operate what? At the current pace the only operating required will be flicking the ON button.

>when was the last time you calculated an amortization schedule by hand

5.5 years ago. :p

<comment><USER4> >Robotics already outperform humans physically, and AI is (in many areas) approaching humans. So the risk here is complete replacement, not supplementing.

The steam drill didn't beat John Henry, the system of technology, resources, and people behind the steam drill did. Until a computer decides that it wants to win a chess tournament and teaches itself how to play, humans will always be at the helm.

<comment><USER5> _humans will always be at the helm_

The problem is that it could be just one human. One person could own all of the machines. They would advise him, protect him, and carry out all of his orders.

Just imagine the President having his entire White House automated. The NSA? Automated. The military? Automated. Police? You get the picture. Robots and computers replacing everybody. One person in charge. 100% loyalty. Small pockets of resistance trying to hack into and take over robots, data centres, etc. Vast computing resources under _the ruler 's_ command employing all manner of encryption, fuzz testing, logging, surveillance, etc. in an attempt to eliminate the resistance.

It's like the plot of the Terminator movies without the general AI in charge. Instead, it's a legion of special purpose AIs serving the one guy.

<comment><USER6> Without society owning artificial intelligence collectively, all other paths lead to tyranny.

<comment><USER7> society is notoriously bad at doing anything collectively

<comment><USER8> As a socialist Swede, I beg to differ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> By using the term "freaked out," it implies that automation isn't anything to worry about. The difference between now and then is the scope and the speed.

</comment><comment><USER10> This was in no way the first. It was a big deal back in the late 1800's and early 1900's when things switched from horse powered to steam powered as well. As well as when cars replaced horses. They said it was going to kill industries, which it did. Yet we all moved on. You can back forever with this. Things change, and some people embrace it and some never do.

</comment><comment><USER11> Something always missed int this debate is the limits to human consumption. The average person today lives like a wealthy one 100 years ago, but a wealthy person today doesn't live too much differently to 100 years ago.

What we've reached now is a point where we can't consume anymore. I can't eat more food, I don't have time to watch more entertainment, etc. Unless we consume more there will be no new jobs created to fill the void left by the steady march of automation.

</comment><comment><USER12> > that most any job that can be given to a machine will be, and that machines' > capabilities are improving by the day.

Automation tax. If employment, payroll and healthcare taxes are justified for the employment of people, than why shouldn't there be taxes levied on automation? Given the impact automation has on employment and wages, isn't a countervailing tax on automation a necessity?

<comment><USER13> How do you tax automation? How do you ensure you don't stifle its development?

Shouldn't we be focusing on distributing the fruits of automation as widely as possible?

<comment><USER14> A VAT.

<comment><USER12> Correct, a Value Added Tax. It may be necessary to levy additional taxes on high employment businesses hurt by automation (eg. Transportation). The responsible thing to do would be to tightly earmark the proceeds, and to have the taxes sunset, requiring a 2/3 majority to renew, after 10 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of freaking out is about the A.I. automations of the future that can think like us, talk like us and know everything. However, I am doing regular computer automation with regular code that works with normal data. In the process transforming a company from working 1990's style 'personal computing' to where the web server 'does all that for you'. Many thousand of 'if' statements later I have automated many things have changed, three teams working from same-but-different spreadsheets now just use the same data in a proper database. If anyone enters the data wrongly then the computer corrects it and probably had it right before someone changed it.

The thing is that some quite 'simple' office jobs are quite complicated to do in code, debug and test. But then you do it 'the computer way' so it can check thousands of records or millions of them to see if that email address has been used before. A mere human would not know that or be able to just casually check a million or so previous sales orders etc. in a couple of seconds. So with these 'computer special' ways of doing things, the finished automation goes beyond what is possible by hand, or if attempted by hand the time taken would just not be available. The human role has been deskilled and the computer code is already approaching 'self awareness' even though it is just a lot of if statements with no Google brain A.I. in sight.

A lot of thought about information architecture is needed for this, more like applying the Toyota Way to 1's and 0's with changes to business processes and new properly thought out databases of sorts built to support this new 'web' way of working. Essentially lots of data entry work is taken out of all departments in the company with the web replacing documents as we know them.

If you ream through a company taking the data entry out of a person's job here and there, this is usually a help because it does free these people to be more productive and do the things that they wanted to do and joined the company for, which is rarely data entry. They can progress within their career and use new tools that are part of a better company wide team thing, enabled by the web.

Companies that do not automate like this cannot compete on price with those companies that do get 'web' ways of working properly automated. The companies that don't fully embrace the web tend to have 'the web' as a hybrid 'typing pool' of sorts, a cost, they don't get it, but it happens.

In this future the company that automates its processes just with if statements, cron jobs, a sprinkling of SQL in the reporting and everything going through [https://](https://), this company can scale. If all the customers decide to return product for a refund at the same time (e.g. Note7) then this can be handled without a bottleneck in back office processes and resultant customer dissatisfaction about money not returned etc. In this way automation is crucial for existential threats that could ruin a company's reputation. This scale-able company is able to take up the market occupied by non-automated rival companies, not visa-versa.

'If' statements are very cheap when written and tested, sending data is also very cheap. It is this simple, non-AI automation that is the thing people need to fear. Despite how many hours someone works or time served or how high up the hierarchy they are, there is the risk that half of their job could go, to be replaced by some helper module code that is a mere handful of kilobytes. Relatively speaking the Google grade AI self-driving car stuff that replaces rocket surgeons is not the thing to be scared of, it is the insidious 'if' statements of regular code and how the winners will all have to use 'web' ways of working.

<comment><USER16> And now these simple ifs can say stuff like "if(photo of a yorkshire terrier){}"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it rather troubling how many people have issues with seeing the difference between automation in the 50ies which was about replacing manual labour and then AI which is about replacing the mind.

Unless humans have some extra secret advantage besides our intellect I have a hard time understanding why so many people just can't see that this is a very different situation than they had back then.

Since 2009 95% of all jobs created in the US were temp jobs. Bush expanding the definition of what constitutes a job and Obama didn't change that. So we are dealing with highly inflated job numbers not including the number of people you simply don't count as available for the job market anymore.

The states deficit is at record highs because we have funded all this with borrowed money either from other countries who buy our currency or the future through quantitative easing.

Yet somehow most people think everything is just another luddite fallacy being replayed.

New sustainable jobs aren't created, the number of entrepreneurs is actually going down and the economy move from labour heavy to capital intense industries.

And our politicians are being advised by economists who treat technology as an externality.

Somethings gotta give.

<comment><USER18> >AI which is about replacing the mind

Give me a break. AI replacing the mind... Put zebra stripes on an upside down sofa and the best image recognition algorithms see a zebra. That's how far the "understanding" of our AI goes. What you are doing is fearmongering.

<comment><USER16> I know that was a tongue in cheek comment, but I couldn't resist a quick google images + clarifai. [http://i.imgur.com/rwwVDe1.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/rwwVDe1.jpg) (Forgot to flip it though. Left as an exercise to the reader)

That being said, the argument that because there are some things AI can't do yet[0] we shouldn't worry about automation doesn't really hold. If you manage to make a "brain worker" 10x as efficient by automating a big part of their job, possibly leaving some oversight to catch zebra sofas, you simply won't need as many employed in that profession any longer.

[0] to be fair a small picture of a zebra striped sofa without context might fool people too

<comment><USER18> Actually, it was not a tongue in cheek comment. It is based on a real example I read some time ago. And the upside down part is important ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Winter is coming. Robots are exponentially different from that generation of machines.

<comment><USER20> Winter, you say? Because my money is on at least another [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter) before the real breakthroughs. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The worrying over the effects of extreme AI always strike as being a peculiar quirk of human psychology. It's a hypothetical worry, about a hypothetical problem, when there are actual problems happening now, that could be addressed.

For example, there is a the phenomenon of increasing income disparity in developed economies. It seems like the solutions to this problem should be much easier than the challenges of creating advanced AI, thereby displacing even more workers, and then solving the problems created by the displacement of workers.

Given that corporate profits have been pretty good, changes to the tax and regulatory environment that would encourage modest shifts of those profits from owners and managers, to labor, would go a long way towards relieving real economic stress for individuals and communities.

There have been virulent, and absurd, political movements that have supported this system that is shifting the surplus of the economy ever more to the "haves."

I'm not going to pretend I understand the sociology behind this, but there is some low hanging fruit I can see. One is the increasing influence of money in our electoral system.

Citizens United didn't have to decided the way it did. Humans chose this. We could choose different.

We are starting to see cracks in the alliances that make up both the Democratic and Republican party. Perhaps there is an opportunity for more a modicum of more progressive ideas to take hold.

As some other posters have alluded to, one possible solution to the economic displacement of automation would be to increase cooperative ownership of the "means of production."

In my town, the local food coop is incredibly successful, and has just opened a third store. They had around $50 million in sales last year, with a small profit. I think the managerial philosophy is to aim for a modest profit, and to provide a living for the workers, food for the community, and social capital to the neighborhoods they operate in.

This is a complicated, and mysterious, area of human endeavor.

But attempting the social engineering to make the US economy more "progressive," as well as mm more productive would go a long way.

I am hoping, for example, the abject failure of the Republicans to craft a plausible health care plan might break the spell this malignant political party commands over a disturbingly large segment of the voters.

For all of their manifest flaws, I think the Democrats have never succumbed to the kind of blatant "know-nothing-ism" of the Republicans, with their repugnant "guns, God, and gays" messaging.

Again, not easy, but doable. And this is all happening right now. The singularity is an imaginary scenario, st this point!

</comment><comment><USER22> This article nails the point on why people should embrace automation instead of fear it. To give a HN themed example, how many people made a living telling you what was in a picture 20 years ago? If you told someone that you make a living by telling people that there is a horse in a picture they would have looked at you like you were crazy. Yet today hundreds of people make their living through image recognition. This is one example of hundreds, it just turns out that predicting the future is a bit more difficult than people realize. If you believe otherwise I suggest that you should go into investing or starting your own startup.</comment>


UK Airprox board says police drone and jet had 'near-miss' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-44286754 <comment><USER2> Worth reading the report itself, linked from the article: [https://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Content/Standa...](https://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Content/Standard_content/Airprox_report_files/2018/New_Assessed_Folder/Airprox%20Report%202018011.pdf)

It's only 4 pages, and explains the situation fairly clearly. Choice quotes:

        The Airprox occurred on the northern edge of Dartmoor
        some distance from any notable habitation and therefore
        in an area where military aircraft can operate to their
        minimums. Both the drone operator and the F-15E pilot
        were operating within their regulations which, in the
        case of the F-15E, was not below 500ft agl.
        Nevertheless, it is of note that within the UKLFS RAF
        fast-jets can use a minimum of 250ft MSD

        although the drone operator perceived that the F15s
        were extremely close to his drone, in actuality they
        appeared to have had sufficient separation

        after discussion about the likely separation between
        the two air systems, it was agreed that the
        circumstances were probably best described as a
        sighting report, with the risk assessed as Category E,
        normal safety standards and procedures had pertained.
        Nevertheless, the Board agreed that the drone operator
        had been right to raise a report with his concerns and
        thanked him for doing so because it had provided useful
        discussion points about the integration of drones and
        military fast-jets.

To be clear, nowhere in the report does it say "near-miss", or that the risk was "high" (these were the words of the drone operator, not the board). A high risk would correspond to a Category A assessment, which is basically the opposite of what happened.

Edit: Also, "no blame nor any lessons to be learned" is a curious characterisation given that the military flight was booked through CADS, the Centralised Aviation Data Service, which is mandatory for low altitude military flights but not currently used by police drone units. There was substantial discussion about the police checking CADS in future or booking their operations through CADS. The military are also considering integrating the existing Drone Assist location sharing system into a future unified CADS replacement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Literally 30 seconds of searching brought up a IFF transponder that would add 100 g (3.53 oz). Why isn't a state owned drone not equipped as such? (XPC-TR Mode C Transponder)

<comment><USER4> 100g is _a lot_ for the type of drones used there, it's comparable to their whole battery pack weight. Also, the power draw of such a transponder is likely to be significant.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but unless it's a toy drone, the battery weighs a lot more than 100g. I own almost 20 drones and I think only the Tello batteries clock in at that range in weight and it's useless imho to a police department. My Phantom (nearly 500g battery) / Inspire (515g) / Mavic (~250g) batteries are all way heavier than 100g and the batteries I use for my S1000 are over 2,000g. That said, 100g additional payload is significant for everything but my S1000, but I had to correct the statement re: batteries.

As to transponder power usage, it would be very negligible compared to the power draw of the ESC/motors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This led me to an internet research rabbit hole, via [http://www.ukserials.com/](http://www.ukserials.com/) to the crash report (years ago) of [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8587389...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8587389.stm)

It drove home that the aircraft doing low-level flights have very little manuverability option when flying at 400kts (~200 meters per second). Dodging a drone would be infeasible even if you could see where it was. Transponders with LOS limitation might be of limited use given that the terrain is extremely hilly and the aircraft could come round a corner in the valleys or over a ridge.

It's also a major tourist area, just the sort of place that people might want to send up a photography drone...

<comment><USER7> It's not only limited manuverability, is the time window to see something that small and react at that speed. In an airliner at 180kts is like 5-7 seconds, you see a bird, confirm that is in a collision path and you correct you trajectory. At 400kts it's maybe 2-3 seconds to do all that.

You need to be looking forward to have time enough, but you need to look elsewhere sometimes(instruments, to the sides, etc..). So it's possible to crash with something you didn't see comming if it's small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No error, and no lessons to be learned?

If the drone pilot believed a crash was imminent, and the F15 pilot was oblivious, I'd be concerned. It could have been a lot worse.

<comment><USER9> That's what baffles me, too. "No lessons to be learned" sounds like they leave it to chance when an actual crash will occur.

<comment><USER10> There is no error nor a lesson to be learned because in the estimation of the board this was not a "near miss" and the drone operator was in error in making this assessment.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that's right -- they got lucky that it was a near miss. The aircraft could well have been lower -- there's overlap in the operating ranges of the aircraft in this area, and of drones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> May I grab this no particular occasion and ask English speakers: is this natural to you? A near miss? I mean, a near miss is something I would expect from sports where a shooter nearly misses the target but manages to hit it but barely. How is an avoided collision a near miss...? Close call, close to a collision, but a near miss?

<comment><USER13> I think this expression would be familiar to most native English speakers, but it is idiomatic.

It's using "near" as a synonym to "close" \-- as in "a close shave" (actually close) rather than as a synonym for "close to" as it is in the expression "near death" (almost, but not quite dead).

The second sense is definitely more common.

This post suggests "near miss" became common as a military phrase to mean "missed, but still damaged the target" but changed as it entered the vernacular:

[http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa- nea1.htm](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nea1.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who was operating the F-15E? USAF?

(The RAF doesn't have any F-15s, but routinely hosts visiting aircraft from other NATO air forces. One wonders if differing operational standards played a role in this airprox -- or if politics played a role in the incident being downplayed.)

<comment><USER15> Didn't the article address that?

<comment><USER14> Not the BBC report. Nor the quoted excerpt from the airprox board on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have any information on how bad it would have been if the crash had actually happened?

<comment><USER17> This drone is on the heavy side at 6kg, could be ugly if it's sucked by the engine intake or hits a wingtip (as happened recently to a commercial flight).

<comment><USER18> While I don't disagree an F-15 hitting a 6kg multirotor could be catastrophic...

There's at least one incident of an F-15 and a Douglas A-4 colliding, A-4 fireballed on impact and the F-15 flew home and landed.

On one wing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M359poNjvVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M359poNjvVA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know jets were allowed to fly at less than 400 ft over populated areas.

<comment><USER6> It's Devon, it's not very dense. The UK has some areas used for low level fast jet training where people get Tornadoes over their house every week. It's practically a tourist attraction. E.g. [https://machloop.co.uk/](https://machloop.co.uk/)

<comment><USER19> Similar to the Jedi Transtion in the US I guess. [https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-jedi-transition-a- cany...](https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-jedi-transition-a-canyon-that- fighter-pilots-love-1678453195)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I grew up near the area - well 50miles west of. North Dartmoor is used extensively by the forces for training and low flying jets are not uncommon. 'Tis a beautiful place to visit too!

</comment><comment><USER21> Who was piloting the airplane, it's a US aircraft? AFAIK the RAF itself doesn't operate F15 aircraft. Could it have been USAF 48th fighter wing out of RAF Lakenheath?

</comment><comment><USER22> A near-miss? Shouldn't it be a near-hit? Since it didn't hit?

<comment><USER19> It was a miss but it was nearly a hit I think is the rationale behind the term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Article states the jets were flying at 500 ft and the drone at 300, I doubt the jets lost 200 ft just by banking.

<comment><USER5> You'd be surprised. Jets bleed a lot of altitude in a bank unless it's compensated for.

That said, I find it _highly_ suspect that a jet is banking at 500ft altitude in the first place, unless it's at an air show. It's highly dangerous doing maneuvers like that at that altitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow. An actual 'cops eye'. RAH predicted them decades ago.

</comment><comment><USER25> We have police drones now?

<comment><USER26> Since July last year, it seems:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england- devon-40595540](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-40595540)

<comment><USER27> That's a unit dedicated to Drones that's new. Police using drones have been around for almost a decade, at least (I first saw one being used to surveil Stonehenge visitors around 2009)

<comment><USER28> Yup. A common sight at music festivals and the like now, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Putting lives at risk doesn't carry sentence anymore?

<comment><USER30> Not if there is a 200 foot distance, and the situation was deemed safe. If actual lives _had_ been at risk, this report would read rather differently. The drone operator had a little panic. That's not a lesson anyone can do anything with.</comment></comment>


Capitulation: Yes, I bought a new Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> http://subfurther.com/blog/2017/01/03/capitulation/#more-3965 <comment><USER2> I'll take the Hatsune Miku plushie and he can keep the Mac.</comment>


YaCy: a free distributed search engine - <AUTHOR> http://yacy.net/en/index.html <comment><USER2> Peer-to-peer Information Retrieval is one of those old research topics that face the difficult to solve problem of scalability.

YaCy is yet an early contributor to this research but we've yet to make something to my knowledge that gives comparable results to centralised search engines, is fast and scales well.

<comment><USER3> Any search engine is good enough, but no one, centralized or decentralized, is even close to Google.

Google is our wonder and our curse.

<comment><USER4> I actually think that the duck (ddg.gg) is better. I now find it difficult to use google, which feels clunky and capricious. I make thousands of queries a day for work, so I really can't excuse poor performance.

For a while I would switch back to google when my searches failed and I wanted to check if the duck was getting me equivalent or better answers. In the past year and a half I've completely stopped. It is simply a high-quality product that exceeds google in what it offers.

Maybe you'll respond that "it just doesn't 'feel' high quality". OK, I can't argue with that because it's your opinion... but as long as we collectively decide to believe this fantasy we will continue to be locked into the search juggernaut. You can help improve the diversity of options by using something different _and_ get to use a better product.

The only thing that I can't do on the duck is search academic papers. Google scholar is still the best thing of its type.

<comment><USER5> The problem is, DDG is not a search _engine_. It is a UI on top of other search _engines_.

(Yes, you may say it has DuckDuckBot, but ask around people who run websites if they've ever seen a hit from it.)

<comment><USER6> It's not a search engine. But the search engines it is based on provide surprisingly good results. So, I would be careful with the statement that "other search engines are not even close to Google".

I think that's just a matter of habits. Initially, it feels a bit unusual and maybe even uncomfortable to use not the search engine you've got used to. But after some time you understand that now Google is the one that is uncomfortable for you.

<comment><USER5> Did you reply to the wrong person?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Your peer cannot accept remote crawls because you need senior or principal peer status for that!"

So the average user cannot contribute to building the crawl index?

<comment><USER8> That is just the default setting, to prevent using massive bandwidth. You can change the setting to allow for that.

<comment><USER7> couldn't find it

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I hadn't used it in a while. You need to open up the port. See here:

[http://www.yacy- websearch.net/wiki/index.php/En:FAQ#My_peer_...](http://www.yacy- websearch.net/wiki/index.php/En:FAQ#My_peer_says_it_runs_in_.27Junior_Mode.27._How_can_I_run_it_in_Senior_Mode.3F)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This has been posted to HN many times before, this was the most active thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8746883)

<comment><USER10> It looks like there was a big update recently:

[http://yacy.net/release_notes/YaCy_Release_1_90.html](http://yacy.net/release_notes/YaCy_Release_1_90.html) (Jul 2016)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow! I had the same idea over 10 years ago. I'm glad it's being done.

My idea was using a giant P2P indexbase. However, I read the tech page, but it doesn't explain enough. For example, for this to work, there would have to be some kind of "information routing" whereby queries within certain information domains would be routed to machines. I can't see how this is being done.

Because you can't have the whole index on each machine, therefore, how does it know where to route a given query?

Additionally, peer nodes would have to crawl to a certain criteria; either subject based, or perhaps geographically. Otherwise you'd just end up with the same stuff everywhere.

If there's some more explanation, please link.

thanks.

</comment><comment><USER7> search "learning to learn gradient descent by gradient descent"

The following words are stop-words and had been excluded from the search: [by, to].

Results: 1) Linux-Kernel Archive: By Thread 2) Series Cinematography by 3) Key to Citations

As they are bold, "by" and "to" seem to get boosted!!

</comment><comment><USER12> So, has anyone used it? If so, how is it?

The last time I looked at this (long, long ago), it was pretty much poisoned by penis-enlargement and drug ads.

I'm hoping it's gotten better since then.

</comment><comment><USER13> This page took 25GB of RAM on Safari!</comment>


Can the 'Uber of Trash' Clean Up Its Own Business? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-02/can-the-uber-of-trash-clean-up-its-own-business <comment><AUTHOR> This is a really well done analysis of Rubicon's fundamental flaw and a huge reason why you see the main players all owning landfills. Trash is simply too profitable and easily corrupts any organization no matter how well intentioned they start out. That corruption has clearly hit Rubicon's sales team at least in some instances.

Not owning any of the "infrastructure" may seem like a huge positive from an cost standpoint, but I think they'll have to invest and re-invent a lot of the physical collection and processing tech in order to achieve their stated recycling goals.

Optimizing how/when waste is collected through modern software is a massive improvement and certainly we don't need to be collecting all materials every week. So there are huge gains to be had there from an environmental standpoint, but relying on infrastructure that is already optimized for moving trash to a nearby landfill is going to really hold back any effort to increase recycling rates.

I bet they can pull through this with all the funding they've received, but it sure does seem like they're a classic brokerage firm that happens to make an app for their haulers.</comment>


"Promoting phishing via adwords is allowed?" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/eVivz/status/914387112488833024 <comment><USER2> I mean, obviously it's not allowed. Though, you really had to try hard to get phished through those 10 bright red warnings

<comment><AUTHOR> Chrome gives warning many other browsers dont.</comment></comment>


Magic – Personal Assistant on Demand - <AUTHOR> https://getmagic.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's been on HN a few years ago[0], just wondering how it's going recently.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9087819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9087819)</comment>


Google Building Censored Search Engine for Chinese Market - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/08/01/google-allegedly-working-on-censored-search-engine-for-chinese-market/ <comment><AUTHOR> If this story is true it is a sad day for freedom. There will come a day that China is a free and democratic nation. Those that enabled the dictators should not be allowed to operate in the ensuing free and open market.</comment>


10 men and 1 woman - <AUTHOR> http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/506 <comment><USER2> How long is the video, and what is it about?</comment>


Elon Musk says he's going to buy $20M of Tesla stock - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/elon-musk-intends-to-buy-20-million-of-tesla-stock.html <comment><USER2> I heard this idea that this is his way to "pay Tesla back" for the 20million fee they have to pay. He's buying 20 million of new tesla stock with his own money.</comment>


Conflict Over Sociologist's Narrative Puts Spotlight on Ethnography - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Conflict-Over-Sociologists/230883/

<comment><USER2> I found it did not make much sense until I read the linked original review which the OP links - [http://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/ethics-on- the-r...](http://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/law/ethics-on-the-run)

The original review is what I found interesting. OP seems to distract a little of the seriousness of the review but does contain interesting follow up links.

How can an account of driving a car to kill someone possibly pass ethics? It's a crime or it's made up.

</comment><comment><USER3> Her friend was murdered and she watched him die at his bedside. Of course searching for a murderer is illegal, but it's really hard for me to get upset over this. She could have just omitted it and no one would have known, but she was honest.

<comment><USER2> So you wouldn't get upset if the bullet intended for the victim missed and went though the head of a small child instead? as long as she was honest.

Let alone how did she really for sure know who the murderer was? The review sounds like is was through gossip.

This book is supposed to be scientific, although good science can be done without ethics, generally it's a flag it's not. Which we also see from the research in the original review that she just made stuff up.

<comment><USER4> > _So you wouldn 't get upset if the bullet intended for the victim missed and > went though the head of a small child instead? as long as she was honest._

And what if she though the killer was working in a gas factory and the bullet hit a tank and the whole place exploded?

Maybe we should not get upset for BS hypotheticals.</comment></comment></comment>


Bloomberg Looks Inside One of the World's Biggest Bitcoin Mines (2min) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-08-18/bitcoin-s-rally-proving-a-boon-for-china-video <comment><USER2> Power is cheap overthere, so actually, the government is doing the biggest investment.</comment>


Private key of DigiCert Certificate Transparency log compromised - <AUTHOR> https://www.feistyduck.com/bulletproof-tls-newsletter/issue_65_private_key_of_digicert_certificate_transparency_log_compromised <comment><USER2> This was reported first at the begining of May. They got into the server via that Salt vuln and just ran crypto miners on the server, they didn't (as far as anyone knows) use the keys to do anything bad. From the original email reporting the problem:

(the attacker doesn't seem to realize that they gained access to the keys and were running other services on the instracture)

<comment><USER3> Cryptocurrency continues to improve security by polluting attackers with short-sighted incentives that prevent real damage from occurring.

<comment><USER4> I don't think cryptocurrency has changed much in that regard. Before CC mining the default use for an owned box was warez servers, IRC or jump hosts.

<comment><USER5> Those are much harder to detect, especially the latter two.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure. Most crackers don't use port knocking or other obfuscation techniques, so something that shouldn't be listening on a box and a large amount of bandwidth being used is normally a good indicator.

<comment><USER5> I think there's great overlap between servers that aren't monitored and servers that are vulnerable to exploits. If you're monitoring your servers for unknown listening ports, chances are you're keeping your systems up to date. Same with bandwidth, although if bandwidth is expensive (eg. cloud providers), your accounting dept might notice.

<comment><USER4> > I think there's great overlap between servers that aren't monitored and > servers that are vulnerable to exploits.

Agreed. CC mining would be CPU on most servers, and go undetected for the same reasons. Some servers and gaming rigs would have GPUs, but not many vs CPUs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23062904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23062904) from a few weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER7> The problem with Transparent Logs / Certificate Transparency is that they don't have the best story with regarding to recovering from compromise. We wrote an article comparing The Update Framework (TUF) to CT/TL:

[https://ssl.engineering.nyu.edu/blog/2020-02-03-transparent-...](https://ssl.engineering.nyu.edu/blog/2020-02-03-transparent- logs)

<comment><USER8> Your blog post is about yet another X Transparency, rather than about Certificate Transparency. Because CT works well people tried to apply the same approach to lots of other problems, most of them obviously dumb.

CT is a narrow solution to a narrow problem. We had that specific problem, and so this is a very good solution. You almost certainly don't have that problem, our solution can't help you, we aren't sorry about that.

<comment><USER7> Strange comment. I'm not sorry you're not sorry either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As I understand it, this is not a big deal: there are multiple CT servers, and auditors verifying their entries, the design of the system assumes the possibility of compromised log operators.

<comment><USER10> Well the political consequences are kind of bad. CA system is built around trust. Not being able to secure their servers, even non critical ones, degrades trust.

<comment><USER9> The CT system is built around controlled suspicion, not trust.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but if i can't trust someone to run a CT server, why would i trust them to run a CA?

<comment><USER9> It was a 0day in a popular open source package. They didn't do anything wrong. Presumably they use stronger defense in depth, as required by the CA guidelines, to prevent software compromises to the actual CA signing machines. There's no need to go through that level of paranoia for CT log machines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a little bit of old news and sounds worse than it is. There are plenty of checks and redundancy operators in the CA auth universe.

</comment><comment><USER12> This CA system is designed for maximum reduction in security - not defense in depth. The company with the least security defines the security of the entire CA system.

It's time for DANE [1]. We don't need any more "men in the middle."

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS- based_Authentication_of_Na...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS- based_Authentication_of_Named_Entities)

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure the SCT requirement contained the blast radius of this compromise to avoid anyone from actually being affected by it, so your comment doesn't really follow here.

Also, DANE relies on DNSSEC [1], which is bad.

[https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/01/15/against- dnssec](https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/01/15/against-dnssec)

<comment><USER12> > I'm pretty sure the SCT requirement contained the blast radius of this > compromise to avoid anyone from actually being affected by it, so your > comment doesn't really follow here.

I think this would be true except my statement wasn't just about SCT but the CA system in general. Furthermore, browsers like Firefox [1] do not even have CT checks.

> Also, DANE relies on DNSSEC [1], which is bad.

Handshake completes this system [2].

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1281469](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1281469)

[1a] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Certif...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Certificate_Transparency)

[2] [https://github.com/handshake-org/hdns](https://github.com/handshake- org/hdns)

<comment><USER13> Despite being supported, relying on browsers checking CT logs was never something that what going to be deployed at scale because, just like revocation lists, it adds a performance hurdle to every request.

Auditors and monitors are the real protection you get from CT logs.

You get the same problem with any form of DNS validation because you'll never get every little caching server to validate records.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A PHPMyAdmin alternative with a user friendly interface [ That doesn't suck ] - <AUTHOR> http://umairj.com/340/a-phpmyadmin-alternative-with-a-user-friendly-interface/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry the site crashed last night, the link is good to view now</comment>


UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper-spray references from Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article71659992.html <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11498105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11498105).

</comment><comment><USER3> Duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11498105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11498105)</comment>


How We Test the Stateful Autoscaling of Our Stream Processing System - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wallaroolabs.com/2018/03/how-we-test-the-stateful-autoscaling-of-our-stream-processing-system/ <comment><USER2> Hi All,

I'm Nisan, a Chaos Engineer at Wallaroo Labs, and the author of this post. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread throughout the day and answer folk's questions if you have any.</comment>


The end of Schengen - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.eu/article/the-end-of-schengen-germany-border-controls-austria-check-points-temporary/ <comment><USER3> I see Germany's move to reinstate border controls as a way to pressure Hungary and to some extent Slovakia to agree to a quota spread of refugees. I think the german electorate would be easier to convince if they have a feeling all EU-members are pulling their weight.

Hungary has responded with policies (detaining refugees, also working on laws to allow police violence against illegal border crossings) that are likely not compatible with international law and I can imagine a EU court will convict them in a few months. Unfortunately, the refugees will be the victim of this in the meantime.

Also, I find the article overly dramatic, stating that "Free movement around 26 countries for 400 million Europeans is now seriously threatened.". Schengen has very little to do with the free movement of EU citizens, this was arranged by the Treaty of Maastricht and others.

I do agree though that this is further evidence that solid european integration is still a far away dream and for now national interests take the lead when the shit hits the fan.

<comment><USER4> > Hungary has responded with policies (detaining refugees, also working on > laws to allow police violence against illegal border crossings) that are > likely not compatible with international law and I can imagine a EU court > will convict them in a few months. Unfortunately, the refugees will be the > victim of this in the meantime.

The issue here is hard to define who refugee and who is not. There are offices at the major border towns where refugees can register. They show their paper, give fingerprint (which is mandatory for Hungarian citizens as well to receive a passport). The issue is as a British (ITV) reporter tweeted: [https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv/status/639703633794351104](https://twitter.com/jamesmatesitv/status/639703633794351104) is some of the refugees are "interested in" wealthy countries only, so they refuse to register in Hungary. There are laws and international agreements that binds the border countries to behave like Hungary.

Also "police violence" means you are referring to is the European way of police violence: web and in worst case tear gas and water cannon.

<comment><USER5> police violence means using that nasty steel baton that is absolutely not part of the official police toolkit: [http://40.media.tumblr.com/e19f9630bcbbb5699b4d3f1c23308a57/...](http://40.media.tumblr.com/e19f9630bcbbb5699b4d3f1c23308a57/tumblr_nutguyPf9D1qauqxso1_1280.jpg)

the migrant vs refugee issue is moot. anyone can clam to be from Syria or Afghanistan. the problem is - again - simple economics, or how to hillclimb from this local optimum to a globally higher one?

currently people living in the million-populated refugee camps in Turkey are not allowed to work (as it would likely crash the local labor market). so we have a completely devastated economy (thanks to a long drought driving farmers out of work and subsequently into the cities where authorities harshly responded when these people voiced their problems, and bamm! you have a civil war, which is bad for business), and a lot of unemployment with extreme mobility/flexibility (after all, why would they stay in a war zone? so their preferences are driven to the extremes, which means they are not picky - <USER2> the people going through countless bags of small pepper and clean them of that small stem part that remains on them after picking from the field)

distributing the people (the proposed quota system) will probably help, and the migrants-refugees will at least participate in a more efficient economy, so if I want to be really deadpan and cold-hearted I can just state that globally things are going to be better, we just have to ride this temporary setback through while Assad & Co. goes through their bankruptcy process with their lenders (the people).

<comment><USER4> That image is about anti-terrorist officer (TEK), and baton is their regular sidearm. I guess they will be there until the regular army and the newly formed frontier companies arrive.

<comment><USER5> I just looked up the relevant ordinance/statue, and it only describes a "police stick" without going into details.

Their regular sidearm is not the expandable steel one. (They usually carry submachineguns, after all, they are usually targeting armed criminals, not a mass of people trying to force their way through a border crossing.)

Naturally, the problem is not the intent, but the incompetence of the execution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Many Europeans look enviously at Britain and Ireland, which were granted > opt-outs when the treaty was signed, and still retain full border > inspections — with some notable success in stopping terrorists and catching > illegal immigrants.

I don't see the "notable success" as being substantiated. What does this refer to?

<comment><AUTHOR> It probably refers to the neutralized terrorist threat they can't tell us more about because that would give out details and crucial information on what they know of the `enemy'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Many Europeans look enviously at Britain and Ireland, which were granted opt- outs when the treaty was signed, and still retain full border inspections — with some notable success in stopping terrorists and catching illegal immigrants._

Meanwhile, some of us in Britain look enviously at the rest of Europe, where international travel, particularly by train, is altogether more efficient and friendly than it is to leave or re-enter our own country.

I also can't help noticing that those notable successes were apparently so noteworthy that the author felt no need to note any specifics that would identify them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why do they have to call it a human tsunami? It's very disrespectful to the people fleeing from war zones.

<comment><USER9> In 1992 (3 years before Schengen) there was just 15 states in UE and 672'000 migrants. Last year, 626'000 migrants for 28 states.

Yes, 23 y.o. tsunami really exists!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The UK and Ireland were given a waiver mainly because of their geographical situation (and there is a similar agreement beween them, the Common Travel Area)

</comment><comment><USER11> Schengen was conceived by the post WW2 generation, perhaps the most materially wealthy in history who view free trade radicalism through rose colored glasses. Like almost all policy they have conceived it is hopelessly romantic and self serving. They have the economic position to capture the gains from exportation of skilled labor to third world countries which increase dividends and form importation of third world immigrants to lower domestic wages.

If the Western world is to retain any semblance of an enlightened reasoned and prosperous set of nations free trade policy including free movement will have to be revised to ensure economic and social stability for the citizenry as a priority. Unless this is done civil unrest and division will only continue to grow as more and more people are thrown under the bus in a race to the bottom system.

Importing a permanent underclass provides the perfect scapegoat for civil unrest to deflect attention away from trade policy which is designed to benefit only the top few percent of the income and skills pyramid.

</comment><comment><USER12> The Germans have been highly unwise to throw Greece under the bus. Greece is positioned to be a bulwark against ISIS, Russia and a whole lot of other trouble and a strong Greece aligned with the west is key.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aren't such thing mainly NATO matters and funding ? Europe defense is only at the embryo stage today.</comment></comment>