Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Automatic Spying Cannot Be Stopped - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/02/microsoft-confirms-unstoppable-windows-10-tracking/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix <comment><USER2> Regardless of how you fall on this issue, this article is clearly highly biased.

If you read their link "detailed data"[0] you can see there is an issue but you can also see that the level of invasion is low with most telemetry disabled.

This article links to that, but then ignores that author's conclusions (that it is a relatively light level of privacy invasion) to draw this conclusion:

> So how concerned should users be about Windows 10's default data collection > policies? I would say very.

But the author's articles are only really pro-Apple and anti-Microsoft, just look at their back catalogue [1]. They've written about Windows 10 problems weekly for months, getting more and more inflammatory each time.

So how concerned should readers be about the author's obvious bias? I would say very.

[0] [http://arstechnica.co.uk/information- technology/2015/08/even...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/information- technology/2015/08/even-when-told-not-to-windows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to- microsoft/)

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/archive/](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/archive/)

<comment><USER3> "Relatively light level of privacy invasion" is still privacy invasion.

<comment><USER4> But it still doesn't validate the need for a clickbait title or a highly inflammatory article. Say it how it is... no better or worse.

<comment><USER3> From the perspective of a person whose standard for an operating system is "zero invasion of privacy", there's nothing particularly inflammatory about the article.

It's fine if your expectations are less rigorous; you simply aren't part of the article's intended audience.

<comment><USER4> I know ubuntu, osx and windows 7 phone home for certains scenarios. Until you are running some *BSD box, you aren't getting that "zero invasion of privacy", you just think you are.

<comment><USER5> The browsers do so too BTW. Win7's telemetry settings was very different, but yes CEIP dates back to even Office 2003.

<comment><USER6> CEIP was always opt-in before.

<comment><USER5> I think in some cases it might have been enabled by default, but it still could be disabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microsoft has essentially forced me to turn off Windows Update on all my Windows 7 machines/partitions and migrate everything I can to Linux. All I am waiting for is SteamOS delivering AAA games to Linux and I won't need to touch future Windows ever again.

How can you justify using Windows for enterprise work if due to new policies you can't be assured you can keep anything you work on secret? I am not willing to keep the possibility open of sharing my competitive advantages with whomever is in bed with Microsoft's management to capitalize on my ideas. Can somebody please tell them to get back to their senses and become trustworthy again?

Do I need a dedicated NUC running super-secured *BSD/Qubes filtering out traffic towards known Microsoft servers while using Windows 10?

<comment><USER8> Wait, how do I prevent automatic update to Win10? I actually like the UI but the system Does Not Work (tm) on my hardware (I tried). I'm finding it hard to believe MS is going to auto-brick my laptop overnight.

<comment><USER9> They will when Windows 10 becomes a preferred update.

Before that head into Control Panel > Windows Update > Change Settings

Oh, btw: if you have let Automatic Updates run until now it's probably best to do a fresh reinstall of Windows 7 or Windows 8, because they retrofitted almost all of Windows 10 telemetry services in those operating systems in a series of "updates" released around August.

Which gave me enough reasons never to trust any update from Microsoft ever again.

<comment><USER5> They did not retrofit "almost all of Windows 10 telemetry services". I recommend that you read the TechNet article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand how Windows 10 can be used in a lot of small business environments.

If you are big enough to get the enterprise version, everything apparently can be tweaked. But there are a lot of tiny businesses that order a PC from Dell, install some software for their vertical, and then do little more than regularly install updates. My old dentist was a two person operation. They aren't going to get the enterprise version yet they need to handle medical and billing records securely.

Either I'm totally misinformed, or the professional version of Windows isn't suitable for many professionals. I'd be happy if somebody could explain why it's the former.

I also wish Microsoft were more transparent about the data that is sent to them. Why is a machine with all the options set with privacy in mind still in constant contact with Microsoft?

<comment><USER11> Putting on my trusting hat, I would think that MS is only transmitting enough data to keep the machine running and virus free without any intervention from the non-technical people. So it would be a safe machine for a small company without any IT staff. A lot of those companies just take the computer out of the box and plug it in and don't do anything further anyway.

I don't see why they don't just add the option to disable that with appropriate labeling, though, if nothing else to satisfy the more vocal, privacy-concerned folks.

<comment><USER10> > trusting hat

If you are wrong and Microsoft suffers a breach, your defense for HIPAA violations has to be better than "but I trusted Microsoft!"

> I would think that MS is only transmitting enough data to keep the machine > running and virus free

I don't think that's true. It uploads what you type, your calendar, contacts, etc... so that things like Cortana work better. What makes me nervous is that even if you turn off all the Cortana things that you can, Cortana is still always running. Plus, how often to business users use Cortana?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ugh, the "cloud" comes to the desktop. Companies like to have all kinds of telemetry and forced non-security updates, both of which are easy to have with a hosted application. "You'll take whatever we throw up on the server, and we'll watch you like it."

Some of us poor software users don't always like one or both of these things, and client-side software is great at avoiding them: you choose when to install newer versions, and whether the software talks to the developer. Sadly, companies are figuring out how to "cloud up" client-side software with forced updates [1] and always-on telemetry, and Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon in a big way. Maybe reverse firewalls will catch on like browser ad blockers have; probably not, but there's always a chance.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/07/17/windows-1...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/07/17/windows-10-forced- automatic-updates/)

<comment><USER5> Yea, MS has make it clear "Windows as a Service" is deliberate. Win10 Enterprise has the LTSB for long term servicing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This, combined with Microsoft trying to trick people into thinking they _need_ a Microsoft account in order to create a user account, shows how far they have fallen.

<comment><USER5> Dates back to Win8 I think, Win10 actually improved this.

<comment><USER13> I know it started with 8 because my father, a computer novice, ended up with a Microsoft account because of how things were presented during setup.

If Win10 improved on this, that is good news.

<comment><USER5> In particular, Win10 provides an easy link to skip it, unlike Win8.1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's amazing about this telemetry issue and the forced upgrade path is that, at the same time, they're trying to fight the PR problem by claiming that they might soon have a more reasonable FOSS (or at least OSS) mentality, will contribute to openssh, etc., all as part of their new "customer-oriented culture." It's really just a carrot-and-stick, isn't it?

<comment><USER15> It's more like carrot and nuclear fail bomb.

Is there anyone in MS management here who can explain how and why this is supposed to be a customer winning idea, and how it won't launch a stampede towards OS X and Linux?

"Okay, so we do the spying thing with everything you type. But - scout's honour - we don't do it all that much. Honest!"

Corporate dementia is becoming more and more of a problem in enterprise scale IT. HP, Yahoo, Apple, Oracle, IBM, and Google all suffer from it to varying degrees.

But MS appear to be trying to win a special best-in-class award for it.

<comment><USER5> It is called "Windows as a Service" for a reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I posted this in a different thread but am reposting here for the folks that do move to Win10.

\--

PSA: For people with Windows 10 installed, I've found the following tool quite useful in shutting down the large amount of information collected and transmitted.

[http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10](http://www.oo- software.com/en/shutup10)

<comment><USER17> Please, don't use these tools. Yes, they may fix the immediate problem, but you're still rewarding Microsoft with money and/or market share. You're sending them the message that you are loyal even when they abuse their power in obvious ways. By continuing to use their platform, you're conditioning[1] Microsoft to continue with stronger spyware in the future.

Unless they see an actual reduction in revenue and fewer people using their platform, this problem is only going to get worse.

[1] operant conditioning (Skinner )

<comment><USER18> Okay, tell me how i can play all my Steam games then (no, not just the Source Engine ones).

<comment><USER17> 1) wine is quite good these days. It has played far more than Source Engine games for like 5+ years. Ever since steam went to Linux and the Unity engine became popular, compatibility problems became much less common even on new games.

2) If you are always going to rank _playing games_ as more important than spyware, then you're an easy mark. If you aren't willing to make a few _sacrifices_ to invest in your future, then you're made your decision. Why do you care about spyware if games are more important?

The costs of leaving are only going to get worse with time. I recommend paying these costs _now_ instead of waiting for the problem to get worse.

<comment><USER19> Linux gaming is getting better and better. Yes, we have a few sacrifices to make in the form of _not getting to play every mainstream title_ , but many of the ones worth your time have great Linux versions, and if not, they might run well in Wine.

I wiped Windows nine months ago and installed Arch. The only things I missed were Dark Souls and Insurgency.

I found out a week ago that Dark Souls runs like _butter_ in Wine, and Insurgency just got native Linux support the other day. I am a happy Linux gamer.

As for the titles that choose to avoid supporting my operating system, well I guess I won't be supporting them with my dollars.

<comment><USER20> Do you have any issues with drivers for things like mice, keyboards, joysticks?

I have a RAT5 mouse and am X-55 Rhino HOTAS for Elite: Dangerous and as far as I am aware, there are no drivers for these under Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know the status of using the Windows Firewall to block this stuff? Since Search and other parts of the OS are actually apps it seems, if you set a default deny, then whitelist only certain parts, wouldn't that sort itself out?

And any idea why MS is acting this way? Certainly offering a hidden opt-out registry key would satisfy a lot of customers, and not impact the telemetry data in a meaningful way. For Office, they literally discarded/sampled the telemetry data as it was simply too much to use.

<comment><USER5> I think some traffic do bypass the firewall, but it is mostly licensing stuff.

<comment><USER22> Do you have any details? backdooring own firewall would be a HUGE deal.

<comment><USER23> Firewalls on hosts should really only be used for protection against inbound traffic, trying to use firewalls on a host to block that host from sending traffic a) doesn't scale on a network of many hosts and b) can be overriden if the thing trying to send traffic has root access to modify the firewall.

Gateway firewalls are much less susceptible to malicious modification this way, and IMO are the best way to protect yourself from this type of corporate spying in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I generally support privacy issues (donor to EFF and ACLU).

But, I see some hypocracy in criticizing companies like Microsoft and Google about the danger of private information being leaked. What about github repos, data on AWS, etc.? Most people seem willing to trust those companies.

I believe that companies like Microsoft and Google will immediately fire any employee caught improperly accessing user information.

We also trust our doctor's office and our bank with critical information.

I trust Microsoft and Apple to a large degree because I believe that their interests and my interests are aligned. I trust Google and Facebook, as sellers of data for advertising, less.

In the last five years I have gone through two "phases" where I used Linux on my laptops almost exclusively - for privacy and control reasons. The problem is both times I was a bit less productive during the periods when I used Linux. Personal efficiency trumps some of my concerns over privacy, especially given that the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world record most of what we all do anyway.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there a layman's guide to this whole. Does Cortana sends only explicitly told to it or everything I speak in vicinity of computer. Also, if I create a text file notepad that uploaded. My email, contacts, photo, messaging all already live in cloud. I am ok with Cortana having some access as long as I am aware of what it is.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does Windows 10 actually log keystrokes? If so, that's pretty disturbing.

<comment><USER27> No, Windows 10 does not generally log keystrokes.

The one and only place that things like keystroke logging are mentioned in the privacy policy is in the context of interacting with Cortana and the related search service, where the phrasing is similar to "things you enter here get sent to us, and we log those things."

The vast majority of the Windows 10 privacy concerns are mitigated by turning off the Customer Experience Program stuff and never turning on Cortana.

<comment><USER28> It's been reported elsewhere that key strokes are logged. Whether it is limited i nature or not, the ability is there and is used.

Why?

What's the need for key strokes to be logged rather than just a complete edited search term sent to a server. Why does anyone need to know which keys I press on my computer?

<comment><USER29> This is how autocomplete works. You progressively type, it progressively adjusts the results so you can stop typing and just select the result you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Microsoft arbitrarily cripples or how it's called in business lingo "market segments" their products. Maybe their marketing felt Windows 10 was too good of a product and needed to make it artificially less desirable? Surely no professional or business user wants to be spied on?

There are a lot of examples in the past too. Arbitrarily limiting 32-bit consumer versions to just 4 GB RAM. Letting just one user having an interactive login in the same time. Not having remote desktop server in consumer versions.

Microsoft, please just make one version of Windows. If you must, make a separate server version. But please stop this segmentation madness.

<comment><USER31> I disagree that the 4GB RAM cap is entirely arbitrary. Guess how many GiB of memory you can address with 32 bits? 4. Now, x86 CPUs have been capable of addressing more memory since the Pentium Pro [1]. But even then, not all motherboard chipsets supported that, probably because back in 1995, RAM was more commonly measured in megabytes, not gigabytes. Then consider that Microsoft discovered that some drivers became unstable when addressing more than 4GiB of RAM.

From a tech support perspective, the decision makes sense. Most target consumers probably aren't going to have enough RAM to hit the limit, but are going to notice and complain when their computers become extra-crashy. I may well have made the same decision.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension)

<comment><USER30> Why are you talking about 1995? Talking about 2005 is more relevant here.

> I disagree that the 4GB RAM cap is entirely arbitrary. Guess how many GiB of > memory you can address with 32 bits? 4.

That's completely irrelevant. You could still simultaneously a lot of processes each taking up to 3 GB RAM individually. All that matters is that different processes and drivers could utilize whole installed physical memory range. 2.5-3.5GB limit was already an issue in Windows XP era, when computers started to commonly have 4GB or more. 32-bit Windows XP could have handled up to 64 GB RAM just fine.

> Then consider that Microsoft discovered that some drivers became unstable > when addressing more than 4GiB of RAM.

I've heard this one often, but never seen any concrete examples of drivers with such problems. What are these drivers actually? What kind of bugs? Say DMA buffers? Well, if the developer was incompetent enough to set 4GB max DMA buffer bit for PCI[e] hardware that can't address 4GB+... All other memory buffers would have mapped behind 32-bit pointers anyways, regardless of where they actually are in physical memory. You seldom deal with direct mapping even in kernel mode drivers.

For example, how about drivers that use PASSIVE_LEVEL functions at DPC or higher? Should they not trigger IRQL is less than equal blue screen as well? Buggy drivers are buggy drivers, period.

> complain when their computers become extra-crashy

Why would their computers be extra crashy? Windows 2003 server versions worked just fine with very much the same drivers without any crashing. Why would Windows XP have been any different?

By the way, I have written Windows kernel mode drivers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Cannot be stopped"

What a crock.

All you have to do is care enough to install a proper gateway firewall that can intercept and block these requests before they leave your network.

Companies will only encroach more and more on your privacy all the while telling you there's nothing wrong and it can't be disabled and that its just a little bit of your privacy [that they're forcibly stealing].

Stop being complicit in it and do something about it. You'll feel much better about everything when you do.

<comment><USER32> I am a developer and pretty computer savvy, but I don't know the first thing about configuring a firewall and I suspect it would be pretty time consuming to even make an attempt at doing so. Regardless of what I did, I would not be confident that I actually blocked everything I needed to. This isn't a reasonable request of pretty much anyone except professional network administrators.

I just made the switch to Linux full time after all this Win10 privacy bullshit. Been Linux full time for 4 months with no problems, never going back to Windows.

<comment><USER23> That's a fair point, but you gotta start somewhere (if you have an interest and an inkling that is) or just give in and let them take what they want.

I started by configuring it to block everything by default and white listing the traffic I wanted to allow. Most systems will log dropped or anomalous traffic so its very easy to work out what traffic needs to be allowed when some new game's multiplayer features don't work as expected. And as an added bonus you learn a lot about networking at the same time, possibly opening up new career opportunities.

It might not be for everyone but if you value your privacy you owe it to yourself to explore your options. I suggest the Sophos UTM if you're just starting off, the UI is very friendly and helpful.

[http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/unified-threat- manageme...](http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/unified-threat- management/demo.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Another reason to never use windows again.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm not trying to start a flame war, but an honest discussion. Two words:

       Satya Nadella

He seems even more tone-deaf than most CEOs, e.g. his comments about women asking for a raise in pay.

So, here's the delicate question: is this cultural? He's originally "not from around here", but he's lived in the USA for at least 25 years.

In contrast, Tim Cook seems to have staked out the opposite ground, i.e. that user privacy matters.

<comment><USER35> I'm not a fan of Satya, but you are trying to start a flame war. This is what Satya is on record saying

"I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it's deserved, Maria's advice was the right advice. If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask."

He also said "[I] Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias"

So you've made a conclusion because he said something that was wrong and silly. I would go as far so say that it's a big leap of faith that you've drawn, or that you're trying to be inflammatory on purpose.

Now it would be more accurate to say that Microsoft is seeing how much money Facebook and Google make from knowing people's secrets.

<comment><USER34> It's not fair to quote Nadella saying "I was inarticulate". That comment only happened after, as Wikipedia puts it, "a strong backlash". Melissa Waggener (a very smart lady who I've met) probably gave him a good talking to.</comment></comment></comment>


YouTube - Shouting in the Datacenter, disk latency and vibration  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4 <comment><AUTHOR> Better move those speakers away from those drives.

I realized that hard drives were sensitive to vibration, but not that they were _this_ sensitive.</comment>


GeoFs – Flight Simulator in the Browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.geo-fs.com/ <comment><USER2> I get an ad covering 70% of screen both landscape and portrait and I can't close it.</comment>


Optimizing Linux with cheap flash drives (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/428584/ <comment><USER2> Also you can add _noatime,nodiratime,discard_ to the options of your fstab config. But if you don't have SATA 3.1 or higher then don't use the _discard_ option but instead add _fstrim <path>_ to a chron job or rc.local. The other options I mentioned turn off recording of access times to files/dirs.

And you can set the noop scheduler using _echo noop > /sys/block/<device e.g. sda>/queue/scheduler_. Whether that's the best option for you depends, but if you have an SSD it might be.

Finally if you're using full disk software encryption, do check if your SSD supports hardware-level encryption instead and if your BIOS allows you to set its key.

<comment><USER3> I've always felt adding things like noatime or relatime was a bit too _hacky_. I'm not sure the actual consequences of access times not being properly recorded are well understood, and that scares me a lot; just exactly which software is actually affected (and how?). I don't use Mutt...but what about Samba? I have several folders shared in my LAN via Samba, with things like Access databases, Excel spreadsheets... could someone elaborate on this?

<comment><USER4> I've been using noatime forever (since 2002 or so) on my laptops/desktops and IIRC also all the servers that I set up myself, and a couple other servers I just checked have relatime (Debian default?), without any issue, although all of those machines only ran software of my choice and thus a relatively limited range.

I even started somewhat relying on atime being the (otherwise non-existant at the time) "inode creation time" when using 'noatime', and was a bit upset when I realized that mounts created with "mount --bind" would lose the noatime setting (an explicit "mount -o remount,noatime" is required on the new mount point).

I also used Samba around 2002, but am not sure whether I used noatime already with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how things have changed since this article? It talks of a big divide between cheap flash drives (USB sticks, SD cards, etc) and 'real' SSDs (e.g. the non-removable 2.5" hard drive replacements).

At the time, all but the worst 'real' (for want of a better word) SSD hard drives had enough local RAM and firmware smarts to do proper I/O ordering, buffering and manipulation. This effectively hides all the complexities of the flash storage, allowing any OS to work well.

The cheap USB sticks and their ilk couldn't do this because of their lack of RAM, decent firmware and all associated money-saving build choices. But as the hardware gets cheaper, I wonder if this is still true? Do USB sticks and SD cards nowadays have more RAM & better firmware?

<comment><USER6> There's been a lot of blurring the lines on the hardware side. There's now a whole category of "portable SSDs" using USB3 to SATA bridge chips to make low to mid-range internal SSDs into external drives. There are also several internal SSD controller designs that can provide far better performance than a typical USB stick even without any external DRAM on the drive.

<comment><USER5> Could you give any links to the newer controller designs, please? The improved performance without DRAM sounds interesting.

<comment><USER6> Silicon Motion's SM2246XT is a 2-channel DRAM-less variant of their SM2246EN 4-channel mainstream SSD controller. The -XT is used in both SanDisk's SSD Plus internal SATA SSD and their Extreme 500 Portable SSD: [http://anandtech.com/show/9847/sandisk- extreme-500-portable-...](http://anandtech.com/show/9847/sandisk- extreme-500-portable-ssd-review)

Phison's new S11 controller is also a DRAM-less design that will be used in low-end internal SATA SSDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was investigating industrial class SD card(need pick one for a product running under harsh environment) and used this content back then, however for all my benchmarks I did not see meaningful performance difference with tuning recommended by him.

</comment><comment><USER8> For coincidence, I was searching for articles on how to optimize a SD card for a Raspberry Pi and I find this one.

My RPI have a somewhat expensive Sandisk Ultra 32GB microSD card, however even them it was still slow to respond on random I/O (like installing a new package in it). I decided to use F2FS instead of ext4, however it didn't do much better: for some reason, the RPI kernel disable the majority of performance enhancements from F2FS by default. You can re-enable them in /etc/fstab, however after a unclear poweroff my filesystem was completely messed up. RPI wouldn't even boot. This is unacceptable.

So I decided to go back to ext4, however try to optimize for flash media. This article put me in the correct way, basically thanks to this part:

> When a filesystem wants to optimize its block allocation to the geometry of > a flash drive, it needs to know the position of the segments on the drive. > On partitioned media, this also implies that each partition is aligned to > the start of a segment, and this is true for all preformatted SD cards and > other media that require special care for segment optimizations.

Searching Google for "aligned partition Raspberry Pi" and I found those articles below that really helped to optimize my SD card performance:

* [https://thelastmaimou.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/optimizing-ar...](https://thelastmaimou.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/optimizing-arch-linux-image-installation-on-the-raspberry-pi/)

* [https://blogofterje.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/optimizing-fs-o...](https://blogofterje.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/optimizing-fs-on-sd-card/)

After aligning my partition, the RPI seems faster and much more similar behavior to a traditional HDD (however, not so fast as a SSD, of course). However, I didn't disable ext4's journal, though, since I want to reduce the chance of getting my filesystem in a unbootable state.

</comment><comment><USER9> Someday maybe we will have small, pocket sized computers with enough RAM to run all our processes with space to spare. There will be no need for swapping. There will be fast recompilation. And no need for shared libraries of functions. Each program will contain only the functions it needs, no added cruft.

Excuse me, I was dreaming. Sometimes I have the most absurd dreams. Hello reality, good to be back.

The SD cards I use in my RPi are always mounted read-only. Not sure why I do that. Stupid I guess.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does this advice also apply to technically 'inferior' TLC NAND SSDs or does it only hold for eMMC drives used in single board computers?</comment>


Lyft, Stripe spend lavishly to kill San Francisco's homelessness relief measure - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2018/10/21/woke-but-cruel.html <comment><USER2> I try not to get my news from sources that call people a "human monster".</comment>


Can We Finally Say: Bye Bye Booth Babes?  - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120210/can-we-finally-say-bye-bye-booth-babes-2/ <comment><USER2> We now enter the age of the "Booth Hag" ;-)

<comment><USER3> Good Old Games had a booth with "booth grandmas" handing out cookies at PAX 2011. [http://geekfeminism.org/2011/08/28/booth-grandmas-at-pax- pri...](http://geekfeminism.org/2011/08/28/booth-grandmas-at-pax-prime-2011/) I'm OK with this :)</comment></comment>


Email vs Facebook Conversion Rates - <AUTHOR> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/email-marketing-software/email-v-facebook-conversion-rates/

<comment><USER2> One trend that the author missed is that retailers are starting to use the Facebook Platform to enhance their own retail site. Companies like Amazon, Blue Nile, and Hallmark are using Facebook Connect to provide their customers with more personalized and social features. This approach makes the most sense since it allows retailers to focus their efforts on improving the experience of their own site, rather than investing time and money into a store that exists within the four walls of Facebook and fragments the online shopping experience.

My company Snapline (<http://www.getsnapline.com>) is helping retailers leverage their shoppers Facebook data to provide a better shopping experience on their retail site through features like personalized product recommendations and gift recommendations. I see these kinds of features becoming much more ubiquitous on retail sites in the next several years.</comment>


Learn Python the Hard Way - <AUTHOR> http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ <comment><USER2> Thank you Zed Shaw.. This is an excellent resource that has helped me to become what I am today.. I started learning Python using this book and he really takes time to ensure the readers understand what they are doing.

It may be too silly for you programmers, but almost every beginner programmers as me would have definitely cam across this resource. This has helped innumberable and I'm sure it will.. Thanks once again.

<comment><USER3> You're welcome. I honestly write the books for people like you, and thankfully the world of programmers and the world of regular people really doesn't intersect much.

<comment><USER4> Thankyou Sir!

I am planning to brush up my SQL knowledge in coming weeks and will read your stuff. Already enjoyed LPTHW

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is interesting that one of the way Zed advocates for learning is to type, (instead of copy and paste), the code into the computer. That reminds me when I was cutting my teeth at my introduction to computers. I would get computer magazines like Compute! and type in the 100s of lines of code that comes with it. Especially the arcade games listing. I think this method also improve my debugging skills as I was tracking down the error (usually I did not type in the code properly or there was a misprint in the magazine).

<comment><USER6> > Zed advocates for learning is to type, (instead of copy and paste)

The copy an paste option is always attractive, as it gives the impression of writing lots code quickly. But I agree with Zed in that it leads to a false premiss of being productive.

Coding is all about typing in code, not copy and pasting code.

It's actually quite hard to type in lots of code without generating compiler errors. But it is quite easy to just copy and paste code without error.

So the copy an paste option leads to a false sense of coding ability.

<comment><USER7> I think the bigger issue is that coding is about knowing what the hell you're doing. Copying a snippet manually forces you, as a side effect, to read the code, and read it more slowly than you otherwise would. You notice the limits of your understanding more quickly, and can try to fill them in.

I didn't learn with Zed's books, but I did (and do) avoid copying and pasting anything I didn't (don't) understand, and would recommend that approach to any newbie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I didn't start with Zed's stuff, but I checked it out when I was interested in Python.

For someone like me, it would have been really fun when I was less experienced. I would have liked the repetitive challenges while I was doing them, because I would have challenged my self to go through them as fast as a I could and gamify it (though it wouldn't have been called gamification back then). It would have got me to memorize things.

His books are different, I appreciate another take on them. I would read and follow along with his books if they fit my needs now. I've recommended him a couple times to people I thought would benefit from that style.

As to his personality, I think most people are jerks sometimes, and not jerks at other times. We all have our issues. :)

Generally, I feel that all the conversations about it much more harmful to the profession than the original instances being discussed.

<comment><USER3> That's a good assessment of the books, and one I put into the introduction. It's weird because what is great for a beginner with zero knowledge is incredibly painful for someone who's experienced. I think that's the key with my book's success and also why a lot of professional programmers seem to completely dislike it. It's also why I'm very honest and upfront about this right in the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you know anything about programming, skip this book. If you don't know anything about programming, also skip this book. It gives you drills without explaining anything. My SO started learning with this book and I could see the book only caused confusion. She completely misunderstood how functions and function invocation work. And his way of teaching boolean logic is to memorize truth tables, wtf?

<comment><USER10> The pedagogy of _Learn Python th Hard Way_ is called 'Direct Instruction'. It has been successful for teaching the very rudiments of diverse subjects. It falls flat once applied to teaching creative intuition or abstract conceptual reasoning. That's why _Learn Python the Hard Way_ is targeted at beginners.

Page 4 of the Shaw-Hanselman interview transcript discusses direct instruction.

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/hanselminutes/hanselminutes_0407.pdf](http://s3.amazonaws.com/hanselminutes/hanselminutes_0407.pdf)

Out of curiosity did your SO learn Python and if so what resources worked particularly well?

<comment><USER9> She is now taking an introductory edX course (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python).

<comment><USER10> Is that the Norvig course where the Python interpreter is in the browser?

<comment><USER9> Nope.

<comment><USER10> I was thinking of his course at Udacity not Edx.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have been waiting for the completion of Learn C the Hard Way for a while, BTW.

<comment><USER3> Me too, man that book has been an epic slog. I've ended up rewriting it like 10 times but finally have a draft off to the publisher for editing. I'm still not totally happy with it, but it's the best I could possibly do.

The latest rewrite emphasizes secure coding and defensive programming practices, algorithms, testing, and how to learn a new programming language, and simply uses C in as safe a way as possible to do that. Hopefully it's effective but I still need to sit with students in IRL classes to test that out better.

<comment><USER12> Are you going to update the online version once you publish the printed version ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Python 2.5.1

Python 2.6.5

no use of context managers when working with files

no use of format when working with text formatting and output

"Avoid any project that mentions "Python 3""

"Every if-statement must have an else"

no list|dict|generator|set comprehensions.

no idiomatic hints

no gotchas.

Definitely a hard way.

Having learnt wrong leads to hard learning to do right.

<comment><USER3> This book is for people who don't know _any_ programming. So let's catalog your claims in that light:

1\. "no use of context managers when working with files" \- I teach files early on, before they even know how to make a block. After my book they can easily learn this.

2\. "no use of format when working with text formatting and output" \- Which format? At the time I was writing this there were what seemed like 10 changes to it and how it worked. The % format syntax works all the time, and it's something found everywhere. Learning it is useful, _and_ doesn't prevent them from using format later.

3\. "Avoid any project that mentions "Python 3"" \- They should, Python 3 is not ready and is simply frustrating. Python 2 is on all of their computers already for many people, so that's the better one for a beginner. Also after learning 2, they can learn 3 if they need, but if they learn 3, they have to learn 2.

3\. "Every if-statement must have an else" \- This is for training their ability to think of the entire set of possible boolean results in an if- statement. It's _also_ the cause of many logic bugs and you should consider it as a good way to check your own logic constructs.

4\. "no list|dict|generator|set comprehensions." \- The book is for beginners who can't even figure out how to run a python script on their own. You think they'll get comprehensions? That's insane. Later they can easily learn this, and I think a theme in your comments is that you think once someone reads one book they are done learning, which is a bizarre idea.

5\. "no idiomatic hints" \- Which idiom would that be? The early Python that's like JavaWithCamelCase or the new Python that's like c_with_underscores? The problem with Python idioms is they warp fairly regularly depending on what's in vogue at the time, so I just teach the simplest thing that seems to be common among all of them. And again, they will whatever "idiom" you think is important later when someone like you who thinks they're important yells at them about it. Brains are not made of stone.

6\. "no gotchas." \-- The book has loads of gotchas, _AND_ I have videos that go with it where I show people the gotchas, _AND_ there's additional problems for them to solve at the end of every exercise, _AND_ I encourage them to break their scripts to see how Python gives them errors.

You would do well to ditch the idea that people cannot relearn things. Maybe this is holding you back as well, and it's simply false. Heroin and smoking are "bad habits". Playing a guitar scale wrong is a "bad habit". Whether you use CamelCase or loads_of_underscores is just easily updated information.

<comment><USER13> 1\. using context manager when working with io has two pros: no need to think about freeing resources, good style.

2\. '{}'.format(). besides, print is a function

3\. python versions you use as a ref in your book were released more than 5 years ago. All major projects have dropped support for them in favor of python 3.3+. Today it is difficult to find a project that doesn't support python3. There's not so much diff between py3.4 and py2.7. What is frustrating?

4\. Occam's razor and K.I.S.S. tell me keep my stack as small as I can. Beginners better learn right principles than "easiness". Show them what's really effective. Programming is 95% mental work, 1% coding, 4% testing/debugging/optimizing. Teacher cannot inject knowledge into student's mind, but he can show the right direction and help make first steps.

5\. comprehensions are idiomatic. context managers are idiomatic. Begin from the beginning. Begin from "import this".

6\. well, yes. Your "they will learn that later" mantra is one of them.

I ditched the idea that learning programming begins with choosing a language and learning its basics. Instead you go learn KISS, DRY, YAGNI, etc., history of programming languages, stateful vs stateless, and learn this by practice, by exercise, just like playing the guitar. You begin with handling the instrument the right way and learning basics of music theory and once you get the idea of pentatonic scale and bebop you can go practice it, not vice versa. Well, you can play bebop in pentatonic and not be aware of what you're doing, but understanding the underlying theory and alternative approaches is the key to learning more complex things and discovering new horizons.

Relearning is a bad habit. Reusing your knowledge and expereince is a good one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having actually used this as a self learning tool, my feelings were mixed. On one hand, I think it's organized and clear. On the other, I found it's drill approach to be ineffective for me.

I think reps are really good for something that uses muscle memory, like shooting 3s or dicing an onion. However, I found for learning programming, I got a lot more mileage out of teaching methods that have set up a solvable problem, point you in the right direction, but leave it to me to create a solution.

</comment><comment><USER15> And still not using python3.X …

<comment><USER16> "A programmer may try to get you to install Python 3 and learn that. Say, "When all of the Python code on your computer is Python 3, then I'll try to learn it." That should keep them busy for about 10 years. I repeat, do not use Python 3. Python 3 is not used very much, and if you learn Python 2 you can easily learn Python 3 when you need it. If you learn Python 3 then you'll still have to learn Python 2 to get anything done. Just learn Python 2 and ignore people saying Python 3 is the future."

I don't think it is useful for a beginner to start with python3.

<comment><USER17> Python 3 is useful for a beginner to start with because they don't have to learn the deprecated cruft that Python 2 preserves for compatibility. If they just learn the Python 3 way of doing things, it generally works in both 2 and 3.

In his explanation of classes he has several paragraphs about old-style vs. new-style classes, ending it with:

      "Just completely ignore the idea of old style versus
      new style classes and assume that Python always requires
      (object) when you make a class. Save your brain power for
      something important."

Python 3 only has new-style classes, so the entire explanation could have been left out, allowing the beginner to, as he recommends, focus on more interesting things.

Another example is his advice, in exercise 11, to avoid the input() function because of its security problems. Python 3 doesn't have that function, so the beginner doesn't have to remember to avoid it.

And of course, there's Unicode, which this book seems to completely ignore. A beginner starting with Python 3 has to learn the "Unicode sandwich" approach[1], which applies very well to Python 2 code as well. But someone starting with Python 2 can easily be confused about the concept (because the language is confused) and will have a hard time getting things to work correctly. For example, the book recommends that people "from another country" set their source encoding to UTF-8 – good luck printing things on Windows.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgHbC6udIqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgHbC6udIqc)

<comment><USER18> I'm from "another country" and I always asumed all the characters that couldn't be printed on screen by Python were cmd.exe's (and powershell) fault for not handling Unicode correctly, not a Python "error" per se.

Also, all my Python sources are set to UTF-8 and I never had any problem in Windows. Notepad.exe gives you the encoding option when you save a file, and every sensible text editor/IDE gives you encoding and line feed options.

So what would be the problem with Zed's tip? Have you ever tried to run a Python script with special characters? The interpreter dies instantly with an encoding error. It's easier to set the encoding to UTF-8 and get the program running than parse the whole thing checking whether you used a special character in the comments -- which shouldn't affect program execution, but hey!. Also, this way you can write meaningful comments in your native language without worrying if it'll kill the interpreter right away.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that the Windows commandline, legacy Windows programs and modern Unix systems all use different encodings, so any particular string of bytes (representing non-ASCII text) will only be correct on one of them.

For example, let's say our Other Country is a Western European country. The encoding for non-Unicode Win32 programs will be Windows-1251 (more or less ISO 8859-1) and the encoding for MS-DOS programs and the commandline will be codepage 850.

In this scenario, this Python 2 program (saved as UTF-8):

      #-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
      print "ångström"

will print the wrong thing – "├Ñngstr├Âm" if you run it from the commandline, and "Ã¥ngström" in a more Windowsy context (e.g. if you're writing it to a file and reading it in Notepad).

To make it correct, you can apply the Unicode sandwich approach:

1) Know the input encoding and decode from that to Unicode.

2) Process the text as Unicode.

3) Know the output encoding and encode into that encoding on output.

In other words, making it a Unicode string will transform the text from whatever encoding you chose to write the file in to whatever encoding your terminal happens to use, so this program will always (if the system is correctly configured) print the right thing:

      #-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
      print u"ångström"

In Python 3, UTF-8 source encoding and Unicode strings are the default, so the correct program becomes simply:

      print("ångström")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Scott Hanselman's great podcast interview with Zed Shaw:

[http://hanselminutes.com/407/learning-code-the-hard-way- with...](http://hanselminutes.com/407/learning-code-the-hard-way-with-zed- shaw)

</comment><comment><USER19> I went through this whole class when it was linked here a couple of months back and really enjoyed it. I'm a self-taught programmer that needed updates on some modern concepts and a refresher on some other stuff, plus a bit of help with Python syntax. If you're like me (or a beginner) it's great. Thanks Zed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have no idea who Zed Shaw is. I've always wanted to know more about Python. Might give it an unbiased read through.

<comment><USER21> If you want to see some really nice python, look at his "lamson" project. It's really nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Loved the "A Warning for the Smarties" part.

</comment><comment><USER23> Ummm, I don't understand all the dislike. For someone with my background, this was absolutely perfect. It's one of the very first things I read when I decided I wanted to learn Python. Fast forward several years, and now writing Python code is what I do for a living. I could not be happier.

I was a violinist, and Zed Shaw's way of teaching the basics completely resonated with me.

Thank you, Zed.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hello Zed. I didn't actually read whole LPTHW, but LCTHW helped me a lot. I recommended LPTHW to some friends of mine, who were interesting in programming but had no experience at all. Few years later and they are doing programming for living. I personally think it's a good source for a newbie to start with. Keep going with your job and thanks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sorry for being OT but I would request Zedshaw to write next book about Go Language.

</comment><comment><USER25> So, is it good or not? :D

<comment><USER26> If you're new to programming, it's pretty good. If you're an experienced programmer looking to pick up python, then it is very slow going and takes a while before it gets anywhere interesting.

Basically it should really be called Learn Programming The Hard Way Using Python

<comment><USER27> But then it will be confusing, people will assume that scripting is the same thing as programming.

<comment><USER28> Probably because scripting is programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So I'm scrolling through this comment section, thinking, "Are we ever going to talk about the book or what?".

This thread is proof that programmer types need their share of celebrity gossip as much as anyone :)

"That Zed Shaw. He's abrasive, but is he too abrasive? Tune in to our panel discussion to find out!"

<comment><USER30> Right? I came to the comment section to post something I found funny in the introduction... but I'm afraid people will get offended by it now.

"If you are reading this book and flipping out at every third sentence because you feel I'm insulting your intelligence, then I have three points of advice for you:

1.Stop reading my book. I didn't write it for you. I wrote it for people who don't already know everything.

2.Empty before you fill. You will have a hard time learning from someone with more knowledge if you already know everything.

3.Go learn Lisp. I hear people who know everything really like Lisp."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow, how come Zed Shaw manages to attract so much hate? I have found his series to be absolutely delightful. Anytime something about him appears on HN I can be sure there will be users with ad hominem attacks like this:

"> is this a joke?

No, just written by Zed Shaw. Honest mistake though."

How about you let go of the hate and embrace some love instead for the work this man has put forth?

LE: For advanced Python you can read his code from the Lamson project. I am sure there are many other coders out there who are just as talented as he is but he takes the time to comment his code and also has a style of clarity so to speak. Thank you Mr. Shaw for your work and thank you to all of the amazing, talented coders out there who gave me confidence and helped me to learn.

<comment><USER32> You should consider if there may be a good reason why he attracts so much hate.

I have found him to be contrarian and rude for the sake of being contrarian and rude.

To me, his behavior represents the worst of the archetypal 'rockstar' programmers I have worked with -- perhaps more skilled than the average, but full of himself, unreasonably mean and impossible to collaborate or work with. I have watched this kind of attitude destroy teams and companies and I prefer not to condone it.

There are plenty of people much more talented than him who are capable of providing feedback without seemingly delighting in being an asshole.

<comment><USER33> Keep on hatin'. Zed's just going to keep writing books that help people, and your impression of him will merely drown beneath the tides of people who benefit from all the work he's put into FOSS & teaching others.

I don't agree w/ Zed on everything, but i have benefitted from his work for literally a decade now: mongrel; his early writing on why programmers should learn statistics; his writings on the types of collaboration/projects programmers are involved in; Learn C The Hard Way; his various talks.

<comment><USER34> It's certainly possible to both be rude and write books that help people. The two behaviors are not mutually exclusive. I think it's completely reasonable to laud Zed for his efforts to teach while questioning his manner.

<comment><USER33> Except this is a post about his book and his teaching? But here we are dedicating all this time to rehashing all this stuff that happened years ago with people who obviously weren't there at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why is this at the top of HN? Didn't the 3rd edition come out ages ago? What exactly is new?

<comment><USER36> HN has a ranking system which differs to reddit etc. You'll be seeing what's "hot" as ranked by the algorithm

[http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574](http://amix.dk/blog/post/19574)

If you're looking for what's popular, check out

[https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ah, Python, the language where you have to learn for in range() before even knowing functions or lists. Just memorize this, we'll explain it later...

<comment><USER37> To be fair, this occurs with most mainstream languages.

I'm pretty sure a beginner has no idea what "public static void main(String[] args)" means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> After reading the Intro and first chapter - is this a joke?

<comment><USER36> Did you read the _whole_ intro?

> Sometimes people who already know a programming language will read this book > and feel I'm insulting them.

<comment><USER38> I saw that part. Still triggered my "maybe and elaborate troll" detector. He doesn't explain _why_ he's doing it this way.

<comment><USER39> You are triggering my "maybe an elaborate troll" detector.

Especially as the GP has already referred to the intro, which you have supposedly already read.

So let me point it out for you again: [http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/intro.html](http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/intro.html)

He goes into great detail arguing why he thinks this is one of the best ways to learn something completely new quickly and efficiently.

<comment><USER38> The first lesson literally consists of "run python interpreter, then quit".

How is this a useful way to approach things? He compares it to learning to play guitar - if my first guitar lesson consisted of "Open your guitar case. Take out the guitar. Put it back.", I'd ask for my money back!

<comment><USER40> I tried teaching my little brother to program using the Ruby version of this book. The lessons were really basic but he still struggled.

If the first lesson in an introductory guitar book was how to properly handle a guitar, I would not be surprised at all. In fact, I know from experience with other instruments that that would be entirely normal.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


[Video] US Marshal goes berserk smashing woman's phone for recording him - <AUTHOR> http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/watch-us-marshal-goes-berserk-smashing-womans-phone-for-recording-him-on-public-sidewalk/

<comment><USER2> I hope she kept the pieces and sends them to a recovery service - it's almost certainly the case that the video is recoverable by suitably skilled people.</comment>


US life expectancy is still on the decline. Here's why - <AUTHOR> https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_65e67b4aefcd9113c002535dd4860497 <comment><USER2> I think may be linked to increased usage of high fructose sugar which makes people more obese. More obesity will lead to heart failures more often.

High fructose is the sugar type which keeps your insulin levels high causing insulin resistance. Sugar it metabolizes to fat.

A Cardiovascular diseases section in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate)

<comment><USER3> Western Europe does agriculture/food-production/food-distribution more or less the same way we do it in the USA right? How have they avoided the dietary changes (like the glut of sugary foods) that we've undergone in America?

<comment><USER4> Europe hasn't avoided the dietary changes occurring in the US, it's just that the effect is less pronounced. European portion sizes are growing as well, but not to the very generous sizes I experienced in the US. There is less added sugar in European food - bread does not generally taste sweet in Europe, but it does in the US (to me anyway). Europe also does not use much (any?) high fructose sugar.

That being said, Europe is not immune to expanding waistlines. The UK is not far behind the US in obesity and overweight population. It is a similar story across the rest of Europe.

I think the key differences is that Europe has avoided the opioid crisis the US is experiencing, and the US suicide rate is also much higher. But other deaths rates, such as from alcohol abuse and obesity, are comparable between the US and the UK.</comment></comment></comment>


Indian scientist Ashoke Sen bags world's biggest prize in physics - <AUTHOR> http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-02/news/33001127_1_indian-scientist-lebedev-physical-institute-nobel-prize

<comment><USER2> The irony in this story is that, before considering a prize, the Nobel committee waits until a discovery is shown to have a connection with reality. It seems such a standard isn't in force for this prize, since string theory, for all its accomplishments in pure mathematics, may turn out to have nothing whatever to do with everyday reality.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/oct/08/research.highe...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/oct/08/research.highereducation)

A quote: "As one scientist put it: 'The uncritical promotion of string theory is now damaging science.'"</comment>


Show HN: Quickmetrics – Simplest way to collect metrics with powerful charting - <AUTHOR> https://app.quickmetrics.io/dashboards/dash_FUMBMflxNeJCAfIs/public <comment><AUTHOR> We're 2 buddies that flew from Vancouver and Paris to Croatia to build a product in 3 hectic weeks that'd solve many pain points for us, so considered it might help some of you as well!

We wanted a dead simple solution to collect metrics and show them in powerful, snappy charts. We benchmarked a bunch of solutions, made our our charts using d3.js (was hella fun) to come out with something we dreamed of

<comment><USER2> Great. Just out of curiosity a tech question, which database are you using in the backend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks very similar to stathat... and more expensive. How is it any different?</comment>


Ask HN: Junior Switzerland developer opportunities for EU citizens? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently in my very late 20s, looking to do a career shift from years spent in corporate IT functions to development. I've encountered a native startup, in the Eastern side of the European Union, who are doing full-time, non-academic programming courses for people of my age. They look promising, start off by quickly building foundations with processor basics, memory handling, i/o, blocking, caches, linux, windows and cloud, algorithms, then move onto technologies and methodologies such as python, agile, UI/UX, git, javascript, HTML, XML, Rest, Json, SQL and noSQL alike. After about 6-7 months they move onto OOP, and the students essentially end up as junior C# or Java developers with adequate knowledge to get internships at local companies (the startup sources you as interns, so no need for job search) who are desperate for proven quick learners. During your work at the IT company, you start paying off tuition fees monthly, at a reasonable rate, with no contract binding you to the company.
My ultimate goal would be to get a quick and focused programming education in a controlled environment (1.5yrs overall for the course), then by end of 2018 to leave for Switzerland. I would pay my tuition fees from there. I have no formal education in IT/CS, and my unfinished university studies were in unrelated fields. I do have several years of experience working in relevant IT positions, however.
How hard is it, for a fluent English speaker and EU citizen, to find junior C# (Unity, Xamarin) developer jobs in Switzerland? I'd prefer smaller canton centers rather than large cities, as I plan to live on a farm. Learning languages is not an issue, although I would prefer French solely based on taste. I would aim for permanent employment in development, sysops/devops/security/hardening.
Are E. Europeans discriminated against? Is it reasonable for one to apply online and do remote interviews? Are relocation packages a thing? <comment><USER2> Another opportunity is Fribourg. IT companies there were historically more open to Eastern Europeans, but you should expect them to be high-tier outsourcing shops.

</comment><comment><USER2> It will be hard. Zurich only issued 17000 long term work permits last year as I remember. Most of that goes to science talent in big mncs like Ciba</comment>


Five Lessons Apple Can Learn From Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://government.zdnet.com/?p=8271

<comment><USER2> This article is actually entirely wrong. :( Amazon, in fact, should be learning about future proofing purchases from Apple, not the other way around. Apple's "you will throw this device away in a year and get a new one" hardware-oriented monetization strategy has caused Apple to /nail/ future proofing.

[http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/19/kindles-drm-rears-its- ug...](http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/19/kindles-drm-rears-its-ugly-head- and-it-is-ugly/)

Amazon's Kindle service provides you with a limited number of downloads for each of your purchases, and there is no obvious way to back up your data. Burn through too many devices and you are out of luck; there isn't even a way to tell how many that magic number is.

Meanwhile, Apple always provides powerful backup and migration mechanisms: you can get a new Mac, plug it into the old one via Firewire, and have it transfer all of your apps and data seamlessly to the new system.

(And yes, I'm "that saurik", and I obviously have no reason to be defending Apple, my sworn enemy ;P. This article is simply jacked up.)

<comment><USER3> Revisiting notes, much later - thanks for the comment. Also, some of the ZDnet comments attribute iPhone 'removed' app problems to API breakage, not deliberate deletion.

"That Saurik" :) [http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the- mobile-...](http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-mobile- application-market/) , <http://cydia.saurik.com/>

P.S. submitted the TUAW link, good piece.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not that I agree with everything in the article, but it's interesting how Amazon's cross-platform distribution mechanism makes it a significantly more attractive option for readers.

</comment><comment><USER4> To first order, Amazon sells content and Apple sells hardware. Folks who sell the former tend to be way, way more platform agnostic than those who sell the latter.

</comment><comment><USER3> _I had a very handy WiFi scanner on my iPhone that I used for identifying dead zones on my network. One day after an iPhone update, the program was no longer on my phone — because Apple deemed WiFi scanner programs as having "mimimum functionality."_

 _I'd paid for that program, but I no longer had access to it — and Apple refused to refund the measly two bucks I paid because it was a purchase over 30 days old.[...]_

The store works like that ? Poof, gone, no refund, if you dare to update firmware ?

 _To be fair, Amazon pulled this stunt with a copy of 1984 (of all things). But unlike Apple, as soon as Amazon became aware of how grossly stupid it was to yank a book off Kindles (and the delicious irony of it being 1984), Jeff Bezos came out with an apology and made an explicit promise not to do it again._

I'd rather they could not do it, period. And that one didn't even involve firmware updates - just a plain yank on the leash ( _their_ 3G link) ...

[I suppose it's a lost cause pointing out that the title is _Nineteen Eighty- Four_ , not _1984_ ? Ah, the time when writers were paid five cents per word ...]

<comment><USER5> It's also fair to point out that while the way that Amazon removed _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ and _Animal Farm_ was maladroit, they didn't have any choice in the matter. In some parts of the Anglosphere, but not the US, their copyrights has lapsed. The company who's copies they pulled didn't have the right to sell them in the US.

This is very different from Apple's [whatever you want to call it] approach to what you can do with a stock i[whatever].

<comment><USER3> Just a late note: if Amazon, or whoever, sold me, by mistake, a pirate copy of some paper book, I'd be rather miffed if one of their employees came into my house and took the book from my shelves.

With electronic devices, the "sellers" are making it normal for them to keep the keys to the house. Sounds more like a rental, with rather uninhibited landlords ...

<comment><USER5> True, but if you were ever under the impression that you were buying Kindle books instead of renting them you weren't paying attention. As of yet, the doctrine of first sale just does not apply.

And that makes sense given the architecture: even if your Kindle could hold every book you "bought", the system still protects you against loss or destruction of that device (or it's inevitable eventual replacement). Given that, the legal liability of Amazon changes a whole lot from the old world where they had no responsibility after shipping it to you.

<comment><USER3> Good points, thanks. I didn't look because I'm not interested in DRM'd files - never "bought" one yet.

Arguably, it may be deceiving the customer to have the buttons say "Buy" instead of "License". The terms are elusive; with a couple of minutes of clicking, I only found this for the paper+ebook "Amazon Upgrade": [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=110749011)

 _You may return a particular Online Book for a full refund within 30 days of your purchase date, provided that you have not accessed more than 20% of its digitized pages._

Interesting.

P.S. Ah, terms for ebooks are under the Kindle hardware (unlike MP3s, etc.) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200399690)

 _[...] Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy [...]. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you [...] you may not sell [...]_

I seem to remember some legal kerfuffles a while ago about resale of boxed software (with the 'first sale' you mentioned). Things don't seem to be going well for "buyers" ... (And I wonder if _that_ is really good for sellers, in the long run.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Prosecution of Aaron: A Response to Orin Kerr - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2013/01/18/the-prosecution-of-aaron-a-response-to-orin-kerr/ <comment><USER2> What exactly is Boyle's argument? He rehashes the now-typical hagiography. Then he seems to argue that should influence legal policy. This is wrong for two reasons. One, the hagiography is factually wrong, no matter how generously anyone uses the word "genius." Two, conclusions about prosecutorial discretion do not follow from it.

We need to distinguish between decisions made before and after Aaron's death. It is totally fair to say that Kerr's blogposts - or my attempts to remind programmers what they thought about Aaron when he was alive - lack "sympathy." But what exactly does Boyle think should have made the prosecutors sympathetic to Aaron when they brought their charges against him? His lawyers' claim that he might be psychologically unstable? His desire for attention from the geek community? His on-and-off friendship with Lessig or Doctorow? His history of writing code as a volunteer? His involvement in a sale of a company to Conde- Nast?

To use my example from another thread, let's say Brian Behlendorf gets arrested for DUI while on the way to a conference to talk about free software. Should we be sympathetic because he gave us the Apache httpd server (something a thousand times - maybe a hundred thousand times - more significant than any code Aaron ever wrote)?

By the by, I do feel like a jerk for not being more "sympathetic" to Aaron now that he is dead. But when the people around you turn your case into a political football and say the government killed you, it is fair game to try to put things into perspective.

<comment><USER3> I think the most substantive part is where he quotes Alex Stamos, the expert witness who planned to testify in Swartz's defense. Stamos provides a strong rebuttal to claims that Kerr seems to take for granted, about the validity of the legal charges against Swartz.

I would very much like to see a detailed response by Kerr to Stamos' argument.

I think this would have been a very interesting trial.

<comment><USER4> If Stamos's blog post was any indication I don't think it would have been much help to Swartz.

I say this only because his points were of the form "It was so easy to get around MIT's weak security that you can hardly call it hacking", but Swartz wasn't charged with "hacking", he was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unauthorized access, etc., and these are not charges that go away just because it was easy to do.

His testimony would certainly have been very helpful if it came to a sentencing phase but during the trial he would have been all but confirming that Aaron did indeed get around the feeble MIT and JSTOR blocks on him, and that's much of what the prosecution would have needed to prove right there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _The implication, it seems clear, is that we should not focus on this one > case, but on broader problems in our legal system. This seems to be a straw > man. I see no one saying "let's only be angry about Aaron Swartz."_

I have noticed several of comments with this "focus on the larger picture" style of criticism here, and frankly I think at this point it amounts to concern trolling. I think this article does a good job of rebutting that sentiment.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. Much as PDR is responding to Kerr's "implicit criticism," Kerr is responding to the implicit focus of the tech world. Much of the response to the situation as focused on three things: 1) firing Ortiz, 2) reforming/repealing the CFAA and 3) open access. Even if the tech community is completely victorious on all three points, the lesson absorbed by authorities will be "don't piss off the tech community when it comes to tech crimes." But when it comes to drug crimes, gang crimes, violent crimes etc (where prosecutors use similar strong-arm tactics on conspiracy, trespassing, etc to force pleas on defendants who may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time), it will be business as usual.

So sure, HN types can go about their lives. No so much for other folks. The larger picture has to be kept in mind. Since so many posts over the last couple of days have focused on comparisons to MLKjr, I'll leave this quote: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

<comment><USER7> _the lesson absorbed by authorities will be "don't piss off the tech community when it comes to tech crimes."_

If that actually happened, that would be a _major_ improvement on the legislative and legal front for _everyone_ in the world, not just tech people.

<comment><USER6> _If that actually happened, that would be a major improvement on the legislative and legal front for everyone in the world, not just tech people._

Doubtful. Right now the lesson is "don't piss off rich people when it comes to financial crimes" and yet not-rich folk still get the short stick in terms of prosecution. The folks with the loudest voices always get listened too, the folks with no voices are ignored.

edit: downvoter, what do you disagree with?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was also disappointed with the Part 2 review Orin Kerr posted. This post by James Boyle touches on areas that should've had more consideration by the prosecutors. When I encountered this next article(excerpt below) on Jan18th, it became obvious, how Ortiz's office used Aaron for their own publicity and name making:

"Last Friday, on the same day that Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, prosecutors from Ortiz's office stood in a Boston courtroom and allowed a former state representative named Stephen "Stat" Smith to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for rigging absentee ballots in three elections. Swartz's lawyers asked for the same consideration, that Swartz be allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Prosecutors refused.

So, given that Ortiz will not explain herself, we'll just have to presume she believes that illegally manipulating the outcome of elections, which are the essence of our democracy, is less serious an offense than downloading an online archive of obscure academic articles." (Excerpt fm article by Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe). [http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/18/taking- heat/L1rfSF47...](http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/18/taking- heat/L1rfSF472wEPsGX5PWfu5I/story.html)

<comment><USER2> I don't know anything about the Smith case, and I am not saying you (and Cullen) are wrong to draw the comparison and ask questions about it.

However, it is very difficult to make this kind of backseat-driver judgment. I'm not arguing that people shouldn't look into it. They should. But different cases are often treated very differently. Perhaps Smith's case would have been harder to prove to a jury. Perhaps he had better procedural objections. It doesn't just come down to how bad anyone thinks the crime is.

<comment><USER8> At least we seem to agree her office should be investigated as to how they handled the case. It's not acceptable to me that they just be allowed to slither away by issuing a press release absolving themselves. My point is his 'alleged' crime was less offensive to the public good, and a misdemeanor conviction in Aaron's case should've met the prosecutors need for a 'crime' such as this (which was nowhere near as offensive as ballot rigging). Why insist on guilty plea to 13 felony counts unless you are being a hardass &trying to build a name for yourself?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Semi-related:

I like reading the Volokh Conspiracy. I disagree with them on at least half of what I read, but their posts and the comments almost always teach me something about the law, and interacting with lawyers, especially when they are wrong, helps take away the halo I seem to hold for them.

And many of them were former hackers, certainly Eugene Volokh got his start that way.

I write this now, because when I have submitted links to HN from the VC, the links seem to go dead pretty quickly, and I think that's a shame, because often what they write about certainly seems well targeted to the hacker community.

That said, regarding Professor Kerr, while I find his posts very informative, I have often detected a weird skew to his analyses.

I am not a lawyer and pretty ignorant and I am certain his analyses are just a zillion times better than anything I could say, but for example, in the Jones GPS case, Professor Kerr was very attached to the raw search and seizure aspects of the case, and seemed to ignore what the implications of his analyses would be in a world of very cheap government installed ALPR devices.

<comment><USER10> I'm a lawyer and I completely agree with you.

In general, I think Prof. Kerr is just a lot more pro law enforcement than I am. I find that he is often very dismissive of the defendant's case. For example, he seems to take for granted that Aaron violated the CFAA. With that being said, I still think he is Volokh's best contributor.

<comment><USER11> Is Kerr being dismissive of the case, or is he stipulating things to make his two points (that prosecutors didn't stretch the CFAA or wire fraud statutes to make a case against Swartz, and that they weren't unusually vindictive with Swartz in negotiating a plea)? It was up to a jury, not Kerr, to decide actual guilt or innocence.

<comment><USER10> >that prosecutors didn't stretch the CFAA or wire fraud statutes to make a case against Swartz, and that they weren't unusually vindictive with Swartz in negotiating a plea

Yes, he was definitely doing that and he was right to. I am not saying he ought to play jury, just address some of the counterarguments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "But prosecutors routinely over-charge as the opening step in a plea > bargaining "

this seems like a problem to me. it puts an overly high burden on the defendant to not only defend his case, but first decrease the "over-charge" to a fair punishment, and THEN continue past that point to the actual defense.

Also, i do believe that context matters. If someone committing a crime is some anarchist taking pleasure in destruction of "anti-establishment", OR, that someone is a contributing member of our society trying to be heard.. no these are not the same crimes in my view. i do believe that such a thing as "good credit" should be taken under serious advisement.

<comment><USER11> Prosecutors charge aggressively for a reason: statistically, most of the accused that they deal with are in fact guilty, and the cost of a jury trial is tremendous. Pundits are fond of wagging a finger at the fact that 9x% of convicted offenders never had a jury trial while overlooking the fact that for the overwhelming majority of those cases, a jury trial would have been pointless. No court system in the world could handle the volume of cases that would result from a majority of charges being heard by a jury.

I submit that the real culprit here isn't misconduct stemming from overcharging, but rather from our careless and illogical sentencing guidelines. Swartz's prosecution could have huffed and puffed all they wanted, but if the facts they had at their disposal supported a maximum of 6-9 months custody even at trial, it would have been a different story.

Instead, Heymann had at his disposal a set of sentencing guidelines that scaled up with "damages", which is a standard that makes no sense in a computer crime case. The difference between $500 and $1000000 in damages in a CFAA case is a number in the middle of a for() loop. This isn't a novel challenge for the criminal code; other offenses have more reasonable sentencing and "aggravation" elements as well. Swartz's sentence should have involved the extent to which his intentions were commercial, how many co- conspirators he roped in, how much of a challenge he made it for the prosecution to investigate him, how much damage he caused, how recklessly that damage was caused. These are familiar elements of criminal and civil cases and could apply in CFAA cases too, had the law been written more carefully.

<comment><USER13> So your argument is, "We cannot afford justice, so injustice is justified."

<comment><USER11> No, that is not at all my argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> wes-exp Kerr's writeup also relies on "pre-crime", heaping punishment on Aaron for something he _might do_ (release the documents publicly), but, crucially, never did.

I do think it's a strong possibility that Aaron intended to do so, but I also have my doubts. There was another instance where Aaron obtained documents en masse but did not "liberate" them: from Westlaw; he contributed to a statistical study on them. The results were published in the Stanford Law Review.

I cringe at the thought of Aaron's life being ruined over guesses about his future behavior.

<comment><USER2> "Crime" often relies on "pre-crime." The legal definition of "burglary" is breaking into a building with an intent to steal or commit another serious crime. Prosecutors have to decide whether they think they can prove "burglary" or can only prove "trespass." The jury decides whether the prosecutor has done so beyond a reasonable doubt.

Aaron never published anything in the Stanford Law Review. The student article in the Stanford Law Review that seems to form the basis of your claim doesn't even credit Aaron.

<comment> wes-exp "While at Stanford, Swartz had worked with a law student to download all the law review articles in the Westlaw database, to map funders of research with research conclusions. The result of that research was published in the Stanford Law Review, and showed a troubling connection between funders and their conclusions. At the time of Aaron's alleged "crime," he was a fellow at my Center at Harvard. The work of the Center? Studying the corruption of academic research (among other institutions) caused by money."

[http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/a-law-for- aaro...](http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/a-law-for-aaron- swartz-20130117)

<comment><USER2> I saw that too and read the Standard Law Review article. He is not credited it in. He may have helped a law student write a Python script, which she then used. The article does mention that a Python script was used to collect some data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's a pity this got posted in the middle of the night when it will receive very few votes. It's a _really_ long piece, it is fairly balanced and makes a few excellent points.

<comment><AUTHOR> It did better than I expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The very nature of the legal system is built on adversary. Each side, in general, works to the maximum overall advantage of their client. There is a bit of discretion available, but in general, expect prosecutors to press for maximum overall enforcement of the laws. This is how it works and how we expect law enforcement to act. The laws were generally put in place by legislators duly elected by their constituents. We expect the executive branch to execute, not legislate. Orin's posts seem to be simply pointing out that this case is business as usual. If we don't like it, this should gravely concern us. This type of prosecution is ho-hum, and not just in matters of technology.

Given that the state always has more resources available than individuals it prosecutes, cases like Aaron's are powerful arguments for a limited government. A real limited government, not the kind that just keeps hands off hackers and turns their arsenal of weapons on another class we care about less. I realize this perspective is completely out of vogue these days, but the fact that governments oppress individuals is an age-old truth that needs to be relearned over and over, it seems.

Asking prosecutors to be "nicer" won't cut it. Nor will firing one and replacing them with another, tasked to enforce the same law. We must remove some of their power, meaning many laws need drastic change or repeal. It's sad that it takes a high profile individual to raise concern when plenty of others have been destroyed before and gone unnoticed.

</comment><comment><USER7> _A reader of Orin's post would likely miss those complexities. Again, the tie does not go to the accused._

That sums up everything I have a problem with in Orin's discussions about Aaron Swartz: he _always_ sides with the government, whenever there is any doubt at all about the facts, the law, or the case. It's anti-Aaron, all the time, in seemingly every possible way Orin could find (without even considering all of the evidence). It makes no sense. Worse, it's dishonest, as the reader is given a _severely_ distorted view of the facts.

I don't know why Orin chose to do that with Aaron; certainly, in others, he's not been reflexively pro-government as a rule. Maybe he just wanted page views, TMZ-style.

Or perhaps it's because the Computer Fraud issue was finally getting press, even though Orin has labored at it for years (without getting any traction at all)? That would explain why he seems so offended that Aaron's "fame" is why people care about Computer Fraud now.

Still, it's sad to see Orin so blinded by someone with "fame" and "friends". I suspect in the years to come that Orin will regret lashing out at Aaron literally days after his death. It just made Orin look petty, and any "fame" he's gained as a result is certainly the wrong kind of fame.

<comment><USER16> Well, he worked for the DoJ computer crime division for three years.

[http://www.law.gwu.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/CV/Orin_Kerr....](http://www.law.gwu.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/CV/Orin_Kerr.pdf) [http://www.justice.gov/careers/legal/jobs/ccips-trial- atty.h...](http://www.justice.gov/careers/legal/jobs/ccips-trial-atty.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > If we think [Aaron] was treated poorly, we should realize we are condemning > the system as a whole, not just the treatment of Aaron, and we should beware > of special pleading for this famous person and friend of the famous; our > concern should go equally to the unknown, poor and poorly represented > person.

<comment><USER18> > To the extent that Aaron couldn't live even with the possibility of the > penalties that he might have received at the end of the day, then maybe he > should not have been committing acts of civil disobedience in the first > place.

<comment><USER19> That would make sense if anyone could possibly understand the penalties.

It's like saying don't jaywalk if you aren't ready for felony charges that might get applied. I mean the only law you really broke was jaywalking, but then you are charged with 9 counts of wire fraud because you wore a different outfit each day -- obviously changing your appearance was fraudulent.

<comment><USER4> It would be like that if no one knew that jaywalking carried felony charges, but it's not as if CFAA is a new law, or that there haven't been at least a dozen or so other famous hackers fall afoul of it. Given that aaronsw seemed to know pg, it would stand to reason that he'd at least heard of rtm, (convicted under CFAA and also a Y Combinator co-founder).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This post made me emotional about his death. I really hope people read this to understand what a wonderful person Aaron was.

</comment><comment><USER21> While I agree with the response in that Kerr has presented an overly condenatory view not necessarily warranted by existing evidence, I have a feeling that Kerr was trying to compensate for the huge amount of pro Aaron noise. Noise that is, likewise, overly simplistic and dismissive of laws and existing evidence.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thank you for posting this.</comment>


IronFleet: Proving Practical Distributed Systems Correct - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=255833 <comment><AUTHOR> A few interesting links:

* MSR blog post reporting on this research: [http://blogs.technet.com/b/inside_microsoft_research/archive...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/inside_microsoft_research/archive/2015/10/01/bug-free-software-ironfleet-microsoft-researchers.aspx)

* The full publication is available here [pdf]: [http://sigops.org/sosp/sosp15/current/2015-Monterey/250-hawb...](http://sigops.org/sosp/sosp15/current/2015-Monterey/250-hawblitzel-online.pdf)

* Experimental IronFleet code: [https://github.com/Microsoft/Ironclad](https://github.com/Microsoft/Ironclad)

* Ironclad resources: [http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/ironclad/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/ironclad/)

* Previous HN discussion on Ironclad Apps: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8640656)</comment>


Rubinius, Inc. – A Benefit Company - <AUTHOR> http://rubini.us/2015/10/27/rubinius-inc-a-benefit-company/ <comment><USER2> I feel bringing concurrency to Ruby (what Rubinius is trying to do) is going to be harder than bringing Ruby to concurrency (what Elixir is trying to do). Adding Ruby-like syntax on top of fundamentals like functional programming, immutability, etc (which are naturally suited for concurrency) sounds like a better approach to me. Would love to hear others' opinion.

<comment><USER3> Exilir is exactly the better approach, sadly worse is better, so rubinius is the approach that will get the most adoption.

(Unless exilir compatibility with rails approaches that of rubinius)

<comment><USER4> Will it? My knee-jerk reaction to this was that Elixir already has more adoption than Rubinius, but then I stopped paying attention to Rubinius years ago. Do people use it for real stuff?

<comment><USER5> I agree.

Elixir is already being pickup up for real projects but I feel like Rubinius has only ever been a play thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm interested to see how Brian will approach a business model built on open source. The most common ways to do it (selling a "pro" version of software that is closed source, running a hosted version, or selling support) all fall short for me in various ways. I'd love to see an approach that maintains the user's privacy and control.

<comment><USER7> Slightly related, the Phusion guys (who made Passenger) did a keynote at OSCON today on that very topic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpyRlaWmZg4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpyRlaWmZg4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does a benefit company affect things like funding? Or acquisition if the time comes?

<comment><USER9> The description here is pretty good: [http://benefitcorp.net](http://benefitcorp.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's too bad they didn't choose to pursue the full on B Corp Certification. In many jurisdictions, benefit corp is just a box you tick.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if the IBM Method JIT CRuby replacement will get any concurrency features.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Open source is the future

Open source is great, and it has its place. But it's not _the future_. Healthy competition drives innovation behind closed doors, and people should be allowed to profit from their own work without giving it away for free.

<comment><USER6> Though it may often be, open source software does not have to be free of cost. As the FSF says: free as freedom, not free as in beer.

<comment><USER13> That's true, but not enough--you have to explain how that enables a revenue model for a modern company. How many companies make money selling open source software (not support, not feature development, not proprietary forks based on copyright assignment) without using the Red Hat model?

The FSF point about charging for distribution seems to be mostly an artifact of the time before software distribution was commoditized/made free.

(Same goes for SteveKlabnik below).

<comment><USER14> There are any number of ways to get paid for your labour as a hacker.

1\. Charge for running the service. 2\. Take a cut of transactions over the service. 3\. Charge for feature additions. 4\. Charge for installation/configuration/support/maintainance. 5\. Patreon-style support (including Patreon). 6\. Sell physical media & merchandise (don't laugh, ask a band).

etc.

Now, about how proprietary software companies can ever hope to compete with Google even if they don't lose all their revenue to piracy...

<comment><USER15> Most of those aren't getting paid for your labor as a hacker, which is to say, a programmer. They're getting paid for support, for ops, for server time -- number 3 is the only one that directly pertains to writing code. So you can monetize ancilliary activities, but the act of giving source code away for free devalues the act of actually writing source code and makes it difficult to monetize the writing of source code itself, not the ancilliaries.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Eavesdropping Smartphone Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/08/eavesdropping_s.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought several commenters claiming out that Google has intentionally crippled android security for their own benefit (ads and or mining) was interesting.</comment>


The Art of Momentum: Why Your Ideas Need Speed - <AUTHOR> http://the99percent.com/tips/6815/The-Art-of-Momentum-Why-Your-Ideas-Need-Speed <comment><USER2> Semi-unrelated, but I listened to the audiobook version of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks, and it's a very nice book. The audiobook version, specifically, is better, because it's narrated by the author, as far as I can tell, and his narration is as wonderful as his writing. Highly recommended.</comment>


Show HN: Curated List of CSS Frameworks - <AUTHOR> http://www.cssreflex.com/css-frameworks/ <comment><USER2> No Semantic-UI? ([http://semantic-ui.com/](http://semantic-ui.com/)) I haven't used directly but was thinking about experimenting with it based on the docs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Woah thanks for including Picnic CSS! However, 67 css frameworks still seems a bit into the _high_ numbers, considering many of those do similar things.</comment>


Allen's Interval Algebra - <AUTHOR> http://www.ics.uci.edu/~alspaugh/cls/shr/allen.html <comment><USER2> Awesome... I found this on December 17th:

[https://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/ponderthis/challenges/Jan...](https://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/ponderthis/challenges/January2001.html)

I can't remember if I stumbled upon that from HN or not, but it's a neat little problem to think about, and seems like it would have been nice to see Allen's algebra at the time.</comment>


Ask HN: We're spliting our team. Any advice? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN !
We had the chance to be accepted in a foreign incubator, but we can't all move there, we have to split the team.
As it will be a transcontinental split, with 6 hours of time difference, some things we took for granted will now become complicated.
How can we prepare best ? Do you have any experience/advices to share ?
Also, we are quite concerned by security issues. Any recommendations here will be also welcome. <comment><USER2> Congrats, awesome and scary all at the same time.

From having worked with distributed teams for quite a long time, including major time differences (11.5hrs) here are my suggestions.

1) If you have the ability switch your working day to match, sometimes this is doable for a short time, other times it isn't because of clients, calls etc. But in the end, it is one of the "easiest" ways.

2) No matter what, make sure you overlap schedules by 3 hours or so with at least 1 person on each side that has broad knowledge and capabilities.

3) I know this seems obvious, but agree before hand that either side will wake up the other only if absolutely necessary. It seems obvious but when you have made multiple calls back to back over a couple of days waking someone, having discussed it ahead of time helps keep cooler heads.

4) Communicate everything in person before the team leaves, even stuff that you think is too simple/stupid to bring up or mention. It is amazing how doing this really clears up everyones view. I would also communicate every persons specific area of responsibility, not that you won't collaborate or have everyone chip in, but if you have a defined area people seem to feel comfortable knowing who has what and it doesn't create the situation where I'll just do X because I don't know who is taking care of it and I can't call Susie cause she is sleeping etc.

5) Have an end of day status email from each team.

6) During the time overlap period, get on Skype or some sort of face-to-face communication, even if it is just to bullshit or give someone shit for fun. This isn't critical but I found for teams that were originally all together and start working apart it helps keep everyone connected personally too. To your point this helps in the things you take for granted. Of course, some of this depends on how long you all have been together and how long you all have known each other.

For security, that is kind of broad, not sure what you are worried about securing. If the team needs access to things back in the home office/datacenter then setting up a simple VPN is probably the best & most secure answer. Documents that you have to send back and forth, email is likely fine for 99% of things, or use a drop folder through the VPN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your kind and complete answer. Awesome and scary is exactly what we're feeling now. The end-of-day status email is a really nice advice.

<comment><USER2> Your welcome and good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Read up on Conway's Law[0], and think about dividing your project into two semi-independent portions (one for each side of the team.) I worked at a company with two locations in different time zones and keeping everyone informed of everything would have been a nightmare.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)</comment>


URL shortener speed and reliability shootout - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/08/18/url-shortener-speed-and-reliability-shootout/ <comment><AUTHOR> So, tr.im is slow and unrealiable. Not so much about Twitter and bit.ly alliance after-all.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wouldn't put too much stock in the results. Tr.im had that intentional downtime, but more importantly, ls.gd is down right now for me (may change later):

<http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ls.gd>

I'd stick with bit.ly or ow.ly. Also, there's u.nu, which has a nice gimmick if you really need shortness. It wasn't included in the results.

<comment><USER3> Ls.gd? It's down, yes, but is.gd is up <http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/is.gd></comment></comment>