Show HN: Security and Docker: tips and tricks - <AUTHOR> https://made2591.github.io/posts/docker-security <comment><USER2> There is Docker Bench for security that helps you get a quick overview for your system: [https://github.com/docker/docker-bench- security](https://github.com/docker/docker-bench-security)

If you compare with LXD security on Docker is just sad...

Have fun hitting strange bugs: multi-stage builds break when you use user- namespaces: [https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/34645](https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/34645)

Using USER has some interesting side effects like no more access to /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr

Using apparmor profiles does not do what you think it would do (i.e. disallowing access outside of image-fs) it's rather a few rules to prevent access to certain /proc things.

But you can do this: [https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/apparmor/](https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/apparmor/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed reading your blog post and the points you've mentioned are really important, for example suid bit is something that is not obvious at all.

If you'll ever get to writing similar guide for Kubernetes, ping me and I'd be happy to make it a guest blog post at gravitational.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! A friend of mine also noticed that I forgot to speak about —userns! I should fix it in the next days hopefully

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Consider updating color schema, the gray code is unreadable on ipad

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have a plan to do it ASAP - you're definetly right :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does your site have no scrollbar? I know its a small thing, but it looks so clean...

</comment><comment><USER6> Great stuff. Kudos for the content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much!</comment></comment>


Win customers and improve products with HTML prototypes - <AUTHOR> http://digintent.com/prototyping-in-html.html Why HTML prototypes can improve customer development and lead to better products. Includes a demo HTML prototype with some good pointers for improving workflow. <comment><USER2> I think HTML prototypes are vital to the success of a web app. That said there is a true danger with an HTML prototype that looks too good. Customers often have a difficulty understanding that this is a mockup and it doesn't work. Non savvy customers think it looks like it works even though the guts of the application which takes up the bulk of the development time hasn't even begun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree - other than relevant images (the shoes, in this example) we try to avoid using much in the way of color, icons or other design. We use variations of gray shading, unstyled buttons, Helvetica across the board.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't been able to convince ourselves to use Comic Sans though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree that customers don't always understand why it doesn't work when an HTML prototype looks too good. However, I think that's more of a project management issue than anything else. Presenting it properly can help customers understand what they're doing... and then they love that they can test usability and flow before it's too late to change without a change order.

</comment><comment><USER4> Shameless plug: I'm working on a HTML5-based high fidelity mockup tool called jMockups [1], which is intended to be an alternative to Photoshop and HTML for creating website mockups.

You can't link the mockups together yet and its still a bit buggy, but long term I want to make it effortless for even the most design-challenged developer to design beautiful websites.

Let me know what you think: email@example.com.

[1] <http://www.jmockups.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty slick man. Nice work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do you use Boks (<http://toki-woki.net/p/Boks/>) with your Blueprint CSS framework? I've found Boks to be a great way to bring some of the benefits of mockups to HTML prototyping. I still start from pen and paper first, because I find that I have to know what I'm going to put into Boks.

(I'm a developer, not a designer, but I've found myself doing more front-end work recently for myself and clients)

<comment><AUTHOR> Never have - looks interesting though. We'll have to try it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Prototypes shouldn't be in HTML.

Edit: Clarification, when using "prototypes" with clients I pretty much always mean mock-ups. Try not to write code unless you have to.

</comment><comment><USER7> Easily showing the client different states of a page was something I was missing the last time I used this technique. So I created a small jquery- plugin, demo here: <http://thinkcreate.github.com/jquery_protoparts/index.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very clever. Thanks for suggesting - we'll have to try that soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Axure RP <http://www.axure.com/> also generates some pretty sexy HTML prototypes ... all completely self contained and renderable in any browser.

Has helped make every app I've ever done for a client involving it, go really smoothly.

</comment><comment><USER9> HTML prototypes are good for web applications but not so much for marketing type websites. I use HTML prototypes as a tool for getting the initial set of requirements and setting some scope.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree - we primarily do product development, so it's usually relevant for us. I will say we've implemented HTML prototypes for checkout processes in the past with some success as well.

Can you elaborate on how you've used them to set scope?</comment></comment>


How the Profound Changes in Economics Make Left versus Right Debates Irrelevant - <AUTHOR> http://evonomics.com/the-deep-and-profound-changes-in-economics-thinking/ <comment><USER2> Oy. Just reverse what this article says. Traditional economics (on the left esp) was HIGHLY concerned with network effects - railway and electric power monopolies etc, and eventually closely controlled them. But we aren't as smart as our great-grandfathers, so we've let public utilities (such as Facebook) and network-effect and lock-in monopolies (too many to name) run absolute riot.

It's an old term, "Railway network," and it means what it says. The Sherman Antitrust Act was used, for example, in 1904 to dissolve the Northern Securities Company (a railroad holding company). They knew well how pernicious network effects could be, from experience. We're just catching up.

</comment><comment><USER3> This sounds like more Keynesian style delusion to justify the elitism of central economic planners. For instance the comment about economists 'realising' that individuals are not perfectly rational and markets are not perfectly efficient is a classic Keynesian misunderstanding of the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which says that markets approach efficiency, and the individuals that shape markets approach rationality, over time. The theory is a logical extrapolation of the effect of evolutionary processes on market behavior.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would like to see agent-based models of protective tariffs.

Free Trade has been US policy post WWII. But the US had its best growth rates in the 1800s and early 1900s with high protective tariffs.

Lets see what agent-based models predict.

</comment><comment> norea-armozel This sort of reminds me of some essays from LvMi so it's weird how conclusions can vary with similar assumptions about the economy. But it's still an interesting read.</comment>


The Language Barrier Is About to Fall - T-A http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-language-barrier-is-about-to-fall-1454077968 <comment><AUTHOR> If it's anything like some translation tools I don't think it's going to come anytime soon. Most translation tools cannot even translate romance languages correctly.

</comment><comment><USER2> I hope so. The current language translation tools are pretty terrible, especially for non-romance languages.</comment>


OAuth 2.0 and the Road to Hell - <AUTHOR> http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/ <comment><USER2> It saddens me to see OAuth 2.0 in this state. As someone who's made really minor contributions to 2.0 (and thus listed as a contributor in the spec), I have been really looking forward to it being finished and ready for production use (where production use means no more drafts). I stopped following the mailing list last year because most of the threads seemed all too familiar or out of my realm of knowledge to contribute (read: enterprisey).

I run a 1.0a service provider and write clients against it. I'm thinking about wading through the current 2.0 draft, picking out the relevant parts to small startups with an API, and publishing a post about how to implement the sane parts of the 2.0 spec.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that would be great, as I'm not sure there are any good docs on writing a OAuth provider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having written client code for multiple OAuth2 implementations, I can tell you: it's a total clusterf$%k, and for exactly the reasons Eran outlines: the oauth spec is a giant ball of design-by-committee compromise and feels _exactly_ like the disaster that is XML web services and it's technologies.

We would be better far off it a single company/dictator (like, shudder, facebook) came up with a simple, competently designed one page authentication mechanism, provided some libraries in the popular languages and we all just went with that.

<comment><USER5> The earlier drafts were much more like that. They were largely a collaboration between a few web companies who had deployed OAuth 1.0 with Dick Hardt who had written WRAP at Microsoft. One of the major design goals was producing a protocol simple enough that client developers would not have to use libraries.

I was pretty happy with this result since we could write a simple page like [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/server-s...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/server- side/) which conformed to the spec ([http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf- oauth-v2-12#section-4....](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf- oauth-v2-12#section-4.1)) and was an easy to implement explanation of authenticating a user.

But the OAuth 2.0 spec we were working off of is now eighteen months old and as Eran said the vast majority of those contributors have drifted away from the effort over this past year :-\

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've worked on standards committees off and on for many years, and his experience seems typical of the issues that crop up. There are many problems with standards groups and the way that they work.

One major one is that, often, the participants come from different areas with different perspectives and visions of the outcome. Since participants rarely go to work with a firm set of agreed upon requirements or use cases, it leaves each member room to craft their own understandings of the goals. I've seen way too many working groups attempt to create a 'master' spec that takes into account all possibilities. Or, alternatively, clusters of people form from similar problem domains, and powerful clusters can take the work off course.

A second major problem is that there often is a lack of real user participants. Standards work is as close to the dullest engineering work one can get. Worse, it seems to attract certain types of engineers that love building specifications. Because of this, usually the real users flee immediately. This usually leaves a body of over-educated, overly-technical people to argue a lot over sometimes irrelevant details. Those types of people are definitely necessary for the standard to work in the end. But, because the real users flee, their influence is usually unchecked.

A third reason is that working groups rarely seem to use iterative and incremental life cycles. There's rarely any working code, often little V&V, and participants and users often can't experiment with their ideas. As we know, what's good in theory, sometimes doesn't work well in practice.

I think there are systematic reasons much standards work fails. The 'design- by-committee' outcomes arise from 1) lack of firm use cases to bound the work, 2) dissimilarity between participants, 3) lack of real user participants, 4) lack of iterative / incremental cycles.

<comment><USER7> If I were ever involved in a standards process, my gut feeling is that I'd want working code for all serious proposals. Does that seem feasible?

Perhaps the WG would produce a set of use-case prototypes which proposals are built on.

<comment><USER8> Or at least require each and every voting member to implement the standard in a freely chosen programming language. On second thought... Might not work so good for large standards as HTML5 though, writing your own parser, renderer and layouter :)

<comment><USER9> Or maybe only browser makers should be deciding what HTML is?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect> strikes again?

<comment><USER11> This is simply brilliant.

It's fascinating.

I sometimes think that these people who puch for the "second system" really have no idea the problems they are bringing about. That is, it is innocent.

Hate me for saying so, but there are just a lot of people working in software who lack a sense of wisdom. Folks like Fred Brooks who can see the madness are few and far between. Even rarer are those who both see the stupidity _and_ take action to stop it.

<comment><USER12> I think there's a "human factors" problem in action with second systems. The first system needs to be allowed to age before the second one becomes worthwhile - simply because more understanding will exist of both the problem domain, and how it was solved before.

And if it's different people doing the second one, watch out.

<comment><USER13> The first generation of a technology is fueled by necessity. It's often a tiny project with only a few guys, and they portray it as "hey, I made this thing, if you wanna use it too, cool"

The second generation is often fueled by things which were lacking or missing in the first version. At this point, the first generation is widely adopted, and now everybody and their brother wants their say in it.

Design by committee is bad. Design by brainstorm is good. Formality breaks everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hang on a minute, from where I'm standing as a client developer OAuth 2 is much better than OAuth 1.

Firstly, reducing the burden of tricky and unnecessary crypto code on the client is useful.

Secondly, some of the article's points don't even make sense, like saying tokens are necessarily unbounded, which isn't true. The issuer can easily include the client_id in the token and check for its revocation when used, as it did in OAuth 1. The same is true for self-encoding: clients don't have to issue self-encoded tokens and can instead issue unique id-style tokens with long expiry times. As for refresh, that's unfortunate but issuers could easily work around it if the OAuth 1 way was preferable.

In short, OAuth 2 is simpler to implement for the client in exchange for being slightly harder on the issuer, whilst also being more flexible. Yes, it relies on SSL for security. So does your bank.

<comment><USER14> Tricky and unnecessary crypto code: you mean HMAC, or something else? I've written code for Amazon EC2 that used HMAC and it wasn't too bad, and I'm now trying to evaluate whether to use OAuth 2, OAuth 1 or something else. Is there other cryptographic coding in OAuth 1 apart from the HMAC signature?

<comment><USER15> No, the HMAC-SHA1 signature is the only crypto needed in OAuth 1.

<comment><USER16> Like literally every programming language should have an implementation of HMAC-SHA1 around and lacking that, at least a SHA1 implementation. It's pretty trivial to build HMAC-<HASHFUNCTION> if you have <HASHFUNCTION> around. A working python implementation is literally 12 lines long.

Now if you don't have a SHA1 implementation in your programming language, that's a different problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand any of this. Microsoft develops and publishes 'protocols' (used lightly) and everyone hates them because they are pushing workable code out on everyone else...

Bunch of people in a committee take three years trying to build the security token system to end all security token systems and have yet anything to show for it and we are sad?

Why are people trying to do this anyway? oAuth is just an idea. Hey here's a really good way to handle things and if you do it this way it has some really great benefits.

Why aren't these things like javascript frameworks where everyone has an idea. I don't think it's practical that every sdk and framework will use one security system that was agreed upon. It's just not going to happen. Everyone has unique requirements.

I think he's just upset that more people have concerns and needs and nobody can compromise to solve all of them. Well yeah. Naturally. They wouldn't be needs if people could just overlook them for someone else's idea on how to do it. They would just be problems people are looking for someone else to solve.

<comment><USER18> " _I don't understand any of this. Microsoft develops and publishes 'protocols' (used lightly) and everyone hates them because they are pushing workable code out on everyone else..._ "

Have you ever tried to write an interoperable authentication system using Active Directory? I'm particularly thinking of the UDP LDAP query and the multiple-byte-order (little-endian _and_ big-endian!) response.

" _Hey here's a really good way to handle things and if you do it this way it has some really great benefits._ "

Because it doesn't really work unless _everybody_ does it the same way.

<comment><USER17> _Have you ever tried to write an interoperable authentication system using Active Directory? I'm particularly thinking of the UDP LDAP query and the multiple-byte-order (little-endian and big-endian!) response._

That doesn't disprove my point. Just because you don't like their approach doesn't mean they don't get points for having an approach. So far oAuth is vaporware and not consistent in almost every implementation yet still effective because it's just an idea.

 _Because it doesn't really work unless everybody does it the same way._

I disagree. It's not hard to adapt to using oAuth+Twists for a given provider. It's not like it's some secret handshake nobody knows and you can't get into the cult meeting. It's just signing data and exchanging tokens. We don't need a universal standard. We need a universal understanding of the problem we are trying to accomplish and various recommendations for how you might solve it. I think the work on oAuth is already complete.

<comment><USER18> " _It's not hard to adapt to using oAuth+Twists_ _for a given provider_ _._ "

I'm not sure, but I suspect that might actually be my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We at Zapier have seen it all when it comes to API's. IMO, the biggest poison around OAuth are options. Optional grant types, various refresh token options, miscellaneous state and scope options, etc...

What is the point of a standard that cannot be implemented the same way twice? It's insane.

That said, most smaller vendors stick to the sane bits, its the big guys like Intuit or Microsoft that over-engineer their auth and pull out every fiddly feature in the spec.

</comment><comment><USER20> > With very little effort, pretty much anything can be called OAuth 2.0 > compliant.

This was both a sigh of relief but also slightly horrifying when I was working on an oauth2 server in Node. It encourages a lazy "implement the parts we care about and that are required, and take shortcuts for unspecified things." I thought the separation of access tokens and refresh tokens was wrong because once you're just giving the client an encrypted string to avoid certain DB lookups later you can put whatever data you want in it (the spec doesn't care) including managing refreshes, revokes, etc. I like the idea of expiring tokens of course, but it would simplify the client significantly to just replace the currently used token with a new token issued by the server if one is returned. I recall the 'standard' flow is "request with access token, fail, request new access token with refresh token if you have one, maybe succeed, maybe get a new refresh token, if succeed request with new access token". Having the access token manage the data to refresh itself is simpler. I'd agree it's bad that token security is reduced to cookie security by default, really the whole rant is spot-on.

</comment><comment><USER21> Might OAuth WRAP make a comeback? Bret Taylor wrote about it years ago as a simpler approach:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lDQVFky...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lDQVFkyw- LcJ:backchannel.org/blog/oauth-wrap-friendfeed)

(his blog seems to be defunct, hope that's not permanent)

Seems like OAuth WRAP has been officially deprecated in favor of OAuth2.0 but given these issues...

</comment><comment><USER22> Yes, this is sad. And it happens all the time.

Exactly the same thing happened to the whole Semantic Web effort at W3C. It basically got overtaken by enterprise and now it is of little interest or use to regular web developers.

<comment><USER23> No.

The W3C semantic web efforts were run by academics, and were never of interest to enterprise OR to web developers.

<comment><USER22> Yes, academics too. Also I am seeing lots of very loud enterprise software people around those standards. Yes, those are very small enterprise software companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> somewhat, shocking. i guess i'll be moving away from Oauth, feels like a relief and scary at the same time. what are some good alternatives?

<comment><USER25> there are no popular alternatives. Either you are super smart and design one from scratch… or you stick with OAuth and hope that some of the addressed problems will be resolved.

<comment><USER26> We need an open open-auth for the proleteriat by the proletariat!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > The enterprise community was looking for a framework they can use with > minimal changes to their existing systems, and for some, _a new source of > revenues through customization_.

That right there is what killed OAuth 2.0. From day 1 these members didn't have the specification as the highest priority. They were only thinking of how the specification could serve their own ends. This isn't unique to the enterprise world, but that mindset has more than its fair share. The web community represented the group that put the specification as it's highest priority. When the specification was perverted, they left.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interestingly I am developing a single-signon provider as we speak, and I chose OAuth 1.0. I did it mainly because the libraries (jersey-oauth in my case) seemed more mature for 1.0, and the fact that 1.0 is a standard, whilst 2.0 is a draft at the moment.

I do realize that it's slightly more complicated for the client developer, but all things considered I think documenting my API in the best possible way will outweigh the perceived disadvantages.

</comment><comment><USER29> Something similar is happening to HTML5 in the W3C: <http://blog.whatwg.org/html-and-html5>

</comment><comment><USER30> I witnessed one guy implement an OAuth 2.0 provider completely wrong (he was accepting user credentials as client credentials, or something similar.) This guy was smart, and just couldn't understand the spec.

Upon reading the spec, it seemed that OAuth2 is really just some rough guidelines. Pick and choose what you need for the particular flow you're implementing.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'd love to see OAuth 2.0 forked into a version that takes into account Eran's comments. It's be nice if the forked version explicitly mention that it will not make any compromises to support the enterprise and that the burden is on the enterprise to support the ways the internet works.

If the enterprise world wants a standard, let them make their own.

</comment><comment><USER32> Design by committee fails again.

Maybe next time it'll work!

<comment><USER13> We should form a committee to discuss how to fix design by committee. Sound good?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Heh, why not form another committee with just the web guys and without the enterprise guys and create your own OAuth 2.0? You'll get something done before the enterprise guys and they'll be inclined to use your working protocol.

</comment><comment><USER34> What does WS-* mean?

<comment><USER35> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_service_specificati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_service_specifications)

In short, it's collective name for many Web Services specifications that are still heavily in use in "enterprise" world. It's a mess.

<comment><USER36> WS-* is big because it solves many, many problems. It's also big in the chatty sense because it's XML-based.

That does not make it a mess.

WS-Trust, WS-Federation etc. have _already solved_ problems that OAuth 2.0 attempts to solve, which doesn't make it bad, as Eran states. Bad is subjective.

Whether someone chooses to use it or not depends entirely on the requirement. Choice is good.

<comment><USER37> Choice is often not good. Consider these:

\- Choice in plug type for electrical devices \- Choice in power adapter connection for cell phones \- Choice of driving on the left side or the right side of the road \- Choice of location for the brake pedal in your car.

Most anything that is used to _interface_ two items, as is oAuth, is better with fewer choices. Choices increase complexity and cost for both sides of the connection and reduce the number of solutions that are compatible. However, for some reason this fact is often lost on technologists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> just been reading about the debacle with xml and w3c snd this whole oAuth business sounds like it's heading down the same path. Seems like the browser vendors had the ultimate say when it came to html. in terms of oAuth i wonder where the ultimate power lies because those would be the factions that need to do something right now to deal with this mess.

</comment><comment><USER39> What was the supposed purpose for oath 2.0?

<comment><USER40> I would have been happy with things the same but simply a better "two legged" version to allow better interoperability with trusted services from native apps. Having oAuth 1 kinda bound to the browser has been a minor headache for my team. But for the most part I think oAauth 1 works well. It just needs some official specifications for usage in non-web apps to put an end to all of the inconsistent solutions that people are creating out of necessity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Again it's very hard to read the small grey text on white background.

<comment><USER41> The CSS is actually using "dimGrey" for text. DIM! Ironic

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> pluginitis strikes again</comment>


No One Really Knows How Much the UK's Surveillance Plan Will Cost - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/no-one-really-knows-how-much-the-uks-surveillance-plan-will-cost <comment><USER2> I am fairly certain that it doesn't matter since the NSA will foot the bill.

In any case, cost is not an argument against mass surveillance.</comment>


Show HN: Introducing Fimmia for students - <AUTHOR> https://www.fimmia.com <comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to provide feedback.</comment>


The CIO's Guide to Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Development - <AUTHOR> This blog post is more about managing the transition to cloud-native architecture and paradigms using technologies like Kubernetes.
There are also interesting short stories from Netflix, Airbnb' and Spotify experiences in migrating their workloads to Kubernetes and some failure stories.
https://thechief.io/c/editorial/the-cios-guide-to-kubernetes-and-eventual-transition-to-cloud-native-development/
I'm interested in reading more about other Kubernetes migration stories (success and failure), if you have any good links, please share them. <comment><USER2> One nit: I wanted to cite your post in KubeWeekly, but the publication date wasn't obvious in the page or its source, so I wasn't able to prove it came from this week.</comment>


Interactive map shows history of San Francisco place names - <AUTHOR> http://sfstreets.noahveltman.com/ <comment><USER2> This would be even more useful if it labeled the neighborhood nicknames (Dogpatch, Cow Hollow, etc) and gave some history of where the names came from.</comment>


Designing a Full-Time Human Habitat on the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/design/2019/04/moon-village-som-mit-esa-space-urbanism-planning-habitat/587482/ <comment><USER2> Extreme sports on the moon (moonball, dirtbiking, etc) might be able to pay for themselves if there is sustained global media attention. There are large existing radiation shielded structures on the moon in the form of lava tubes [1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube)

The old economies were driven by commodities. Ours is driven by attention. How might we build a multi-billion dollar media property on the moon?

<comment><USER3> Not sure if it can be called extreme but humans would be capable of self powered flight in lunar gravity. Strap on some wings like those comical attempts in the 1900's and soar to your hearts content. I could see it being very popular for space tourists.

<comment><USER4> Wings aren't much use with zero atmosphere. You'd need some kind of a jetpack, or a pressurised indoor arena to fly in.

<comment><USER3> The idea is it being in an enclosed livable area.

Outside with propulsion would be actually quite dangerous in comparison.

<comment><USER5> > Outside with propulsion would be actually quite dangerous in comparison.

Ooh, really? Well, that sounds interesting; just how dangerous would you say it is, compared to motorcycling, or free-climbing?

<comment><USER3> This is funny to think about, I'm no expert but probably far more dangerous unless your moon propulsion is dramatically restricted.

You need a fullbody suit to maintain it's integrity, so taking even a minor spill is not a good idea. There's no terminal velocity either so if you go up a reasonable amount and lose power you'd make a visible crater. You just keep speeding up until reaching the moon's escape velocity (2.4km/s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real answer is to figure out some interesting or profitable activity that you can do there and then let the details take care of themselves.

Of course the government could pour massive resources into it to see what happens, but we aren't really at the point economically or technologically where that makes sense, at least in my arrogant opinion.

<comment><USER7> I think you put the cart before the horse here. Back in the 1400's, people were going out on ships to explore planet earth backed by monarchs on the assumption that there would be resources to exploit _once they got there_. I think the assumption here is that first we establish a colony on the moon, and _then_ find a profitable activity.

<comment><USER6> That's not how colonization happened though. They went to exploit obvious riches, not to see if they could find something to do.

And the early colonies were plenty underplanned and disastrous.

Also, that's what my second paragraph is about. Given our current resources and capability, an experimental colony is a fool's errand.

<comment><USER8> There were other differences. In those days, they were colonizing places where they could easily adapt their existing ways of life. Their technological base was small enough that the colonies could become relatively self-sufficient quickly.

None of that would apply to a colony on the Moon: surviving there would require advanced technology, and we don't know if it's even possible for humans to survive in such low gravity for an extended period. A colony would probably remain dependent on Earth to supply manufactured products, such as semiconductors. Modern society uses a vast range of products. It probably wouldn't be much more self-sufficient than the ISS, and it wouldn't survive if Earth lost interest in supporting it.

<comment><USER6> It _wasn 't_ particularly easy to adapt. Lots of people died and it took decades to get footholds.

<comment><USER9> Compared to the moon, it was stupendously easy. There was air to breathe, water to drink, and plants to eat, and reasonably safe levels of radiation. So easy even a caveman could do it.

The only thing the moon has going for it is the apparent absence of microorganisms that cause human disease.

<comment><USER10> although i hate it, yeah. there are plenty of places humans don't live _on earth_. Deserts and tundra are obvious. but like 70% of the surface is water, and basically 0% of the population lives there.

Maybe we need to go down before we go up. Maybe we need to survive at a few meters below sea level before we can handle living at a few kilometers above it.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I think even building a completely self-sufficient city in a desert on Earth, with the ability to build its own equipment including computers may be beyond us at this point. Obviously it would be a lot easier than doing it on the Moon or Mars, but too much of the technology that would be needed is locked up in trade secrets.

There's plenty of 3D space available at the surface of the Earth; it's not exploited either because it's not profitable or because government rules prevent it. Who wants to live in a desert in the middle of nowhere? But they want to live on Mars? It would get old fast, especially with such a laggy Internet connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's another article about the moon settlement designed by SOM [https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/11/moon-village-som-news- desi...](https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/11/moon-village-som-news-design/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Ben Bova had this all figured out a few decades ago. I this book as a kid and found it utterly fascinating. To my kid-brain, all the details had clearly been worked out and it was just a matter of getting some astronauts up there to break regolith.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1005249.Welcome_to_Moon_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1005249.Welcome_to_Moon_Base)

I can't find a picture of it now (aside - in 2019 I actually find it surprising when I _cant_ find a picture of something I remember) but there was a thrilling section about how tourists at Moonbase could fly inside the low- gravity / cavernous pressurized living quarters by donning large mylar wings.

<comment><USER13> _but there was a thrilling section about how tourists at Moonbase could fly inside the low-gravity / cavernous pressurized living quarters by donning large mylar wings._

That's from "The Menace from Earth", by Heinlein.[1]

[1] [https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___2.htm](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___2.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >the settlement would be clustered close to the crater's water-ice deposits so that water from the permanently shadowed depressions near the South Pole

Aren't the areas around the equator much easier to reach, in terms of delta v?

</comment><comment><USER15> in light of the recent comments on HN about how extremely boring urban environments can cause depression

surely this is an opportunity to build stunning gothic 3d-printed procedurally generated fractal moon cities

</comment><comment><USER16> This is one of the places where "Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face" applies.

</comment><comment><USER17> Triangular joints makes no sense.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's no carbon on the moon.

<comment><USER19> Then we put some carbon on the moon.

EDIT: This is a perfectly valid reply to the lack of carbon asserted by the parent comment. If it's not there, we put it there. How hard is that to comprehend? Space stations and various materials requisite to the operation of space stations didn't exist in orbit prior to us putting them there.

<comment><USER20> We can just skip the moon and go directly to mars then if we have to bring everything from earth.

<comment><USER19> The moon offers the advantage of very little gravity. We also know that the moon contains a wealth of valuable raw materials. Add in some earth based soil, water and plant life, and we have a valuable self-sustaining space outpost for cheaper missions elsewhere in the solar system. Furthermore, most of the moon operations would be automated to reduce the resources necessary to sustain human life till an abundant supply is established through some form of MRE factory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't want to see the gravity between Moon and Earth will change once Human live there.

People could change nature with technology i think, and it's an unnatural thing to the universe.

<comment><USER22> People and their technology are part of both nature and the universe, so, you're wrong.</comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/13/technology/security/mark-zuckerberg-nsa/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 <comment><USER2> I feel it's worth pointing out that Facebook won't lock you up without trial in a secret prison, torture you and violate every human right you have because of something you think.

There is a real difference between what Facebook does and what the US government does.

<comment><USER3> I feel it's worth pointing that facebook makes it easier to identify and locate people who end up in prison without trial and so on.

For a little while I've wandered into the business of finding the identity behind an online account and finding the physical whereabouts of said person for private companies and state police. It was in the pre- and early facebook era and it was sort of detective work, picking up details and clues, cross- referencing data, some wild guess and luck. Then facebook grew to the monstrous thing it has become, and now these past employers do not require external contractors to do this kind of job, they just go to facebook and do the job themselves in little time.

<comment><USER4> >I feel it's worth pointing that facebook makes it easier to identify and locate people who end up in prison without trial and so on.

Can you identify one person that Facebook has identified who has wound up sentenced to prison without a trial? No? Didn't think so.

I'm not a defender of Facebook and have posted critically elsewhere in this comment thread about FB data-mining. But the grandparent post has it right: Facebook != the government. Facebook wants to show you ads to buy stuff you don't need. The government wants to arrest you, strip search you, and imprison you for smoking a plant it decreed is unlawful, or transferring a series of bits it decreed is unlawful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <blockquote> "When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg wrote </blockquote>

Small correction: The US government ARE the criminals you need to protect against.

<comment><USER3> As usual, facebook PR is fallacious. Naively pretending they don't know governments are historically often engaging in criminal activities to draw attention away from the fact facebook is a massive surveillance too, one that past political regimes could only dream about, which by some kind of magic should be acceptable on grounds that it is done by a private corporation for commercial profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can regular Americans call Obama too or is it just rich people?

<comment><USER7> President's time is limited, so it's better if just representatives of bigger groups of people call him directly. I think we can say that in some sense Mark represents larger group of people.

<comment><USER8> In other words, only rich people :P

<comment><USER9> It's not BECAUSE they are rich though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "How dare the NSA spy on Facebook users. Their informations are property of Facebook."

<comment><USER11> Facebook is opt-in.

<comment><USER3> Not really no. Facebook has been known for a while for building profiles of unregistered people and tracking them around. Then people you know offline who are on facebook will rat tons of information about you all the time. People are just submitting personal information without a second thought.

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks.

<comment><USER11> Fair enough, but then at least with plugins like "disconnect" & friends it's opt-out. We really shouldn't have to do that, I agree, but that's the state of the web in 2014.

I wonder if the NSA complies with the "DO NOT TRACK" header.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The hypocrisy is astounding.

<comment><USER13> Surely, you see a difference between a data company collecting data from users who willingly hand it to them, and a government that forces those companies to hand over private data against their will?

<comment><USER14> Sure. I also see a difference between a company asking everyone for that data in a clear fashion and one that tries get hold of every scrap of data from its users, even if it has to do with non-users (e.g. by collecting their address books).

To be clear about address books: they are "yours", but they hold data that you may not have permission to give away.

<comment><USER15> Facebook can ask me all they want for my data, and I won't give it to them. The feds literally don't give me a choice.

<comment><USER14> That is true, but moral standpoints are not black/white and Facebooks moral standpoint in the whole privacy debate isn't quite the strongest. Facebook will basically take any interaction with them as a "yes".

Also, Facebook didn't ask me when my friends gave my phone number and address to them.

Zuckerberg has repeatedly shown a lot of moral flexibility on those issues - so the irony is definitely there.

<comment><USER15> ok, I concede that point, but none of my friends are giving my info to the NSA, either.

<comment><USER14> Sure, but we are still talking about Zuckerberg trying to make a moral argument about vast personal data collection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394131)

</comment><comment><USER17> Which reminds me of : what are the current realistic alternative to facebook as of today ? I'm thinking of some tech that would let me remain in control of the data i show to my friends.

<comment><USER3> You could try email, xmpp instant messaging, self-hosting your website, and so on. Maybe a secure p2p tool such as waste.

But one way or another the problem is usually the same, your friends are locked in by facebook and don't want to use something else to see what you want to show them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A phone call is a cute gesture. If he really meant what he said he'd go to court.</comment>


Mozilla: The problem is mobile, not money - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57550227-93/mozilla-the-problem-is-mobile-not-money/ <comment><USER3> _Mozilla can't bring its full browser technology to iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows RT_ Does this give other people the willies, or only me? Its scary that 2 of the 3 big players in mobile effectively lock out so much. In so many ways, the mobile wars are much more significant than the browser wars. Having a machine that is completely locked down and only runs 'authorized' software is chilling indeed.

<comment><USER4> I've been saying it ever since the iTunes App Store launched and have been saying it again when Windows Phone launched - I'm not interested in platforms that won't allow me to run Firefox.

Of course, you'll see yet again opinions trying to rationalize it as being " _in the name of user experience_ " and " _safety_ ".

But then, a couple of years from now, when those people finally realize what a big mistake this was, they won't blame it on themselves.

<comment><USER5> When you run around shouting the sky is falling, you can't expect most people to take you seriously. Apple is winning (profit wise) because they just have a simpler experience.

IMO, they are doing everything right except adding an "advanced" mode that people who really know what they're doing can use. But I know why they don't do that: because a lot more people will think they know what they're doing than actually do.

If they start turning into the locked down 1984 world you're worried about, someone else will come out with an alternative, _show why it's better_ and most people will move over there.

No one cares about moral ranting. Show people a tangible, relevant benefit to them (that is, tangible like "cheaper" not abstract like "you're more free!") and they'll buy in. Brow beating has never been an effective way to affect change.

<comment><USER4> There are lots of tangible benefits of openness, problem is most concrete examples do not resonate with most people, because people in general have different needs, even though those same people will run into the same problems at some point, so it's inevitable that discussions end up filled with anecdotes and philosophy, not to mention that coming up with comprehensive case-studies from our history is time consuming and soul sucking, so people that understand the issue just go on with their lives.

But here, I'll give you an example - 1 and a half year ago I was literally stocked by 2 people that thought I owed them money. And so I was receiving lots of SMS messages and phone calls with threats, because that's all they could do - but it was annoying to me to have my phone ring several times per day. Then my phone number ended up on some kind of marketing list and I started receiving daily messages with special offers.

So I had a problem and an iPhone 3GS (received as a gift) and being a _smart_ phone I expected from it to solve it, because otherwise my phone number was becoming unusable and I didn't want to change it (hey, I've got a nice, memorable number). I wanted to completely block SMS messages and phone calls for certain numbers. And I'm not referring just to make my phone silent when receiving stuff from certain phone numbers - but also a cleanup of the logs. And after all, my _smart_ phone is primarily a phone, where a phone is a device used for communications - I don't care how smart it is, if it's not smart about the most basic functionality it should provide.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Apple was actively blocking such apps from its App Store. So I jail-broke it and installed something from the Cydia store, which was a painful process. Then Apple released a major update to iOS that I wanted, so I updated the device, but my previous method for jail-breaking it wasn't working anymore.

THE ONLY REASON people put up with this is because they don't know a smartphone could solve this for them, otherwise spamming through phone calls and SMS messages is a really common problem.

Out of frustration I went out of my way and got a Galaxy S device. There were several apps on Android Marketplace (now Google Play) that dealt with blocking SMS and phone calls. Several were not working on my device, because the APIs for doing that are not public and so dealing with it is hard. But I found one that worked extremely well. Even in the case of Android's Marketplace also blocking such apps, it's extremely easy on Android to install apps from third- party sources, not mentioning the ease with which you can develop for it, without setup fees or bogus certificates.

And I've been blocking unwanted SMS messages and phone calls ever since.

Now, some day Apple will finally wake up and provide this functionality. I'm sure that it will be polished and better than all the alternatives. However, it will be several years too late for me. And if a _smart_ phone can't provide such basic functionality that should be a no-brainer in this age of spam, then for me it's just a shiny and expensive piece of crap. And remember when they blocked Google Voice from their store because " _it duplicated existing functionality?_ ".

I also own an iPad. It was a gift (for some reason people like giving me Apple products, thinking that I love them). I also have a 3G plan for it, that I got separately, so this device is not subsidized or bought from my mobile carrier. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I couldn't do tethering with my otherwise expensive 3G plan and expensive device, yet my 1 year and a half Android could - and an iPad could do better tethering because of its bigger battery. And get this ... the functionality is available, but it depends on the settings the mobile carrier are wiring to your device. So they are basically controlling your device, deciding for you what you can and cannot do.

So now I'm dreaming of a Nexus tablet as my next device, because while the iPad is useful for browsing and stuff, I don't really "own" it and there's so much more it could do.

And I have no doubt about it, the sky is going to fall, because the writing is on the wall. Considering our increased dependency on smart technology, if you don't " _own_ " your devices (or your data, or the software you depend on), the service providers are owning you.

You may not notice it right now, but remember that old anecdote about how you should boil a frog alive - slowly, otherwise it jumps out.

And the blame will fall partly on us, the developers that supported these closed platforms. Because we helped them grow.

People also like to point out how Android is more popular because it gets promoted more by carriers - isn't it funny how openness is good for everybody, including carriers and phone makers?

<comment><USER5> >I was literally stocked by 2 people

Stalked? :)

> I'll give you an example - <USER2>

I agree that Apple should provide a "hacker" setting that lets you step outside the bounds. They don't want to do this because so many non-techies imagine themselves as highly technical so they would press this button, mess something up and then shit all over the forums about how awful _apple products_ are. Granted, Windows got to 95%+ market saturation with the latter approach, but Apple cares about imagine even to the point of shooting themselves in the foot over it. It's their right.

What irritates me are all the "they're just trying lock you in because they're evil!". There's no reason to believe they're evil. It's more likely they care about imagine to a point many might consider a fault.

> Imagine my surprise when I found out that I couldn't do tethering with my > otherwise expensive 3G plan

iOS, and other OSes for that matter, send data back to the carrier when you use the built in tethering capabilities. Since Apple is perceived to have tight control of their market, carriers expect them to keep apps out that bipass this. Android is perceived to have a less tight market so even though the built in offering would have had the exact same restriction, you could easily pick up an app that didn't.

Currently, I sold my 3G iPad and use my iPhone 4 to do tethering. It's not blocked for me and I don't pay anything for it. This changed when they changed to "wireless hotspot" instead of "tethering" in the options menu.

>So they are basically controlling your device, deciding for you what you can and cannot do.

This is a carrier issue. I'd love to see someone make an open carrier (dumb pipe, that's what we all want!).

>because while the iPad is useful for browsing and stuff, I don't really "own" it and there's so much more it could do.

The iPad concept is that it's an appliance, _not_ a general purpose computer. If you feel that means you don't "own" it, do you also not "own" your microwave since you can't do general computing on it's embedded OS either?

>And I have no doubt about it, the sky is going to fall, because the writing is on the wall.

And here's where you go David Icke. What writing is on what wall? Companies are trying to exploit us and maximize profits at our expense. Just as they always have. They've had us in much worse positions in the past and we've escaped. I'm confident that if phones become to restrictive we'll break out of it again. After all, I don't _have_ to have a smart phone. It's convenient and really helpful, but I'm not going to be the monkey trapped by a banana in a bottle.

>You may not notice it right now, but remember that old anecdote about how you should boil a frog alive - slowly, otherwise it jumps out.

I think if you actually try this, you'll find that the frog will jump out when it reaches the right temperature regardless of how slowly you turn up the head.

>And the blame will fall partly on us, the developers that supported these closed platforms.

We support them because it's most profitable for us. When it's not, we won't support them. Simple.

>People also like to point out how Android is more popular because it gets promoted more by carriers - isn't it funny how openness is good for everybody, including carriers and phone makers?

Haha! Carriers don't give a shit about "openness ". They'd happily used a closed OS as they have in the past, so long as they get it cheaper than any alternative and have a mechanism to put their shovelware shit on it.

<comment><USER4> Sorry for my grammar, wrote it in anger and English is not my main language.

I'm not paranoid and I don't categorize companies in "good" and "evil". If I did, I would label them all as being evil. Some of their actions are good, but some are evil and will have consequences, even if their goals are not evil. In fact I'm pretty sure that many people working at companies such as Microsoft, Google or Apple genuinely believe that their actions are for the common good.

But technology is scaring me a little, because of our symbiosis with it. You're saying that your phone is just a phone and you can't get rid of it. I'll have to disagree. If you can indeed get rid of your phone, then you're a rare individual.

Also - yes I own my microwave. It's a pretty dumb and cheap appliance that doesn't even have a clock. However, my examples were for issues that I expect these mobile devices to do and yet they don't, not because they cannot, but because Apple doesn't allow it. That's like wanting to cook pork in your microwave, with the manufacturer not allowing it because it considers it an unhealthy practice. Now wouldn't that be something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Mozilla have made a big mistake by not complaining about bundling Safari in iOS devices. It looked jokingly funny when they attacked Microsoft for IE bundling Windows8 RT when they had 0% market share. Now look at the market, Android have almost 70% of market share and iOS took other. So where does Firefox stands now? This situation forced Mozila to write a new mobile OS which I think does not stand a chance against other big contenders. In 3/4 years I think Firefox will be like what Opera is currently right now, small niche market share. I am sadly saying this as die-hard Firefox user. This is what you get when you compromise openness.

<comment><USER7> For monopoly type things it's not your power in the new market that counts, it's your power in the old market. People are often confused about this because the last time Microsoft was so succesful in extending its monopoly from desktop to browser that it nearly wiped out every alternative browser and peaked at something ridiculous like 90% market share, so there's longstanding confusion about which monopoly they were punished for abusing.

(Just checked Wikipedia, apparently several sources pegged them at about 95% share around 2002-2004).

<comment><USER6> Isn't the same thing happening right now even if there is no visual monopoly situation? Do you really think people will switch to Firefox and Opera when default offering is good enough? Also, though I haven't used IE6 at that time but several commenter here and reddit says that IE6 was ahead of completion at that time, netscape was also partly to blame for their demise. So what was the point of blaming Microsoft for bundling a Better browser at that time, while same thing is perfectly acceptable now?

<comment><USER8> IIRC, Microsoft took active steps to cripple the Windows platform if your application happened to be Netscape.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that may be the case. I am not taking side of Microsoft. I agree that if Microsoft have won antitrust lawsuit we would not be in current highly competitive situation. I am pointing the fact that people should have complained same way as they have complained for Microsoft's case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The thing is Mozilla exists to promote the open web and open source and yet you have Android which is open source and WebKit which is open source both basically supplanting Mozilla on mobile and people act surprised somehow. FirefoxOS is interesting, but gosh, why would a company push a Firefox phone when there's already Android?

<comment><USER10> FirefoxOS might make the mobile web better. It will give web developers more access to the device's hardware, unlike a website running stock Android browser. Everybody has been saying it for years, native apps can do more than web apps in iOS and Android. I wish that FirefoxOS changed that, similarly to how Chrome pushed HTML5 on the desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Their expenses are nuts. Over $100 million?! What's going on there?

<comment><USER12> Comparing that with the profits from a _single opening weekend_ of iPhone sales (a much larger number), I think we're getting a pretty good deal.

<comment><USER13> This makes no sense, those two things have nothing in common, might as well compare their annual expenses to apples and oranges sales in the year.

<comment><USER14> I couldn't find global stats, but at 2.72 billion[1] and 3 billion[2] USD respectively, the apple and orange industries have revenues far in excess of Mozilla's.

[1] [http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/apples/com...](http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/apples/commodity- apples)

[2] <http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=23></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The startup squeeze - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2008/10/11/the-startup-squeeze/ <comment><USER2> I don't know how anyone can read anything Scoble writes with that ridiculous banner at the top. It looks like he's about to high-five me, whether I like it or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> It'll be interesting to see if the prediction of more acquisitions but less funding turns out to be correct. It would appear to continue the (perceived, from my point of view) trend of early exits through acquisition. This could be some more good news for early startups in all this doom & gloom.

<comment><USER4> Except that his starting point was that there are two kinds of currently established "startup" businesses: profitable but indirectly dependent on capital for growth, and not profitable but growing and dependent on capital for life :) This eco-system discussion does not include extremely young businesses who would not be in a position to be profitable or dependent on credit markets yet (that's addressed elsewhere). Note that he's talking about profitable businesses who may not have intended to be sold, discovering that while their runway still looks infinite, it may appear now to need extra money to repair and maintain that they can not easily find anymore.

For the not-yet-existent company, you still need to become profitable -- and generate an outsized ROI relative to a big company desperate to continue to grow. If you can do that, at any time, you should do ok.</comment></comment>


Why did science fiction stop moving forward? - <AUTHOR> https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/star-trek-discovery/ <comment><USER2> Based on the website address, I thought the article would be about written science fiction, which continues to move forward if you ignore recommendations from people who don't actually like science fiction. I think "The Martian" counts as moving forward, but I'm much less happy with most of the books Amazon recommends for me.

But the article is about television. I really am not qualified to say much about television other than until very recently, it was very hard to have a hit TV show that only appealed to a niche audience. A series faithfully based on "The Martian" isn't likely to get a slot in prime time. The closest you'll get is so-called soft science fiction, which presents stories that happen to be set in unfamiliar locations (usually space), but where science has no influence on the story.

Maybe there's a chance now, with a very different distribution model, but even if hard science fiction fans can be perfectly targeted through Netflix or Amazon, special effects will keep production costs high.

<comment><USER3> > _even if hard science fiction fans can be perfectly targeted through Netflix > or Amazon, special effects will keep production costs high_

It's a thing I've been wondering about - what makes special effects cost so much, compared to previous decades? I mean, everything is done with CG now, that's supposed to be orders of magnitude cheaper than what people did in the XX century.

<comment><USER4> I would think that practical effects would cost even more due to inflation.

Also you may miss how much of the shows are CGI if you aren't looking hard. Watch a few shows from the 70s and 80s, ones with high production values, then watch the average show today and you'll see that audiences demand much more realistic sets and scenery. Just about everything in the background of a sci- fi show is CGI.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Yet in a way it looks shittier. For example, take the two first sets of Star Wars trilogies.

In the originals, the battle for the Death Star holds up.

In the prequels, you can see Jedi wildly waving their lightsabers at nothing because the CGI team forgot to animate in certain places.

In the originals, Yoda was a puppet, and his skin and clothing reflected light realistically. So what if his mouth movements had all of the nuance and subtlety of a novelty nutcracker? Imagination bridged the gap between what we saw and what we experienced.

In the prequels, Yoda was CGI, so he didn't have physical depth in the way the other actors did, and didn't reflect light in the same way as the physical cast, and it gave him an eerie, Photoshopped look.

CGI can make special effects look more realistic, but they also have a way of preventing things from actually looking real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > This show is post-racism, but still believes in "culture" with a Victorian > faith in white mythologies

I'm fairly literate in Liberal Arts English, but I don't follow what this means, especially as the context around it seems to complain about portrayals of _race_. What does it mean to "believe in 'culture' with a Victorian faith in white mythologies"? What does that modifier mean about one's belief in culture (whatever _that_ even means, all on its own—do the scare quotes mean we're not supposed to think culture's a thing anymore, or is this a hardcore we-can-never-judge-a-culture-as-inferior thing the writer's assuming we all buy?). How does that relate to the rest of the paragraph?

<comment><USER6> It means that the Victorian appeal of claiming oneself above the "savages" of wherever the British Empire was conquering. The writer is equating the story of Discovery with the story the British told themselves about colonialism. The reference is that The Federation is the British and the Klingons are the savages.

<comment><USER5> (Belief in) cultural superiority as racism, then? OK.

I'd be (genuinely) curious to see what form Klingon-hating in the show could have taken that would have been similar in form but different enough that the writer'd not have labeled it _white_ and _Victorian_. I'd like to know what the diff looks like between the two. Is "they have always attacked us before, so better to start shooting if you see them and skip the trying-to-talk-then- being-fired-on-anyway bits" necessarily white and Victorian?

[EDIT] and if it's not _necessarily_ so, then what about the show's actual depiction _was_?

<comment><USER7> Good question. I'd say that the ties back to imperialist days on Earth are there because (1) it's a popular idea to hate this part of history, and (2) despite having lead characters who are asian and black, the show is still implied to be "white enough" for the comparison to be justified.

The claim is that _Star Trek_ 's premise is a problem because it makes the flawed assumption that one culture can be better than another, and by extension, that all cultures must be valued and respected equally. Without going into the cultures of humanity in _Star Trek_ versus the Klingons, you can examine similar claims closer to home even where some cultures are deeply invested in medieval-level cruelty like stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, female genital mutilation, and inhumane punishment by knife and cane. But these realities don't fit the author's narrative, and therefore must be ignored for the purposes of the thesis. Like Klingons, they're a benign minority who are simply misunderstood by their would-be cultural oppressors.

The article's ostensibility about science-fiction, and managed to stay on point for the first couple paragraphs, but it quickly devolved into the author's pet theories on race and gender. I really had trouble with these sorts of broad and totally unfair generalizations:

> _Uhuru was a service worker and Worf was a punching bag; when the show made > a black captain, was it a coincidence that the show also became "darker" and > less optimistic, when its characters started to be "flawed" and "ambiguous"? > Voyager had a female captain, but it marooned her to the farthest reaches of > the galaxy (and the less said about the garbage politics of the reboot > movies, the better)._

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I glossed over that part with an "uh, yeah, kinda, sure" for the Uhuru and Worf things (the put-upon not-terribly-competent "service worker" in TOS is clearly Nurse Chapel, if it's any named recurring character, and Worf gets punched a helluva lot less than one might think given his role and demeanor—Picard is more often both the physical and emotional punching bag, I'd think), an "I guess..." for the Sisko bits, and a "wait, what?" for the complaint about Janeway (they gave her arguable the toughest circumstances for any captain in episode 1 of their show in a Trek thusfar, but she did fine because it's Star Trek and the good guys may have ups and downs but they do basically fine in the end, and it's sexist somehow that she did really well? That show has some deep problems, even with Janeway's character, but sexism's nowhere near the top of the list) and an "I guess I missed something?" for the reboot movies bit.

That should have primed me for being confused later in the piece, I suppose.

[EDIT] the Sisko thing'd have had more weight if that show hadn't spent so much screen time openly dealing with humans (=the US, mostly, for production and character reasons) racist past (mind you, I _like_ that aspect of DS9, even if it doesn't always make much in-universe sense)

<comment><USER8> > the put-upon not-terribly-competent "service worker" in TOS is clearly Nurse > Chapel, if it's any named recurring character

Surely, Yeoman Rand...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The title used here comes from a line in the article, which has the title "Star Trek: Discovery". The essay starts "This week on Dear Television".

It does not look at the broader question of "why did science fiction stop moving forward", but mostly Star Trek, with a few references to Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse.

I write this because when I saw "L.A. Review of Books" I thought it would include SF in books, and touch on things like Stephenson's Hieroglyph Project (See [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dear-science- fi...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dear-science-fiction- writers-stop-being-so-pessimistic-127226686/) \- "Dear Science Fiction Writers: Stop Being So Pessimistic!".)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you're a fan of classic Trek check out The Orville. There's just 3 episodes out but so far it's shaping up to be a true spiritual sequel to 90s Trek in ways the JJ Abrahams-esque Discovery show won't be, judging from the first two episodes.

<comment><USER11> Umm, isn't _The Orville_ a parody of (primarily) _Star Trek_? (I have not watched it.) I can't reconcile "parody" with "spiritual sequel". One would possibly make me laugh, the other is often a metaphor for more serious issues IRL.

<comment><USER10> It's advertised as a comedy show and with Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy) headlining it I also assumed it was some cheap Galaxy Quest-esque jab at Star Trek. There's some of that, in particular taking some jabs at Star Trek tropes (e.g. one situation being neatly resolved by the crew using seatbelts)[1].

But it's not just some cheap comedy. Yes there's campy humor that's basically the equivalent of TOS not taking itself quite seriously, but it's in every other way a proper modern day sequel to TNG, and the humor doesn't get in the way of that.

I'm not going to spoil the 3rd episode of it that just came out, but it's a "moral conundrum" episode of the likes TNG was famous for, except it's IMNSHO executed better than any such TNG episode. Those tended to get resolved with some Deus Ex Machina or something resembling a stereotypically happy American ending, but The Orville took the hard way out. I was very impressed.

1\. For those unfamiliar with Star Trek: Approximately half of on-screen fatalities could be prevented by some combination of seatbelt usage, and the computer consoles not being powered by 100,000 volts of electricity with no fuses or circuit breakers[2].

2\. The other half being prevented by not bringing no-name red shirts along on the away mission.

<comment><USER11> Cool, thanks for a more in depth description. Sounds like it is worth watching an episode or two for myself, I'll give it a whirl.

<comment><USER12> In this case watching second or third episode first would be better than starting with pilot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a theory that budget for (SF+Fantasy) at any given studio is limited. And Game of Thrones has gotten other studios to invest heavily in Fantasy, leaving very little for SF. (Might dig into "running count" of shows with genre filters on IMDB datasets for verification)

The only good TV content I've seen recently is Expanse, which is quite well done. As others have mentioned, this is only limited to TV. SF Books/Movies are still popular enough .

<comment><USER14> Completely agree about The Expanse. It's hard SF, and every episode is as good or better than the best SF movies. I think this certainly counts as moving forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >feel like a single continuous 1990's moment, a moment that began in a renewed liberal optimism for multiculturalism and progress and the general advancement of humanity.

and

>Why did science fiction stop moving forward.

Maybe because lots of sci-fi was optimistically wrong about the future of humanity? Or should I say that sci-fi covers both the good and bad things that could potentially happen. Some people don't realize the federation in Star Trek story was born from the ashes of a world war 3. If they made a show that covered that point of ST history it would still be science fiction, it would just be rather dark.

Also on the points of multiculturalism. When Star Trek was originally airing, there was little else on the air broadcasting a similar message. Now a large portion of TV is very multicultural, some of it to the point it forgets to have a story about anything else.

</comment><comment><USER15> Prolly because of the Sophons

<comment><USER16> Alright, a reference to Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tv always played it safe.

Books are where it's at.

<comment><USER18> Can you recommend a few good books that take risks?

<comment><USER19> Anything by Alastair Reynolds (but _Revelation Space_ is a good place to start).

<comment><USER20> Yes! Revenger is a good start too.

<comment><USER19> Also the audiobooks of Reynolds work are wonderful themselves. The narrator John Lee is a master of his art form:

[https://tantor.com/narrator/john-lee.html](https://tantor.com/narrator/john- lee.html)

(Sadly he did not narrate Revenger, which is part of why I haven't experienced it yet. Thanks for the tip though and I'll add it to my list. John Lee did do all of the Revelation Space universe however, including the short stories.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _deeply racist portrayal of its Klingons_

This struck me as strange. The Klingons started off as the violent bad guys in TOS. Then in TNG and DS9 there was an attempt to make them more admirable. In Discovery, I got the impression that the Klingons will be made more sympathetic in that we will be given more of a picture of their perception of the Federation, and why they perceive the Federation as a threat. Yes, Burnham is prejudiced against the Klingon race (or culture), but I don't think the message of the show will be anti-Klingon.

<comment><USER3> Let's hope not. The first two episodes have indeed portrayed Klingons in a pretty sympathetic light. That they're a race of warriors bound by honor and tradition is a well-established thing in Star Trek canon. But if you look beyond that, the show establishes a pretty clear reason for them to feel threatened by the Federation

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Would you agree that the tv show "Black Mirror" (on Netflix) has at least probed into the future of science fiction?</comment>


Why the Arabic world turned away from science (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science <comment><USER2> Much more detailed than I expected, and yet somewhat lacking in reach. It stops with Ash'ari and ignores further intellectually repressive trends that developed over the next thousand years, notably Wahhabism which has led to much of the problematic fundamentalists we currently have.

(Note: Not a Muslim, or much of a theological scholar, just an occasional student of interesting historical stuff.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe this list might be relevant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists)</comment>


Stop blaming spreadsheets (and take a good look in the mirror) - <AUTHOR> http://www.felienne.com/archives/3355

<comment><USER2> "Only a fool blames his tools"

This weekend, my dad and I were cutting down a tree. It was taking a long time and we were not making much progress. After arguing for a bit over technique, we decided to change the chainsaw blade. We took the tree down in 2 minutes.

By blaming out tool and changing it, we solved our problem. Sometimes, a wise person blames his tools.

Pointing out that failures can also stem from wider processes does not contradict that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, but when Excel is the wrong tool for the job, you should be blaming it.</comment>


NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/12553023511/nsa-boss-asks-congress-legal-immunity-companies-that-help-nsa-spy-everyone.shtml <comment><USER2> This is a brilliant end-run around the fourth amendment. Sure, the government isn't allowed to do mass warrantless surveillance, but they can order companies to do it illegally and then pardon them.

<comment><USER3> It might be an end-run around the 4th amendment if the government was ordering companies to do mass surveillance (though we can argue about whether the 4th amendment has anything to do with _surveillance_ at all). But the government doesn't need to do that. The companies already do all the surveillance, and people happily hand over to those companies their data. Is it an end-run around the 4th amendment for the government to then compel companies to provide this data? It's not like the subpoena is a new and novel legal instrument. Even in 1790 the government could compel companies to hand over all the information they had about a target of investigation.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't matter if people are happily "handing over their data" \- the government still needs a warrant to request the information. In United States v. Warshak it was ruled that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his/her emails and that the government violated Warshak's Fourth Amendment rights by compelling his internet service provider to turn over his emails without first obtaining a warrant.

<comment><USER3> Warshak is only binding law in the Sixth Circuit, and I don't think it's good law in the face of the third party doctrine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm honestly shocked that many of these companies aren't being sued in European courts. There is more than enough evidence now to support this. Hit every company on their bottom line. Europeans need to present the following dichotomous choice to every American tech company:

(1) Operate in Europe and make money here, but no spying on any EU citizen.

(2) Continue spying, but don't operate in Europe.

Alternatively, eliminate the tax evasion benefits of routing everything through Ireland. The tax hit of forcing many US companies to pay the full amount of US corporate taxes should be more than enough to change their tune.

<comment><USER6> If the NSA is tapping fiber at providers, a la Room 641A, then the companies behavior is completely irrelevant to the spying, and the NSA watches all traffic in and out of their networks anyway.

So your choice, as a European, seems to be utilize networks that don't pass through America at all, or have the NSA spy on you. I apologize for the inconvenience.

<comment><USER7> Wrong, if they are tapping at the wires they only see that your using gmail, not the content of your email or who you are speaking to (Unless you turn off ssl for some strange reason).

<comment><USER8> How likely is it that these companies can be compelled to turn over their SSL private keys via FISA court?

<comment><USER9> Very likely. Even if it was for a specific case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The implications are more serious than immunity for NSA actions.

This law could circumvent the breaking of ALL and ANY laws by these companies. After such a law is passed, companies may not have to be accountable to anyone. When questioned, they can lie about it and say the NSA said so.

They don't need to release transparency reports cuz the NSA said so. Any tech company can lie to the Privacy Commissioner cuz the NSA said so. They can do anything cuz the NSA said so.

This is the mother of all loopholes. Good luck, world.

<comment><USER11> Except that they'd have to do so in court, and the NSA would have the option of filing an _amicus curiae_ brief saying 'oh no we didn't.'

<comment><USER10> Except that companies would want to negotiate, lets say, a contract to include a gray area clause that serves as an incentive for the companies to keep doing this.

Once this thing becomes legal, companies have grounds to organize this as a trade with the NSA. The funny (maybe scary is the right word?) part is that they can legally lie about this because it's with the NSA.

<comment><USER11> Wildly implausible.

<comment><USER10> I find it to be the direct consequence of institutionalization.

<comment><USER11> We will continue to differ about this. I consider public institutions to be more responsive than you do, so I suppose we are looking at it from quite different perspectives.

<comment><USER10> It's not about responsiveness as much as it is about self-interest and bureaucratic thinking that is inherent in all institutions.

<comment><USER11> That neither contradicts my point nor validates your earlier assertion. This conversation isn't going anywhere so I'm abandoning it now.

<comment><USER10> It's not about validating an assertion as much as it is about exploring the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> CISPA anyone? Now we know why that law was pushed so hard, and we now have another strong reason to oppose this tactic.

But Keith usually gets what Keith wants, so I'd bet money on it passing this time around.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I was talking with some other activists about applying lessons from the SOPA/CISPA victory to the Patriot Act/FISA, and three people at the same time three time "it's all part of the same fight ..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As if that will help public perception of these companies, I think after these outings of the companies in question, nothing stays the same, ever.

I personally will never ever trust any company with putting stuff into their systems.

For me the cloud as offered by them is dead and buried forever, even though I know that the NSA can capture anything with their split network rooms, the companies just lost my trust by lying as first.

It would have been less worse if they said that they were forced, but no, the arrogant adolescent nerd boys management thought it was ok to lie.

<comment><USER14> First of all, we don't know whether they were lying. Second of all, if they were, they may have been forced by the government to lie. The FISA requests they were getting also came with gag orders.

<comment><USER15> I have not read the law, but I think a gag order can't force you to lie. Lie to a directly asked question, gray area; issue a lying press release or blog post, not mandatory.

I am not a lawyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm disgusted to see our government still continues to operate however it wishes, confident that if they get caught breaking the law, the law can be promptly and retroactively nullified.

</comment><comment><USER17> Argh. Important subject material, crappy article, lots of confusion, argh argh argh.

TL;DR: everything about the WAY this story was reported is an obvious deception.

First, methodology. This is blogspam that adds nothing to the original article at [http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EF9BC1BF-34EB-41...](http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EF9BC1BF-34EB-4168-8735-A95FE2F48D05) (at least they link it). That article, in turn, cites no sources. So I'm basing the following only on those articles.

Also, let me be clear that I'm anti-immunity in general, and I think that the UsGov behaviour in Hepting vs AT&T is reprehensible, and no one should ever vote for any lawmaker who voted in favour of FISA, for that reason alone.

Okay, let's take it apart.

If you read TOA, it _specifically_ says Alexander _specifically_ claims he's not asking for blanket immunity. So the title is linkbait. Fuck you techdirt, for sabotaging the cause of freedom; now if/when Alexander/NSA replies to this article, he can avoid the issue by denying your false allegation. Don't muddy the waters.

Next, the context is not explicitly about spying at all. Not at all. Zero mention of spying. Oh look, the headilne is linkbait twice over. Fuck you twice over, techdirt. I can only conclude that Mike Masnick is either illiterate, or a liar.

ALSO, while Alexander is the head of the NSA, and while the NSA and the USCYBERCOM are deeply in bed, they is still some distinction, and this really sounds more like a USCYBERCOM thing than an NSA thing.

Next, listen, the only legitimate reason for cops to exist is to protect the populace. And if there's ONE thing that I trust Alexander about, it's the fact that at least _some_ people want to fuck with US companies and US infrastructure (he's probably lying about the scale, and basically everything else). If SinoGov, or crazy terrorists, or AnonSecOfTheWeek, or whatever, attack US Companies, and private enterprise can't cope, it's reasonable for USGov to fight on behalf of Americans and American companies, and that might include giving them advice on cybersecurity, and that might involve giving them the equivalent of virus definitions, and saying "block all traffic that matches this signature and you'll be in better shape". This is legit. This is a strong argument. He goes on to say that if companies obey the NSA and turn out to harm someone with it, they should be immune. Okay, this part I disagree with. But seriously, of all the horrible asshole claims the NSA has made lately, this one is about as reasonable as it gets.

That said, I'd argue against such immunity. If the companies act in good faith with due diligence, what do they have to lose? And if they don't do due diligence, fuck them... what kind of moron trusts the fucking NSA?

As for counter-hacking, sooner or later the law is going to have to address it. And it's going to be difficult. And they should fucking get started, and proceed slowly and cautiously.

EDIT: slight touch-up on TLDR

<comment><USER11> _Fuck you techdirt_

I've had that reaction so many times now that I eventually stopped clicking on any story from there. All they ever do is pander to their readers' preconceptions. With friends like these, we don't need enemies.

<comment><USER18> _With friends like these, we don 't need enemies._

An online colleague once coined Japhy's Law. It says: "The facts you really want to be true are those you should be most skeptical of." It should be written on every blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think anyone who actually cares about this stuff has two simultaneous responses here.

1\. Do you actually care if you get it?

2\. Go f __* yourselves

</comment><comment><USER20> I knew we'd get some action from congress over this fiasco.

</comment><comment><USER21> Doesn't this suggest that the NSA may have broader, more illegal actions planned for which their corporate partners want cover?

</comment><comment><USER22> But he assured us everything was above board and legal.

<comment><USER23> To turn a phrase, if you're operating legally you don't need immunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> An interesting tidbit from this article is the quote of the quote of the quote of Gen. Alexander asking for an intentionally "ill-defined" law. I've never heard of such a strategy before. Is this a new thing, or are there documented examples of laws that were made intentionally vague in order to give their beneficiaries more power or latitude than anyone would rationally agree to explicitly? Off the top of my head, Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law might qualify.

<comment><USER7> Section 215 of the Patriot Act has a secret interpretation

<comment><USER24> But my question is: was it originally written with a vague wording with the intent of later interpreting it a certain way, or was the secret interpretation a later optimistic move given the existing wording?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is fucking wrong.

<comment><USER26> What are you waiting for? Talk to your friends, talk to your co-workers, talk to your congressional representatives.

Or are you afraid that they'll rat you out to the police for being a 'dissident?' If you are then they've already won.

<comment><USER27> I've done exactly this and it's shocking how many people simply don't care or don't see how wrong this is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Meh. To me this just seems like codification of what's already happening. If there are criminal charges against an NSA contractor, what's stopping the government from stopping it by claiming "state secrets"?

</comment><comment><USER29> The only thing the NSA is accomplishing right now are encouraging innovations in privacy to help people avoid detection. And, gosh, I wonder who will be the first to seize onto that? Mmm, criminals perhaps?

<comment><USER30> Innovations like Tor, BitCoin, PGP, and TLS?

<comment><USER31> LPPNIOP MJDAOII CPFEGAA JOOEMEC HECPACE FALPLIC IEMLJMK BBCYNJN DFGCLGK GDMLEKM NMLBJDD AMDNPJE KPMGMME LDHDOAA CBAOKJF OFHIALD ... BPLLPYG KNDHLNA AFGLOIL LDIFGMO MCCCLAD ODMKNEH PMJDPJC JCAAINI JLGNBMP LEINPIP YCEHCBM PBKFOKG EMCOPGO KBPEEAP LOOMLEK DBICPJE

plaintext: "Don't you wished everybody used Ivory(tm) soap?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A pretty clear historical prospective starts around the TIA discussion: [http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/192770397/the-watchers-have- ha...](http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/192770397/the-watchers-have-had-their- eyes-on-us-for-years)

</comment><comment><USER9> We need (maybe not) a constitutional amendment that prevents

\- retroactive legality \- retroactive il-legality \- immunity

I don't / can't even understand how immunity can be a thing. Sounds like some kids making up bullshit rules on the playground. To even suggest it points directly at guilt.

</comment><comment><USER33> The best thing that can come from this is that each and every company name is published.

<comment><USER7> I don't think they will give the companies immunity by name.

<comment><USER34> They certainly would not, since that would add far to much administrative overhead when they want to add new companies to the list in the future.

<comment><USER7> Right, like dropbox which was "coming soon".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Again, this is nothing new, this move just extends it to more companies.

[http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/91805](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/91805)

</comment><comment><USER36> Join the cause (protests planned for July 4th on the right):

[http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth](http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth)

</comment><comment><USER37> If companies are people according to the law, then wouldn't individuals be afforded the same protection, in some sort of legal reciprocity juju?

</comment><comment><USER38> Why is everyone so angry at the companies for complying with these _government orders_ instead of being angry at _the government that 's ordering them to do these illegal things_?

<comment><USER39> Because 1) we want as many barriers to tyranny as possible. We should not be relying upon government self-restraint. And 2) "I was only following orders" is not a defense against wrong doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> When are we sending this guy to jail?

<comment><USER41> Really? Probably never.

<comment><USER40> Really. We need to send him to jail, otherwise he'll keep breaking the law.

Edit: While he's in jail, maybe he could pick up a copy of the Constitution. :)

<comment><USER41> Let's wait until any of this has been definitively, objectively declared illegal first.

[edit] His Wikipedia page says he's expected to retire next year. I have a sneaking suspicion nothing touches him and he's left alone to ride off into the sunset.

[edit edit] Actually... lying to the House is kind of illegal isn't it....

<comment><USER42> Under oath with penalty of perjury, it is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Holy Grail Of iPhone Apps Arrives: pTerm - <AUTHOR> http://theappleblog.com/2008/08/08/my-holy-grail-of-iphone-apps-arrives-pterm/

<comment><USER2> I understand developers wish to be rewarded for their effort but paying for a terminal program just seems so wrong.

<comment><USER3> Especially one based off of FOS code!

<comment><USER4> OSX was based on BSD and people don't mind paying for OSX...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> there's another app that sounds like it will have more features that's still in the app store approval queue

<http://www.zinger-soft.com/>

post by dev: [http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5977302&postc...](http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=5977302&postcount=14)

<comment><USER6> Ouch, that must really suck. They also could have been "the first iPhone terminal app" if they were just approved sooner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My kingdom for the TAB key! Seriously, when you're using one of these little guys, be it Apple, Nokia, whatever, autocomplete is your friend! The tab key is always missing, or 3 clicks or taps away.

<comment><USER8> I couldn't believe there was no way to tab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The screenshots of this app are horrible. It looks like whoever made it didn't use native iPhone GUI elements... the corners and edges of the toggle between SSH // Telnet // Raw TCP look like total crap. The text for the nickname, port, etc... seems to be squeezed a bit and it appears blurred (unless of course this is due to a photoshop edit later on).

And for $5... come on! PuTTY is free and open source, why isn't this too!

I upgraded to 2.0.1 and lost all my jailbroken functionality in exchange for stable and bug-free core features. I'm definitely going that route again once they catch up and release their latest Pwnage tool.

</comment><comment><USER10> The screen shots in the article showed top running but clipped to fit in the screen. Does anyone know if they support multitouch zooming like Safari?

That would be great.

<comment><USER11> I don't think any of those screen shots were cropped, you can always see the status bar on the iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, a feature that comes standard on other high-end phones? Unbelievable! <http://maddox.xmission.com/putty3.gif>

After waiting several months for developers to write and release code, you might be able to cobble together a bunch of apps that make up for the iPhone's flaws. The situation is identical to that of Windows.

</comment><comment><USER13> No control key or ESC key? So much for doing ... anything.

<comment><USER14> There's a ctrl key in the top right of the screen rather than on the keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> TouchTerm is only $2.99 as of this writing.

<comment><USER16> TouchTerm does not support terminal emulation. So, once you SSH into a server, good luck editing anything.

<comment><USER17> Some of us are old enough to have used ed(1) out of necessity. :-) These days, `sed -i' is also useful for quick one-liners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Gee with that virtual keyboard, looks awesome, where do I sign up?

/sarcasm

<comment><USER19> Yup, works great. You can buy one at <http://apple.com/iphone/>

/nosarcasm</comment></comment>


What happened to The JavaScript Show? - <AUTHOR> http://javascriptshow.com/

<comment><USER2> Co-host here. Don't want to speak for him too much but Jason went to work for Treehouse and basically does this sort of thing as his day job so I think he ran out of time to do this on the side. We really need to resolve it at some point though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I used to listen to this podcast a while ago. I visited the site today and it looks pretty dead (some sort of landing / squatting / registration page).

Anyone know what happened? The Ruby Show seems to be alright.</comment>


Yahoo! MapMixer - <AUTHOR> http://maps.yahoo.com/mapmixer

<comment><USER2> I haven't really kept up with the latest in image processing, but I've usually seen 3 points as the minimum for image registration. They do it with two. Anyone know of any recent advances in image registration, methods/papers?

<comment><USER3> Not sure why you need 3 points for 2D image registration. You need four variables here: two to determine the origin (x,y), one each for orientation and scale. You get these variables pinned with 2 points.</comment></comment>


Wordpress Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.hosterware.com/wordpress-hosting/wordpress-security/ <comment><USER2> "WordPress being OpenSource is vulnerable to attack."

What nonsense. WordPress is more secure, not less, because it's open source. There have been a lot of security patches contributed over the last few years, which have made WordPress a lot more secure than it used to be; this is why its security record in the last, say, 12 months, is a lot better than it was three or four years ago. This is Linus' Law in action.

Some of the suggestions in this article are useful, albeit common knowledge. The rest tend towards the security-through-obscurity route—they're not harmful in and of themselves, but by giving users a false sense of security (and making them think they don't need to follow other security advice, for example) they may have a negative effect overall.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention that at least a few of the things recommended wouldn't be possible without source code.</comment></comment>