ARM's Rebuttal to RISC-V: "The Case for Licensed Instruction Sets" - <AUTHOR> http://www.linleygroup.com/mpr/article.php?id=11268 <comment><USER2> Odd that ARM even bothered to reply. And the arguments are the expected stuff you'd expect to see from an entrenched leader. Basically it's "benefits of standardization trumps openness", though not stated that way.

A few bits struck me as amusing, like the chart with all the extensions to the ARM ISA over the years, most of which have been abandoned in modern cores. Citing the original VFP standard or Jazelle as "innovation" seems laughable.

If I were to write a ARM-vs-RISC-V paper, I'd start with the important things that are actually missing from RISC-V still, like a MMU spec.

<comment><USER3> Fundamental problem with the classic:

>benefits of standardization trumps openness

Is that openness provides the same benefits of a standard. A ground floor that everyone can stand on, build on, and has no cost of entry (unlike a business ran standard).

<comment><USER4> Well, that's not really the whole story, though. Look at Linux. Linux is "open." Linux is also a much harder target to write software for than OS X or Windows, because a lot of people do a lot of different things with that openness, and so you can't count on a specific version of certain APIs or ABIs being there. If modern CPUs looked like modern Linux distributions, a lot more effort would be required to make software portable and to run widely. (The irony here is that ARM resembles this Tower of Babel situation a lot more than x86 does.)

<comment><USER5> I found that programming for Windows is a pain in the ass compared to GNU/Linux. If I need a library, I only need to do a apt-get install XXX or download the source ode and it will compile with usually zero problems.

I can't say anything about OS X

<comment><USER4> I'm not talking about writing software, so much as I am talking about distributing software. Yes, you can use apt-get to install whatever libraries you need, but you can't guarantee that users are going to have access to the same version as you through their distro's repo, so you have to either statically link the version of each library you wrote the code with, or wait for your software to be picked up by a maintainer for all the common distros out there.

<comment><USER6> Packages do fix this problem though. You specify dependencies in your target distros package you make, and either you duplicate that dependency graph across distros (bad idea) or you let that distros packagers handle it (good idea).

For example, you can make a deb that works on Debian, Ubuntu, and any of its derivatives with its dependency graph. You can do the same with Fedora. And the Arch ecosystem will just use PKGBUILDs of the rpm or deb to package it themselves.

<comment><USER4> This only works if you let the distros handle all the work for you. But say you need an Apache version RHEL 6 doesn't have, so now you have to build from source. And now you have to build PHP from source, because now RHEL's PHP package won't run with your new Apache. On Windows, this requires that you run two MSI files and hit okay a few times. On Linux, this means you're compiling everything from source. Linux apps are less portable between distributions than Windows apps are among Windows versions (hell, thanks to WINE a randomly picked Windows app is more likely to run on both Fedora and Ubuntu without modification than an actual Linux app is, the distribution just hides that work from you most of the time).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that the whole ARM ecosystem relies on a crapload of open source stuff, like the entire GNU toolchain, kernel and on up.

So any criticism of the call for openness in the RISC-V paper from the ARM camp is sheer, sheer hypocrisy.

In economic terms, the free stuff that helps ARM be popular is a "complementary good". When you sell something, you want the complementary goods to be commoditized and as cheap as possible, while keeping your ingredient as proprietary as possible.

Obvious table reversal:

"No, no! Open source the CPU cores, and buy my compiler instead! __That 's __how you keep costs low, and everything from fragmenting. "

<comment><USER8> Agree that the free GNU stuff is key to ARM's success today but the original armcc compilers came from ARM, though. The GNU toolchain came much later. There are other non-GNU compilers for ARM that are very widely used. Remember that ARM was super popular long before phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're interested in the development of an open-source SoC using RISC-V then do keep an eye on [http://lowrisc.org](http://lowrisc.org). We will have more public soon - I'm talking at the OpenRISC conference ([http://orconf.org](http://orconf.org)) next month.

</comment><comment><USER10> The flip side of "no fragmentation" is, there's no ARM core with hardware multithreading, and there won't be one until ARM decides to make one, which AFAIK may well be "never". You can license a core with hardware multithreading if you need it - say, MIPS from Imagination - but the ISA won't be ARM- compatible. To the extent that ARM's "software ecosystem" is valuable, it's a pity nobody can make a multithreaded ARM-compatible core. Similarly for other features.

On the other hand, x86, which is "open" to all of Intel, AMD and VIA who reached a patent war stalemate, has the problem of incompatible instruction set extensions, as documented in "Stop the instruction set war": [http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25](http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=25)

Which problem is worse is hard to decide.

<comment><USER11> Not sure about your first point. ARM does license out its architecture/ISA (i.e. for you to implement your own processor with an ARM instruction set) in addition to complete cores (Cortex-A57, etc...).

This is how Apple and nVidia can design their own ARM-compatible chips (Apple A8/NVidia Tegra K1 "Denver") without relying on Cortex cores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Url changed from [https://blog.riscv.org/2014/09/arms-rebuttal-to-risc-v- the-c...](https://blog.riscv.org/2014/09/arms-rebuttal-to-risc-v-the-case-for- licensed-instruction-sets/), which points to this. The article being responded to is [http://www.linleygroup.com/mpr/article.php?id=11267](http://www.linleygroup.com/mpr/article.php?id=11267).

</comment><comment><USER13> I haven't read this yet, but I can't imagine what ARM would say that I'm not already expecting from a company selling a proprietary product to say about an open source competitor. I think the fact that ARM even thought they should "address this", say quite a lot about RISC-V.

<comment><USER14> It's written by their marketing department. Basically, they say open architecture poses the risk of fragmentation and designing instruction sets is expensive, so it makes sense for everyone to pay them to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Important to remember that ARM is talking about instruction sets and not cores. There's still a lot of differentiation going on among SoC vendors but the common ISA really helps with the app ecosystem.

If you're really serious you don't have to get a core from ARM, you can do your own (like XSCale was) and still benefit from the common ISA. Not sure how expensive that is, though.

Anyway, it would be great to have a healthy competitor for ARM but right now it's hard to see what problem that's trying to solve.

</comment><comment><USER15> This sounds like the idea that without someone wielding a big stick you'll end up in fragmented hell.

Have to admit history would support that.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does the ISA matter a lot these days? If we look at the mobile world, specifically Android, most programs are written in Java. So, as long as the compiler, the OS, and the JVM are ported to a new ISA, most apps will run happily.

Also, is binary ISA translation restricted by patents?

<comment><USER17> Most apps...? We live in different worlds, clearly! I know people use Java for boring corporate line of business apps and boring corporate web server projects, but none of the apps I actually care about are written in Java, and I see no trends suggesting that this will ever change.

<comment><USER18> What Android apps do you use that rely on native code?

All the ones that I'm aware of are either games or half-arsed ports of iOS apps.

<comment><USER17> I don't really use Android apps. But now I see that I misread your comment, and thus my reply was irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Was the original article ever posted? Couldn't find it in search: [http://www.linleygroup.com/mpr/article.php?pub=1&id=11267](http://www.linleygroup.com/mpr/article.php?pub=1&id=11267)

<comment><USER20> Closest I could find was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242999), which might not be the exact same article.

<comment><USER19> I think that's it.</comment></comment></comment>


Seesmic Nearing Sale To Social Media Management Service Hootsuite - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/05/after-long-startup-journey-seesmic-nearing-sale-to-social-media-management-service-hootsuite/

<comment><USER2> I wonder how much preference they had accumulated over the last 5 years and multiple pivots.</comment>


Why do we still have Daylight Saving Time? - <AUTHOR> http://finanology.co/post/100863123629/seriously-why-do-we-still-have-daylight-saving-time

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the hate for daylight saving. Splitting those extra daylight hours either side of work and school is a waste when you can combine some of that time for more recreation at the end of the day. When my kids get home from school I get to ride bikes with them in daylight for an extra hour. I have time to enjoy cooking and eating a bbq of an evening before it gets too dark outside. There is time for gardening after work. Summer sports practice. A round of golf. That extra hour of sunlight is fantastic for family quality of life.

Programmers are inconvenienced? Who the fsck cares? The dates for time changes are gazetted way in advance. Some data tables need adjusting and only a handful of people on the planet need to do it. The rest of us just need to apply updates which we need to do for security anyway. It isn't all that hard. Phones, computers, media centres adjust fine for me.

What would be really inconvenient would be to change everyones work and school hours to achieve the same benefit as that little, mostly automated, timezone change twice a year. The inconvenience of changing the time on a small number of non-networked dumb devices is a small price to pay for that extra quality of life.

In a global networked economy the only real timezone is UTC. The rest are an arbitrary fiction that we can manipulate for our enjoyment.

<comment><USER3> _That extra hour of sunlight is fantastic for family quality of life._

I agree, that's exactly why it's depressing that today it'll be dark one hour sooner than yesterday. Disliking the DST doesn't mean preferring winter time.

</comment></comment><comment> B-Con Because it's an agreed upon widely used standard.

Making standards and getting near-universal buy-in is hard. Tweaking them is too. Since it isn't impacting most people beyond a mere rare inconvenience, it's hard to convince someone to start cranking on the gigantic cogs of worldwide standards to improve the situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's widely used, but only by the western world. Look at the map at the bottom of the article. Essentially everybody else abandoned the idea.

It's an inconvenience at best. It causes massive programming problems, e.g. Louisiana's switch to DST was a nightmare for Microsoft. It also results in large productivity losses. Economically, it does not work anymore in the way that it maybe used to. It causes more harm than good.

<comment><USER2> DST makes no sense nearer the equator where there is less variation in daylight hours throughout the year. There goes much of Asia, Africa and Central America. It is popular with people in wealthy democracies which enjoy around an 8 hour working day and have a culture that values outside recreational time and people have a say in such things. That pretty much explains most of the map. Many of the places that don't have DST are between the tropics, poor or have no functional democracy. The rest are more concerned with getting a few more holes of golf in after work than the welfare of Microsoft's staff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hear, hear! It's well passed time we put to rest this outdated notion that jumping forward or back the hour hand will have an effect on the length of day.

Daylight saving time is cargo culting at its worst -- and those who say we should stay on a perpetual Summer time are probably the worst of them all.

<comment><USER5> Cargo culting for wanting to stay on DST year round?

Here at 35deg south, I would prefer it not to be dark at 4:30 pm in winter, hence preference for year round DST. Darkness in the morning is less of a concern for me.

The sleeping pattern disruption is also unpleasant.</comment></comment>


Millenials are attacking the $18B funeral industry - <AUTHOR> https://nytimes.com/2016/11/03/business/start-ups-for-the-end-of-life.html <comment><USER2> In the wise words of frank Reynolds "When I die just throw me in the trash"</comment>


Show HN: Twelve Simple Algorithms to Compute Fibonacci Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.07199 <comment><USER2> another interesting fact:

if you have to compute the fib of very large numbers mod n. you can use the fact that the fibonnaci numbers would repeat.( see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisano_period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisano_period))

<spoiler>

this allows you to solve problems like this: [https://www.spoj.com/problems/FIBHARD/](https://www.spoj.com/problems/FIBHARD/)

<\spoiler>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the comment. Will check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Algorithm fib1 ("Dynamic Programming without Memoization") is just ordinary recursion and _not_ dynamic programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the comment. Pls refer to many references on the Web on the use of Fibonacci sequence as a dynamic programming example or illustration.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Pressure Sensitive Drawing Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.paintacquaint.com/paintlonely/pressure_sensitive

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone's got a Wacom Tablet, I'd love to know what you think of it. I personally don't have a wacom tablet to test it out, so who knows. It might not even work ;)</comment>


PHPUnit Responds to a Security Concern + Extra Stuff - <AUTHOR> https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/07/phpunit-response

<comment><AUTHOR> This also contains an example .sh script that automates the download, verify, and execution workflow for PHPUnit -- I recommend verifying the key through independent channels because I could easily have placed my own public key there instead of the PHPUnit author's key.</comment>


Use these meta tags for pretty Rich Previews - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@richardoosterhof/how-to-optimize-your-site-for-rich-previews-527ed13a6d69 <comment><AUTHOR> We're a team of developers and build online tools for programmers. While sharing our URL's in chat apps, we found out that often a text was shown instead of the website preview image.

This article summarizes all the meta tags you need for a pretty website preview and gives examples for each tag on how to implement</comment>


Gartner Technology Hype Cycle in 2000 - <AUTHOR> https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/gartner-hype-cycle2000.gif?w=479 <comment><USER2> Is 'digital ink' what we now refer to as e-readers?

<comment><USER3> Yes, e-ink vs. gyricon was a big fight back then.</comment></comment>


Never did I just run in and bowl anything and hope - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/aug/20/ashes-glenn-mcgrath-england-australia

<comment><AUTHOR> For those not familiar with cricket, Glen McGrath was one of the greatest bowlers of all time and also known as one of the toughest.

One of the other good quotes "To be a good player you have to have the skills. To be a great player it is attitude and mental strength that will get you there.'</comment>


Turkish provinces introduce mandatory tracking to enter government buildings - <AUTHOR> "- At the entrance to public buildings in our city, our citizens are asked to question the life fits in the house (HES) code within the scope of the new type of coronavirus (Kovid-19) measures,<p>- Helping our citizens who do not have HES code to obtain the HES code from the Ministry of Health's life fit into the house (HES) mobile application or the E State application,"<p>Translated from: http://izmir.gov.tr/2020110-sayili-il-hifzissihha-kurulu-karari<p>(a few more provinces did the same move too) <comment><AUTHOR> I am curious whether any other country has taken similar steps.</comment>


Front end devs – Don't change the size or shape when hovering over a button - <AUTHOR> https://i.imgur.com/nPK7uoA.mp4 <comment><AUTHOR> I see this all over the web, I've just picked out Facebook Messenger as an example. When a user hovers over a button ensure you keep the hover region the same.</comment>


I billed companies for 2 out of my last 3 take homes and they paid me - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/bprxxc/i_billed_companies_for_2_out_of_my_last_3_take/ <comment><USER2> I had 2 take homes in a late stage interview, but up front they told me I would be paid a reasonable hourly wage to complete them. honestly the practice of doing lots of take homes seems like a waste of everyone's time. Companies should only do it for their final few candidates and pay them to do it. In the grand scheme it costs the company basically nothing - think about the enormous profit these companies make on a good employee for a few years.

At my company I do trial projects (real actual work we need done) for prospective employees. We pay them to do it. It's never anything that would cost more than $500. The point is not to test how committed they are or how above and beyond they are. The point is to see if they know what they are doing in the simplest, fastest, cheapest way possible for everyone involved.

<comment><USER3> Why does it matter if it's real work, versus just resembling real work?

At some companies the work may be of a nature that it's easy for someone to jump right in and do $500 worth of work in a reasonable time. At other companies, identifying the work, scoping the work, vetting to work, finding an owner for the work, etc adds up to enormous effort and is not even close to worth it. For those companies (by far the majority I would guess), it's going to pay off to have one or a few projects that they give everybody.

To the candidate, it doesn't matter. Whether they see it as a waste of time or an investment depends only on whether they end up getting the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unless I'm almost certain that I really want to work at the place and it's just a last step of the interview process I'm fine with coding for a few hours, be it on-site or at home.

But otherwise, if it's more than 2 hours, there is no way I gonna do that again, such a waste of time. The longest one I did was more than 10 hours and I didn't even get _any_ feedback about the code. Billing is smart though, I'll always ask for that from now on.

</comment><comment><USER5> it's worth noting, the only 2 companies that paid out were willing to take the next hiring step with him. In the grand scheme of things, paying out a couple thousand is nothing compared to how much those companies will pay out to the recruiters, so it makes sense if they want to hire the guy. i mean they already spent 50k or so on the recruiter, what's another 1-5k for an assignment.

</comment><comment><USER6> He said that, being from a consultancy background, it hadn't even occured to him that they might want the work done for free.

</comment><comment><USER7> He billed these companies without first confirming the rate, estimate, or if he would receive any payment. I wonder if these invoices were sent to the hiring manager or just sent to AP directly hoping they'd pay it out accidentally.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ...and, it's gone. Guy deleted his reddit account as well. Tl;dr he billed three companies for the time spent on take-home assignments, with his normal hourly rate. Two of three companies paid, around $8,000 total, and one of them hired him fulltime.

<comment><USER8> > $8000

Assuming an hourly rate of $250/hr, that's a lot of hours. Split evenly between the two companies, that's 16 hours for a single take home.

My expectation on a take home is more on the order of 4 hours, but maybe I'm off on that? And maybe this guy was a deep expert who charged $1000/hr?

<comment><USER9> WHen it was up, the commment said one of the take homes was 35 hours of work (ended up being the company they signed with)</comment></comment></comment>


Why SARS-CoV-2 Bluetooth contact tracing apps are a tremendously stupid idea - <AUTHOR> https://raccoon.onyxbits.de/blog/covid-19-bluetooth-contact-tracing-stupid-idea/ <comment><USER2> > _Bluetooth contact tracing is hyped as a silver bullet, an alternative to > social distancing._

What a ridiculous straw man argument. Nobody is saying this is a silver bullet. Nobody is saying it replaces social distancing. That's either disingenuous or it's based on a massive misunderstanding of the purpose here.

It is one weapon in an arsenal of several, and the goal is to keep using all of them at once because each one helps reduce R0. Contact tracing doesn't replace everything else. You keep doing as much social distancing as you can. You keep washing your hands. And you also do contact tracing.

> _Day 6 [ ... ] Joe's test results are back: positive. [ ... ] Potentially a > few hundred people are going to have a really rotten day._

Yeah, well, that _is_ the idea, isn't it? They were possibly exposed. Sometimes learning bad news means you have a bad day. What's the alternative, ignorance is bliss? You might also have a bad day if you get COVID-19 and give it to your grandmother and then she and half the people in her retirement home die.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. the "anti tracing app" crowd seems to be split into two teams, one "Gov are going to use this to abuse and control you" or "it wont stop you getting the virus, it wont protect you from getting it"

this is NEVER the plan. why cant people get over that fact? Like home made masks, they're a small layer that helps to reduce the rapid spread. slow it down, let us control it a bit more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Ask a computer scientist for their opinion and the answer is: FUCK NO!"_

Of course, because all computer scientists share the same opinion... not!

Some computer scientists are even aware of the limits of their knowledge and understanding and give answers like "it depends". There are tons of variables that play into how well any of these solutions work, and yes, there's a privacy trade-off. Just like with license plates, card payments, mobile phones and leaving your house. Or using Linux. Are you one of the 10 people using Linux on the Internet? Yeah, we know who you are ;-) Welcome to the real world, where people make compromises.

Also: do you really want to be the guy saying something doesn't work while others are currently _trying to make it work_?

<comment><USER5> You mean like really tamper proof electronic voting(in practice, under real world constraints of yadda yarr yarr yadda)?

<comment><USER6> The comment above lists many solutions that require compromises to work.

We can make compromises on a covid-tracking app. Worst case scenario: fewer people install it and it's less effective—still better than not having it in the first place.

We can't make compromises on a voting system—worst case scenario: democracy is overthrown forever.

There is a BIG difference in the threat models here. The prople objecting to electronic voting recognize that a major breakthrough in computing security is needed before we get there. OTOH we van probably design a _reasonable_ covid app with acceptable compromises.

If you think that having your position tracker is unacceptable: great for you, stand up for your rights. Most people do have google maps and its tracking installed, and don't give a crap _because it lets them see traffic_. I think the tradeoff here is definitely better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Obviously there will be false positives and false negatives with this app. If you could catch even 50% of cases though it would go a long ways towards stopping spread. The question is whether you can get that without a huge false positive rate. My guess is that you can, since it appears that the primary transmission mechanism is sustained indoor contact, within about 15 feet. You could probably increase the accuracy if you could detect being indoors.

On the cost issue, the obvious solution is to make testing free and easy, and to provide a financial incentive to get tested quickly after the app alerts them.

<comment><USER8> > The question is whether you can get that without a huge false positive rate. > My guess is that you can

No, you can't. The virus spreads exponentially and the app is suppose to keep up. In other words, you get an exponential number of alarms.

> On the cost issue, the obvious solution is to make testing free and easy

Cost is not the limiting factor. Equipment, reagents and time is. We could have easily beaten the pandemic by now if simply going from door to door and taking a smear test was an option.

<comment><USER9> the whole point of the app is to isolate people that have been in contact with positive cases before they become contagious.

if everyone has the app, you won't have an exponential growth.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the author might be under the false impression that coming in contact with a known positive has some repercussions for you. In reality, it's just an indication that you should get tested.

</comment><comment><USER11> > government agencies and law enforcement … to be honest, I have no idea why > they should be interested, but surely, they will.

This one's easy. Bob commits a crime. Police think there's an accomplice. So, they use a contract tracing system to identify and start investigating Bob's direct and second-order "contacts".

Note - this is independent of the actual implementation, which does seem fairly secure against such uses. Still, I worry that given the public nature of the "infected" list, and that phones automatically add themselves to the list, there are some statistic correlations which could be made.

<comment><USER9> law enforcement already has location from cell tower data.

to be able to read the ids from contact tracing apps, they need to capture the phones and decrypt them, at which point there's probably more evidence to be found than some random ids

<comment><USER8> Actually no and no.

Having been in the same cell (potentially several square miles) as the murder victim is not quite the same as having been in tracing distance (4m²).

That's quite a strong argument/pretense, why law enforcement would immediately lobby to get the system changed in their favor. Don't you agree?

<comment><USER9> if you use an android phone, check this URL: [https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)

that information is a lot more sensitive and a lot more useful to law enforcement. most people don't even know how much your location is being tracked.

the contact tracing framework by comparison, isn't really very useful for anything other that just that...contact tracing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Contact tracing apps sounds like a totalitarian wet dream.

</comment><comment><USER9> A couple of concepts that I think the OP has wrong. I'm only talking about the Apple-Google contact tracing framework:

* you need a key from a doctor to be able to mark yourself as positive.

* when you get a notification that you came into contact with someone positive, that's it....nothing else happens. it's up to you to go get tested (possibly with a priority because of the app)

* you are giving up 0% privacy by using contact tracing

</comment><comment><USER9> the author doesn't seem to understand how to system works. yes, it's not perfect, it doesn't tell you you've got it for sure, just to get tested, in case you've been near someone who has it.

Also, people can't troll using the app, you'll need a key to be able to mark yourself as infected

<comment><USER13> The article is pretty good and the author seems to understand how the app works, can you provide some specifics?

I think giving up a significant amount of privacy for technology that's "not perfect" is a pretty dangerous slippery slope.

<comment><USER9> you are giving up 0 privacy. no tech is perfect, but this is very well thought out.

i've gone into detail here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23053624](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23053624)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It will help the legions of people employed to do contact tracing manually right now in places like taiwan korea and singapore..

</comment><comment><USER15> And "fuck no!" is indeed the right answer.

<comment><USER9> why?

<comment><USER15> The reason is explained in the article where the quote comes from.

<comment><USER9> none of the reasons make sense sorry about the formating, but i've tried to cover all of them:

Joe the hacker What if Joe stayed home the first day (did not get infected), got hold of Jane's phone and decides to swat her for fun?

// What does that have to do with anything?

Joe, the slacker What if Joe was not a neighbor of Jane, but one of her students, desperate to meet a deadline. Could he buy himself an extension by faking an infection?

// not really sure what this has to do with the tracing app...you can't fake an infection on the app, you have to get tested

Joe, the movie buff What if Joe had invited Suzie to the movies and turned his phone off before entering the cinema hall?

// who the fuck turns off their phone in a movie theatre?

Joe, the deceived Plot twist: Joe just caught the flu. Same symptons, different pathogen. Should he wait for test results (or be tested at all) before hitting the alarm?

// Again, you can only tell your app that you are infected with a key that you get after you test positive.

Joe, the unprepared Joe is single. What if he runs out of food while quarantined? Will he sneak out, leaving his phone at home?

// not sure why he's leaving his phone at home? who does that? even if it does happen, it will be rare.

Joe, the kindergarten teacher What if someone had the idea to reopen kindergarten, thinking the availability of Bluetooth contact tracing renders social distancing unnecessary?

// people want to open kindergartens because 'MERICA...not sure how this app will change things

Jane, the hypochondriac What if Jane had an unrelated symptom, quarantined herself without a test and thinks, she gained immunity afterwards.

// what does this have to do with the contact tracing app?

Jane, the gym instructor How many contacts would Jane's phone log, if she left it in the locker room?

// I don't think most people leave their phones in the locker room. Even if they do, they will have contacts...other people that are in the gym at the same time.

John, the secret agent Are there countries that would benefit from keeping other countries in lockdown? If so, what could be more effective than interlinking as many people as possible, then sending a fake alarm?

// ugh...sure...I guess...if they're bored? and they get a key from a doctor

101010, the software bug Is it possible that a piece of software, especially one, that is based on a bad idea and coded in a hurry, might malfunction?

// pretty much everything around us runs on software...yes, there might be bugs, they get fixed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you have bars open then there's no point of doing anything to stop spread.

Just focus on inventing vaccine for couple hours a day then hit the pub.</comment>


Ask HN: Becoming a hirable programmer - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I am currently a student at a community college, where the programming courses have not given me the confidence that I could hold my own at an internship. I have taken all that the college has to offer in computer science (Intro c++, Advanced c++, Data Structures, and Discrete Math) I have already applied to transfer, but in the mean time, how do I make the next step? This summer is coming up, what kind of projects should I be doing to make myself competitive for internships.
Thank you in advance. <comment><USER2> What's the software service or app or tool that you most want to have, that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you say "I built that?"

Build that. Or build a small piece of it. Or build a prototype of a small piece of it.

In other words, build something, anything, that makes you want to get up in the morning and skip school to work on it all day. (But don't skip school.)

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Pick one of the startups mentioned daily in HN. 2\. Build a clone (even if very basic). 3\. Repeat.

Make sure to have some kind of online portfolio (github is fine), a place to write about your experiences (a simple blog), and make sure to talk about the difficulties you had (plus how you solved them).

Good luck.

<comment><USER4> > Make sure to have some kind of online portfolio (github is fine), a place to > write about your experiences (a simple blog), and make sure to talk about > the difficulties you had (plus how you solved them).

I think the critical thing is to document your experiences for your own use. It doesn't have to be in any particular form.

Online portfolios, open source, blogs, etc. can work very well - but they're just modes of expression. Some people take to them very well and use them very effectively, and that's great. But not everyone needs to have a coding blog. It's just one arrow in the quiver, and you should focus your time and attention wherever it will give optimal results _for you._

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Contributing to your favorite open source projects is a favorite. I recommend checking out Google's Summer of Code, sounds about perfect for you.

<comment><USER6> i whole heartedly agree, participate in one or more OSS projects. then, as your hiring manager, i can see your code, your interactions with people (bugfixes, code reviews, etc), and your interests. plus you'll learn a whole lot, meet people, contribute to the world, and find out about good opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> thank you all so much for answering.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just build something. The easiest way to learn is to do. In fact I personally find fixing other people's bugs to be a terrible idea for someone wanting to learn how to build things and learn more about the general field of software development. It's a quick way to burn someone out, or make them lose interest in the whole thing before they're even started.

Choose an idea, preferably something personally useful to you (don't spend too much time on this part because ultimately it's the process itself that matters) then build it. You'll need to pick a language/framework and build something with it, so go with whatever you're most familiar with, or pick something you're interested in learning.

In the process of building something, not only will you learn the general foundations but you will inevitably create your own bugs and rabbit-holes you'll need to learn to fix anyway.

At that point I would say it's a good idea to start contributing to open source projects, fixing bugs, extending features, etc. But not before you've reached some low-hanging fruit and built some self-confidence in building new software.</comment>


Computer Program Copyrighted for First Time (1964) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/08/computer-program-copyrighted-for-first-time.html?_r=2 <comment><USER2> Wow, the guy is a legal powerhouse these days, impressive stuff [http://banzhaf.net/](http://banzhaf.net/)

<comment><USER3> My impression from reading 30+ years of Washington Post pieces is that he believes in litigating anything he does not agree with, including (long ago) "Ladies Nights" at Washington bars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was under the impression that anything created by anyone was implicitly copyrighted (?)

<comment><USER5> In the US, not until 1989:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementation_Act_of_1988)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> convright/tne NYTimes OCR doesn't autocorrect :)</comment>


Live feed - Red Bull Stratos: Sky jumping from the edge of the atmosphere - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vkJ5ItzEq3M#!

<comment><AUTHOR> Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space that will try to surpass human limits that have existed for more than 50 years. Supported by a team of experts, Felix Baumgartner will undertake a stratospheric balloon flight to more than 120,000 feet / 36,576 meters and make a record-breaking freefall jump in the attempt to become the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall (an estimated 690 miles / 1,110 kilometers per hour), while delivering valuable data for medical and scientific advancement.</comment>


Linux TCP bug lets attackers remotely hijack web traffic - <AUTHOR> http://opensourceforu.com/2016/08/linux-tcp-bug-lets-attackers-remotely-hijack-web-traffic/ <comment><USER2> Related discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tcp&sort=byPopularity&prefix&p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tcp&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story)</comment>


The Grid Uses Artificial Intelligence to Design Your Websites for You - <AUTHOR> https://thegrid.io/#1849

<comment><USER2> The description on their page doesn't read like AI to me. Especially given that they classify things like this as AI: "Setting up shop online is too much work with all the management, databases, checkouts and security. Our AI removes the need for plugins, configuration and constant stress. Have a product, add a price and a shopping cart magically appears on your site. Just like that, just as it should be!"

All in all, it looks more like a blogging platform with templates that adapt to your content than actual AI.

EDIT: "The Grid" is the company behind the NoFlo flow programming tool... based upon their GitHub repos it looks like they reimplemented Jekyll using NoFlo and are using that + their adaptive templates to power the app. An interesting approach.

<comment><USER3> AI is such an abused word that no one really knows what it is supposed to mean. Probably "automation" or "soft computing" are more accurate, but lack the cool factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Yes. You can purchase as many accounts as you want and gift them should you > choose. (Hint: If you're clever, you'll use your referral link to purchase > three accounts and get a fourth one free!)"

Admin can you please strip the referral from the URL (#1849)

</comment><comment><USER5> OK, this is a cool idea and I really like the pitch. My one criticism is that featuring several shots of a "Made in Palm Springs" site that features the Brooklyn Bridge seems like a non-sequiter.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would very much like to know how this really works from the backend. Is it multilingual etc</comment>


Quire: Building a Large Application with Dart - <AUTHOR> http://simonpai.github.io/2014/09/03/quire-building-with-dart/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing. Could you share us more about the performance? Did you compare with Java or other solutions?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get this, why would you use something like Dart which is incredibly immature across the full stack?

I would have thought it would be more feasible to create something with already proven technology...is there something in Dart that I am missing which makes it considerably better than languages such as JavaScript etc.?

<comment><USER4> I'm working on my first Dart web project since february. I'd say that the thing that really makes a difference in Dart compared to javascript is the Dart Analyzer. Thanks to the Analyzer the code is type checked and syntax corrected while you are writing and this prevents 90% of bugs otherwise very common and time consuming in javascript. And this while keeping all the flexibility of a dynamically typed language like javascript. Also a great boost in productivity comes from the fact that the Dart framework already incorporates all features that in javascript require dozens of external libraries like jquery, node.js or modernizr, etc. Porting legacy javascript code in Dart is also very easy, the syntax is almost identical. I think if you do not have to use advanced libraries like Polymer.Dart or Angular.Dart (they are much better than the javascript counterparts, but currently are still very buggy and not production ready), then you can use Dart today and get a boost in productivity. When the DartVM will be incorporated in Chrome (currently its only available in the Chromium/Dartium version of the browser) that should also give up to 4x performance improvement over javascript. That is expected for the next year, when the new "Oilpan" garbage collector will be finally integrated into Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does Dart have libraries for interfacing with DB systems on the server side yet?

<comment><USER6> Yep!

There are a bunch of packages on pub: sqljockey (MySQL), postgresql, oracledart, odbc, mongo_dart, wilt (CouchDB), google_cloud_datastore, couchclient (CouchBase), and more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any way to see the source?</comment>


How Much Really Changed About Terrorism on 9/11? - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/09/how-much-really-changed-about-terrorism-911/131438/ <comment><AUTHOR> Unless you've read real scholars and experts on the history of the topic, this article probably will change your perspective.</comment>


Unremovable malware found preinstalled on low-end smartphone sold in the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/unremovable-malware-found-preinstalled-on-low-end-smartphone-sold-in-the-us/ <comment><USER2> A lot of the comments here are complaining about trash software that exists on other phones that isn't removable. The difference here is that it isn't just garbage ware that might have vulnerabilities like the stuff Samsung puts on its phone, this is actively malicious.

This especially sucks because the people who can't afford a good phone will pay not only in having a poorer user experience but they'll have their financial and social media information stolen as soon as its used on these devices.

That means the people who can least afford (via both time and money) to deal with identity theft will be the ones hit the hardest.

<comment><USER3> Heh, it's funny you say that. I just broke my phone and had to go get a new one. I was holding out for the PinePhone/Librem 5 to be useful enough that I wouldn't need another Android device.

The cheapest device that I trusted was the Pixel 3a, and that's because I can cleanly install GrapheneOS and not have google play install. That was $400. It was very tempting to get a $100 phone, but this was my exact worry.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that it's increasingly harder to run a non Google certified Android phone.

For example many German (EU?) Banks now have some form of 2FA system for credit card payments which requires a Android/iPhone app which does only run on non rooted certified phones. (Through it should be noted that in Germany credit card is not the major payment method and many people don't even have one, instead dbit cards with V-Pay, giropay, etc. are dominant. )

As a site note this is also the case for their online banking Apps, but you can just use their website instead.

<comment><USER5> Some web sites even require an android app to login (key generation)

<comment><USER5> Banks here used to support client digital certificates well, but have switched to this mess because of poor browser support (removing things like KEYGEN without viable alternatives).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Personally I consider this to be all phones: the baseband firmware is a blob that does who knows what, and is likely the weakest component of nearly every phone on the market. Most baseband processors are connected via DMA.

Prior discussion from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905643)

<comment><USER7> I'm reminded of the 90s joke about Windows PCs being pwned within minutes after going online. That is, going online directly via dial-up modem, rather than through a router.

So yeah, the baseband firmware is a huge vulnerability. But if you use a separate modem/router, and disable the onboard baseband, that's far less of an issue.

And with the PinePhone, it's easy: [https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Killswitch_confi...](https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Killswitch_configuration)

<comment><USER8> It was not a joke. I once saw a new WinXP install get hacked soon after being plugin into a modem.

The Register reported the avaerge time to infection was 20 minutes.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/infected_in20_minut...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/infected_in20_minutes/)

<comment><USER9> These days almost everyone is behind a NAT, which effectively defeats all the scanners trying to exploit Internet-listening services (and XP comes with an unfortunately large number of them in a default install.)

<comment><USER7> Except for almost all people using smartphones ;)

<comment><USER10> All modern smartphones came out after XP SP2 so the industry knew the problems with exposed ports - I don't believe _any_ shipping smartphone in the US today comes with any processes with open listening ports by default (even carrier bundleware) - please correct me if I'm wrong.

That said - because of the sheer number of phones in existence, on IPv4 you're guaranteed to be running behind a giant NAT operated by your network carrier - and on IPv6 the address space is too big to port-scan (at least) but while it's no help if attackers know your address - I understand there's still a mix of carrier-based and handset-based network lockdown going on.

<comment><USER7> Sure, industry learned that exposing ports is dangerous. But they apparently didn't understand the deeper risk of trusting the network.

Cellular baseband is poorly secured, and it's privileged over userland. And its firmware is a closed-source blob, so it's ~impossible to fully assess the risks.

And so it's arguable that adversaries can pwn smartphones through baseband.

That's the analogy to Windows XP machines. Windows Firewall was just a stopgap. What helped most was going from dial-up modems, which are no more secure than network interfaces, to modem/routers with NAT firewalls.

So smartphones ought to have discrete cellular modem/routers. And that's an easy option for the PinePhone, given the kill switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bought three of these for my 8 year old triplets from twigby.com. I was really upset with twigby, but I guess they weren't the ones that did it. These phones would continuously install weird apps no matter what I did. I even had them locked down with the google family app and they still did their thing. I upgraded to to Moto G7 Plays and they are not only faster, they don't continuously install malware.

<comment><USER12> I had a similar experience with a track phone I bought as a cheap balloon tracker: As soon as I put it on WiFi it pulled down maybe a gigabyte of random crap (it looked like mostly games but also "facebook" and some other things like that.) It refused to install termux until it had installed a dozen or so worthless things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is very common for low-end Android phones. I have seen and used many models from different companies (eg, Micromax, Gionee) (mostly Chinese) that remotely install apps or inject ads into the OS (notifications, home screen or lock screen).

They also almost certainly are used to collect personal user data and sell it.

Another bad thing is that these apps often come installed as "system apps", so you can't uninstall or disable them, or change permissions :(

<comment><USER14> I hope people remember when Kindles were possible to be bought with burned-in ads for cheaper.

<comment><USER15> I too hope people remember that, because it was the case one minute ago. You save $20 or so by having ads on your Kindle when it is sleeping. The ads are not burned in, they are delivered via WiFi the same as other Kindle content. I don't see the problem with it.

<comment><USER16> You can also go into the settings, pay the extra $20, and turn them off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is this too much different than the unremovable malware found preinstalled in _high-end_ smartphones sold in the US? Even big brands like Samsung are riddled with insidious malware these days, all which you consent to when clicking through the registration screens.

We need regulation banning all this. Will never happen since malware benefits those who crave endemic surveillance.

<comment><USER18> That's not "malware". Adware maybe, but malware does assume something more ... malicious. Asking for consent is annoying, but we are talking about stuff that _doesn 't_ ask for your consent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> People keep focusing on how these Chinese phones have malware and are being used in the West but I tend to believe that is more of a nice side effect, the real purpose is for China to keep a tight leash on those inside it's borders. I mean if we think about it they have to monitor, survail and keep in check more people than the entire US and EU combined.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yep, people keep buying Chinese phones without thinking. How does the government allow them to be imported?

</comment><comment><USER21> ...and on high-end smartphones too, arguably. Consider how difficult it would be to remove from any smartphone any piece of software that you as a consumer don't want (e.g., baseband firmware, call-home components, data-collection services, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it really unremovable? What about flashing custom AOSP build?

<comment><USER17> Sure, why don't you buy these figure out how to do it then publish easy to understand instructions for the average purchaser to follow. Thanks!

<comment><USER23> "Requires domain knowledge" is not the same as "unremovable," so it's a valid question.

<comment><USER24> That's a needless distinction for the vast majority of users. I imagine anything is removable with enough domain knowledge and the right equipment.

<comment><USER25> Once one person knows how to do it, they can document and even automate the process, then other people don't need to have any domain knowledge.

<comment><USER26> This may be the dream but is not and has not been the reality of rooting phones and flashing them with custom software.

It's ugly, it's error-prone, and the software that attempts to simplify it doesn't and is of unknown trustworthiness. A very unhappy path.

Absolutely not a reasonable option for the typical user, and an even less reasonable expectation that they should do it or should have known to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's no malware here that I can see, simply an auto-update mechanism that could theoretically be abused, like every auto-update mechanism (Chrome, Windows 10..)

<comment><USER28> I pretty much consider all auto-update (and telemetry, for that matter) mechanisms that I can't disable to be malware.

<comment> awinter-py the department of the interior made disabling all phone-home (including auto updates) a condition of their DJI drone buy

and cautioned that the level of testing they need to do for future updates is a large expense of the project

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually unremovable, i.e. unrootable and with a locked bootloader? That's pretty bad. On the other hand, when I looked into the Android community a few years ago, it was almost "common knowledge" that a lot of the cheap and unbranded ones come with preinstalled crap, but they're unlocked by default and easily rootable so you can remove it, and there's various guides on how to do that and make a custom ROM.

</comment><comment><USER28> In my opinion, the prevalence of software that I consider to be malware has become so extreme that I don't consider any smartphone to be safe enough to use anymore.

Although I'm marginally OK with my current one (an antique that I have a google-free ROM and a lot of security installed on), it will probably die within the next couple of years. At or (hopefully) before that time, I'll have completed my move out of smartphones entirely.

<comment><USER29> The PinePhone will be launching soon, and you could install any flavor of mobile Linux you want if you are still interested in owning a smart phone: [https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/](https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/)

<comment><USER28> Yes, I've already investigated the PinePhone. I have nothing against it -- there are a great many things about it that are wonderful -- but I don't find it particularly appealing on the whole.

My escape plan is to use the dumbest feature phone I can find and also carry a pocket computer (running standard Linux) that lacks cell capability.

<comment><USER30> Why not combine those two into a Cosmo Communicator or its predecessor Gemini PDA?

I'd love to get a Cosmo but I'd hate to carry it around _everywhere_ due to its bulkiness. I guess that might be your concern as well.

<comment><USER28> Yes, it's much too bulky. I've also become very fond of the idea of keeping my compute and my cell physically separate. That's not really necessary from a security perspective as long as I can install my own copy of Linux on it, but the idea gives me warm fuzzies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought malware was the business model of low-end smart phones. Random game company pays them to install their game on x000 devices. It's really a question of when, not if, those companies would ship malware. You can't imagine they are actually vetting any of that stuff they install.

<comment><USER31> I know one of the companies who ships the software embedded with privileges which then installs the garbageware apps (designated by the carrier). The garbageware apps are definitely not vetted to my knowledge.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Google Analytics or Omniture Site Catalyst? - <AUTHOR>

Any thoughts on the Pros and Cons of those products? Can you include Omniture pricing? ease of use.
I am trying to decide which one to use for a small-medium site, but also want to be able to scale the site and the analytics along with it.
Thanx
Let me know <comment><USER2> Omniture is rather expensive and somewhat difficult to use. Scalability won't be a problem with either.

A more fundamental decision point is understanding what kinds of information you want to track:what metrics are important to you? You're at much greater risk of having an analytics package that doesn't help you answer meaningful questions in an actionable way than having one that won't scale. Google "pirate metrics for startups" for a little more insight.

Also, you may want to explore one of the several "alternative" metrics packages, those that are better turned to funnel analysis or whatnot than either GA or Omniture seem to be.</comment>


The Android Explosion: How Google's Freewheeling Ecosytem Threatens the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/mf_android/

<comment><AUTHOR> Now just replace Jha with Elop, Motorola with Nokia and Andriod with Windows Phone. One thing lacking is the operator like Verizon.</comment>


David Heinemeier Hansson step aside, Paul Graham is next to be voted off the island - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/01/david-heinemeier-hansson-step-aside.html <comment><USER2> _we are angry with Paul for daring to elbow us aside on his climb up the ladder_

Elbowing? Ladder-climbing? Good grief. This is the sort of crap that makes me happy not to be any kind of celebrity.

The only statement here that seems accurate to me is that many people are motivated by envy. Even "Schadenfreude" is the wrong term to use; releasing Arc is hardly any kind of misfortune. And I don't see what Paul Graham and David Hansson have in common, other than that they get mentioned in contentless techfan wordfluff.

<comment><USER3> > contentless techfan wordfluff

A very competitive segment of the marketplace of hot air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wait, I'm confused. What's the point of this post? A meta-discussion about fallout from unmet expectations compared to koolaid-drinking trends? Don't you people have stuff to do?

<comment><AUTHOR> What has more impact on the adoption of technologies: its technical merits or social behaviour?

<comment><USER4> I'd like to think it's a good combination of both. New technology with technical merit arrives, smart people latch on and build things with it, improving the knowledge base and library depth. Then, more people flock on as they follow the leaders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think many people mistakenly thought Arc was supposed to be some new kind of framework like Ruby on Rails. I'll bet few of them read the stuff over at <http://paulgraham.com/arc.html> ahead of time.

I wonder how many people just jumped to the download announcement compared to the number who read the Arc essays.

<comment><USER6> > I think many people mistakenly thought Arc was supposed to be some new kind > of framework like Ruby on Rails.

\- Didn't you hear? Arc, the language, uses _tables_ in its HTML!

(My god, I would never use _a programming language_ that was _ever_ used to generate _tables!_ )

\- The zeroth release of Arc only supports ASCII! What about us EBCDIC users?!

\- Arc didn't cure my unsightly dandruff, like I hoped and prayed it would!

\- Arc is out and Jesus didn't come back!

\- I downloaded Arc and the tarball just sat there in the directory, doing _nothing!_

\- Arc doesn't completely integrate itself with its temporary host language!

\- Arc killed my entire village, just as we were about to start our annual Unicode Festival!

\- Arc is just a bunch of library functions and syntactic transformations on a parse tree that ultimately compiles to machine code. _There is NOTHING new here!_

(Did I miss any? ;-)

<comment><USER7> > (Did I miss any? ;-)

Yep, the Duke Nukem Forever rewrite is waiting for Arc.

<comment><USER8> Arc has been out for _days_ and they're not done with it yet?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally, I'm suprised this train has generated as much steam as it has. The emotional intensity of the commentary wars between the "Arc Sucks" camp and the "You suck for thinking that Arc Sucks" camp is perhaps higher than the situation warrents. Those who like it will use it even in the absence of some important features, those who don't certainly don't have to (I daresay there are plenty of other programming languages for them to use). :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> >promotes the language extensively

>relentless self-promotion

When and how did that happen?

<comment><USER11> Seriously, what self-promotion?

<comment><USER12> I was thinking that too. I can't think of any cases recently where I've engaged in relentless self-promotion.

I mean, I write essays, and since I believe the things I say in them, I am in a technical sense writing things that promote my own ideas, and thus me. But that's true of anyone who writes.

He can't have meant anything so complicated. Here's my theory of what he meant, based on his use of Matz as an example: relentlessly skipping the self- effacing remarks that most people surround their ideas with to help make the medicine go down.

If that's what he means, he's right. I don't do it out of arrogance, though. I skip that kind of stuff partly because it seems too much like a deliberate trick, and partly because it makes sentences longer than they need to be.

<comment><USER13> A lot of your essays praise "hackers" relentlessly, with the understanding that you are talking largely about yourself and your circle.

<comment><USER12> I don't know about this argument. What I'm praising is a way of approaching life. It seems natural that one would oneself approach life in a way one praised.

That seems different from praising something one is merely born with, like being English or white or male. You don't find me doing that.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly the way I've always taken your description of hacking. And your praise for the YCombinator startups usually talks about how hard they work, for example talking about how much code they write in a short period of time while living on Ramen noodles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> huh?

I don't have a dog in the fight. I wasn't looking forward to Arc, and I am not going to try it.

But it seems kind of weird to say that people who were disappointed had dubious psychological motives. What if, perhaps, they expected the first released to be stand-alone and that's not what happened? I mean, aren't there lots of ways to be disappointed that don't involve some kind of psychoanalysis and therapy?

I'm sure people are petty and small mammals. But I don't watch Dr. Phill for a reason -- you can make various psycho arguments all day and not really have a lot of anything when you are done. Perhaps the author of _this_ piece is really just a suck-up? There's simply no basis for evaluating one opinion over another. I guess I could say the article is crap, but that would take less words. :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Who are you talking about when you say "we"? _I_ like Steve Jobs. As well as Woz.

<comment><USER16> I think Steve and Apple is a horrible comparison here.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Generate Fake University Diplomas - <AUTHOR> https://diploma-generator.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. This was made as a project at Stupid Hackathon Stockholm last week. The ideas is to fix the worlds education system by making education affordable again. It generates a free university diploma with the click of a button :)</comment>


Microsoft Academic Search - <AUTHOR> http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

<comment><USER2> Is this better at anything than <http://scholar.google.com>? I find it inferior: it's slower and I can't filter by time. Search results seem similar.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      "genetic association plate effect"
      "plate effect gwas"

The OP search doesn't turn up anything, while google scholar has highly relevant papers in the top ten. I think they still have some way to go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I went to a talk given by one of the most senior guys at Microsoft Research, and it seems that they work on interesting problems there. One of the few gems in the dark Microsoft mine, I suppose.

<comment><USER5> Oh come on, that's bullshit. Microsoft Research is working on a whole bunch of stuff. Anyone in OS research knows how often MSR appears on the most influential papers.

<comment><USER6> I don't get it.

<comment><USER5> Maybe I misunderstood.

I thought

 _One of the few gems in the dark Microsoft mine, I suppose._

meant that he didn't think Microsoft does anything notable anymore.

<comment><USER7> I interpret it as thinking Microsoft as a whole is the dark mine, and MSR is the gem.

<comment><USER5> OK, well that's not really true either. To say that there is no cross over from MSR to product development is incorrect. I know for a fact that SQL server has been inspired by MSR and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gratuitous and unnecessary use of Silverlight.

</comment><comment><USER9> So this is something like Einztein or Academic Earth - but not for courses but for papers/publications, as far as I can get it.

Deserves a bookmark, even if it requires Silverlight for rendering certain components of the page ( "To view the trends of publication and citation, you need Microsoft Silverlight." ).

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been meaning to read more of Alan Kay's work. This makes it easy.

      http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Detail.aspx?entitytype=2&searchtype=2&id=2276768

<comment><USER11> Then you might also like: [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/smalltalk.h...](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/smalltalk.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like it pretty well so far, as it nicely recognizes authors and gives you all their latest work. Bookmarked for use later.. hopefully it does a nice job at getting me the articles I need by title, which sometimes google scholar doesn't do as well as I'd like.</comment>


Danger of Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/02/daily-chart-7

<comment><USER2> It's not always strictly numbers. Take bee stings. If you're not allergic to bee stings then 25m/1 against dying from it is probably right. You may have been stung in the last year and not even noticed it, or thought it was something else.

If you're allergic to bee stings then that probably brings your odds up significantly, although it's probably still in the millions to one magnitude.</comment>


SEO – Special Emphaty Optimization for WordPress - <AUTHOR> http://humanembodiment.com/2014/09/17/seo-wordpress-optimization/

<comment><USER2> God, I wish people would become minimally literate before trying to write essays. The linked piece is filled with the most atrocious misspellings and grammatical errors, as though the author couldn't be bothered to review what he had just typed. Starting at the top, with "Emphaty" instead of "Empathy".

To see the point, try Googling for "emphaty:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=emphaty&oq=emphaty](https://www.google.com/search?q=emphaty&oq=emphaty)</comment>


Bradford Cross: Big Data Is Less About Size, And More About Freedom - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/big-data-freedom/

<comment><USER2> I have used FlightCaster many times and everytime my flight has been delayed, FlightCaster has shown it as on time. I'm wondering if and when it actually _works_.

Has anyone had a successful delay status notification from FlightCaster?

<comment><USER3> What's up fnid2. We've definitely had some known issues over the past several months at different levels in our system. We've worked out a lot of problems and are on top of others as we speak.

That said, Flightcaster works now for a lot of cases, but it is inherently probabilistic, so we do mispredict as well.

Keep using it, report issues to us when we are wrong, and we'll keep working on the algorithm and making our data better.

<comment><USER2> Hey Bradford, thanks for responding. Always good to get someone involved with the actual system to talk to!

As an individual, I'm not concerned about the _probability_ that my flight is delayed -- I want to know if it is delayed _for sure_. If I go to flightcaster and it says it isn't delayed, I'm annoyed when I get to the airport and have to wait 2 more hours. If it says it _is_ delayed and I wait, then I _could_ miss my flight and I will be not only annoyed, but very angry -- probably at myself for trusting you.

Of course I could verify the flight status at the airline's website if you say it's a high probability, but in that case, why use FlightCaster at all? I should always just go to the more likely correct source first.

Probabilities might work for airlines or systems that are large enough to be affected by an aggregate flight status or for planning large complicated trips in advance, but if it fails to identify _my_ flights so often, I will simply disregard it as a useful source of information -- as I suspect many individuals will.

So, what is your plan? I've read that you may license the technology to bigger firms or something like that, which sounds doable, but in my personal experience, it simply isn't a tool for individual travelers or I don't "get it." I also fly internationally, so all those flights aren't available.

What is a use case where this would be useful for an individual? Am I simply not the right user for FlightCaster? Who is your target market? From the marketing I read about it, it _seems_ targeted to individuals -- that's usually what tc writes about anyway, so it's a bit confusing for me. I feel like it could be so useful for me, but I keep getting not so great results. Even last week I flew from canada through dallas. I couldn't get the first leg, but then the second leg was 2 hours late and on time according to fc.

What if you could add something where if I check my flight and I _know_ the status for sure, I can "correct" the status at FlightCaster! Crowd sourced flight status! :)

<comment><USER3> You raise a lot of really important issues here.

Let's take them one-by-one; data, algorithm, and user experience.

Data: We've done a lot with our data pipeline recently to ensure you have the best available information in real time and we are able to recover as quickly as possible if one of our data suppliers goes down or backs up temporarily. As to the international issue, we will get there in time, but it is not so simple. We want to get the US stronger first, and the international data sources are sparser and not the same as those we use already.

Algorithm: We're working really hard on making our algorithm better and integrating new data sources as new features to learn from. We do a lot of very hard data transformation and feature extraction in order to get the feature vectors our models learn from. We just underwent a major overhaul of our Hadoop and Cascading infrastructure, and our research environment is setting us up to be able to do a lot of cool stuff now. You can find the code for our cascading lib here: <http://github.com/clj-sys/cascading-clojure>

User Experience: We wrestle with the kinds of issues you raise on a daily basis. It is tricky to have a user facing probabilistic model. As you point out, some folks look for certain outcomes, and don't do so well with probabilities. Others love to geek out on as much data as possible and want an even more fine grained information dashboard. It not easy to satisfy both groups with a single experience, although we're exploring different user experiences right now that try. As to the crowd sourcing, we've talked about social media integration, and it does seem like it would help people interact more to share the best current data with Flightcaster and our other users. Again, it comes do to the priorities and focus required at startups - we can't do it all at once.

<comment><USER4> The real question is: does flightcaster actually predict effectively? Would you be open to publishing the statistical analysis of your model so far? I'd certainly love to take a look at this. I don't want to see the algorithms you are using, but it would be nice to compare your model using MDL or other information criterions to other more simplistic models (e.g. simple geometric distribution predictions), and analyse it using standard statistical model diagnostics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article - this is why I read HN.

I think that Bradford Cross is right on: as more data becomes available, the challenge is not building 'cookie cutter' applications, but rather using some combination of ML, text mining, statistics, etc. to create new ideas and systems.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am interested to read more about how people put together the pieces, such as hadoop, hive, pig, and rabbitmq.

</comment><comment><USER7> May be stating the obvious here, but why is a probabilistic prediction model primarily aimed at consumers? Wouldn't it make more sense to apply to users for whom probability is useful e.g., truck fleets to predict delays? oil fields to show likely drill spots? etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great article. There's much more to be said about "Freedom". So many corporations have access to massive amounts of data and it will soon be easier to regulate access; whether by control of it's owner, or not.</comment>


Apple Lightning - <AUTHOR> https://nyansatan.github.io/lightning/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious -- what's the reason for something seemingly as simple as a Lightning cable to have chips inside of it?

For most of computing history, I was generally under the impression that cables were "dumb" \-- each pin connects to a wire which connects to a pin on the other end. There's fancy bundling and twisting and whatever involved, but it's still ultimately just conductive wires.

When did cables start getting chips, and why? Did Apple start it or somebody else? Is it solely to try to prevent third-party manufacturers? Is it for the cable to announce to the port that it supports certain specifications of power or data? (But why would that require a chip instead of just some kind of "dumb" extra pin that has some basic electrical property that can be read?) Is it something else?

I mean I understand why certain _dongles_ have chips, because they're connecting between sets of pins that aren't 1-1 or even in the same data format at all. Or why the same might be true for USB-C to Lightning.

But for cables to go from "dumb" to "smart" seems like it kind of breaks all expectations of what a cable even does, and therefore how a consumer will even know what to purchase -- which, of course, has famously been a HUGE issue with USB-C.

Would it be better for us to go back to dumb cables without chips? Or are there good reasons why this is the future, where at some point we'll expect _all_ computer cables to have them?

<comment><USER3> How would you maintain such a margin on the cables if they could be "dumb"?

<comment><USER4> The last time I looked, the money Apple earned from the entirety of the MFi program — not just cables, but every single third-party Apple accessory on Earth — made up less than one half of one percent of their annual revenue. It's such a vanishingly small part of their business.

It's far more likely that the purpose of MFi is to make sure that any officially licensed accessories aren't pieces of shit that Apple will cop the blame for. Most users aren't going to blame the cable manufacturer when their phone won't charge properly, since the vast majority of people have no idea about the complexities of modern charging protocols, so they're going to mistakenly think the phone is at fault and blame Apple.

<comment><USER5> > every single third-party Apple accessory on Earth made up less than one half > of one percent of their annual revenue

That makes me even more angry about the ridiculous price of these accessories

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love that the protocol uses the string "BREAK". Old teletypes, and in particular the iconic ASR-33 had a key marked "BREAK" that was not a character; it simply held the line open. This could be interpreted by the person on the other end as a sign to reset what was going on and start again, or really anything that might have been pre-agreed.

With the advent of computing, and connecting teletypes to computers, it was often used to trigger an NMI. Multics and the rainbow books cited it as a way to make sure you were talking to the "real computer and not some program impersonating your computer (since it wasn't an actual character there was no way for a normal program to even _see_ it much less generate it. The terminal controller/channel controller could see it though and notify the monitor (what we call the "kernel" these days).

<comment><USER7> UARTs and serial protocols are still in very widespread use. A large proportion of all embedded devices use them, which is arguably the majority of all computing systems sold.

What you're implying is historical is still current.

<comment><USER6> Yep, and I know that UARTS still have built in break detection but keyboards don't have a BREAK key, or any rainbow book style "secure key to signal the computer" function any more. Even the power switches on Mac laptops (and I assume others), phones etc are soft functions.

I haven't designed an embedded device or serial protocol that used break since, well, ever. That's why I was tickled to see this.

Edit: just saw your uname — my use of the term "tickled" was coincidental

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I bet most of the information in this article was already known by others, mostly in the repair as well as the 3rd-party accessories businesses, and either wasn't publicised or was not in English. I still remember the announcement in a Chinese BBS a long time ago when the first company in Shenzhen cracked the protocol --- a few weeks after Apple started using Lightning.

Apple seems to like using 1-wire buses; here's another application of one: [http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of- ma...](http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-magsafe.html)

<comment><USER9> You're not wrong about your information, but interestingly your criticism parallels that commonly levelled against Apple itself - that Apple's innovation was "was already [achieved] by others". However, it wasn't yet presented in a nice, easy to consume package all in one place - which is sometimes just as significant as the raw engineering itself.

It's testament to the noteworthiness of both Apple and this article that here we are talking about it all - about efforts cobbled together from other parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting.

> To enable full current, 0x74 request must be issued by Tristar and processed > by HiFive. For SecureROM/iBoot that's enough

I wonder if that means, in a pinch, you could turn off the device to use an uncertified charger that iOS would block.

<comment><USER11> Unlikely, even if you shut the device down when you attach a charger it goes into either a semi-on state or just turns on entirely. Even if you shut it down while it's plugged in.

<comment><USER10> I thought the "semi-on" state with the battery display was still just firmware and not full iOS. If not, what exactly is it booting to display that? Surely not an ordinary kernel?

<comment><USER8> My experience is with the MTK platform but Apple may be similar; in which case the battery display is done by neither "firmware" nor the full OS, but an intermediate component:

[http://www.lieberbiber.de/2015/07/05/mediatek-details- little...](http://www.lieberbiber.de/2015/07/05/mediatek-details-little- kernel/)

<comment><USER12> I believe they are just one of the things you can "boot", alongside regular iBoot in the boot partition and loaded appropriately by SecureROM. I'm pretty sure the images at least ship inside IPSWs.

<comment><USER13> This is correct. That's because the "Charging" screen also sometimes has OEM or carrier branding on, and error messages that might need to be i18n translated eg. "battery failure", "overheat". It's much easier to do that with a separate component rather than give every OEM the ability to flash and recompile firmware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how many iPhone's have been thrown away because it's "not charging anymore". I have had two occasions where my iPhone was not charging and i went to buy a new one, luckily both times shop assistants cleaned the socket, pulled out all the dust balls etc and it was charging again.

<comment><USER15> I carry a tooth pick for this, but it's annoying. I'm in the process of switching out my main charging stations for Qi so I don't have to bother with it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love Lightning, long wished it'd conquer all, and expected to hate USB-C.

I kinda like USB-C.

I now half expect Apple's future mobile devices to not have any ports, will just use wireless charging.

Apple AirPods are already pretty amazing. I haven't used any plugin headphones 6+ months. Not even my beloved Shure; which sound fantastic, but hot damn I hate cables.

<comment><USER17> > I now half expect Apple's future mobile devices to not have any ports, will > just use wireless charging.

Wonder where my pocket lint will accumulate if that happens.

<comment><USER18> Speaker cavities

<comment><USER12> Why have speakers when you can just listen on your AirPods :)

<comment><USER18> Gotta have alarms go off at embarrassing times somehow!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This explain why you can't charge iPhone with "cheap cables".

<comment><USER20> The only third party brand I trust is Anker.

<comment><USER21> Someone once commented here on HN that Apple engineering departments get boxes of Anker cables delivered all the time since they're so much better than Apple's own. I wish I had saved the link.

<comment><USER22> Well, Apple seems to think strain relief doesn't meet their aesthetic criteria, so that's not surprising.

<comment><USER23> I don't know what it is, but I've never broken a single Lightning cable since I got my first iPhone in 2016. I still have 2 new-in-box cables from upgrades. But a few weeks ago I was picking up a friend and when she got in my car she said "Why do you have the Apple cable? They're so fragile" and immediately tore the strain relief plugging her phone in.

<comment><USER24> Wait so you dont tie your iPhone cable around a tree and swing on it while your phone is charging! Shocker. I'm in the same boat at you, not a single Apple cable failure in 10 years of using Apple products.

<comment><USER25> I've had two apple cables fail over the past five years despite being mostly just plugged into the charging ports of a powered (anker, hah!) usb hub on my desk. The cable I keep in my bag for when I'm not home is an anker one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The information in this artcile is based on a lot of AppleInternal materials > (leaked datasheets, schematics, source codes) I read in a diagonal > direction.

What does "diagonal direction" mean here?

<comment><USER27> It means in a cursory manner.

edit: funny to see all that we all replied at the same time. Just to add to the conversation, "diagonal reading" is not just a Russian idiom, it also exists in French :)

<comment><USER28> In German it's "querlesen" (read s.th. transversely, read s.th. across).

I guess Russian and French people start top left and stop bottom right, while Germans start top center and end bottom center ... (at least that's what I do).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Don't fry if you can't re-buy".

It seems necessary to point out here that if you fry your iOS device's circuitry experimenting with this stuff, when they capture the device to analyze what happened, you will likely end up paying for those repairs.

<comment><USER30> iOS is pretty stringent on power capacity coming through the wires. You'd have to make your own jailbreak tweak (or modify a current one) to fry your device with a cable

<comment><USER29> "Don't brick" doesn't have the same rhyme to it.

For example: Since there's a process for altering on-connector data, exercising that process could break a device in a way that disqualifies it for warranty repair.

<comment><USER31> I think to myself that DFU mode actually stands for "Don't F Up" rather than "Device Firmware Upgrade".

<comment><USER32> When I supported them I referred to it as "done f'd" instead, since it was typically used to recover from something gone wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Many Lightning accessories I've played with have mirrored pinouts in their > connectors

And some, like the "chimp" cables mentioned later, do actually care which direction you plug them in :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone know what the black box is that he's connecting to in the picture? Is that the logic analyser or just some other accessory?

<comment><USER34> looks like the DSLogic: [https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/product/dslogic- series/](https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/product/dslogic-series/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Could Apple come after this guy since he has access to leaked IP?

<comment><USER36> Usually you can only go after the leaker or anyone republishing the IP. Simply having access to it isn't a crime. Perhaps they could issue some sort of takedown notice for the schematics.

<comment><USER37> Not a lawyer, but I seem to remember that trade secret law in California at least covers information you know should be secret. So if I'm remembering correctly, information derived from leaked docs would be subject to trade secret law.

<comment><USER9> IANAL also, but how would it play out in practice? Provisions in law are different to what can happen in practice. Perhaps enough damage has to be proven in order for remedy to be handed down?

And is it criminal violation, or just civil? And if civil, if the violation happens overseas, not much can be done in practice, right? I don't know much about American IP law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This cable is clearly superior to USB-C. Why can't they make USB-C easier to plug in and reversible?

<comment><USER39> First of all, Apple was a contributing member to the USB-C group. [1]

Second of all, it is reversible (?)

It's inferior to USB-C in at least two ways:

1\. The part that wears out is inside the phone in Lightning and inside the cable in USB-C

2\. Lightning is for the most part USB 2.0 capable (though there is a newer USB 3.0 version - unsure how many devices/accessories support that).

[1] [https://9to5mac.com/2015/03/14/apple-invent-usb- type-c/](https://9to5mac.com/2015/03/14/apple-invent-usb-type-c/)

<comment><USER40> n=1, but the feeling of 'security' of cables plugged into my MacBook Pro's ports seems to have gradually decreased with time. Some are now even slightly position-dependent - I have to be very careful when copying files with some devices not to even slightly nudge the laptop.

This may of course be that the there is too great a variance in the design and manufacture of the male USB – C plugs leading to insecure connections… but either way, it's worse than any other USB standard (even micro) I've used, and much worse than Lightning in this regard, in my experience

<comment><USER41> I had the 2016 MBP, bought just when it came out, and now the same (long story...), but built in 2020. The ports on the new one seem much more stable - one has to plug it in, and then on the last millimetre there is increased friction really holding it tight. I don't think the ports on my old machine had that feature, and yes, they were very fragile - I'd basically kick off the Time Machine backup on an external drive and leave the room, hoping that it finishes!

The ports on the new one seem more stable, though. Maybe they've iterated and improved it - think about how much time they had to optimise USB A.

<comment><USER42> This is good to know. You can get replacement USB-C boards[1] for the 2016/2017 MBP, and I've been wondering whether they have the improved ports that newer model years got, or whether the replacement board would wear out as quickly as the original board. Your experience suggests that maybe they're using better ports.

1\. [https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro- Retina-A1706-A1...](https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro- Retina-A1706-A1707-Late-2016-2017-USB-C-Board/IF123-071?o=2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> We'll probably never see USB-C from Apple because of the intense effort that went into the NIH Syndrome to come up with this connector

<comment><USER44> Well the alternative at the time was USB 3 Micro B. If you haven't seen that connector then I suggest you google it for a laugh.

Personally I'm glad Apple picked a robust, reversible connector and stuck with it.

<comment><USER45> USB 3 Micro B was always funny to me. It's backwards compatible with USB 2 Micro connectors, so in theory it's a nice upgrade path at the time. In practice, though, it's often used for USB HDDs, and often those drives couldn't function reliably with the power levels of a USB 2 connection, so using them with a USB 2 micro connector was not only much slower, but they'd just power down randomly.

I like lightning connector, but it too has it's silly hacks. The HDMI dongles are an amazing level of silliness, down to a slimmed down iOS image being copied to the dongle and run there to enable a h264 decoder to run on the dongle itself. It works, kinda sorta.

<comment><USER23> Wait, really? Do you have more information on the HDMI dongle? I'd read a whole novel about that.

<comment><USER45> This twitter thread has more details: [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1155148789977636864.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1155148789977636864.html)

There's been some discussion here on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20554462)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scaling Rails with MySQL table partitioning - <AUTHOR> http://www.arachna.com/roller/spidaman/entry/scaling_rails_with_mysql_table

<comment><USER2> Well written, but it would be nice if there were some numbers to backup the claim that this would help scaling in a significant way.</comment>


From Pitch to Lawsuit in Five Days - <AUTHOR> http://taxisurfer.com/blog/2011/04/from-pitch-to-lawsuit-in-five-days/

<comment><USER2> This is probably just an attempt at on their part to see if they can get a competitor to just go away.

If you're successful, this won't be the last.</comment>


How Afropunk Became a Full-Blown Movement - <AUTHOR> http://ny.racked.com/2015/8/20/9180091/afropunk-festival-history

<comment><USER2> A long article about afropunk, and not a single mention of Bad Brains, the seminal DC black punk band?

</comment><comment><USER3> I live a block from where the Afropunk festival was held yesterday and today in Fort Greene. Some good music - but mostly not. In a superficial sense it _FELT_ like fashion and politics masquerading as musical subculture. Oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER4> We don't want to care _more_ about ethnicity, we want to care _less_. We don't want ethnicity to matter _more_ than it does today, we want it to matter _less_. Right?

Please help me understand how it's useful to have a special version of punk for black people.

<comment><USER5> > _We don 't want to care more about ethnicity, we want to care less. We don't > want ethnicity to matter more than it does today, we want it to matter less. > Right?_

No, we just want it to stop matter in a wrong guy.

People shouldn't forgo their ethnicity/race.

That's assimilation and it's also racist. It's like saying that they way to stop the issue of racism if for people not to feel black, hispanic, etc, and not celebrate their culture.

<comment><USER5> Oops, meant to right "to stop matter in a wrong way".</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any current CLEAR 4G WiMAX users out there willing to offer reviews? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to purchase a plan in Houston, Texas which according to CLEAR has great coverage (very likely), however, I am still curious about the following:<p>+ speed and stability of the connection (are folks really seeing the 6 mb/s download speed they advertise?)<p>+ presence of filters, bandwidth throttling, etc.<p>+ ease of setup<p>+ true cost of ownership<p>Also if anyone has terminated their two year contract early ... was it easy? unbelievably painful? <comment><USER2> CLEAR in Chicago is pretty reliable, and speeds hit as advertised. I haven't come across any filters or throttling, but I didn't like the USB-only options or the pricing for roaming (3g) and ultimately went over to Sprint/Overdrive.

CLEAR in Chicago offers month-to-month for $40/mo. You sure about the 2 year commitment in Houston?</comment>