Factual Inaccuracies of "Facebook Libra Is Architecturally Unsound" - <AUTHOR> https://tonyarcieri.com/factual-inaccuracies-of-facebook-libra-is-architecturally-unsound <comment><USER2> > I suspect Facebook's longer term plans, were they to actually launch Libra, > are to move to a permissionless proof-of-stake model much like the one used > by Cosmos

It seems really naive to think that if FB were to get a foothold in the currency markets with a permissioned product that they would later on go against their own interests and transition to a permissionless alternative (not to mention the massive legal and technical hurdles that this transition would require)

...but I don't know why I'm arguing against Libra, it's such an all-around terrible product, I should just keep my mouth shut. Facebook is tarnishing the idea of a "corporatecoin" for the next few years and doing all of us a favor in the process.

<comment><USER3> They have explicitly stated that a move to a permissionless system is their end goal.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_(cryptocurrency)#Blockch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_\(cryptocurrency\)#Blockchain_consensus)

<comment><USER4> Doesn't matter; there are no technical details for this, and so far nobody has a solution on how to do this. Yes, permissionless networks exist; but no network has transitioned _from_ a permissioned _to_ a permissionless network. _While_ transitioning from a permissioned to a permissionless network, you open your gates to a horde that are financially incentivized to exploit this newfound permission. How then are you going to secure yourself from an attack? Nobody has this figured out. It's mathematically unsound.

<comment><USER5> There is nothing mathematically unsound, I would even say that it should be trivial to transition to a permissionless setting. You just need to implement a proof of stake algorithm. The only questions are: what scheme do we want to implement and when does it make sense to transition. Libra launching as permissionless would be DOA.

<comment><USER4> tell me how to transition from pow to pos

<comment><USER5> why? Libra is not pow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are likewise some inaccuracies in this post. Both OPs seems to agree on the fact that Libra has no transaction privacy and then pick nits about features not being there _at this point in time_ :

> Libra's byzantine tolerance on a permissioned network is an incoherent > design.

This post's argument rests on their being a unused flag in the configuration file for a feature which is not implemented. The Libra whitepaper indicates that a permissionless design is beyond their ability to implement at this time. There is no reason to believe a proof-of-stake model is what is intended. Even the whitepaper states:

> The challenge is that as of today we do not believe that there is a proven > solution that can deliver the scale, stability, and security needed to > support billions of people and transactions across the globe through a > permissionless network.

> Libra HotStuff BFT is not capable of achieving the throughput necessary for > a payment rail

This seems like some actual benchmarks that simulate real system load are needed before a conclusion can be made.

> Libra's Move language is unsound

It seems like the OP takes a more traditional view of type checkers as a Haskeller programmer. Pushing type-checking to the bytecode level is a very nontraditional approach to compiler design and contradicts the original Libra whitepaper claiming to implement linear types. Libra does not do this provide any linear typechecker or formal verification at this time.

> Libra's cryptography engineering is unsound

This section is subject to some debate. It seems there are some unpublished audits of the libraries that may lend credibility to the Rust libraries but are unpublished. The original post doesn't claim that they are insecure, just that the more audits and testing the libraries undergo the more trusted they should become trusted (i.e. libsodium).

It also seems that Libra implements a lot of extraneous next-gen crypto that is dead code and not used for any purpose in the core logic.

> Libra has no capacity for consumer protection mechanisms

The section agrees with the OP that this does not exist.

<comment><USER7> > This seems like some actual benchmarks that simulate real system load are > needed before a conclusion can be made.

Both true and false. Typically, someone with good systems knowledge can estimate throughput from reviewing architecture / design / implementation.

<comment><USER5> There is no way you would be able to estimate throughput without doing any benchmarks.

<comment><USER7> Things like Big-O notation are part of introductory computer science classes and introductory algorithms classes.

BigO notation also applies when an algorithm is distributed and runs over a network. An algorithm that's O(n^2) will always be slower than an algorithm that's O(2n). You don't need to run benchmarks to find that out.

<comment><USER5> Big O notation tells you nothing about throughput in normal conditions. It tells you things about throughput in asymptotic conditions.

<comment><USER8> The parent poster also forgets about constant factors anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The thread discussing the original post is [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21451847](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21451847).

There shouldn't be two posts about the same thing on the front page. In most cases we'd merge the follow-up into the original, but since the points of view here are so opposed, it's going to seem like favoritism no matter what we do. My first crack at this is to let the opposing side have a hearing since the original has already spent many hours on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _This section throws a few numbers out: it claims the UK Bacs system does > 580,000,000 transactions a month, or about 223 transactions per second._

 _Curiously it claims Libra can't do this, but posts no numbers about Libra's throughtput. Libra's throughput target is 1,000 transactions /sec (see Section 8: Performance in the Libra paper) with 10 second latencies on consensus time._

OK but 1,000 transactions/sec is a non-starter. A single large seller or popular event driving a live transaction burst can need thousands. Even two decades ago, a WWE event could need 15K sales per second, or 5K per second for Amazon's black Friday.

If you're looking to compete with the order of magnitude of a Visa/MC, you're needing 15,000 - 25,000 per second.

For a commercially available 'distributed ledger' able to handle these characteristics (including service level objectives for operating it in production), take a look at the AWS QLDB we asked AWS to make available a couple years ago.

AWS introduced "managed blockchain" and the _very different_ "QLDB" in the same keynote.

Compare under the covers to see why, despite the hype, they introduced QLDB, which is designed for real work when you know who is running the servers:

[https://aws.amazon.com/managed-blockchain/](https://aws.amazon.com/managed- blockchain/)

[https://aws.amazon.com/qldb/](https://aws.amazon.com/qldb/)

If you're a trusted entity or a trusted consortium with legal paper among your members, you probably don't want the blockchains, you probably want QLDB.

</comment><comment><USER11> The section critiquing the critique of the cryptography is quite good.

That said, can we please all agree that a prediction of probable future action is not a defense of the status quo?

> I suspect Facebook's longer term plans, were they to actually launch Libra, > are to move to.... >...it's being worked on, and it certainly has "the > capacity" for them.

This is all well and good but it's certainly not a thing that is happening now. At the very least I would like to see Facebook write down that they intend to do these things before I accept this as a justification.

<comment><USER12> > That said, can we please all agree that a prediction of probable future > action is not a defense of the status quo?

...no?

<comment><USER13> Care to elborate? I can promise you somthing good if you do that I am not bound to follow through on. How does a million euros sound?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Diehl: Libra's Move language is not sound.

Arcieri: Is it actually sound? I don't know, it's brand new and looks unfinished to me, and even if it were finished I'm unqualified to make that assertion

Oh snap.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for this rebuttal.

I'm by no means a fan of Facebook and Libra, but Diehls post felt far from frontpage worthy to me.

> Stephen Diehl doesn't understand cryptography, but sure has a lot to say > about it.

This is how I felt about the entire post, to be honest.

It felt like a consultant on a mission, who doesn't really understand the topic, only took a cursory glance at a project, and yet berates it extensively. All while sprinkling in some of his particular knowledge, giving a false sense of technical expertise.

<comment><USER5> This is how I felt reading his post too for what is worth. He might have the expertise (outside of crypto(graphy|currency) to produce a technical opinion but has unfortunately not spent much time trying to understand libra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Debate around any technical merits of the Libra proposal is entirely beside the point. An extra-governmental currency owned and run by a consortium of big businesses from the payments and data monetisation industries is an intrinsically terrible idea and Facebook couldn't be trusted to do this in a responsible and ethical manner even if it were not.

</comment><comment><USER17> The flaw I care about most: The lack of transaction privacy.

<comment><USER18> Shouldn't this make it illegal?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Factual Inaccuracies of "Facebook Libra Is Architecturally Unsound" Considered Harmful

</comment><comment><USER20> > I consider it to be a gish gallop that bombards you with a bunch of negative > claims, many of which are false or at best, specious.

Is it me or is this a common trope of blog posts that hit the top of HN?

<comment><USER21> "Everything is actually terrible" is arguably the most popular topic on HN.

<comment><USER22> In a world that's bombarded with PR teams dedicated to pass the message that product X is by far the best thing ever, posts pointing out that product X actually has downsides are more than welcomed. Otherwise, the PR people are the only ones doing the talking.

<comment><USER21> I wasn't talking exclusively about products at all. But even then, I don't see a moral high ground in pushing negative hyperbole as a response to a perceived excess of positive hyperbole. Both seem equally fallacious to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Boom Roasted. That was enjoying to read. I wish most of this didn't go over my head, but I enjoy it nonetheless.</comment>


Wireless stickers to track everything in your house - <AUTHOR> http://www.greengoose.com/ <comment><USER2> The real-life crossover is fascinating, especially coupled with the API. Now you can make a software version of that cow that sits in the refrigerator and moos when you open the door.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't have any pets, but I have three little monkeys, and I want _all_ of the sensors!</comment>


An intelligence tax on thinking machines - <AUTHOR> http://edge.org/response-detail/26181

<comment><USER2> well first if you tax machines that think companies will put their thinking machines in countries without the tax, second of all progressive taxes have been such a success in the U.S that they will surely be just as successful in this instance.</comment>


U.S. Hits Russian Officials with Sanctions Over Election Hacks - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-29/u-s-hits-russian-officials-with-sanctions-over-election-hacks <comment><AUTHOR> Admittedly I haven't been following this extremely closely, nor do I want to come off as an apologist, but has the Obama administration released, well, _any_ evidence of that Russians were behind this? Or is it all being claimed secret in the interest of national security?

<comment><USER2> No he hasn't. It's all disinformation to deligitmize the incoming president.

It's like everyone has forgotten that Obama was given the Nobel peace prize and yet here he is beating the drums of war with no public evidence. So far the only thing we know is that there was human failure which allowed a phishing attack to work against a non-government system. That's not hacking, that's just a dumb mistake. This alleged "Russian hack" causing the loss of Hillary does not explain how Democrats were overturned at all levels, not just the president.

This is a passive aggressive action to destabilize the world politics for an incoming administration. Yet Trump was accused of lacking the temperament to be president.</comment></comment>


Signifier – a Brutalist response to 17th century typefaces - <AUTHOR> https://klim.co.nz/blog/signifier-design-information/ <comment><USER3> Kia ora!

I'm Kris Sowersby, designer of Signifier and author of the design info post on Klim.

First up, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read it. I really appreciate it.

I've neither heard of Hacker News nor been here before. But I'm chuffed that you're discussing and critiquing with such wit and (on the whole) sensitivity. I never expected it from this quarter, and it's something that the online type & design community seems to be lacking. I'll address some specific points in thread where necessary.

—Chur.

</comment><comment><USER4> The font is certainly interesting conceptually, and doesn't look bad (though is largely indistinguishable from its "Garamond" source at normal sizes).

And while I've read the whole thing and understand why the author considers this to be a "Brutalist" philosophy, I respectfully disagree. This is merely vectors adhering to a grid, which has nothing to do with the "exposing raw materials" philosophy that is the core of Brutalism. [1]

To me, early pixel-based terminal fonts feel like the digital typography version of Brutalism -- not even attempting curves or calligraphy at all, but embracing the raw material of pixels for exactly what they are.

If the author wants to bring a similar Brutalist raw-materials approach to modern vector-based typography I'd find that interesting as well -- but that would seem to have been done a long time ago, with typography based solely on primitive geometric shapes, of which classic typefaces from the 20th century would seem most suitable (Futura [2], Avant Garde [3]).

In the end, Signifier is a cool concept typeface. But I unfortunately think the author fails at connecting it to Brutalism in any meaningful way, despite their attempt.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_\(typeface\))

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

<comment><USER5> Brutalism has been hot the last year or two, so people like to emptily invoke it for their own designs.

<comment><USER3> I agree — it's been a buzzword in the graphic design industry for at least 10 years now. During Signifier's 15 year development I've seen many trends surface and disappear! And during the a year we spent working on the marketing concept and approach for Signifier, I struggled with even mentioning the term "Brutalism". In the end, I decided it was OK, because it was true to my process, research and thinking.

We work very hard to ensure concept, execution and communication are as solid as they possibly can be. I would never emptily invoke anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad there are people in this world who can completely unironically and confidently write "Signifier's digital immateriality draws on a deeply material past. Acknowledging the processes and tools of digital form-making, I worked consciously with the computer to recast the lead, antimony, and tin of the 17th century Fell Types into ones and zeros."

I certainly couldn't!

<comment><USER7> Anything that smart people spend a lifetime doing—programming, font making, engineering, woodworking, auto repair, painting (house _and_ fine art)—has depths that look completely crazy to outsiders.

<comment><USER8> You do not really need to be a smart person for that. Infinite depth is within everyone's reach! Cf. xkcd 1095[0]

[0] [https://xkcd.com/1095/](https://xkcd.com/1095/)

<comment><USER9> I expected [https://xkcd.com/915/](https://xkcd.com/915/) before I clicked

<comment><USER8> There's also the one about cast iron skillets, that has a similar atmosphere [https://xkcd.com/1905/](https://xkcd.com/1905/)

Curiously, the three numbers do not seem really independent.

<comment> toper-centage > Curiously, the three numbers do not seem really independent.

Those numbers.. Can't be a coincidence.

<comment> toper-centage Unfortunately i couldn't find evidence of the pattern going any further or back (195, 591, 2195 etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a surprisingly nice type face. It looks blocky when blown up, but it is really clean for small text. It took me a second to zoom in on the text and realize that the article is written in the typeface itself. I'm curious is there might be a legibility benefit to having a more rectilinear font. Perhaps the transfer function of TTF's anti-aliasing is cleaner along the horizontal and vertical axes rather than along a diagonal or curve. Having a less curvy font might be easier to render since the edges align with the display.

<comment><USER11> Interestingly, many fonts look very strange when zoomed in because they employ all kinds of tricks to exploit optical illusions to give their fonts particular expression, such as curves and pinches that are almost imperceptible when viewed at a normal size. Unfortunately at the moment I can't find an article which clearly demonstrates what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER12> Hinting is what that's called.

<comment><USER13> I think ~warent is referring to features like ink traps, which are features that do look strange up-close, but might help increase contrast or other qualities at small sizes.

<comment><USER14> Maybe overshoot as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love it.

I don't have much more to add than that: I _really_ like this font. It pushes proportion in so many subtle ways, and the result is just... I want to write a book so that I can typeset it in Signifier.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make a font that's so recognizably classic and yet so distinctively itself. That took taste, and just enormous reserves of effort; but an effort which shows itself in a restrained, elegant fashion.

I firmly disagree with the comment that it's indistinguishable from Garamond! The f, d, and g immediately tell me that this isn't Garamond, and that's before I opened up Font Book to compare some more subtle letters. The f positively looms over the subsequent letter, while the loop of g swells voluptuously into the space around it. Yet somehow, they manage to do this without crowding their neighbors.

That's really hard! Again, love it. Great font.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've never really thought too much about the font industry of the past - <USER2> is quite the interesting read.

The font he's created is great. I wasn't fond of the sharpness initially, especially when the text is blown up, but it reads wonderfully when it's at a 'normal' text size.

I must confess - I had no idea fonts were so expensive to license! (Not a criticism of the cost, just ignorant until now).

<comment><USER17> I had the same experience - found the blown up version to not be appealing at all, but ended up really liking, as you put it, the readability of the normal sized text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Related: If anyone is curious about the Fell Types, there are digitised versions available here: [https://iginomarini.com/fell/](https://iginomarini.com/fell/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Not sure if it just me, but I find it considerably more relaxing to read the text from the photo of the page (with all the surface and font imperfections) than read text written with the same font rendered on solid background (this time perfect).

It's almost like I need the paper and font imperfections to read faster.

My theory is that the brain somehow uses the paper and font imperfections to coregister (align) the binocular images from our eyes, which leads to smoother reading.

<comment><USER20> This makes sense to me, as I had the same impression; my theory is that it is the diversity and the individuality of the letters in the text that makes reading easier, and slight imperfections and irregularities only add to this.

The "brutalist" digital version, on the other hand, seemed to me more of a demonstration of how far one can go using tricks without anyone noticing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That epilogue was poignant and lent an entirely different feel to the entire article.

<comment><USER22> He used Aristotelian terms but misunderstood them, probably because of how we now use "material" in ordinary English.

The letters on the screen have form (shape, meaning) and matter (pixels). The matter of the letter has changed but it still has matter in the Aristotelian sense.

<comment><USER21> I was referring to the tragedy in the author's life.

<comment><USER23> We don't know how old the author's mother was when she died. My grandfather died of cancer at 79. While it was sad (and I still feel sad when I think of it) I wouldn't ever describe it as a 'tragedy'.

Only commenting because I feel this word is overused these days.

<comment><USER3> The death of a loved one is almost always a personal tragedy, regardless of age. Overuse of a word doesn't make it any less so.

<comment><USER23> You're simply changing the meaning of the word then and also, I would suggest, debasing the complex experience of death by suggesting it is a singular, universal experience of 'personal tragedy'.

Everyone loses loved ones and in many cases it is _not_ experienced as tragedy but as death being a normal and essential part of life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I love the post, I hate the font.

But I am glad they have made it. They also raise an important point: half- arsed revivals of older fonts. I've been trying to make posters in the style of 1930s adverts. There are a few challenges, but one of the biggest is finding the correct font that hasn't been modernised.

<comment><USER3> I'd hazard a guess that most posters from the era are hand-lettered, not typeset from fonts. You'll be hard-pressed to fake a 30's aesthetic with modern digital fonts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I loved that after seeing the comparisons, you can notice that the article was writing in Signifier. Did not love the CPU usage of the page (at lease for me, it rocketed up. macOS, Safari)

<comment><USER26> Same here - macOS, Safari, and I've never heard my fans spin so loudly before. I wonder what causes it.

<comment><USER7> React is the new PHP: a dangerously welcoming ecosystem for amateurs. If you look at the trace, you see it's firing a timer for LazyImage every 300 milliseconds that that's causing constant repaints. It's terrible, but no one believes in craftsmanship anymore. :-)

                // Give react a chance to render before starting to poll
                // This gives us more chance of the opacity transition being visible
                // Should also fix rendering glitches in firefox where native image placeholder shows briefly
                setTimeout(pollForComplete, 300);
            },

<comment><USER27> Hmm, settimeout is one shot, setinterval is the repeating one, unless that's calling itself recursively?

Anyway using delays hoping that things are in place in 300ms is asking for trouble, I thought reacts whole thing was to put everything in a component lifecycle callback so everything happens in the order it needs to

<comment><USER7> Good point! There must be some other interval causing the timer to be set.

<comment><USER28> Hello! Thanks for having a fossick through our code ;) Happy to report that the issue has now been resolved. I've added a post explaining the underlying cause a little up in the thread. (I'm not sure how notifications work on HN, so figured I'd drop a reply here, too).

<comment><USER7> Awesome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Apple has for some reason licensed some of Klim type typefaces. If you are on latest version of OSX you can activate/download them from Fontbook.

Klim type are objectively top 3 type foundries in the world not many people doing better than them. So its a great deal.

</comment><comment><USER30> True brutalism would've been a bitmap font.

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow. This is a wonderful work of digital craftsmanship. I was absolutely blown away.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a beautiful font, it looks like the kind of thing I would expect to be seen used in a dictionary or encyclopedia.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is the CyberTruck of fonts, and it is brilliant in a similar way. I think this designer is on to something. The legacy type styles are proven over centuries - or have we just been conditioned over centuries? I think of this as a Serif with the legibility of a Sans.

<comment><USER3> If you tune into our livestream next week, you'll see me stride onto the stage and confidently throw a steel ball at the… oh.

</comment></comment><comment> DC-3 I'm not sure I like the font but this sure is a lovely article

</comment><comment><USER33> I like using interesting fonts and would definitely grab this for my Kindle if I could afford the price tag.

<comment><USER34> For the curious, $400 for use on three devices (includes using the font to create printed materials) [https://klim.co.nz/buy/signifier/](https://klim.co.nz/buy/signifier/)

<comment><USER35> No one really needs an entire family though. Get the Regular, Regular Italic and Bold to do everything a normal person would need a typeface for. $150. Everything else if for weirdos and designers buying type for their clients.

<comment><USER36> "… weirdos and designers buying type for their clients" – but, I repeat myself!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This was a great read. The subject is interesting, but I also enjoyed how it's written. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER38> The philosophical context of font design is one of those niches of rarified contemporary hothouse cultural specialization that makes me thing, _this is as far as we go, as a culture._

Reading these things I inevitably experience intellectual vertigo, the deep- zoom-into-a-fractal sense of perfectly accurate, almost totally unnecessary, precision at microscopy scale. It's more Gibson than Gibson, not least if you're aware of Douglas Hofstadter's obsession with "letter spirits" and their multidimensional relationship to GAI...

We had a good run.

<comment><USER39> Maybe you should take a look in the mirror, we're all toiling in rarified contemporary hothouse cultural specialization.

"Hey, here's a cool article about a guy who spent a year creating another over-engineered javascript framework because he had an aesthetic dislike of semicolons. This matters! Upvote!"

Welcome to Hacker News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this a joke? Is there an actual typeface somewhere here underneath all the pomo theory? Are the pictures of one font or many?

<comment><USER41> It's set in the typeface it's talking about.

<comment><USER42> I love the fact that the typeface is so bad at signifying anything that it's possible for some readers not to notice it.

<comment><USER35> Or it's so good at signifying the meaning of the symbols that the reader is never pulled out of the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm sorry, but again, none of that stuff has anything to do with "brutalism" which has been made a complete buzzword for the last 4 years, just because "design needs trends". No it doesn't. Design for your audience and don't follow "trends".

<comment><USER44> What would a "true" brutalist font look like?

Brutalism is about exposing the materials used in construction (i.e. the raw concrete is visible). So maybe a font that also shows its own spline control points?

<comment><USER3> My understanding of the Brutalism ethos is not about exposing the material itself used in construction, but "… rather the quality of the material… "

A font with it's own BCP's exposed exists!

[https://djr.com/gimlet-xray/](https://djr.com/gimlet-xray/)

But they're still _drawn_ with béziers… the're not the BCP's themselves. Now that would be a recursive/fractal vector nightmare.</comment></comment></comment>


Can a USR command damage a ZX Spectrum? - <AUTHOR> https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2261/can-a-usr-command-damage-a-zx-spectrum <comment><USER2> In summary: No, but certain port behaviors can be toggled between two states in a little-understood manner.

Relevant quote from the top answer by the author of the video and article below:

> _The first video shows what happens if the "randomize of the death" is > issued to a real Inves Spectrum+. The video starts with a power cycle to > initialize the Inves. If you can, compare this with the result obtained with > Spectaculator running the Inves ROM:_

> _Link to video showing an Inves Spectrum+ executing BORDER 5: RANDOMIZE USR > 4665_

FLV video: [http://www.zxprojects.com/images/stories/videos/rand_usr_466...](http://www.zxprojects.com/images/stories/videos/rand_usr_4665_inves.flv)

> _Well, I think that after seeing this, it 's the end of the "randomize of > the death" hoax._

Details, including the port behavior, are here: [http://www.zxprojects.com/inves/](http://www.zxprojects.com/inves/)

</comment><comment><USER3> But you can kill a Commodore Pet with a poke, we had those Pets in our high school programming class in the 1980's.

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

[http://www.6502.org/users/andre/petindex/poke/index.html](http://www.6502.org/users/andre/petindex/poke/index.html)

<comment><USER4> The PET's killer poke made the text on the screen look like it was wrapped around a cylinder. The damage it could cause was screen burn in along the left-most and right-most columns because they were at maximum brightness, while the rest of the text was less bright and quite stretched out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The BBC Micro B had a physical internal relay which controlled cassette tape player motors. The following program (from memory) would produce an alarming buzzing which, if left long enough, purportedly led to the relay wearing out, i.e. physical damage.

        10 *MOTOR 1
        20 *MOTOR 0
        30 GOTO 10

<comment><USER6> I mean, CD/DVD based games consoles have the drive rated for only a certain number of reads, there is an interview with Naughty Dog devs talking about development of Crash Bandicoot, where apparently they discovered that on average playing through the entire game would do a "lifetime" of reads, Sony allowed the game to be released anyway(and it looks like the drive was under- rated if anything, since no significant drive breakages were reported from playing this game).

I do however know of one Gamecube game which was an inch away from being on the market in a state that would brake the drive of every gamecube that played it - some very clever person found an undocumented command that would increase the speed of the drive, leading to super quick streaming from the drive, resolving some loading issues that the game had at the time. It worked well, the game was finished and went into manufacturing, and fortunately Nintendo realized that it's no coincidence that QA's and their own test kits keep breaking after playing the game, and pulled it before it hit the shelves.

<comment><USER7> That's great. Any articles about the Gamecube issue? I can't find any info.

<comment><USER6> No, and unfortunately you won't find it anywhere since it was an internal issue. I'm intentially avoiding naming the game as I don't think this was publicized anywhere before.

<comment><USER8> It was indeed written about at length from one of the developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Once ago we told you that it was impossible to break a computer by issuing > commands from the keyboard. Well, this would be the exception that proves > the rule.

Or efivarfs.

<comment><USER10> Modern mobile SoC's can probably be hard bricked even by accident. Run a kernel image that is not intended for the _exact_ model of your hardware, and you incur the risk of e.g. misconfiguring some voltage regulators and trashing some arbitrary part of the SoC beyond recovery. (And the whole thing a huge mess because the patched kernel code is often the _only_ kind of hardware documentation that's actually available for the SoC - hardware designers work _directly_ on the kernel support, and implement all sorts of horrible, undocumented hacks in the process. Though I can only assume that the recently- mainlined SoC's and the IoT-ish designs that are being repurposed by the likes of Purism are somewhat better from that POV.)

<comment><USER11> Configuration (including boot or memory setup, crypto keys validating firmware, ...) also is sometimes in write-once fuses you can set from software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Halt and Catch Fire. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire)

</comment><comment><USER13> I seem to recall that pulling out a joystick connector from a joystick port whilst the Spectrum was switched on could permanently damage both the joystick and the computer! Though there might have been an edge connector peripheral in there somewhere depending on the model.

</comment><comment><USER14> There was an original Commodore PET that could be damaged by a POKE command. They fixed it quickly.</comment>


Chrome's experiment of hiding the URL is awful - <AUTHOR> http://disconnected.craig.is/where-did-my-url-go-chrome/ <comment><USER2> I can't agree at all with the author's basic premise, which makes it hard to agree with the rest of the article.

>> URLs are the building blocks of the web.

The web has lots of building blocks (hyperlinks, requests, the underlying protocols, HTML, and on the modern web: Javascript and XmlHttpRequest). We hide most of that implementation detail from the user because it's non- essential to the task at hand.

How essential to the task at hand is the URL for most users? I may need a building's address to find it; once I walk into the building, do I need to continuously see that address?

>> Every page has a unique URL so that you can identify it and share it with other people.

That's a significant mis-statement of what a URL is. URLs have never been unique (witness www.foo.com vs foo.com), don't necessarily identify the page (witness dynamically-generated pages that are built with information from the client's cookies or state on the server), and their utility as a sharing tool is limited to what the server allows (witness access control). They're uniform resource locators... Nothing more, nothing less.

A URL is a tool. A useful tool, certainly. But I don't keep all my useful tools constantly on display on my desk; I keep them in toolboxes until I need them. So I'd say "See how this experiment pans out."

<comment><USER3> > We hide most of that implementation detail from the user because it's non- > essential to the task at hand.

and then you have tons of security holes and bugs. Remember when browsers thought it was nice to hide loading from the user, and every site had to add "do not click submit twice" and such? what's next? one page apps relying on a share button and then having to write "do not share via the hidden URL"? ...google maps was like that for ages now that i think of that...

We should be coming up with ways to make information denser and more meaningful. not scarcer.

<comment><USER2> "Do not click submit twice" isn't a side-effect of hiding loading; it's a side-effect of sites taking something that should be idempotent (a single purchasing transaction) and failing to code it to be idempotent. Nothing about the page loading UI would have prevented that issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I observed a bunch of high-schoolers using the web.

They go to Google to visit a site. They don't type URLs.

They go to google.com, enter "Facebook" and click on the 1st result.

Remember the Facebook Login fiasco?

[http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_m...](http://readwrite.com/2010/02/11/how_google_failed_internet_meme)

Google showed this post when people searched for "Facebook Login":

[http://readwrite.com/2010/02/10/facebook_wants_to_be_your_on...](http://readwrite.com/2010/02/10/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login)

<comment><USER5> ...and that's because they are fucking stupid.

You know what I recently observed? A bunch of kindergarteners fastening their shoes to their feet with velcro straps.

Their shoes also had little blinky lights on them, so that cars don't run them over, when they chase a soccer ball into the street. Let make all the adults wear velcro shoes with blinky lights on them too.

<comment><USER6> I started using velcro-fastening shoes when I had a mild stroke that prevented me from tying laces. Now, I continue to use them because (1) they are very convenient and easy to adjust, and (2) I go dancing a lot and find them easier to switch to my dancing shoes.

Considering how often I have to retie the laces while dancing, I would definitely consider getting dancing shoes with velcro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In re the comparisons to iOS7 showing only the domain name of the site you're on: Mobile browser UI is a completely different design challenge. Yes, I found it jarring at first to see only the domain name, but the full URL was _never_ visible in Mobile Safari on the iPhone, except on the shortest of URLs. But on a desktop web browser, showing the full URL is a critical piece of the UI, and it will confuse far more people than it will help to remove it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope I can always get access to the URL. I frequently have to switch the 'smart' geo tracking language selection in the querystring from de-DE that some shortsighted developer thought meant Germany === German to en-US or en- GB.

I'm looking at you Google as the worst offender. I swear that some developers have never left the US.

Geo location != preferred language.

Accept-Language header in my browser is telling you what I want. Listen to it.

<comment><USER9> The accept-language header is dead. It's simply ignored by every site. Some crappy sites like Origin even make it impossible to set the language to anything but German even by changing the URL directly. Google took years to even allow me to manually set everything to English, until about 1-2 years ago some settings were impossible for me to reach in English even when everything was set to English.

It's just like with Windows, applications use the location instead of the OS language to chose what language to default to.

L10n is broken. And no one seems to have any real interest in fixing it. The tools are there but they get ignored by pretty much everyone.

<comment><USER10> Geo-location by IP is one of most horrid abomination ever created. Try a road trip in Europe, every single day google believes I speak/read/understand a different language. If that's not bad enough, living in a country where one doesn't speak the local language basically means not using the service.

Stuff like .../?hl=en may help indeed (but it has to be put manually.

<comment><USER11> I am unable to recreate this problem.

My Firefox sends the following Accept-Language: "en-us,en;q=0.8,sv- se;q=0.5,sv;q=0.3".

When I go to Google.com in a new private browsing context, I am redirected to Google.se with English language. When I go straight to Google.se in a new private browsing context, the page is in English.

<comment><USER8> To be fair. I've just rechecked and you are right. I have the same behavior in Germany. Maybe someone is listening!

Ads though. Still in German. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm even more blind to them in the wrong language. I guess that is a good thing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree, it's awful. URLs are the central concept in the web. People should be aware that they are browsing certain URL at the moment. Be able to exchange links.

<comment><USER13> So then a SHARE button in the browser exposing the URL would accomplish all the goals you listed.

<comment><USER12> Aha, by that logic, they then hide the SHARE button, but introduce new SHOW SHARE BUTTON button.

<comment><USER14> Admittedly the "hiding functionality" kick that developers seem to be on these days is starting to get rather grating...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> micro-ram > I would wager that most people who fall for phishing attacks are not people > who look at or understand URLs to begin with. Updating the URL bar to show > just the host is not going to cause more people to look at it.

I respectfully disagree that it is less secure. Showing _only_ the domain will reduce the clutter to where the user _can_ determine which domain they are typing their password into. I say _can_ because in the phishing example the user would be unable to determine the domain name.

The full url is only a click away. A click that is going to be happening anyway when the user wants to copy the URL.

I welcome the clean look as user. As a developer I will re-enable the full URL on my development machines, but not on my family members machines.

</comment><comment><USER15> > A better UX solution to this problem would be coming up with a way to detect > pages that do not seem legitimate

Easier said than done.

<comment><USER16> In fact they do that already. The problem is that it's not perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> He has a good point .. why is it "Search Google" .. the internet isn't Google, last I checked anyway.

<comment><USER18> Because companies look for opportunities to refer to and reinforce their brand. Exactly as you would if you'd built a browser.

<comment><USER19> It's natural for companies to do this, but also natural for people to be wary of them when they do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's wrong with bolding or otherwise emphasizing the TLD plus one more level of the domain? I wouldn't even mind (I would, but I'd get used to it) the url bar showing com.ycombinator.news/item?id=7694967 to avoid super long subdomains obscuring the main domain. But forcing a click to show the full uri? That's going to eat up a lot of aggregate developer time.

It also does nothing to address a major problem: companies using alternate domains for their services. It does me no good to know what the real domain is without any other distracting information, if I can't tell whether than real domain is trustworthy. The browser would have to maintain a map of trusted organizations and domains they're known to use, and show the trusted official domain in place of other domains. Which is problematic for several reasons (not the least is the effort required to maintain such a list), and could lead to additional security problems in edge cases (domains transferred to new owners, etc).

<comment><USER21> I suppose this is somewhat off-topic, but confusion of TLDs reminded me of the following story:

When I was still using a dumbphone I figured out that AT&T would let me sync my contacts to the web. I figured I'd try to do that to see if I could make them more manageable (by not having to edit them on a tiny screen with T9).

I searched all over the AT&T account page (att.com - where I view and pay my bills) and couldn't figure out how to access my contacts on the website. Eventually I googled enough to find out that I needed to manage contacts through att.net. That website redirected to a Yahoo page (att.yahoo.net) which didn't take the same credentials as att.com (that is, the att.com user:pass did not work), but if one was signed into the dot.com they could automatically be logged into the dot.net. It's extremely confusing.

Once logged in, I was presented with an interactive flash or heavy javascript page which, if not for the .csv import/export feature, I would find much more cumbersome than even just using the phone.

Before I managed to get logged in I clicked on numerous pages that redirected me to att.yahoo.net. Because it is labeled (and decorated) as a Yahoo webpage (and is, I assume, operated by Yahoo), I was quite confused over what credentials to use and if I was in fact at the proper website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I actually disagree with the blog. I don't work for Google but I think my parents would be better served with just knowing which domain name they're on rather than having to parse through a huge url.

<comment><USER23> If that was the case, then emphasizing the domain name within the url would address their needs, while preserving the full url for anyone who needs/wants it. I'm looking at Firefox's url bar as I type this, and the url text is all medium grey except for ycombinator.com, which is black. There is absolutely no confusion about what site I'm on, and no need to _parse through a huge url_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The path and query parts of the URL my address bar is _/ item?id=7694968_. To the server, it's vitally important (as is the cookie). Especially to the average user, it's complete noise.

<comment><USER25> Some path components are not made for humans, but many are. I regularly type in twitter.com/ and a user name or apple.com/ and a product. Or on GitHub I'll change the page number in the URL to advance 10 pages. Also, domain names can be just as noisy with subdomains.

How do you define an average user anyhow? I think there's only more common use cases. Everyone has their special needs and uses on the internet.

<comment><USER24> You'll still be able to type twitter.com/ and you'll still be able to display the URL explicitly, it just won't be visible by default. Most people don't need that feature most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The URL is still accessible in iOS by tapping the URL bar, or in the Canary > experiment by clicking the origin chip or hitting ⌘-L.[0]

I honestly don't see what the big deal is. So, you have to click the origin chip to modify or share the URL. There's even a handy keyboard shortcut. What am I missing?

The examples in the link[0] show that it's actually beneficial.

[0][http://jakearchibald.com/2014/improving-the-url- bar/](http://jakearchibald.com/2014/improving-the-url-bar/)

</comment><comment><USER27> > There is a reason they have always been front and center in all web > browsers.

Just because a design idiom had prevailed doesn't mean that it's correct or even good. People generally don't care about the url, they care about the site. This is like the browser saying "Starbucks" rather than "Starbucks, 3-1202 21st E, Falseville BC".

<comment><USER28> >This is like the browser saying "Starbucks" rather than "Starbucks, 3-1202 21st E, Falseville BC".

Is it? What if "Starbucks" were your bank? What if you knew that apart from your bank there's non-bank entities mimicking your bank's looks in an effort to get your personal information? Would location still be irrelevant?

<comment><USER29> No one is mimicking your bank by putting the info to the right of the domain name.

They mimick the look of the bank and pick a domain like your.bankofamerica.getreadygo.com

<comment><USER30> A few years ago I got an email advising me my account had been compromised, and I needed to follow a link to get the matter resolved.

Mousing over the link, I saw [https://www.bankofamerica.com/[lots](https://www.bankofamerica.com/\[lots) of gobbledygook followed by an ellipsis]. So, to see it all, I copied it to the pasteboard and pbpasted it into an open Terminal window. The gobbledygook ended with an @-sign and a domain that resolved to a Chinese IP.

About the @-sign syntax: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/4981309/315083](http://stackoverflow.com/a/4981309/315083)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The nice thing about this, is that if it's really annoying to users, then Chrome will bleed market share to other browsers. The browser market has shown time and time again that when the developers mess up, they get punished and another browser rises to the top.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hiding the URL means hiding, or encapsulating, HTTP(S) from the user. Eventually, paving the way for a replacement of that venerable document- centric protocol for something more app-centric. That's my bet anyway.

<comment><USER18> By "my bet" do you mean:

1\. "Google has a master plan and are gently testing the water to see how far they can push it"

or 2. "I think this is where trends will eventually carry us"

(2) is quite reasonable and (1) is a conspiracy theory that I personally think is a little absurd.

<comment><USER32> Thanks, but yes, I think the long-term trend takes us away from documents and towards integrated web-delivered apps. Today's hack of JavaScript, DOM, CSS, and Ajax will eventually be smoothed into a simpler arrangement more suited for apps than documents. I think technologies like Dart, SPDY, HSTS, and Web Components foreshadow that future to various degrees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I still think this is terrible. It flies against the principles of HATEOS, we have a design idiom that web developers /should/ be following to show us precisely where we are and what is happening in a website, why would we want to lose all of that information.

I would be very unhappy if they removed the option to disable this from chrome, almost to the point that I'd consider changing browsers (and I like chrome...)

</rant> (sorry about that)

<comment> micro-ram > why would we want to lose all of that information.

Because the url past the domain name is not for the user to be messing with most of the time. We the developers control everything to right of the first single slash. Maybe if it was hidden then it would force us to do a better job showing the users where they are in our sites with breadcrumbs and menus and at the same time keep them from trying to poke around in places where they shouldn't be. I think this is a perfect opportunity to open up our minds and build better UI inside the frame.

<comment><USER34> Um, no. If I want to share a link to a specific page, there's no reason to assume that I want to share any of the query string that is not actually required for somebody else to see the same page (like all of the tracky goodness that seems to be ubiquitous on the web these days) -- and for the same reason, there's no good reason for you to assume that I want to click on a "share" thingy on your page. And while breadcrumbs may aid me in navigation on my visit, the "how did I get here?" stuff has absolutely zero value to anyone who arrived at the page using a deep link. Oh, and if you make any of that compulsory, you won't get a link; your information just became valueless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hiding the URL is a natural step on the way to total TV-fication of the web.

People search for "facebook" on Google in order to log on to Facebook because it works, and they are not interested in learning a more efficient way, because they are not interested in learning anything, they want to go to Facebook.

URLs look like math formulas, and who cares about that except some geeks? Math is hard, let's go shopping.

</comment><comment><USER36> I just wanted to point out here that Chrome already emphasizes the domain [1] as this is a common proposed solution in this discussion. The visual clues should/could be stronger though.

[1] [http://imgur.com/v04aL41](http://imgur.com/v04aL41)

</comment><comment><USER37> I agree that the grey box with the domain name should be more visible. Users who enter their personal informations anywhere do not read the URL and won't see the domain name on a grey button that looks like a "passive" piece of the interface.

</comment><comment><USER38> Google is also working at hiding URLs/sources for Google search results (image search for example)... so it is not only a Chrome experiment

</comment><comment><USER39> I think this is a good idea for non-techies. Most people just search anyway and click on the first link or rely on autocompletion.

</comment><comment><USER3> IOS does that. and for once i want to see apple remove one feature from google via lawsuits :)

</comment><comment><USER40> Showing the URL does no harm to me.

However,

Hiding the URL makes Google's search more valuable.

</comment><comment><USER3> 90's called, they wanted they AOL Keywords back.</comment>


A good source on  business intelligence & data analytics - <AUTHOR> http://smartdatacollective.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Love the mix of articles and the approach that this site takes.</comment>


Ask HN: How does your company organize its knowledge? - <AUTHOR> wiki, github, markdown, google docs? what's the best practices that you've discovered? <comment><USER2> We tried a lot of tools and one approach that didn't work for us was a large shared hierarchy of files and folders. We tried Google Docs for this, but it got messy quickly and had to be maintained manually. Additionally, it took a lot of time to find what you were looking for via search or exploring the tree. People had different ideas on how to structure everything.

We abandoned files and folders and are currently using our own real-time wiki ([https://www.nuclino.com](https://www.nuclino.com)) to access a flat hierarchy of pages mainly via a title-based and full-text search. Internal links between pages provide a good way for us to navigate among related pages. For a more explorative approach we are experimenting with automatic tagging and visualizations.</comment>


Animated Bézier Curves (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.jasondavies.com/animated-bezier/ <comment><USER2> Bezier curves are usually defined as polynomials. It would be interesting to see some algebraic derivation showing how the polynomial form of the curve follows from the construction in the visualization.

<comment><USER3> It's a lerp of a lerp of a lerp. The algorithm shown is de Castlejau's.

You get the higher order terms by repeatedly substituting the interpolated control points.

Iteration 1 generates 3 interpolated points pi' from 4 control points pi:

E.g. p0' = t * p0 + (1-t) * p1 <\- LERP (Linear Interpolation)

p1' = t * p1 + (1-t) * p2

p2' = t * p2 + (1-t) * p3

Iteration 2 generates 2 interpolated points pi'' from 3 interpolated points pi':

p0'' = t * p0' \+ (1-t) * p1'

p1'' = t * p1' \+ (1-t) * p2'

Iteration 3 generates 1 interpolated point p0''' (which is the point on the Bezier for that value of t) from 2 interpolated points pi'':

p0''' = t * p0'' \+ (1-t) * p1''

Expanding out this final equation by substituting in p0'', then p0', etc.:

p0''' = t * p0'' \+ ...

= t * (t * p0' \+ (1-t) * p1') + ...

= t^2 * p0' \+ t * p1' \- t^2 * p1' \+ ...

= t^2 * (t * p1 + (1-t) * p2) + t * p1' \+ ...

So all those polynomial powers of t are generated by repeatedly multiplying by t and 1-t.

This just suddenly clicked for me a couple of months a ago as I was doing a deep dive on SVG.

TAKEAWAY: Bezier curves are just recursively-applied linear-interpolation. There's nothing magical about them. You or I could have thought them up -- it's the obvious thing to do.

NOTE: The primes here don't mean differentiation. It's just a way of numbering the recursion.

EDIT> spacing, prime comments

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like there are some really neat insights and visuals the can be made combining this with the fourier transform but I can't quite pin it down.

<comment><USER5> For functions of an interval (in the case of polynomial spline segments, usually { _x_ ( _t_ ), _y_ ( _t_ )} for 0 ≤ _t_ ≤ 1), what you want for an analog of a Fourier transform is to use Chebyshev polynomials. You can use a discrete cosine transform to convert between values at _n_ points appropriately spaced (w/r/t the parameter) along the curve to and from coefficients of the Chebyshev basis polynomials of the form f(x) = cos( _n_ arccos _x_ ), in just the same way you would use a discrete Fourier transform to convert back and forth between equispaced points on a periodic interval [0, 2 _π_ ) and coefficients of trigonometric polynomials. All the same FFT speedup tricks apply, so you only need _O_ ( _n_ log _n_ ) floating point operations for a polynomial of degree _n_.

See [http://www.chebfun.org/ATAP/atap- first6chapters.pdf](http://www.chebfun.org/ATAP/atap-first6chapters.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A Primer on Bézier Curves (with interactive animation) - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191577)</comment>


Show HN: The Sentry – Network Traffic Analysis (& IDS, and More) Made Intuitive - <AUTHOR> https://www.protectus.com/sentry/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I'm one of the developers of the Sentry. Someone suggested I do a little intro bit here, so here goes.

The Sentry stemmed from over a decade of doing traffic analysis (from a security perspective) for local small and mid-sized businesses. We had a great conglomeration of tools (ntop, cacti, snort, some custom connection indexers, etc), but it was almost impossible to use effectively if you weren't the guy who made it.

We wanted our clients to be able to monitor their own network, so we set about making the Sentry. The primary feature of the Sentry is usability. Traffic analysis is typically hard. There's no reason it needs to be.

We would love to have any feedback you guys are willing to offer. Hackernews is famed for it's frank discussion. Bring it on.

<comment><USER2> Hi there, this looks interesting. How does Sentry differ from Moloch[1]? They appear to be pretty similar, but then your website doesn't really contain much info to go off of.

1\. [https://github.com/aol/moloch](https://github.com/aol/moloch)

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used Moloch myself, so I can't judge with complete accuracy, but here's my take:

1\. Use case: Moloch, with it's focus on PCAP, is a cool network forensics tool, to be sure. Our focus is not only on security, but also on performance and troubleshooting. We use the traffic data as a foundation for integration with IDS alerts and latency (and jitter) data. The ability to pivot between views and visually correlate this data is incredibly (and surprisingly) useful for IT Staff who want to know at a glance if things are correlating or not. So I would suggest that Moloch is a little more limited in it's scope, at least in it's default configuration.

2\. Usability: This ties in with the point below too. Our focus is making network analysis approachable for the average IT guy. Keeping things light, visual, and easy to use is super, super important to us. It's really the top item on our list under, you know, having correct data.

3\. Maintainability (or SLAs, or whatever you want to call it). When I look at Moloch, I'm reminded of Zimbra, the free email server. Last time I installed Zimbra, it involved installing a lot of different stuff, configuring it all, and groking a LOT of documentation for different components before it was working to satisfaction. This is perfect for a certain market segment, the IT guy who has the time and energy to - not really roll his own - but to be really involved in everything that's going on.

the Sentry is not for that IT guy. We market to IT staff who don't have the time to install and maintain a bunch of components for a single tool. They have a security / network vision need (sorry about the buzzword) that needs to be filled, and they don't have a month to stumble through a complex linux install. Don't get me wrong, I personally am all about complex linux installs, I love getting into things myself, but this product is pre-packaged, with batteries included.

Hope that answers some of your questions!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best way to donate my dev skills? - <AUTHOR> I have been wanting to contribute my time and skills to some charitable organizations and/or worthy causes lately. I feel like this could make a larger impact than, say, just throwing money at causes I believe in and hoping that those people do something other than give themselves a pay bump with it or some corrupt dictator buy himself a new gold helicopter.. The problem is that I have _zero_ idea where to start. For the time being I just want to dip my toe in the water so to speak to see how things go. I have a family so I only have so much extra time to give. My main areas of expertise lie in JavaScript/NodeJS but have a ton of experience in a lot of other parts of the stack and am comfortable working with languages like PHP. Are there organizations out there that are in dire need of someone with good web development skills? <comment><USER2> HashtagCharity is a good source of dev-centric volunteer opportunities ([https://hashtagcharity.org/](https://hashtagcharity.org/)).

If you don't mind wading through non-tech opportunities, you might get lucky at Reddit /r/nonprofitprojects ([https://www.reddit.com/r/nonprofitprojects](https://www.reddit.com/r/nonprofitprojects)), Idealist ([http://www.idealist.org](http://www.idealist.org)), or VolunteerMatch ([http://www.volunteermatch.org/](http://www.volunteermatch.org/)).

If you want to focus on helping early stage, tech-driven nonprofits, I'd recommend searching through the portfolios of Fast Forward (a nonprofit accelerator) and the YC nonprofit program and reach out directly to any nonprofits you find interesting. Fast Forward: [http://www.ffwd.org/tech- nonprofits/](http://www.ffwd.org/tech-nonprofits/). YC Nonprofits: [https://github.com/smartergiving/open- data/blob/master/v0/fu...](https://github.com/smartergiving/open- data/blob/master/v0/funder_highlights/y_combinator.json)

Personally though, I've found getting to know a local nonprofit can be most rewarding. In my experience, almost all nonprofits can use a soundboard for general web development...feedback on an agency's statement of work, integrating 3rd party donate buttons, assessing new CMS's, etc. If you have the time to do the work yourself, all the better.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> These links are great. I will go through and see if anything stands out. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Come help us out at www.secfirst.org. We are building a free mobile app to help journalists, aid workers and activists manage their digital and physical security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the most valuable impact you can make is to teach something to kids. The biggest problem with kids learning technology is that you can't just drop hardware in front of them. That's my main peeve with things like from Lego Mindstroms to Raspberry Pi, the companies or organizations don't place a lot of effort into creating palatable curriculum.

Anyhow, over time, inspiring kids to learn about technology is probably the most valuable thing you can do. There are many ways to do this. I'll mention three:

        - Find your local FIRST robotics FRC team and become a mentor
             - Most teams have kids who want to do web stuff
             - http://www.firstinspires.org/

        - Offer your local school to teach the kids web-dev/programming
             - Greenfoot is a great resource for this:
                  http://www.greenfoot.org/door
             - Or Scratch:
                  https://scratch.mit.edu/

        - Start a meetup group for kids where you teach web dev
             - Same resources as above
             - Your local Barnes & Noble typically has a community
               room you can use for meetups (rules apply)

</comment><comment><USER5> We have some engineering and product need at Data4America, an educational non- profit bringing data science to politics.

Our core belief is there's too much noise in politics. The future should be visual, powered by data.

We've built a crowdsourced platform for data viz, data models, infographics, etc. Our editorial board reviews, votes, edits, and publishes.

We open source our code, the underlying data in the stories, and the 'how to'

Here are some early looks at our stories: \- [https://data4america.org/geography-american- jobs/](https://data4america.org/geography-american-jobs/) \- [http://lifemap.io/ben-carson/](http://lifemap.io/ben-carson/)

Shoot me an email to email@example.com to learn more.

Here's our team: [http://data4america.org/team](http://data4america.org/team)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a great thing to do. I've donated development time to a few different non-profits. The small ones, in particular, are often extremely in need of help and the benefit gained can be enormous.

The biggest thing to consider up front is -- of course -- maintenance. It's not that helpful to come in and bang out some code and then disappear. Find a topic area that you really care about, and then find one small non-profit that you think is doing great work in that area. Then, if you possibly can, build a long-term relationship with them. It doesn't have to be a big time commitment. But it probably does need to be an ongoing commitment. At least for a reasonable length of time.

</comment><comment><USER7> What city do you live in? Have you ever considered mentoring or teaching someone who really wants to start coding?

Currently there is a lot of charities and NGO's that do classes for people to get tech skills. But I personally believe if you really want to make a sure impact, find and pick one individual that you know is dedicated and willing to learn, because in my experience coding isn't something you can casually learn, it's a huge commitment and the only way to make an impact is to give someone a second chance, or allow someone to prove themselves.

That's what Mr. Miyagi did

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in LA.

I completely agree with your point about mentoring someone one on one and in fact have been doing that for a little over a year with someone. He just started at an entry level tech job a few months back so booyah there :-). The experience has been very rewarding (and far more challenging than I anticipated). My skills are the product of mentoring from a kind stranger (now a close friend) so I definitely intend to do more of that.

<comment><USER7> That's awesome, I had a mentor that guided me when I decided I wanted a career change and I am extremely grateful for that. I actually started doing classes at a local outreach program and I was quite upset when I learned that the people in charge were more interested in superficial appearances than providing useful skills. For example they wanted me to have a class where they essentially build a website using more template and a jQuery UI library, and when I told them that the students need to begin with the basics, they disagreed since they said it would "look bad".

But anyways, I still went along with it because I am hoping someone who was like me will show up, and then I can teach them. But I feel that the actual classes they have are more like motivational feel good TED talks as opposed to being actually useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. thank God I saw this. I am based in a developing nation (one of the biggest in the world) and just started working on a project to make govt. officials responsible to the people. For so long, corruption has been the bane of my society and i truly feel i have a chance to change my country.

Kindly contact me at email@example.com ... God bless you.

By the way, here is some validation - [http://www.biztechafrica.com/article/young-entrepreneur- sets...](http://www.biztechafrica.com/article/young-entrepreneur-sets-sights- recruitment-market/6613/#.VluLDclSH1V)

[http://techmoran.com/ceo-weekends-18-year-old-nigerian- youth...](http://techmoran.com/ceo-weekends-18-year-old-nigerian-youth- launches-yolpe-com-to-disrupt-africas-job-rectruitment- industry/#sthash.SHLfoBWf.dpbs)

</comment><comment><USER9> Find out if you have a local Code For America brigade ([http://www.codeforamerica.org](http://www.codeforamerica.org)). They're interested in building apps and tools to help communities and local governments work together.

</comment><comment><USER10> A possible place to start is Agile Ventures.

[http://www.agileventures.org/](http://www.agileventures.org/)

If nothing else it may help determine what you content to do.

Good luck.

</comment><comment> ro-ka I'm sure there are. Just ask around at organizations that look interesting to you.

In my city there was a ferry for NGOs some time ago so anyone could find an engagement they enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER11> Teach others how to program, so you can encourage others to pay it forward, as you are doing!!</comment>


Chris Cox is leaving Facebook (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/chris-cox-leaving-facebook/ <comment><USER2> discussion from back then: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393018)

but seems like he's back? [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/11/21288127/facebook- chief-p...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/11/21288127/facebook-chief- product-officer-chris-cox-return-ceo)</comment>


The rise of Japan's 'super solo' culture – BBC Worklife - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200113-the-rise-of-japans-super-solo-culture <comment><USER2> Brian (the author of this article) used to live in the next town over from me in Japan :-) Super nice guy. Nice to see his work.

I've done my fair share of solo drinking in Japan. I tend to bring Japanese manga or books with me and read at the bar. This is kind of a flag that says, "I speak Japanese". I've never failed to spend the evening chatting with people :-) So I don't think people are necessarily looking for solitude.

I also often see young women sitting by themselves in cafes. Sitting at a table by yourself sends a really different message. However, even then usually I find that regulars get to know the staff and that usually results in people getting to know each other. It's a bit like going to a local pub in the UK -- the staff introduces you to other people if you are a regular.

The absolute biggest thing that I find different is young women going on trips alone. This is incredibly popular and obviously a departure from older culture. My friends who were young when I met them (been here long enough that I don't have any young friends left!) often specifically wanted to travel alone. It was a kind of spirit of adventure. If you have only yourself to depend on, then it's more exciting. And they don't just go to safe places. I've had friends go camping in literal war zones! Maybe I just have crazy friends :-) For me, though, it's one of the biggest surprises of the current Japanese culture.

<comment><USER3> Travel alone is a common thing in EU though.

<comment><USER2> Sorry. It wasn't clear. I was comparing my impression of older Japanese culture to current Japanese culture. From that perspective it seems surprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am so glad this is changing. One thing I always irk about Asian culture (am Asian) is the need to have friends to do things. I grew up in North America and I always had the mindset that if you want to do it, then go for it.

Going out solo is great. That's how you meet new friends. If you always hang out with the same group, you never expand your circle. I hope this whole culture of interdependency disappears.

I am reminded of the online quote by someone, "if you never learn to be alone, you will always be lonely."</comment>


Dell Launches XPS 15 7590: OLED Display, CPU Up to 5 GHz - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/14506/dell-launches-xps-15-7590 <comment><USER2> I've heard about lots of people having issues with the new Killer WiFi chipsets (on both Windows and Linux). I have a Dell XPS 13 (9350) which had the Broadcom chipset in it. Eventually, I also started having issues with it under Linux (see: [https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201853](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201853)).

It wasn't until I bought an Intel AC 8265 on ebay and replaced it myself that the WiFI actually started working perfectly.

I can't understand why they don't just ship it with Intel WiFi chips instead of these flaky Broadcom and Killer ones. Is it because they have some sort of OEM agreement with Broadcom or Killer? I don't get it. It's a fantastic machine in every other way, but if the wireless is flaky then it's a showstopper.

Also with regard to this new machine, I would rather have good battery life and decent performance than a really fast CPU that drains my battery quickly and heats up my machine.

<comment><USER3> I've got a bunch of fanless mini-pc's (fit-pc4's). They come with Intel WiFi modules. I intended to turn them info WiFi hot spots, so I tested them out at a company conference. It was a mess - PC's kept dropping off the WiFi network left right and centre. In the end I tracked it down to the Intel modules not supporting more than 13 clients. And they had a bunch of other limitations as well, all of which like the 13 clients weren't documented.

In the end I ordered a bunch (10 or so) different WiFi AC modules off EBay (including newer Intel modules), PXE booted 100 laptops with an image that created a suitable amount of traffic, and powered them on one by one until something failed.

The Intel modules were both the worst and most expensive. They best by far were the atheros wifi modules - and they were also the cheapest.

Now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing an Intel WiFi module in a router, so that outcome was not as surprising now as it was then. And of course now I've seen Intel fail to deliver the 5G modems Apple was waiting on.

<comment><USER4> The reason you don't see Intel chipsets in routers is because they don't have as cheap and plentiful integrated offerings like Broadcom and Atheros (ARM based SoCs).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a 9575 and a 9570, and cooling is the biggest issue I have. They both run extremely hot, and charging the 9570 through the former's 130W USB-C charger causes it to reach temperatures I can only describe as "unsafe".

It doesn't help battery life that some applications I run like Docker for Windows like to enter a permanent CPU usage state that prevents the system from idling and reducing power usage below that high water mark. But since I run a lot of VMs and containers, I don't expect a lot of battery life on either.

The fixed camera placement is probably the biggest feature for me. Oh, and up to 64GB of RAM.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've had a 9560 and currently have a 9570. Both have cooling issues. Undervolting helps, repasting helps, but VRMS become an issue. A guy named iUnlock did a pretty crazy mod where he diverts part of the fan airflow to cool VRMS, which is indeed very helpful, but is way too much for almost every one. I'm glad to see dell added new chips, but unless they greatly improved the cooling, it will be for naught.

Of course, the OLED is pretty great. I hope more laptops use it soon. Sad I'll end up waiting about six years before replacing, if I can get away with it.

Also, Dell had better fix their bios bugs. The bios has issues, they reduced the tjmax for the nvidia gpu a few updates back, there are sleep bugs, processor state bugs, audio bugs, and many others. If Dell wants to pitch a premium machine, they'd better ship a premium firmware with it.

<comment><USER7> > I've had a 9560 and currently have a 9570. Both have cooling issues. > Undervolting helps, repasting helps, but VRMS become an issue.

I have a 9560, and would not have bought it if I was aware of the thermal issues. I'm very angry that this is even legal - Dell (and the other OEMs, including Apple) should be required to put big red signs everywhere if their customers cannot fully use the computer without buying it.

By default, just stressing the CPU makes it downclock to the minimum of 800 MHz and the computer becomes unusable. Undervolting the CPU in Linux took an hour, now I can run it at max and the temp goes to 70/75 degrees with no performance issues. But using both the CPU and Nvidia GPU kills everything, since the GPU heat also spreads to the CPU. On Windows you can underclock the GPU but it doesn't make a big difference. Playing Overwatch at minimum settings and 1080p _should_ work well on the GTX 1050, but I have to resort to hacks like limiting the CPU to 70% speed and putting a 70 FPS limit in Overwatch to keep the GPU from burning itself. And even then it stays at 90-95 degrees and sometimes crashes. Training neural networks was a bit more doable but still not fun.

I have no idea how they put a 6-core i7 in the 9570 without it melting down. And this new 5GHz one seems similarly ridiculous.

TL;DR just buy a gaming laptop - they're cheaper for the same specs and generally have a sturdy build. You might not get 10-12 hours battery and will need to carry around a charger, but the thermal issues are not worth it. Plus you get an Ethernet port included usually, and more USB ports.

<comment><USER2> The Lenovo Thinkpad P52 looks like a pretty decent machine (but like you said, you'd need to carry around a charger everywhere)

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thi...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/ThinkPad-P52/p/22WS2WPWP52)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For me XPS is an unstable machine: bad firmware, bad wifi chip, bad tb dock, kernel modules crash continuously. Next time i'll buy something else (and cheaper).

<comment><USER9> Anyone else feel like commenting on build quality and reliability of xps machines. I bought an xps 13 for my mother-in-law with the hope of minimising support calls. The motherboard failed within the first year and it took more than three onsite support visits to sort it out with Dell who eventually replaced it under warranty. We have Dell Inspiron laptops at work and they are bearly useable heaps of junk. Hoped the xps range was better but based on my sample of one,it doesn't look like it.

<comment><USER10> I got two, now older generations and had problems:

\- display dims when using dark themes. Had to use a sketchy unofficial leaked firmware patch to fix it.

\- bluetooth + wifi not working

\- changed chipset, now bluetooth only working when I activate/deactivate it once after startup

\- after 2.5 years or so the battery of one bloated (got free replacement, quite nice to have the battery refreshed actually)

\- bluescreens

\- the dock... I had my display not turning back on when disconnecting, USB stopping to work after disconnecting, slight electric shocks from one even. Oh and the USB-c dock blocks your only usb-c slot and does not have any usb-c hub.

\- I blew a speaker in week 2 (don't EQ it, neither yourself, nor with the dell eq stuff)

\- the case screws are tiny. I was afraid I put one in at an angle, another one got lost because I didn't have any locktight.

Other than that very nice machines... I also now people without any of these problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll never understand why people gush over the raw specs of a machine, but not the bloatware that chip away from the effectiveness of the hardware.

<comment><USER7> The bloatware is universal across all non-Apple computers. You can download a Windows 10 ISO for free from Microsoft's website (apparently they've started blocking it if your User Agent indicates that you're already on Windows, but that's trivial to bypass). Download ISO, burn to USB, reinstall Windows and you get rid of all the bloat. The license key is embedded in the hardware these days.

That said, MS gives ridiculous freedom to drivers. It auto-installs drivers for my 9560's audio and Thunderbolt controllers. The audio drivers include a 'Waves MaxxAudio Pro' application that stays in the system tray; stopping it makes the audio stop working. The Intel TB drivers also have a permanent unremovable notification in the system tray.

What's worse is that when you plug in a Logitech Webcam, Windows automatically downloads drivers (which are not necessary if you're on Linux since webcams use the same standard protocol), and then the Logitech drivers pop up a giant popup window asking to install their bloatware application (which is not required for the camera to work). What else does Windows let hardware manufacturers autoinstall onto your computer? Keyloggers? Rootkits?

<comment><USER12> Why would they block you from downloading windows if you're already on windows?

For what it's worth, I successfully downloaded that windows iso from microsoft less than a week ago from a windows machine, and used it to reformat that same machine without any issues or workarounds.

<comment><USER13> They don't block you.

They offer to download Media Creation Tool, which itself either downloads the ISO, burns DVD or makes an USB with installer for you.

There is one subtle difference between the ISO you can download and what the tool downloads: the ISO contains install.wim file, which is larger than 4 GB (i.e. it won't fit on FAT32 usb, if you are going to make it yourself; it is fine with UDF, when burning), while the MCT image contains install.esd, which uses different compression and fits into FAT32.

TLDR: if you want USB stick with installer, use the Media Creation Tool. You won't be able to make it easily from the ISO (aside from wim-splitting, esd- recompressing, or using NTFS if your UEFI supports it).

<comment><USER7> Oh, that's cool! Seems like it's not malicious then (though it _may_ be the case that the media creation tool doesn't allow you to download a higher level of Win10 - the normal ISO download allows you to install Win10 Home OR Pro during setup, unless your computer has an embedded license key in which case it automatically installs that version).

That also explains why I always had to flash the ISO to a USB stick with Rufus (inside VirtualBox) - just `dd` or `cat`ing it onto /dev/sdX never worked.

<comment><USER13> If your target is UEFI boot only, you don't need any special tool to make the install media. Just copy all the files to a filesystem supported by UEFI and you are good to go. The FAT32 support is mandatory, and the UEFI bootloader looks into the efi directory in the root to find the boot files. Some UEFI implementations also support NTFS, but that's optional, so it cannot be used on universally usable boot medium.

The magic boot sector that all those tools like Rufus create, is needed only for legacy boot.

The Windows 10 ISO from the download is using UDF filesystem and is intended for burning. If you dd it to a block device, very few firmwares support that from non-optical drive. Prior to 1809 release, it's install.wim was smaller than 4G, so you could make UEFI installer by just copying all the files to USB drive, but since 1809, the easier way is just to use the Media Creation Tool. The harder way is to recompress install.wim into install.esd, or just use NTFS if your firmware has the support (e.g. Intel NUCs do).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am not keen on oled screens for laptops. Screen burn in would be a massive annoyance. I suspect manufacturers will push in this direction though to give people yet another reason to have to throw away a device and upgrade...

</comment><comment><USER15> For articles and reviews like this, is it responsible journalism to not link and therefore promote the product? I'm genuinely curious if this is an oversight or something else; I see this a lot. It's not hard to cut n paste the model number and on Dell's site; but linking to the thing you're reviewing is convenient; on the flip side Amazon embeds wirecutter reviews and wirecutter almost exclusively reviews products but links to Amazon instead of a manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER16> The title is misleading. Dell did not launch it yet, it still says "Comming soon" on their website.</comment>


PHP WTF: A PHP Annoyance Posted Every Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.phpwtf.org/

<comment><USER2> Maybe I shouldn't, but I find it sort of maddening that, PHP WTF would be powered by software written in PHP. I mean, if it bothers this guy to the extreme that he would go register a domain, and put up a website about it, it shouldn't be much trouble to learn a brand spanking new programming language that doesn't have all the problems he's discussing, right?

PHP has many problems. We know this. There are millions of words online that will attest to this fact. The fact is, all these words are for naught if people don't step in and do something about it.

<comment><USER3> People who make heavy use of a language are in a good position to vent about its shortcomings. Sometimes a language is the best tool for the job despite its many deficiencies, and I'd much rather read these kind of rants by someone who knows the language inside out. I hate PHP more than I hate my own mother, and yet I still chose it for my most recent project. Every programming language has shortcomings, it's just a question of picking the best shortcomings for the job.

<comment><USER2> > Every programming language has shortcomings.

Name a language with more. I'll wait.

<comment><USER4> INTERCAL

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Posted Every Day" ?

I could only find 2 posts in the website. Wake me up when it has at least a dozen articles.

<comment><USER6> Agreed; it might have been better marketing to have at least 6 posts up before announcing the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want the strict non-coerced equality, I think you are supposed to use === as in javascript.

</comment><comment><USER8> So:

      0 == 'x'

results in

      bool(true)

Does anyone know the technical reasons for this?

<comment><USER9> daeken explained it quite well. From his post:

"As explained under 'read more', it's because 'test' will be cast to a number for comparison. Since 'test' isn't a number, it becomes 0, which is equivalent."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> if ($countarticles == '2') { postponeLaunch($credibility); }

<comment><USER11> No need for the '' around 2 ;)

<comment><USER12> It's PHP, it works anyway.

<comment><USER2> Maybe he'll pay you for writing his 3rd post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If they ever make it to posting #3, there is a chance this site will outlive php.

</comment><comment><USER14> You need a submission form. or not... there's no way you could sort through all the submissions you'd get.

If you can keep it from devolving into thedailywtf.com then you'll have a very loyal reader in me. I work in PHP and I would love to hear a list of valid frustrations instead of the general PHP bashing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Did anyone read this disclaimer at the bottom of the page?

"It's not meant to be a bashing of PHP or its authors."

And if so, does anyone understand how that site isn't mean to be a bashing of PHP? I mean, he's free to bash it if he wants, but does that even make sense?

<comment><USER16> Yes. While it seems to be the trend to bash on PHP there's nothing wrong with discussing it's shortcomings in a constructive manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> please someone create aspwtf

<comment><USER4> While we're doing outdated technologies, can we also do a COBOL wtf?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> OK, I'm stumped, why is this?

      echo "<?php if (0 == 'test') echo 'true???'; ?>" | php # => "true???"

<comment><USER18> As explained under 'read more', it's because 'test' will be cast to a number for comparison. Since 'test' isn't a number, it becomes 0, which is equivalent.

<comment><USER19> Which is, of course, a deeply broken way to handle the situation. If multi- type comparisons have to be supported at all, at least one ought to cast the narrower type to the wider one! In this case, the int argument ought to be cast to string, because all ints can be uniquely represented as a string, but not the other way around.

As it stands, PHP's equality operator is not an equivalence relation because it's not transitive. This is deeply unintuitive and logic-defying.

<comment><USER20> == is not the equality operator. === is the equality operator.

== is the type coerce/cast and then compare operator.

I agree with you about the way strings get converted to int instead of the other way around. I believe this is a backwards compatibility issue, and if they could change it they would, but it's too late.

It's also because of 1 == "01" would be false otherwise. And if you think "01" is strange you forget that all input to a php program comes from web forms, and is always a string.

<comment><USER21> in javascript:

1 == '01' --> true

0 == 'x' --> false

1 == '1' --> true

true == 'asdf' --> false

'-2' == 2 --> true

'-2' == 0 --> false

Seems like in javascript, the coercing is much more sane. In php, all of the above statements would end up true.

<comment><USER22> The funny thing is that in Javascript:

12 == parseInt('012')

returns false. :)

<comment><USER23> A leading zero usually means 'this number is octal', so parseInt returns 10. Not very intuitive notation, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Unlike many blogs, at least this one will easily have enough material to keep going for several years.. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER25> That's like shooting fish in a barrel.

<comment><USER26> But how do you get the fish into a barrel?

<comment><USER27> You shoot them in the lake.</comment></comment></comment>


Attribution and Affiliation on All Things Digital - <AUTHOR> http://waxy.org/2009/04/all_things_digital_and_transparency_in_online_journalism/ <comment><USER2> And Murdoch has the gall to complain about Google...</comment>


IBM Watson, FDA to use blockchain tech for health care data - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ibm-watson-fda-to-use-blockchain-tech-to-build-secure-exchange-for-health-data/ <comment><USER2> No version of a blockchain (distributed database) is ready for this type of data storage. Bitcoin has fees of a few pennies to several dollars depending on the tx size. Any other version of a blockchain lacks the "tamper proof" security that Bitcoin's offers. After recently speaking with a higher in IBM's IOT division and this type of article, it looks like even IBM is still way off target on their understanding on the potential use Bitcoin tech. The choice is either to pay exorbitant fees to have your data included in the blockchain or wait potentially days for a confirmation and/or needing to resubmit the Tx. Core dev. Greg Maxwell (nullc) could better speak to this point.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this idea. I predicted it to a friend about 6-months ago. Both because Blockchain is in a hype, but also because healthcare needs to find a distributed database solution. I work in healthcare IT for a Fortune 100 pharma and this makes a lot of sense. Its a moonshot, but probably a good idea.</comment>