We're Switching to Balanced and Cutting Our Fee by 40% - <AUTHOR> http://blog.neighbor.ly/2014/switching-to-balanced-and-cutting-our-fee

<comment><USER2> I switched to balanced from PayPal because Balanced makes payments dead simple. Their documentation is also super straightforward- it literally took me an hour to figure everything out. Also, they make ACH possible, which saves us a considerable amount of money on processing fees. Also, their JS library ensures your web servers are never touching card numbers, whereas for PayPal your server needs to receive all of the card information in order to make a transaction.

When you compare Balanced to PayPal's unbelievably shitty interface, horrendous documentation, and lackluster customer service, it's a no-brainer to switch.

The only thing that PayPal has that Balanced doesn't is a debit card with 1% cash back, which could potentially shave a significant amount off processing fees. However, PayPal decided that like the rest of their technology, they would make it the most annoying debit card possible by emailing you a receipt every time you make a purchase, and not giving you any way to unsubscribe from receipt emails.

tl;dr: I pay more money to not have to deal with the steaming pile of shit that is PayPal.

<comment><USER3> Paypal actually has a couple options for having paypal's servers handle the actual card collection so your server never need touch it.

That said their API (or rather APIs as they have one for every day of the week with all sorts of subtle differences) is ... not fun. I know of several implementation in fairly major open source shopping carts/ecommerce platforms that don't properly use paypal to handle the CC data, and I only know that because I was looking for an actual example as PayPal doesn't make it terribly easy.

Also, the receipts filter nicely into a folder and then you never see them again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >The selection process began to balloon. We evaluated based on every conceivable metric: features, fees, feasibility … a spreadsheet mapping around 30 criteria across six finalists became the focus of a week's worth of work.

If a weeks worth of work is worth to save a few % per transaction, what kind of volume are you doing that pays off that?

<comment><USER3> Almost any volume makes it worthwhile. 40hr*$60/hr = 2400 /.02 = 120,000 . So more or less since they saved 2% they could justify it if they had $120,000 flowing through, which is a pretty minimal transactional volume (your local corner store almost certainly does well north of $500k a year in sales volume through kitkat and beer sales alone) (Of course they decided to further their competitive advantage and lower fees, but that is also perfectly rational)

This is why any business model that involves taking a percentage cut off the top of things is great if you can get almost any adoption. It really does add up incredibly fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Aren't Balanced's fees 3%? How can Neighborly lower their fees to 3% and still make money?

<comment><USER6> Probably just a growth play. Balanced starts at 2.9% and hits 2.7% with only $100k/month processing. It goes to 1.9% with $5 mil/mo.</comment></comment>


The 80/20 Rule of Technical Founders - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2011/02/23/the-8020-rule-of-startup-founders/

<comment><USER2> 90% of tech blog authors want some cool statistics to quote

90% of those will be willing to make them up to get there

90% of those will add as many steps as it takes to make the point they were trying to make, probably one about difficulty of getting from one step to the next

90% of those will be willing to publish those made up statistics

100% of those will lose a chunk of credibility by doing so.

<comment><USER3> I get your point, but I think you missed his.

<comment><USER4> Agreed....and I generally enjoy the article listings on Swombat too. Nothing wrong with the application of the 80/20 "rule" here. No way to determine the actual numbers but as a thought provoker 80/20 is just fine.... and an identifiable concept many are already familiar with.

<comment><USER2> It's a very poor way to make a point. It's like if I used the fact that the earth is flat to illustrate an otherwise good point. The point may be valid, but using such a bad illustration is better than not making the point at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this really the 80-20 rule? As I understood it, the 80-20 rule is that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. E.g. 80% of profits come from 20% of your clients.

Here he's saying that 20% of developers want to launch a startup, and that you can further subdivide each group into another group that is 20% of the size of the previous group. That doesn't make sense to me as an application of the 80-20 rule other than that there's a 20% in there.

Edit: here's an explanation. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle>

<comment><USER6> I believe you're right, though the 80-20 law is just a very rough layman's approximation of a Zipf distribution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember seeing almost exactly the same analysis by a well-known author concerning people who claim they want to write a book. I'll see if I can dig it out - it's in one of my "Analog" magazines as an editorial.

ADDED IN EDIT: I think it was Heinlein .. stand by ...

Yup, here it is:

[http://technologydesignconsultants.com/InterestingDocuments/...](http://technologydesignconsultants.com/InterestingDocuments/RobertHeinleinSpeechAtAnnapolis.pdf)

I won't submit that link as a separate HN item because I don't want scribd to get it.

He starts with an estimate of 100 million for the literate adult population, and says that half claim they want to write.

* 90% never write, then

* 90% never finish, then

* 90% re-write endlessly, then

* 90% never put it on the market, then

* 90% don't keep it on the market.

That leaves 500. He then quotes that in a survey by the Authors' League of America, 400 stated that they supported themselves and their families through writing.

<comment><USER8> Writing (and finishing) a book is a lot of work.

I always admired people who did it (regardless of the final quality) because I thought I could never do one myself.

Now I've written several.

And now back to my software projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm very skeptical. I see no reason why all these factors should be the same, nor a good method of measuring any of the variables mentioned. I doubt there's any evidence to suggest that such a ratio exists, or that its effects are visible against the small minority of entrepreneurs who succeed because they are "lucky".

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't worry if you get 'filtered' out at any step along the way. You'll learn something new that will prepare you for your next attempt. Learning is progress and you'll probably be able to push through to the next barrier. Just keep going and push a little further each time.

When I look back, I see a very clear pattern of working my way through this funnel. A decade ago, I dropped an idea in an early stage because the consulting $ was too good. Five years ago I built a product, but was nervous to release it because it wasn't "perfect". Last week I launched a product at Startup Riot and had a blast. It was an awesome experience.

Remember Edison. With each attempt, you get closer to success.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm printing this out and putting it up on my wall.

"Our best estimates put the number of developers in the world at around 5 million."

It would be nice to see how they got that estimate but for arguments sake, I still like where the breakdown is going.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think there are some major flaws in the inputs. For instance, '20% have enough motivation to start educating themselves' reduces the number of successes significantly, but who's to say that is a valid input to overall success?

I can come up with many random variables, and feed these numbers through it to come up with the last 1.

of those, 20% have enough free-time to commit to the needs of their startup?

of those, 20% have the sales skill to get other people involved.

Of those, ...

I suspect there are far more than 1600 who have and will achieve 'some measure of success'.

</comment><comment><USER13> This makes no sense, arbitrarily applying the 80/20 rule to any and all circumstances holds no grounds - really. The 80/20 fallacy is one of the most overused and misunderstood concepts in stats...."applying the 80/20 we won't worry about this aspect of our customer base....or this aspect of our business...". It's pernicious, it really is.

</comment><comment><USER14> "Finish" is a funny thing. Interactive community web sites, like say, Facebook or Deviant Art aren't ever 'finished'.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Of those, 20% (8,000) will actually finish building something_

Hey now, we can't all be Edsger Dijkstra.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmmm, I smell a general case...

Our best estimates put the number of x in the world at around y.

Applying the 80/20 rule you can estimate:

Of those, 20% (y(.2)) want to z

Of those, 20% (y(.2)(.2)) have enough motivation to start educating themselves about the process

Of those, 20% (y(.2)(.2)(.2)) will actually start building something

Of those, 20% (y(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)) will actually finish building something

Of those, 20% (y(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)) have prepared themselves enough to achieve some measure of success

<comment><USER17> >20% (y(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)(.2)) have _prepared themselves enough to achieve some measure of success_

What does this prep entail? What more needs to be done apart from having the motivation,starting and finishing building the damn thing?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, the last factor I didn't quite follow. Seems like the original author felt like 8000 was too large, so he needed a bullshit excuse to scale it down one more time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would be great if some enterprising designer created a poster out of this concept with some cool graphic depicting a sequence of sieves. Going further I think that you could create an entire collection of Hacker News posters that would find a ready audience.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if the category you are really looking for is building something that people want and like. Seems like if you have something that people really like that making money from it will come with time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Look, at first this kind of thing was all fun and inspirational, but Seth Godin-style aphorisms have been demoded for about three to four years now. Content with substance, please.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1,600 is way low

</comment><comment><USER23> well, i've made it to the 40,000 group</comment>


It's Hard To Get The News From The News - <AUTHOR> http://larrycheng.com/2009/08/12/its-hard-to-get-the-news-from-the-news/

<comment><USER2> Am I missing something?

They all seem about the same to me: It was a friendly crowd. At one point the President specifically sought tough questions. What's the beef?

What is it about the Huff Post that makes it seem the "most accurate" portrayal? Especially since neither of us were there.

If I were writing a story, I definitely would have included that people chanted "Yes we can!". Sure, it's a bit anecdotal and may not be representative of everyone or the rest of the event, but it's such a stark contrast to recent Congressional town halls and such a vivid image. That's what struck me watching it on TV.

<comment><USER3> Read closer man. They're not all the same. The descriptions range from the meeting including "skeptics from whom he sought questions..." of which "...plenty responded" to a crowd that "soft-balled him opportunities to knock down criticism."

The NYT's description sounds like a good, thoughtful debate, the Fox News description sounds like a staged PR event. The others fall somewhere in between.

It's about the image you draw in your head of the meeting while reading each passage, and while they report basically the same facts, each article emphasizes said facts differently, creating quite different pictures of how the meeting went down.

<comment><USER2> _shrug_

They're not all the same, but they're all basically true.

If you were to assign five writers to cover a totally non-political event, you are still going to get five different characterizations of people at the event. I don't think this is evidence of anything evil.

It's a bit like complaining about different movie reviewers with conflicting accounts of the same movie.

I'm not denying that news outlets have institutional biases that sometimes comes out in the writing, but this seems like an especially mild case.

<comment><USER4> this made me think of a 2 things

1, the event doesn't even seem like it should be newsworthy. isn't there more important stuff happening?

2, even for the most unimportant of events, it seems the different outlets' bias shows. As usual, Fox portrays Obama in a negative light and the Times makes him seem heroic.

At least that's what i took away from it. I mean, it's nothing Earth- shattering and we all knew this already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's another perspective on the mother of the little girl who was "randomly selected" because Obama didn't want anyone thinking he was "just taking questions from a plant".

"I have been honored to work with Kathleen Manning Hall on the New England Finance and Steering Committee for Barack Obama for over a year. She has raised money, slogged through the snow in New Hampshire and has devoted every minute of her time toward electing Barack Obama President of the United States. She has not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. Please elect her as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention to vote for Barack Obama." Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick)"

<http://www.bluemassgroup.com/diary/11161/>

David Axelrod was one of the world's great masters of corporate astroturfing before he joined Obama's campaign. Most of his work was for companies who wanted blogs to mention there products in a "spontaneous" groundswell of support.

AFAIK, he is the first president to demand that the media submit all of its questions to his press secretary the day before the press conferences so he can select only the ones he wants.

</comment><comment><USER6> In order to move past this, we have to accept a basic lemma of reporting: There can be no objective reporting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Each report on an event has always been this divergent, either because of the normal differences between two people describing the same thing, or for political motivations. The only thing new now is that we can easily compare them all in an instant.

</comment><comment><USER8> It'd sure be nice to start moving away from all the politics submissions.

<comment><USER9> If politics were less important (more or less == "if government were smaller and less intrusive") it would be less interesting and submissions about it would crater.

It's the same reason why SCOTUS nominations are so contentious now. Previously the Supremes had both less power relative to the other two branches and far, far less power to actually impact the lives of regular folks.

<comment><USER8> The problem is that political submissions are by nature very contentious. Just because they get upvotes doesn't mean they belong here. Half the population will agree, and the other half can't downvote. I don't think may people flag them because of all of the other political submissions that have ended up on the front page lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Three blind men were put next to an elephant and asked what it was.

One touched its leg and said that it was a tree.

One touched its side and said that it was a wall.

One touched its trunk and said that is was a snake.

We need journalists with "vision" now more than ever.

<comment><USER11> The analogy is a bit flawed, it's more like:

An underpaid and overworked journalists is sent to report on this new "Elephant" animal that's been the discovered.

Being overworked and underpaid all the journalist can muster is a quick look at the back side of the animal over the shoulders of the crowd. Then the journalist quickly has to get back to writing his story, because he gets paid by the word and the deadline is looming.

Having glanced the elephant's back side, the reporter knows it's sort of like a giant gray pig. But he also knows that's not interesting enough and he thinks his readers are a lot stupider then him. So he writes the story about a giant gray man eating pig.

And that's Journalism!

<comment><USER2> It's pretty hard to write about an event in which not much really happened. Especially when people really, really want to hear about what happened. I don't think this is a personal failing on the part of the journalists.</comment></comment></comment>


Global atmospheric CO2 levels hit record high – Environment – The Guardian - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/30/global-atmospheric-co2-levels-hit-record-high <comment><USER2> This of course ignores truly ancient levels...

"a measurement of the fossil record using a new instrument has confirmed a portion of the model. Atmospheric CO2 level 1.4 billion years ago was at least ten to 200 times greater than today"

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030918092804.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030918092804.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> This of course ignores how truly ancient levels of CO2 would be unlivable for any modern species, like, e.g. humans.</comment></comment>


Containers are not VMs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.docker.com/2016/03/containers-are-not-vms/?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuqTMZKXonjHpfsX57uQrWqC%2FlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DRcZhI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQ7LMMaZq1rgMXBk%3D <comment><USER2> Docker has to say this to support their valuation, but you don't have to believe it. System containers exist and may be useful in some scenarios.</comment>


Why I'm staying with Node - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ded/e6fd3be62e34

<comment><USER2> So?

I don't think TJ wrote his post just for the sake of complaining or comparing Node with Go. He had a decision, and had to tell the community he was leaving because, you know, a lot of people uses his modules. I rely on a couple of his modules and I liked that he took some time to explain why he'll not be working on them anymore.

This post is no more interesting than blogging "I'll keep drinking my morning coffee.. Just as always."

<comment><USER3> Posts like this are warranted because some took TJ's move to Go as "jumping ship" on Node, especially when he expressed concern over Node's future.

The author correctly frames it as a personal decision in which tool to use for which job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Hiring for Go — I wouldn't even know where to start.

Ridiculously simple: Set out to hire a good programmer (as opposed to "a Go programmer"), and make it clear in the job description that they're expected to spend the first 6 months learning Go on the job.

You end up demonstrating to employees that you're willing to give them something useful, gain loyalty; AND end up with someone you can be confident is able to learn whatever else your company might need in the future, and writes better code by way of having a focus on programming knowledge, not language knowledge.

<comment><USER5> How to train a new employee on Go: Day 1: complete the tour - [http://tour.golang.org/](http://tour.golang.org/) and read "How to Write Go Code" [http://golang.org/doc/code.html](http://golang.org/doc/code.html)

Day 2-3: read Effective Go - [http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html](http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html)

Take a whole week, if you feel it is necessary.

<comment><USER6> This was exactly how I did it. The Effective Go part took me longer, since I actually jumped into porting a couple of small ruby libraries I picked (not mine, just ones I was familiar with) so that had me jumping to and from the book to the terminal/editor, so it probably took me like 5 days to port both libraries into Go code that I was happy with.

After that I had also read enough online to be familiar with the tools and the environment. Go is a really small language, but the ecosystem is rich.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Node is not going anywhere. It may not be cool anymore, but like the old cool kids (Rails, Java, Perl), it has achieved critical mass, and still has some killer features.

Node makes SOA (service oriented architecture) a lot easier. SOA is what all the cool kids are moving to, and is one of the reasons why it's so easy for big companies with lots of legacy code to switch to Go. Once your code is appropriately partitioned into services, it's easy to write a single service in Go, and go is a nice language for writing services.

That being said, Node is particularly well suited for _consuming_ services. You'll necessarily have lots of client code written to consume and use these services from your webapp. So whenever you write a batch job or notification system or anything else that is primarily server side consumption of services or glue between services, node.js is a natural fit.

The other natural advantage of Node is that your business logic can run on both the server and the client. Your standard client-side web app (angular, backbone, ember etc.) has the bulk of the business logic in the client-side models. On the server side, the corresponding models are mostly just shims to the database, but they will also contain some business logic. If your code is written in Node.js, you just instantiate the client side model to be access the business logic.

The other killer feature for node.js has already been mentioned: combining both server and client side rendering with [https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr](https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr) or [https://github.com/wvl/highbrow](https://github.com/wvl/highbrow).

<comment><USER8> slightly off-topic but I am pretty interested in learning about SOA architecture using Node.js apps. Can you refer any guides/links ?

<comment><USER7> Hmmm, I couldn't find any simple examples. Basically, all it means that you're running Backbone.js on the server as well. If you're just using Backbone.js models & collections it's pretty straightforward.

But if you Google for running Backbone.js on the server, you get links for people running Backbone.js _views_ (as well as models and collections) on the server. That's a little more involved, but the work has been done for you by frameworks such as _rendr_.

A good starting place might be: [https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr- examples](https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr-examples)

I'm only familiar with Backbone. If your models are written in Ember or Angular or (?) instead of Backbone, I can't help you but would be very interesting in knowing how myself...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dont find this blogpost very interesting. The point of TJ's post was that concurrency in Nodejs was hard compared to Go,so was error management.It's not about one using Go or NodeJS,more about the fact that it is harder to build concurrent servers that dont crash on error in NodeJS than in Go.

Furthermore I personally dont rely on anything to OP wrote, so wether he stays or leaves nodejs doesnt matter.

</comment><comment><USER10> > With Node you can literally share your code between the front and back of a > system.

I think sharing code is dangerous as it tightens component coupling and makes architecture less flexible and more complex.

An average web project nowadays seems to be a back with many fronts: end-user website, admin interface, iOS app, Android app, Windows app… Making all fronts equal in their separation IMO keeps the architecture more predictable and easier to understand. Like DRY but with design decisions instead of lines of code.

Also, I don't see how you can be flexible without making API the only point of contact for your back(s). That way you don't lock yourself in and can rewrite any component with another framework or language, once requirements change sufficiently. I imagine it's much harder to do if you have everything in one Node project.

<comment><USER11> I think you might miss both the point of sharing code and the way to go about it. Of course you don't have one single, massive Node project.

First, why. To your point about _DRY but with design decisions instead of lines of code_ , that's how software development has always been; that's what the Gang of Four is. Isomorphic JavaScript allows you to literally not repeat yourself. You write code to solve a problem and you never need to worry about that problem again. Building a system that has every problem solved (at least) twice in (at least) two different languages is what makes architecture harder to understand, and more importantly maintain.

Ok, how. You create lots of little modules that each do one thing well. They declare their dependencies on your other modules, so it's actually much harder to introduce coupling between components. You use the modules appropriate to whichever part of the system you're building.

A practical example: you want to validate user input. You have a series of business rules that must be checked before you allow an update. Of course you want to check them on the client, so you can provide valuable feedback as quickly as possible. But you also must check them on the server, to prevent a wily user from circumventing your rules.

How do you architect this system? If you're sharing code, you just write a function to check the rules and call it in both places. If you're not, you end up reimplementing the rule in both places. But of course you'd like to at least share the rule definitions, so you end up writing the rules in JSON or something and then building parallel rule loaders in both places. Or if you're me you just give up and use Node instead.

<comment><USER10> > Isomorphic JavaScript allows you to literally not repeat yourself. You write > code to solve a problem and you never need to worry about that problem > again.

If only that were true, but that's where my doubts are. You write:

> If you're sharing code, you just write a function to check the rules and > call it in both places.

But you can only use that function if you can use Node on your front end. Most fronts today (native iOS apps, etc.) won't be able to reuse that function, and you'll have to reimplement it anyway.

I would only go with Node if I absolutely knew that incompatible front end won't be required for the project in foreseeable future—but I'd need to be a CTO to decide on that. Besides, what about when browsers get an additional runtime, with better tools than JavaScript? (Okay though, this one may not count as 'foreseeable future'.)

I'd rather reimplement the function every time if I know I may need to reimplement it an unknown number of times. Perhaps in that case I'd try coming up with some language-agnostic specs instead so that validation function can be reimplemented on other platforms without breaking UX consistency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "With Node you can literally share your code between the front and back of a system."

Having to deal with a poorly-designed legacy weakly-typed scripting language not just on client (where you have no choice) but on server as well? Why be masochistic?

<comment><USER13> It makes sense if your app flat out _requires_ a lot of javascript on the client side.

I find that javascript is most often an overused crutch on the client side, though. It's used more for premature optimization and making your website look shinier than it is anything really very useful.

Nonetheless, some webapps really do require a lot of it.

<comment><USER14>
      > It makes sense if your app flat out requires a lot of
      > javascript on the client side.

Well, you can take a different look: spend some time thinking _why_ does your app requires a lot of JavaScript, and is it really necessary. Even if the answer is still "yes" that may be a good exercise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > We still have a rough future ahead of us. But I bet on JavaScript a long > time ago, and alas, like English — it's everywhere.

The "alas" in this quote is sad. Sad to be using tools you hate.

<comment><USER16> I feel the same way about JavaScript, to some extent at least. I don't hate JavaScript - but I think that the web would be better if it moved towards making another language standard as well. I don't know which language would be best, Dart looks like a good candidate when it is more mature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there really any practical examples of sharing code between back-end and front-end? I only see really specific use-cases, such as sharing the logic of a game between the client and the server, since most of the time the back-end _serves_ the content and the front-end _displays_ it.

<comment><USER7> Shared code can be a huge win in certain scenarios.

1\. the server can run the client code to render and serve HTML, so you get all the benefits of server side rendering as well as client side rendering. [1][2]

2\. imagine you have an architecture that allows multiple clients to simultaneously modify a single document, like google docs, or like all your standard cookie-cutter enterprise form & report interface to records in a database database. Now imagine that you need to do some sort of batch operation to these documents. If your code is written in Node, you just run your client code on the server. Instead of directly manipulating the database from your batch workers, you use the standard REST & WebSocket API that your clients do. This is called a service-oriented code structure, and there are huge advantages to this; so big that everybody is switching to it. Node makes it almost free.

1: [https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr](https://github.com/rendrjs/rendr) 2: [https://github.com/wvl/highbrow](https://github.com/wvl/highbrow)

<comment><USER14> Regarding the first point… what's the point really? Either you render it on the client, or you render it on the server, then client couldn't care less what did you use to render it as long as it gets HTML it wanted. If you feel the need to render something in both places I feel that you have some seriously overcomplicated architecture.

Regarding the second point: if the client modifies the document through the API calls, who cares what technology is used to implement those API methods?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "And for that matter, I guess that makes Java, German."

Well, now I feel offended.

<comment><USER5> Java should be Indonesian if you really think about it

<comment><USER19> Does that make Oracle the Dutch East India Company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Hiring for Go — I wouldn't even know where to start

Let's go with metaphors. Programming languages and driving a car are similar things. When you change your car from Toyota to Audi, you don't learn everything from scratch. You just spend sometime to get used to the car (wheeling, brakes etc) and then you're all set. Programming languages are similar. When you switch from language A to language B, you don't learn programming from scratch. So, when you want to hire someone to code in Go, you just hire a developer and tell them they're going to code in Go. After getting used with Go, they would be all set.

<comment><USER21> In principle, I agree that picking up programming languages for a good programmer shouldn't be a challenge but this analogy doesn't go too far. There are fine nuances about a programming language that you need to learn to be a good programmer. Whereas a car is mostly a commute tool for many. You can switch a browser like a car, but switching a language is a bit more involved.

<comment><USER22> I agree with your point, but Go in particular doesn't seem very different from, say, C/C++. I think the average programmer who knows C/C++ can pick it up rather quickly, even though going from Java to JavaScript takes significantly longer.

<comment><USER13> Picking up, while easy, isn't terribly useful. You have to know the non- obvious pitfalls and the 'right' way of doing things.

You also need to develop a full understanding of the package/library/framework ecosystem, which can take _years_. This isn't transferable knowledge, either, but it's absolutely _vital_ to understanding a language.

Knowing that requests is a great python library, for instance, and knowing when (and when not) to use it isn't going to help much when picking up Ruby, let alone something like Go or C.

I've seen good, experienced programmers pick up new languages and consistently step in the many of same traps that beginners do, simply because those traps aren't very obvious.

<comment><USER23> I think what you're describing is "being an expert" rather than "being proficient."

If a project requires expertise in a specific language then sure, shoot for "an X programmer" (there are very, very few of these in reality). Otherwise "a programmer" (who is good) will almost certainly be able to perform the job, and do it well, all other things (e.g. motivation, interest in actually using the technology in the project, etc.) being equal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you want to be DRY, a nicer option is clojurescript/clojure.

Clojurescript + Om is a pretty nice combo for the browser.</comment>


Show HN: eInk device that stops kids and flatmates from barging-in during calls - luka-birsa https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home <comment> luka-birsa We've seen a resurgence of eInk device related threads on HN and that got us thinking if we can respond to some of the requests of the people in the comments by providing a devices for that purpose.

We've just launched Joan Home - a WFH device that you can mount on your door to reduce the interruptions you get during your day working from your home office. Schedule your deep work sessions and share your calendar with your family.

Best thing is that this is an eInk device, so easy mounting (no wires) + easy on the eyes as well. No 24/7 LCD screens blasting down the hallway.</comment>


Two weeks after launch, is working - <AUTHOR> http://tank6b.tumblr.com/post/13057391812/two-weeks-after-launch

<comment><USER2> I scrolled down looking for a link to launched website...

> I din't mention what I launched, on purposed. You can guess which of my > project's launch is described here. Good luck guessing that, is not so hard > though.

Meh.

<comment><AUTHOR> Classic! If you can't figure which project is, then you are not going to do nothing with that information. Ergo you don't have to know :D

The information is relevant for a lot of other people, the launched website is not important here.</comment></comment>


The Illusionist – The Majestic Failure of Daniel Dennett - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-illusionist <comment><USER2> the author of this review of Dennett's latest is a Notre Dame theologist. So he's naturally hostile to Dennett's reductive materialist position.</comment>


As a teenager, Adolfo Kaminsky forged passports to help children flee the Nazis - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/opinion/sunday/if-i-sleep-for-an-hour-30-people-will-die.html <comment><USER2> Related Question: apologies my background is not tech, does anyone have insight if "hacking" documents like this is easier or harder today as things move digital?

Ignoring paper passports for a moment, as records move to digital over physical paper, will adding or removing names become easier or harder?

Thinking of the guy who was able to fake a first class lounge airplane ticket: [https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how- to-...](https://mic.com/articles/150812/this-guy-figured-out-how-to-hack-his- way-into-fancy-airport-lounges#.104VAW7IG)

TL;DR what is harder vs. easier: paper ID forgery or digital ID forgery?

<comment><USER3> Modern passports have an NFC chip in them which holds a digitally signed version of the passport data. Some of them are more sophisticated chips that are also uncloneable (but not all of them).

Even the basic form of the chip prevents the creation of entirely fictional passports, assuming the integrity of the official passport issuing infrastructure. My understanding is that modern passport fraud therefore tends to be based on stealing passports on demand from someone who looks like the client, and/or forging passports that aren't protected by the chip.

<comment><USER4> I second this. I have interviewed a substantial number of people in London who entered the UK on someone else's passport (sometimes rented not stolen). I also noted when travelling into the UK with someone who holds a UK Biometric Residence Permit that no use was made of the biometric data: The border agent just looked at the photo and at the person the old fashioned way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The youngest member of the group, the lab's technical director, is > practically a child himself: Adolfo Kaminsky, age 18.

I doubt that people referred to 18 years old men as "children" in 1944. In the '40s the average age for marriage was 23 for men and 21 for women.

<comment><USER6> Is it actually common to refer to 18 year olds as children today? Or is that a US thing? I considered myself a grown up at that age; and it wouldn't occur to me to call someone who is older than 15 a kid.

<comment><USER7> "College kid" is a common term in US media. In my (European) country, we call them "young" (as in, "Young invents device" or "Two youngs were yesterday found ..."), not children.

<comment><USER8> You probably use the word that translates as "youth". (Jugend, unge etc).

It was normal in Britain, examples are youth hostel, youth centre, Fountain of Youth.

But in the last 20 years or so, I think it's been used negatively so often ("drunken youths", "aggressive youths") that if you begin with "a group of youths..." most people will expect something bad. "A group of teenagers" or "a group of children" is neutral.

As an adjective, it's still fine. "Youth football team" and so on is fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You should watch the TEDx talk of his daughter: [https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky](https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kaminsky)

</comment><comment><USER10> > "The smallest error and you send someone to prison or death," he told me. > "It's a great responsibility. It's heavy. It's not at all a pleasure."

Serious dedication to the cause. A splendid story.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm. Great story, although it gets somewhat dark towards the end. He may have started out as a noble forger saving children from the Nazis but it sounds like he kept going for decades and made false passports for whoever wanted them, no questions asked. "I can't deal with the details because all humans are equal" sounds a lot like post-hoc rationalization. Forging passports is all about dealing with tiny details. Understanding why your customers want false papers seems a lot larger than just a "detail". He wouldn't have forged papers to help the Nazi's I assume, but apparently after the war ended he somehow lost his discerning nature.

I'm also 100% not buying his story about never doing it for profit. During WW2, sure, I can buy that. For the three decades he continued afterwards, when it was apparently close to full time work? He was a professional underground forger who made passports for whoever wanted them, no questions asked, even as the difficulty and sophistication of the needed equipment constantly rose. Hell yes he asked for money.

<comment><USER11> I guess the millions of innocent people deported and killed by the nazis in front of him gave him a different perspective on what's a detail and what's not. Perspective probably different than green-pastures-based ones.

I do not endorse breaking the law, and I wouldn't do it myself. But sometimes it is possible to understand where other people are coming from.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, that doesn't work for me. Lots of people came out of WW2 scarred but did not go on to become professional criminals. The article flat out says that some of the groups he worked with were rebel forces in Africa trying to overthrow governments, not exactly people who are famous for their cuddly nature.

<comment><USER11> >The article flat out says that some of the groups he worked with were rebel forces in Africa trying to overthrow governments, not exactly people who are famous for their cuddly nature.

Granted, thanks for insisting I didn't realize that, missed that part. I think like you that his good intentions might have gone too far and turned into rationalized behaviour.

<comment><USER12> That statement could cover anyone from Joseph Kony to Nelson Mandela.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of us work and live for acknowledgment. There are so few brave enough to work and live for effect.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of the similar touching story of Chiune Sugihara.

[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/11/national/history/chiune- sugihara-man-conscience/)

<comment><USER15> Similarly Sir Nicholas Winton. He kept his actions quiet and there was a moving TV programme 40 years later where they uncovered the list of children he saved: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%2...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicholas+winton+%22that%27s+life%22+1988&iax=1&ia=videos)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> On a similar note, there's Ho Feng-Shan. He worked at the consulate in Vienna and saved over 3,000 Jews by giving them visas to Shanghai so they can leave Austria and escape Nazi persecution.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng- Shan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Feng-Shan)</comment>


How graph theory can reduce redundancy in trusses - <AUTHOR> http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november12014/index.html

<comment><USER2> This looks very similar to this

[http://divisbyzero.com/2010/03/14/an-application-of-graph- th...](http://divisbyzero.com/2010/03/14/an-application-of-graph-theory-to- architecture/)</comment>


Enigma, the Bombe, and Typex Simulators - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/wiki/Enigma,-the-Bombe,-and-Typex <comment><USER2> For anyone genuinely interested in the Bombe, and decrypting Enigma, have a look at the section "How to attack Enigma using the Bombe" notice how involved the process is even though it starts off assuming you know the rotors used.

Turing's work was invaluable, but it was only a single huge piece of an even huger puzzle.

Anyone still hungry should read The Hut 6 Story by Welchman (let's just call him Turing's boss) to learn about the many iterations of the arms race between Germany's security and Bletchley's ingenious hacks; and how Bletchley always managed to open one door just in time as Germany closed the other.</comment>


Google under fire from regulators on EU privacy ruling - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-google-eu-privacy-idUSKBN0FT1AZ20140724 <comment><USER2> This is just the start of the inevitable slippery slope: the initial censorship doesn't work (and it never can, because information wants to be free), so they broaden, widen, deepen it. Then since it is still trivial to circumvent by technical means they add laws to try and restrict technical circumvention of the censorship. Then as loopholes are found in the laws against circumvention they have to broaden and deepen those. Soon it is illegal just to know things, to tell people basic knowledge of how to do things. And thus the only viable end point is totalitarianism. There's really no in between - if you want "free speech" at all you have to take all of it or none of it.

<comment><USER3> I disagree on a couple of points.

Information doesn't want anything. There may be a statistical tendency of information to propagate, but it seems to me that the only people who want information to want to be free are those advancing an agenda with a catchy slogan.

Further, the only viable endpoint is not totalitarianism-- one can argue about where on the spectrum we stand today, or might be in the future, but in the US we try to strike a balance. Unless you support being able to use whichever country's version of Google that permits things like searching for identity theft, illicit pornography, etc., it seems like we're OK with at least some restrictions on speech.

Assuming we accept the EU has the authority to pass such a law, then so long as Google wishes to operate within their jurisdiction, it seems fair that it abides by the law, vis., "deleting data as requested", not "make data inaccessible to those who cannot execute a second Google search on how to subvert the restrictions".

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what you mean by "search for identity theft", but once Google starts accepting requests for banning any content objectionable in any corner of the world worldwide, a mere picture of a woman with her face not hidden by a burqa would be "illicit pornography". You'd say it's too much, but we need to strike a balance between your desires and religious feelings of people in Sudan, Syria and Iran, don't we? And when you're trying to "strike the balance" by trampling on rights, the ones who cry the loudest - i.e. fanatics - will always win, unless there's a strong and impenetrable barrier that they can not overcome. Like the First Amendment in the US, which, despite all efforts, is still standing. But Europe doesn't have it, and there bans on information and suppression of unpopular expression is the norm. This is just one more example of their descent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've said this before, and I'm saying it again:

If EU courts and regulators want to give citizens the right to be forgotten, they should be doing away with restrictions on name changing.

 _Way_ before ordering a corporation to burn books.

<comment><USER6> > they should be doing away with restrictions on name changing.

There are very few restrictions on changing your name in England. Is that not the case for the rest of Europe?

<comment><USER7> The US adopted the English legal system, and changing your name is easy as pie. Mexico adopted the French and Spanish legal systems and changing your name is damn near impossible (from what I hear). I figure that's a feature of those legal systems (and their associated _legal cultures_ ), not the US and Mexico.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's a very bad title. What the article states is that the EU would like those users that want to be forgotten to be forgotten from _all_ google servers, not just from the servers in the EU. So it's not the EU pushing for the right to be forgotten to be extended to the citizens of all countries.

<comment><USER9> > So it's not the EU pushing for the right to be forgotten to be extended to > the citizens of all countries.

It may be a bad title, probably for the purpose of link baiting, but the article itself isn't completely wrong assuming the EU desire is ultimately to gain control over what information is retained for EU citizens. It's possible this is merely speculation.

Personally, if the EU wishes to extend this limit themselves, then they should block access to US search engines from within EU member states. That's entirely within their right to do and it's a whole lot easier than upsetting everyone else who doesn't want to play by the same rules (and negates the need for extending treaties and the likes).

At its most extreme, I'm humored a bit by the prospect of what this sort of precedent would set for future demands made by North Korea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure why "to be forgotten" is a right in first place. The kind of thuggery that Steve Jobs did to keep our salaries low should be forgotten by society few years down the line ?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is going to be a big problem for multinational corporations like Google and Microsoft in the coming years. In order to do business in Country X, they'll have to censor all information that is objectionable to the citizens of X, even when citizens of other countries are trying to access it.

Google pulled its Chinese version a few years ago, redirecting users to the Hong Kong version instead. But Google only had a small stake in the Chinese market when it did that. It can't pull the same trick with the EU. It needs to sell ads in the EU, and you can't sell ads in a country while openly violating its laws.

Why doesn't the EU take issue with the fact that, for example, the Internet Archive probably has copies of every page that EU citizens want censored? Well, to begin with, few people even know about the Internet Archive. But even more importantly, the Internet Archive has no presence whatsoever in the EU. It's a US charity with US servers. So although it will never be able to get away with hosting content that violates American law, it doesn't need to give a flying fuck about EU law, Thai law, Russian law, or whatever. Oh, the Saudis want to censor images of women driving cars? Feel free to arrest our Chairman if he ever visits Saudi Arabia.

I think this is exactly why keeping the flow of information distributed is so important to keeping it open. Different countries want to censor different kinds of information, so the _union_ of censored information is huge, but the _intersection_ is very small. If we become dependent on a few multinational corporations to access information, we'll end up suffering the union of every censorship regime in the world (or at least the union of regimes where those corporations do business in). But if we keep the flow of information distributed, only the intersection need be censored.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain why the EU is pushing for right to be forgotten so hard? This type of legislation can only end badly.

<comment><USER13> Because European courts are no more tech-savvy, nor capable of reasoning about the consequences of their judgements, than American ones.

<comment><USER8> What are the specific parts of their reasoning about the consequences that you find fault with?

I'm actually quite impressed that they're not falling for the non-existent technological obstacles that have been put in place here to side-step the law, for a change the EU court actually seems to be on the ball.

<comment><USER14> Because "The right to be forgotten" is just doublespeak for censorship. Politicians are using it to hide an unsavory past. Businesses will use it to cover up past wrongdoings. I'm not just exaggerating, this is already happening now with the current implementation.

<comment><USER8> Of course it isn't. That right applies to _any_ citizen, not just to politicians, and besides, the newspaper morgues are not so forgetful. Also, for 'public figures' the standards are different and they probably will be only very partially successful in this. The Streisand effect will nicely counteract any attempt to be 'forgotten' for those who are extra deserving of being remembered.

<comment><USER15> >and besides, the newspaper morgues are not so forgetful

So how can such a double standard possibly be justified? How can google be forced to delete things from the servers, but newspaper archives can't be forced to burn their material?

<comment><USER8> Newspaper archives do not vacuum up random facts about random citizens, they don't build mile-long profiles, they store articles about events that were considered news-worthy by some newsdesk. Automated collation of data and journalism are not even remotely similar processes.

What I find interesting is how everybody is focusing on Google here, when the real focus should be not on how this system _could_ be abused but why it exists and who it could benefit. And that gives a completely different picture. But it's late here (3 am) and I'm off to bed.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps you haven't seen how the "right to be forgotten" thing is being used in practice. It's not used to take down "random facts about random citizens". It's used by public figures in positions of authority to hide their wrongdoings.

They're not taking down "automated collections of data", they are taking down links to newspaper articles. The exact same articles that are in the archives.

The focus SHOULD be on how the system IS abused because the costs of the abuse vastly outsize any potential benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how EU regulators are going to react when, for example, Russian regulators demand that Google remove all links to "inaccurate" (i.e. not Russian propaganda) stories about MH17, worldwide.

<comment><USER8> It's a fairly natural privacy issue. The EU DPD has some fairly clear rules about automated gathering of information about people, the rules under which you are required to honor requests for reports about that data, to update it if so required and to be deleted at the first request.

Google is side-stepping the reach of the EU by keeping the data on servers outside of the EU but this goes against the spirit of those laws, it is about the _citizens_ not about where the data resides.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, keeping the information available where the EU's jurisdiction doesn't reach subverts the spirit of the EU's laws, but what alternative is there? By that standard, even delivering censored results to all EU IP addresses isn't enough - that's trivially circumvented with a VPN. And if the EU gets to have the spirit of their laws reach worldwide, then so does every other government.

But that way lies madness. Once Google is done censoring every search result that any government objects to (including results governments let their citizens object to), what will be left?

<comment><USER8> The alternative is pretty simple: google should honour the requests of EU citizens to be forgotten by _google_ , not a limited subset of google.

It's like the copyright battles in reverse, only this time the rights holders are citizens, and it is google playing shell games rather than say allofmp3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is blogspam for the Reuters article it links to, which has neither the inaccurate title nor the speculation (i.e. that blocking based on geo-ip would not be acceptable).

</comment><comment><USER17> What I really wish someone would explain is why the EU seems to be focusing on Google's indexing of other people's content, rather than the content itself.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why are there so many posts talking about censorship and none talking about privacy?

<comment><USER19> Because it's not a privacy issue. Privacy is the red herring. There's already ways to protect your privacy online. Additionally no one wants online privacy. People spend long hours making their facebook page

<comment><USER18> People make Facebook pages because they _think_ they can control who sees them. Also, different cultures value privacy more than others, because they have more experience with the risks of a lack of privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm wondering, at what point will the EU demand that Santa Claus shall forget what he knows about us?

(Referring to the song: "He's making a list, Checking it twice; Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.")

</comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of the Indian government regulation for telecom companies.

According to the regulation the range of a telephone tower should end exactly at the border of the county (taluka) !

</comment><comment><USER21> They had come up with an excuse to use as an opening salvo for censorship, so they came up with "right to be forgotten".

</comment><comment><USER22> I understand that HN is on the side of absolute freedom of expression which entails that if anything has been public once, it has a right to stay to public till the dawn of times, so I hardly ever comment on these matters. I'm French, and I definitely do not agree with this opinion.

In 1978, the french government proposed to cross-reference (through digitalization) many of its databases (birth registry, healthcare, retirement fund, driver's license…). It encountered a very strong resistance from the public, mostly because of an news article in one the biggest newspaper (Le Monde) titled "SAFARI [the name of the project]: the hunt for french citizens" (la chasse aux français). Needless to say that such a system would have been a blessing for the German administration during WW2. It was 1978 and WW2 didn't seem that far away, either your generation or the one of your parents lived during the war. That's how France ended up with a law (Loi Informatique & Libertés) that regulates what one can do with databases storing personal information.

How's that related to the right to be forgotten? Bear with me.

This law (and up to minor differences, the EU directive on the matter), makes explicit what I consider to be a very smart and important idea: "purpose of data" (finalité des données). Basically, before you're authorized to store personal data (like email adresses, names, phone numbers, IP addresses[1]), you have to state what the purpose of this data is (to who and how is another matter, but that's not too difficult). Also, data should only be stored for a specific amount of time. This duration is determined by the purpose of the data. For example, if you have a database of all the people that used to be registered to your {nodejs,rails,lisp} newsletter but aren't anymore, you cannot keep that data for, say, 10 years. 10 years doesn't make sense given the purpose of your data. Note that if you anonymize the data, you're good to go. On the other hand, if you have medical data on cutting edge treatment of cancer, you may want to keep the data for 30 years if you need to contact a former patient when you discover longterm side-effect of your drug. And in this case, it's fine.

You may start to see where I'm going. We have basically the same idea in the right to be forgotten. Yes, it impedes freedom of speech as american people think of it. Sure. But, you know, in Europe, we have a different freedom of speech, which also traces back to WW2. I can't go around saying that I hate black people and that I'm a nazi. I'm gonna be fined/thrown in jail for doing that. And a vast majority of Europeans do agree with that. Basically restrictions are nothing that promotes hate/racism and libel (you can't say that somebody's a serial killer before he's convicted for example.)

And you may think I'm backwards, turning away from the blinding beauty of technology (right to be forgotten? that's not how the internet works!). Thinking that Freedom of speech as the US knows it is the way to go everywhere is universalism, pure and simple. So, please remember that countries and people have a history.

Yep, the internet doesn't work that way. And I am aware the I can host my server in some random third world country and get away with mostly whatever I host. Or I can use a tor hidden service. But that's not the point. 99% of these cases will be about data hosted by legitimate businesses, which have a name and address and that will be compelled to remove the data. In my opinion, the slope isn't that slippery. After all, you'd be hard pressed to consider EU countries as being way too censorshipy (?) — in general, not just when talking about Internet.

And yes, law will always be stupid when you pit it against technology. But unless you advocate total deregulation, it's a matter of how much idiocy you can accept.

Finally, a thought on jurisdiction: european judges consider that they have authority if the intended public is european. So yes, google.es, google.co.uk and such are subject to european law. Wether or not google.com is subject to EU law has not been tested in court (it probably has, but I can't remember any specific case), but even in this case, it would be perfectly acceptable (from the court standpoint) to alter google.com for EU IP addresses and leave it untouched for other addresses. So, no, nobody's gonna tread your freedom.

Ironically, I don't really have an opinion on Freedom of speech (US vs EU). But I find that the EU has struck a nice balance when it comes to that. Knowing that companies must destroy data that has my name attached to it when it's not relevant anymore is very appealing.

In the end, the US and the EU, in this case, disagree on principle, which are like axioms. You can't prove me that one is better (in the general framework of modern civilization, ie, let's say The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to keep it simple.)

[1] this one is tricky, but this comment is already long enough

<comment><USER23>
       But, you know, in Europe, we have a different freedom of speech

I would say Europeans in general have a different understanding of freedom. In the US the concept is usually always you have "the freedom to..." whereas in Europe there is often something more like "the freedom from...". Yes, I realize that you can pretty much write every freedom so it becomes the other, but when you actually think about it and not try to nit pick that's pretty accurate.

In general I feel like in Europe there is not this holy grail of abolute freedom like in the US. It's often limited by personal rights, privacy etc. Americans don't seem to understand that this isn't just the EU on some kind of acid trip, but that Europeans simly have different values.

<comment><USER8> I'd like to see a European country that tries to censor where its citizens can go, where money determines the outcome of elections and that's not an actual democracy go out and preach to other countries about how 'free speech' is more important and therefore its citizens are more free than those of other countries around it.

Freedom is an absolute in theory only, just about every country in the world loses out on one or more dimensions of it but somehow the US has the general idea that it and it alone is somehow the bastion of freedom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2014/07/24/eu-wants-google-to- extend-r...](http://boingboing.net/2014/07/24/eu-wants-google-to-extend- ri.html), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about testing using Selenium? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Do you think that state of functional testing by tools like Selenium is sufficient? How could we improve it?
Best, Wiktor <comment><USER2> It's a great tool for front end testing. However, it's limited with some newer stuff - shadow DOM objects are meant to be supported since January but in reality it's...difficult. However, the way it interfaces with browsers IMHO is preferable to say, CodedUI, which takes control of the mouse and keyboard to execute tests.

Saying that, in Java/C#, Selenium is still easily my preferred tool, and the demand from companies/recruiters (I'm switching contracts at present) seems to indicate it's still very much _the_ tool.

</comment><comment><USER3> We use selenium tests as a last line of defense. Using it as your only integration test, however, seems a bad idea to me. There are more specific and faster possibilities for testing.

The thing that would make selenium a lot better, would be if browser vendors could agree on a standard for instrumentation. This is of course a perfect- world line of thinking.

</comment><comment><USER4> Selenium is used to test that stuff is not totally broken. Its good for startups that dont want/need to spend all this time on 100% unit testing</comment>


This case is literally an entire Android phone that you attach to your iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/3/13/14908218/eye-esti-inc-iphone-case-android-why-kickstarter <comment><USER2> This case doesn't actually exist.</comment>


Trump thinks app with 10K downloads will prove millions voted illegally - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/27/president-trump-thinks-votestand-an-app-with-around-10k-downlo-app-ads-will-help-prove-millions-voted-illegally/ <comment><USER2> _The current version, now published by tea-party affiliated organization True the Vote_

I have a very entertaining conversation with the lady who runs TrueTheVote.com right after the election. After saying she supported Trump's claim about millions of illegal voters I asked her how many challenges had been filed by poll watchers. After some hedging she admitted that they didn't actually collect such information but would produce a report in months to come using 'statistics.'

I was very careful to be unfailingly polite with my requests for information, but for some reason she declined to carry on the conversation. Perhaps it was my annoying habit of persistently asking if she had any evidence to support her claims.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe there is an ALTERNATIVE play store with millions of downloads?</comment>


Ask HN: What should you do if you think you might have a rare medical disorder? - <AUTHOR> Context: have seen PCP, multiple specialists, taken a lot of blood tests, and have done considerable research, without receiving a concrete diagnosis (in the US). Chances are I'm experiencing some undetectable auto-immune or poorly understood condition (like CFS).
I've become incredibly frustrated and I'm curious if anyone here has ever found themselves in a similar situation and figured out a reasonable strategy to navigate the medical system.
Should I be considering Mayo Clinic? Is there any online platform where I can poll a lot of specialists all at once? Other options worth considering? <comment><USER2> Best of luck. Don't have any suggestions to offer but I've upvoted for visibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I appreciate that.

<comment><USER2> Might be worth re-asking on a few subreddits. /r/findareddit may be helpful if you do that.</comment></comment></comment>


China to World: We Don't Need Your Factories Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-manufacturers-once-needed-overseas-suppliersnot-any-more-1476801578 <comment><USER2> They've had a pretty meteoric rise in technical capability. It's much easier when you don't honor patents and engage in widespread industrial espionage.

Since they also have legions of people to help keep their image acceptable on social media, it will be interesting to see whether my karma drops precipitously.

EDIT: I found an interesting related article at about rank 90 on HN immediately after posting this comment - [http://qz.com/771727/chinas- factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-p...](http://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in- shenzhen-can-copy-products-at-breakneck-speed-and-its-time-for-the-rest-of- the-world-to-get-over-it/?mod=djemlogistics)

<comment><USER3> Downvoted. Enjoy.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for reading my comment - I'll be here all week/month/year.

More seriously, I don't shy away from posting comments that I suspect will get down-voted - when we're having a debate, at most half of us can be right at any given time. The lovely thing about a debate is that we can all think we're right.

I have a couple of personal anecdotes I could share about China's knock-off business, starting with electronics and mechanical equipment in the early '90s. I've now got a couple of other IP related stories that I am not permitted to share. I'm not going to paint everyone in China with the same brush but I will stand behind my comment as a cultural aspect.

<comment><USER4> You'll find you are being downvoted because you are totally off topic.

Nothing in the article I saw was relevant to the done to death 'lets try and get karma by putting down China because it copies'</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chef dev pulls Ruby gems over US ICE deal - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/20/chef_roasted_for_ice_dealings/ <comment><USER2> This is morally reprehensible on several levels.

I cannot in good conscience use Chef now.

</comment><comment><USER3> I already dread having to work with Chef every day and now having it randomly break our production environments because of this makes it even worse.</comment>


When we got to the scanner, I opted out. Then they opted out. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.izs.me/post/1591805056/tsa-success-story <comment><USER2> A positive spin on this idiotic story, nicely done. Activism need not be violent nor do people need to be yelled at or talked down to.

I still firmly believe that any TSA employee who doesn't want to be a part of this should refuse to, just as any traveller should refuse to go through the machine. But, there need not be drama. In fact, I'd say that refusal without drama and in public has a more powerful effect than any verbal argument might.

<comment><USER3> > Activism need not be violent nor do people need to be yelled at or talked > down to.

The lack of self-righteousness in the story was extremely refreshing.

As the author said: "Information, _properly_ _delivered_ , is power." Emphasis mine.

<comment><USER4> Yes. The article also shows the power of wearing Vibram FiveFingers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just curious, does anyone have some hard evidence that the MWBS is a cancer risk?

I ask this simply because anti-X activists have pushed junk science claims of the form "X causes CANCER" many times [1], so I'm a little dubious. I don't think fighting civil liberties violations with junk science is a useful tactic, if that is indeed what is happening here.

[1] For example, feminists pushed the "silicone gel implants cause breast cancer", anti-bioscience types push "GMO foods cause cancer". Drug warriors have pushed "pot causes cancer" and anti-abortion crusaders pushed "abortion causes cancer".

<comment><USER6> edit: s/mwbs/bs/g; per comment below

Well, X-rays cause cancer. BS uses X-rays So it is a cancer risk. And it is a little more founded than someone randomly saying' this causes cancer'.

In terms of risk...

This says dental x-rays are about 2-3 mrem: <http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/dental.htm>

This says BS is about .006-.009 mrem: <http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/backscatter.htm>

Keep in mind that under certain models (the 'no-threshold model'), any amount of exposure (even a tiny amount) to an X-ray is a slight increase in the chance that that person will get cancer.

Now you might think that because dental x-rays are about 300 times more powerful than BS, dental x-rays have a much higher chance to cause cancer. Sure, individually, my chances of getting cancer from a BS are much lower than my chances of getting cancer from a dental x-ray. It is even higher from daily background radiation, or from the radiation that you get from flying in an airplane.

But everything is about context. How many people fly each day? 2 million or so? How many people do we propose to put through the BS machine? All of them? (I assume the intent is to eventually replace the metal detectors with these). If you are putting 2 million people through the BS each day, that is actually large amount of radiation exposure. Probabilistically, someone will get cancer from the BS.

There are certain types of radiation that you can avoid (x-raying your foot for fun! backscatter machines), and there are certain types of radiation that you cannot avoid (background cosmic).

I don't see how the argument that it is 'nothing' in comparison to other forms of radiation really stands up, in that I could potentially avoid backscatter radiation, whereas I couldn't conceivably avoid the other types.

(This doesn't take into account other real issues, like 'what if the machine breaks down and we start blasting people with focused beams of radiation'... while trained to run the machine, I doubt that the TSA people are trained to maintain the machine, or would even know if something had gone horribly wrong with it).

<comment><USER5> _(This doesn't take into account other real issues, like 'what if the machine breaks down and we start blasting people with focused beams of radiation'..._

What if my flashlight breaks down and I start blasting people with focused beams of laser light? What if my cell phone breaks down and the microwaves melt the brains of everyone within 6 feet of me?

I don't know a great deal about the engineering of MWBS, but I see no reason to believe that your fear is any more likely than mine. Most machines just don't work that way. Do you have evidence that MWBS is different?

<comment><USER6> It is hard to think that a flashlight or cellphone would have a power supply strong enough to do that much damage. (Although actually, metal halide lamps can sometimes cause UV radiation burns if they are damaged... <http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/158/4/372> ).

As long as the backscatter machine doesn't run on Double A's, my fears are actually more reasonable than yours.

The backscatter machine presumably uses some sort of electrical plug to connect to power. It isn't inconceivable that it could receive more power than intended and produce more x-rays, or that something could go wrong with the shielding allowing x-rays to leak, or that something could go wrong with the x-ray bulb and we could produce the wrong type of radiation.

And it doesn't have to be 'burning your head off' to be a problem, it could simple produce an order of magnitude or two more radiation than intended, and be a health risk.

<comment><USER5> My desk lamp also uses an electrical plug to connect to power. It isn't inconceivable that it could receive more power than intended and blind me! By the way, an order of magnitude or two more radiation than intended would be equivalent to a dental xray.

Look, I'm not saying your fear is physically impossible. I'm just saying I can't think of a very many machines (radiation sources or otherwise) for which anything similar is a plausible fear. Most machines simply stop working when used outside their operating parameters.

Also, do you really think that if the backscattering machine emitted the wrong type of radiation (x-rays of a different frequency), the TSA agent operating the scanner wouldn't notice when his screen went blank (unless the detectors simultaneously malfunctioned to pick up the incorrect frequency)?

<comment><USER7> And if it does, it's your responsibility.

Your desk lamp doesn't emit X-Rays, you don't force droves of people to stand underneath it, and no oncologists ever told me to be wary of your desk lamp until it has received further study.

So, yeah. Not the same thing. Not even remotely. In fact, your analogy is a bit silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Two interesting excerpts from the Backscatter X-ray wikipedia page:

The national radiation safety standard (see below) sets a dose per screening limit for the general-use category. To meet the requirements of the general- use category a full-body x-ray security system must deliver less than the dose a person receives during 4 minutes of airline flight. TSA has set their dose limit to ensure a person receives less radiation from one scan with a TSA general-use x-ray security system than from 2 minutes of airline flight.

And

Fathers exposed to medical diagnostic x-rays are more likely to have infants who contract leukemia, especially if exposure is closer to conception or includes two or more X-rays of the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract or lower abdomen.[36] In medical radiography the x-ray beam is adjusted to expose only the area of which an image is required, so that generally shielding is applied to the patient to avoid exposing the gonads,[37] whereas in an airport backscatter scan, the testicles of men and boys will be deliberately subjected to the direct beam, and radiation will also reach the ovaries of female subjects. Whilst the overall dose averaged over the entire body is lower in a backscatter X-ray scan than in a typical medical X-ray examination, because of the shielding of the gonads used in medical radiography this in itself does not mean that the dose to the testicles would be less in an airport scan.

<comment><USER9> Good find, especially the second paragraph, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "No thanks, I've already had cancer, just feel me up or whatever."

Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree that having to choose between flying and getting groped/strip-scanned or not flying is ridiculous, and I'm happy that he and others were able to circumvent this.

But he says they were using Millimeter Wave Scanners, which as far as I can tell, and contrary to his argument, do not use x-rays. That letter refers to another type of machine, x-ray backscatter scanners.

<comment><USER2> Well, firstly, the fact that the TSA employee didn't challenge that statement tells me that either that employee isn't properly informed or he/she knows more than what is publicly known. I'm gonna go on a limb and say it's the former rather than latter.

Secondly, it shouldn't be a question of whether the machine is x-ray or millimeter wave. Both of those emit radiation and until there's definitive proof that one or both do not cause damage, they shouldn't be in use.

<comment><USER12> We actually have a very good idea how much damage x-rays and millimeter waves do to the human body, since we've been dealing with both technologically for many years.

Because x-rays are used in medical devices that have to be approved by the FDA, we've developed some very good ideas about what sort of doses are harmful and which aren't. The damage done by the x-ray scans used by the TSA do indeed produce damage, measured in Sieverts - a scale used by medical technicians, nuclear power plant operators, NASA, etc. Generally a dose of 1 Sievert all at once is enough to make you sick. Radiation expose is usually measured in milliSieverts and a person who doesn't do anything dangerous will usually receive a couple of milliSieverts a year just from the sun and the radioactive decay of things like the carbon in their body. Going through a TSA x-ray scanner will give you about a microSievert (or 1/1000 of a milliSievert) unless you do something like stop in the middle of the scanner and daydream. Because flying on a plane involves going higher with less atmospher to protect you from radiation from outer space, even short flights tend to cause you to rack up 10 microSieverts and longer flights will give you more. So even if you fly every day the excess dose you're getting from the machines is ignorable, and if you are flying every day its only increasing the amount of radiation you're getting by 10%.

As to millimeter waves, well, I'm not sure quite what mechanism they could possibly use to be dangerous, since they're less energetic than the visible light that we're exposed to every day. If you're inclined to worry about stuff like that, I'd recommend worrying more about fluorescent lights (where all the energy is concentrated in a few frequencies and which we're exposed to for long periods of time) or cell phones and wireless access points (which have about the same energy as the TSA devices, and which we're exposed to for long periods of time).

<comment><USER13> But isn't 10 microSieverts over a 5 hour flight much better than 1 microSievert in the span on a few seconds?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning#Fractionati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning#Fractionation_of_dose)

<comment><USER5> For carcinogenic purposes (what we are discussing here), no.

The fractionation effect only comes into play when you receive such a high radiation does that it can cause large amounts of cell death. Similarly, being burned (with fire) twice at low intensity is better than being burned once at high intensity, since your body can partially recover after the first burn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And just like that, it's that easy for someone to avoid the whole system. If -anyone- can avoid them, then terrorists can. And that defeats the whole system.

Of course, that assumes the system worked in the first place, which I don't believe.

</comment><comment><USER15> How dumb are people to not realize it's radiation one way or another? Do they think it's "magic" they can see through your clothes?

How can there be a class action lawsuit against printer ink, but not against radiating you for no reason with devices that have no track record?

Where are these devices for entering Congress or the Whitehouse if they are so safe?

So would the President choose the radiation naked picture method or the deep groping method for his daughters? I'd seriously like that question asked at some point by the press.

 _ps. Even if you opt-out, you are probably being exposed to whatever radiation method they use.

Note how in this photo the person in line, not just the person in the scanner is being exposed:_

<http://i.imgur.com/NycwX.jpg>

<comment><USER16> > So would the President choose the radiation naked picture method or the deep > groping method for his daughters? I'd seriously like that question asked at > some point by the press.

No one in the press has the guts to ask him this. But man, I'd love to see that too.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, not just the President but also any Congressperson/Senator that is interviewed for the rest of the year on any program.

 _Which one do you want your mother/children experiencing, naked picture radiation, deep groping, or would you instead choose the $10,000 fine for leaving (and possibly being put on the no-fly list forever)?_

<comment><USER17> Maybe I'm just cynical but I'd imagine the answer would be something like, "The scanner. The devices are safe and we feel their use is important for ensuring the safety of US citizens. Next question?"

<comment><USER18> Yeah, you can give any answer when you know you'll never need to actually be put through any of the options.

If everyone who flies, and I do mean everyone (regardless of whether you'll be boarding a personal plane), had to go through this every time, we'd see this go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Americans really should start a campaign against this kind of degrading treatment and make sure that it's stopped. It shows a profound lack of respect for human dignity. The video showing a child being molested by an airport security guard is just horrific, and long lasting psychological damage could occur with a child that young after having a traumatic experience of that kind.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is what I have been thinking. If enough people refuse, its so inconvenient for them that they don't bother to hassle you.

</comment><comment><USER21> I opted out during my last flight. After everything I had read, I decided I needed to experience it first hand. I was expecting a huge scene, with the TSA agent screaming, "OPT OUT! We've got an opt out here!", and then being manhandled, groped, and basically demeaned in front of other passengers.

After removing my shoes (the one part of airport security theatre I absolutely hate) and placing my belongings in those gray trays, I walked up to the TSA agent, who asked me multiple times if I had anything in my pockets-had I forgotten my wallet? Did I have my wrist watch on? Etc.

After the person in front of me had completed his scan, the TSA agent directed me to step forward. I asked if I could opt out. He responded with, "sure", and in his walkie-talkie, said, "I have a male-opt out." He then looked at me and said, "One second..."

He got a response back in his walkie talkie, and then directed me to walk through the scanner, pointing out that the scanner was not on.

On the other side, I was greeted by an older gentleman, who also pointed out the scanner was off. He asked if I would prefer being patted down in a private location. I declined. He then explained everything he would do: From the pat down, to using the back of his hand for the more "private" areas. I said, "okay...", honestly expecting the worst at this point.

He proceeded with the pat down at this point. He did my upper body first (arms, chest, back) and then went to my backside and said, "I'll now be using the back of my hand to pat your more private area" (my butt, basically...) I responded, "okay", and then with a brush, he ran his hand down the backside of my leg.

I'll be honest: My immediate thought was, "That's it? I've been grabbed worse in a club/bar..."

Of course, I still hadn't received the crotch check...

He then explained he would be patting down my leg. "Here goes...", I thought.

With the back of his hands, he patted down my upper thighs (no where near the crotch), and then wrapped his hands around my legs and went "up" until "contact" was made, but immediately moved down, patting the rest of my leg. He then moved on to the other.

Again, I've seen and experienced far worse contact made in a club/bar.

After that, he had to get his gloves scanned (similar to the band they use for laptops), and after everything came clear, he thanked me for cooperating. I thanked him in response, and went on my way.

While I realize it's entirely dependent on the TSA agent you're dealing with, as well as personal/emotional experience, my own experience wasn't nearly as bad as I had prepared myself for.

When I pointed this out to a friend of mine (via text), he responded, "Yeah, but you're not a hot chick..."

He probably has a point :)

A few observations: Two of the four or five passengers who opted-in to get scanned, had to be patted down after - a similar experience I had (I went through the scanner once before, a mistake on my part, and had to be patted down after...)

The TSA agent made a comment during the pat down that surprised me: He wasn't a fan of the scanners himself. He said (paraphrasing here), "I've been reading about the radiation from these machines. You think passengers have it bad? I have to stand in front of this thing all day!"

Edit: Shoot, this is a lot longer than I had anticipated. A tl;dr: I opted-out of the scanner out of my own curiosity. The airport I flew out of employed TSA agents who made the experience not nearly as bad as I had anticipated... Of course, YMMV.

<comment><USER22> _"I have to stand in front of this thing all day!"_

You know, I never thought about that. Considering how x-ray technicians stand behind lead guards and aren't scanning people rapid-fire all day, I wonder what the dosage the TSA folks are getting.

<comment><USER23> TSA will not allow staff to wear film badge dosimeters, like those regularly worn by health care workers with potential radiation exposure,

Everyone is also assuming that the TSA is properly configuring and maintaining this equipment, and that it is not malfunctioning and giving overdoses.

<comment><USER24> If everything is configured properly, the dosimeters would read normal. If not, isn't it better to find out as soon as possible?

<comment><USER25> No. Imagine if a few workers were being overdosed. The TSA would get sued and they'd have to find some other way to annoy us.

No data, no lawsuit.

<comment><USER26> Using dosimeters works in many places where they use equipment that produce X-rays. On occasion, an incident happens. This may lead to a lawsuit, but still a lawsuit much smaller in scope than when workers are being overdosed over longer periods of time and them finding out in a few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I flew through three airports with backscatter machines last week. I had a small child with me. Each time i was directed to the regular metal detector - and in one case where my child walked ahead and was about to go through the backscatter machine, she got called back by the TSA person with some agitation and directed through the metal detector instead.

I don't have enough data points to know for sure, but I am wondering if they are purposefully not screening kids in these things and if so, are they doing so due to the radiation exposure concerns.

Like the OP, I never saw anybody opt out.

<comment><USER22> Alternately, they may be concerned about having pictures of naked children stored on the hard drive.

Or both!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Never underestimate the potential for convincing an underpaid federal employee to cut corners. If you make this stuff too inconvenient for the guys on the ground, the policy gets eroded from the inside.

Until Napolitano cracks down. But that's several moves ahead.

<comment><USER15> I think most of them are intoxicated on the power, I mean how much would someone have to pay you to grope people all day? I'd quit in an hour.

Have you seen the photo where this horrifying parody

<http://imgur.com/Nu5f8.jpg>

is the wallpaper on the computer screen in the TSA office?

<http://imgur.com/1xFBp.jpg>

I mean think about the mentality - in the very workplace they do it.

<comment><USER29> Saying "I would do X when presented with Y" is easy to say when you have not been presented with Y. Regarding the wallpaper, yes, it's inappropriate. Perhaps it is an indication that the people are drunk with power. But it could also be another instance of people in an uncomfortable situation using humor as a coping mechanism.

<comment><USER30> In _The Gift of Fear_ , Gavin de Becker talks about how, as a security consultant, he takes offhand jokes very seriously. He tells the story about the office which received an odd-looking package that nobody was expecting. They debated whether to open it. Eventually one guy decided to open it, so his coworker left the room. As the coworker was leaving, he made an offhand joke over his shoulder: "I'm going to stand in the other room so I won't be around when the bomb goes off."

Then the bomb went off.

Jokes are designed as a mechanism for saying speculative, potentially scary things without being threatening or looking stupid. When I see a TSA agent with that wallpaper, I see someone who knows at some level that something is very wrong but isn't able to say so out loud. Maybe they can't even say it out loud to _themselves_.

<comment><USER31> I had to look up the story Gavin de Becker was quoting, I never heard it before but it was the Unabomber. [http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-09/news/mn-22130_1_suspi...](http://articles.latimes.com/1995-07-09/news/mn-22130_1_suspicious- package)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I recently flew JFK->SFO and back on Virgin. There are no backscatter machines at the Virgin terminal at JFK. They do have them at SFO. About every 10th person was selected to go through the scanner. Nobody opted out. Contrary to most reports, the TSA agents at both airports were pretty nice and helpful. At JFK, they were helping a number non-english speaking travelers speed their way through the line so they wouldn't miss their flight. If anything was off, a couple of the agents at SFO were too chipper at 6am, which made them seem slightly insane. Privacy and health concerns aside, an issue with this machine is that it does nothing to speed up the security line. If anything, it is slightly slower than the metal detector.

I wonder if this is really a cancer risk. For instance, I feel like living in Toxic Williamsburg is probably a worse cancer risk than going through the backscatter machine twice a year.

<http://gothamist.com/2007/04/11/toxic_williamsb.php>

<comment><USER33> _If anything was off, a couple of the agents at SFO were too chipper at 6am_

Probably because they were looking forward to seeing some hotties.

<comment><USER32> The main chipper employee I remember was the androgynous female directing traffic at the front of the line. I would like to think if she wanted to see a nude hottie I would have been selected for the device, but who knows which way she was swinging.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone care to do the math on what it would cost in excess fuel to add enough metal shielding to the fuselage to offer passengers "new and improved: no x-rays!" flights? (Only mostly not serious).

With more widespread awareness of x-ray exposure during a normal flight, I wonder if we will see any people so agitated that they wear stuff like this: <http://www.medvena.com/protection_clothing_maco_en.html>

</comment><comment><USER35> Great moral: "Information, properly delivered, is power."

</comment><comment><USER36> "There's a senate oversight meeting tomorrow, so please call these people and tell them how you feel ([http://hillwho.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=...](http://hillwho.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=10&sobi2Id=5651))."

Buried the lede.

</comment><comment><USER37> I thought it was established on HN that that letter about safety had been properly addressed (it's from April).

<comment><USER38> Yes, the letter is from April, but not many people buy the FDA response to the letter.

See: [http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps- sa...](http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps-safety- concerns-over-tsa-body-scanners.ars)

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/11/12/131275949/protest...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/11/12/131275949/protests- mount-over-safety-and-privacy-of-airport-scanners)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Has anyone thought of the impact of tourism. I'm in Australia and there has been a bit of a campaign to spend your holidays in California on the tv. I was deciding to take the family to Europe or the US, after hearing all the travel problems the US has - Europe here we come. I'm not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER40> Further proof that social engineering is, as always, far more effective than direct hacking at getting through security with a payload, even when that payload may not be bytecode.

</comment><comment><USER41> Direct link to the printed letter (PDF):

<http://j.mp/cancer-ray>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some lines I've been saving up, feel free to contribute.

"Aren't you at least going to buy me dinner first?" "Woah there buddy, don't skimp on the foreplay." "I think you might have missed a spot."

</comment><comment><USER42> Relatedly: [http://www.myvidster.com/video/600891/Video_of_TSA_Screener_...](http://www.myvidster.com/video/600891/Video_of_TSA_Screener_Accosting_3_Year_Old_Child_at_Security_Checkpoint)

</comment><comment><USER43> Write in big letters at the top of the literature: "Please read this then pass it to the person behind you in line. Thank you."

</comment><comment><USER44> I would upvote this 1000 times if I could.

</comment><comment><USER45> The actual letter from Prof. John Sedat and others, UCSF:

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ost...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ucsf- jph-letter.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER46> "They're expendable workers. I own this place. I'm the boss. They work for me. The only reason I don't fire them is that they're cheaper than robots. Etc."

I hate people like that. Why must he build himself up by putting down others? Regardless of what you think of the TSA's procedures, the people in the airport don't make the law. They're just decent people trying to make a living. If you have to insult them, albeit only to yourself, just to opt out of a scan you're probably the one who needs replaced by a robot.

<comment><USER47> It's really easy to Godwin a response to this, but I'll opt out and just ask: How decent are these people if they signed up for jobs to look at naked pictures and grope strangers? I'm all for being respectful as a tactic, but it's not as if they're doing anything to deserve respect.

<comment><USER29> I find your argument disingenuous, since these people were likely hired before these new regulations were in place.

<comment><USER47> It's not as if this is the first invasive thing they've done, and I think my argument still stands if rephrased as "people who wouldn't quit a job when told to look at naked pictures and grope strangers all day."

<comment><USER29> Security personnel will almost always have to perform a job that is, in some way, invasive. Your argument could apply to _all_ security personnel, not just those participating in the new policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Sorry for being cynical, but for me this story reads more or less like: there's a guy who didn't have enough balls to opt out only by himself and thus decided to find others to join him (he even brought some papers to show), and the others were some family where a woman, "fortunately"(?) had a cancer before - it's rather sad.

<comment><USER49> I think you are completely off base. In my opinion, it seems the guy was planning to opt out anyway and wanted to do his small part in spreading awareness of the problems associated with the scanners. I would even go so far as to say the radiation literature is a strawman for the bigger problem (people have shown that they are willing to give up their personal liberties, but EVERYONE responds to physical danger).</comment></comment>


The Plague of Entropy - <AUTHOR> http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2009/09/plague-of-entropy.html

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article: " When developers are writing code, entropy is low. When we submit bugs, we increase entropy. Bugs divert their attention from coding. They must now progress in parallel on creating and fixing features. More bugs means more parallel tasks and raises entropy. This entropy is one reason that bugs foster more bugs ... the entropic principle ensures it. Entropy creates more entropy! Finally there is math to show what is intuitively appealing: that prevention beats a cure. "</comment>


Roland the Farter and How the Internet Killed Professional Flatulence - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-true-story-of-roland-the-farter-and-how-the-internet-killed-professional-flatulence <comment><AUTHOR> Referred to variously Rowland le Sarcere, Roland le Fartere, Roland le Petour, and Roland the Farter, Roland really had one job in the court: Every Christmas, during the court's riotous pageant, he performed a dance that ended with "one jump, one whistle, and one fart", executed simultaneously.

For this, Roland was gifted a manor house in Hemingstone, Suffolk, and more than 100 acres of land. For farting on cue.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not _entirely_ dead. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQQpIOCp_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQQpIOCp_A) for example.

<comment><USER3> You make the guy's point in the article exactly. Since 1000s of novelties like this exist on youtube, why pay/book someone to see it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> once on a camping trip we ate so much cheese all of us could fart at will. as superpowers go, not the greatest, but after learning about the fartiste, I feel much betetr.</comment>