House Intelligence Committee Letter to Obama on Snowden [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_members_letter_to_potus_re_snowden-15_sep_16.pdf <comment><USER2> Now this is an exercise in doublespeak:

1) Rather than avail himself of the many lawful avenues to express legal, moral, or ethical qualms with U.S. intelligence activities, Mr. Snowden stole 1.5 million classified documents from National Security Agency networks.

WRONG - He has stated many times that he did approach all manner of "Oversight" people who basically told him to shut up. What happened to Tomas Drake and the others who tired the insider approach - nothing ever came of it.

2)...vast majority ofthe documents had nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests

How do you verify this? you can't

3)..In the course of doing so, he infiringed on the privacy of thousands of his friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens

Meanwhile the NSA was illegally infringing the privacy of almost 310 million americans

4) The material Mr. Snowden stole pertains to lawful intelligence activities authorized and overseen by all three branches of govemment.

\- the activities were NOT lawful (as in legally defensible when challenged in a court), they were not overseen by anyone and some of them were unrelated to intelligence.

What a bunch of gutless hypocrites.

<comment><USER3> > WRONG - He has stated many times that he did approach all manner of > "Oversight" people who basically told him to shut up. What happened to Tomas > Drake and the others who tired the insider approach - nothing ever came of > it.

Then why not bring proof? 1.5 million documents and he can't bring the emails he sent? No, we saw the emails (that is to say, one email: [https://news.vice.com/article/nsa-finds-new-snowden- emails-b...](https://news.vice.com/article/nsa-finds-new-snowden-emails-but- theyre-not-about-his-concerns-with-surveillance)) that were sent to OGC, and nothing in them indicated he was raising any concerns.

> How do you verify this? you can't

He took 1.5 million documents and we've seen what, maybe 100-200 documents and slides over the course of three years? What's the other 1,499,800 million classified documents about?

> Meanwhile the NSA was illegally infringing the privacy of almost 310 million > americans

Fine, if he had only taken documents pertaining to his qualms then there would have been a much greater chance of him being labeled a whistleblower or at least be met with some leniency even if he didn't in fact follow the proper channels.

> the activities were NOT lawful (as in legally defensible when challenged in > a court), they were not overseen by anyone and some of them were unrelated > to intelligence.

1,499,800 documents that likely have absolutely zero to do with what he was supposed to be blowing the whistle on.

<comment><USER4> Have these documents been released? Do you know under what extenuating circumstances he was under when he collected these documents? What's your point?

<comment><USER3> My point is how do you pardon someone for whistleblowing when literally 99.99% of what they took from a classified space has nothing to do with what they were supposedly blowing the whistle on?

<comment><USER4> If he was under duress he probably didn't have time to filter through the documents. Even if he had a bit of time, it's difficult to know what would be relevant as events unfolded after the release.

In any case, it's already been established that he broke the law in order to expose a much greater law breaking, but many if not most people believe it to be OK because we also believe that it was impossible to expose the information in any other way. Considering all the miss-steps most whistleblowers made in their activities, Snowden was remarkably careful and clean. He made some calculations on what he needed to collect to successfully expose the crimes he witnessed, and the accuracy of those calculations is up for debate. I could easily come up with several reasons why he might have thought that he needed all those documents while under duress. For example, there may have been evidence of other crimes, and there would be no way he could sift through the documents while still working. Also, he recognized that he needed to leak slowly in order to keep the story afloat, or else he would get buried under propaganda and forgotten, as has happened to other whistleblowers that released all at once.

<comment><USER3> > If he was under duress he probably didn't have time to filter through the > documents. Even if he had a bit of time, it's difficult to know what would > be relevant as events unfolded after the release.

The dude planned this for years, he said it himself. He had plenty of time to simply take evidence of what he was going to blow the whistle on. I don't understand your argument.

> impossible to expose the information in any other way

Except for the many oversight channels that exists which there has yet to be any evidence he used.

> For example, there may have been evidence of other crimes, and there would > be no way he could sift through the documents while still working.

If I understand your argument correctly, it's: "it's possible _something_ here is illegal so let's just take all of it." I shouldn't have to explain why that doesn't jive.

> Also, he recognized that he needed to leak slowly in order to keep the story > afloat, or else he would get buried under propaganda and forgotten, as has > happened to other whistleblowers that released all at once.

None of this addresses the fact that it seems he did a recursive pull of supersecretnsadomain.gov and deuced out to China under the pretenses of whistleblowing.

<comment><USER4> > Except for the many oversight channels that exists which there has yet to be > any evidence he used.

That is absolutely not true. There is plenty of evidence that he tried to report to several superiors. Read the accounts yourself.

> None of this addresses the fact that it seems he did a recursive pull of > supersecretnsadomain.gov and deuced out to China under the pretenses of > whistleblowing.

If he was looking to dump documents on china and russia for fun and profit, why exactly would he go through the rigamarole of working with the guardian, making an ethical issue out of it, spending tons of time meeting with various celebrities and dignitaries, doing talks, writing essays, and crafting a remarkably coherent and complex false narrative. That sounds about as far fetched as most things that get labeled conspiracy theories. He'd have to be one serious double agent to pull all that off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a committee that includes Peter King we're talking about.

[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/) responds:

"BREAKING: Government officials dislike those who expose their illegal surveillance and trigger global debate about their behavior."

"If House Intel Committee had done its job of exercising oversight over NSA, there'd have been no Snowden. He did their job for them. If you don't want leaks, don't build a secret, illegal system of mass surveillance and then hide it and lie about it to the public."

<comment><USER6> It's the House Intelligence committee. Peter King didn't start it, nor does he chair it. Every minority member of the committee appears to have signed it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Snowden insists he has not shared the 1.5 million documents with anyone, but the Russians officials publically concede that he "did share intelligence" with their government._

"Russian officials" here refers to a single MP, Franz Klintsevich. If you look at his widely-quoted words carefully, which offer no specifics, it sounds more like he's simply speculating that that's what Snowden did:

 _" Let's be frank," he says. "Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do," adds Klintsevich. "If there's a possibility to get information, they will get it."_

EDIT: Apparently, Klintsevich actually said "to be frank, _I think_ that he shared..." in the original interview ("я думаю что поделился что поделился"), but for whatever reason, NPR dropped the "я думаю" part in its translation.

<comment><USER8> Greenwald has stated that Snowden has leaked certain things for self- preservation. [1] Once that precedent is established, it isn't much of a leap to imagine that he would be willing to do that again if pressured by the Russian government.

[1] - [https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/352213748917874688](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/352213748917874688)

<comment><USER9> Then wouldn't it have been better for the intelligence community if he hadn't had to flee the US for self-preservation? If we had better whistle-blower protections Russia would never have entered the picture.

<comment><USER8> Yes, which is exactly why the report harps on the fact that he did leave and got stuck flying between the US's two biggest political rivals. The NSA didn't put Snowden in that position, he put himself in it. Staying in the US would have certainly involved personal sacrifices from Snowden and he may not trust he would receive a fair trial. However that is why whistle blowers are celebrated. They but themselves at risk for the greater good. And you can't just say the ends justify the means for Snowden potentially giving up information to the Russians because that is the exact logic people inside the NSA use for this type of mass surveillance in the first place. Two core attributes of civil disobedience are about establishing a moral or ethical high ground and then facing the repercussions that come from your actions. Snowden appears to have failed on both of those accounts.

<comment><USER7> _The NSA didn 't put Snowden in that position, he put himself in it._

Actually it was the Obama administration that put him in that position, by revoking his passport.

 _Two core attributes of civil disobedience are about establishing a moral or ethical high ground and then facing the repercussions that come from your actions._

This is just empty posturing. For one thing, Snowden already is accepting significant repercussions for his actions (in ways that I don't think I need to detail for you; but which most likely are far greater than repercussions you've faced, or likely ever will face for taking a principled stand).

For another, taking responsibility for your actions doesn't mean you are required to throw yourself under a bus and accept whatever unjust persecutions† the system is waiting to throw at you. And when that system becomes sufficiently corrupt and unaccountable, not only do you have a right, you have _moral duty_ to escape and defy that system -- and continue your struggle -- to whatever extent possible.

†BTW, by "unjust persecution" I don't mean a lengthy jail sentence; I mean the very high probability that he would be tortured, the way Chelsea Manning is being tortured right now, as we speak -- as her way of accepting the very same "repercussions" that you, from the safety of your keyboard, are asking Snowden to accept:

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

<comment><USER8> First off, you can't blame Obama when Snowden was in China before any of his leaks became public. He could have been anywhere in the world at the time of the leaks, but he chose Hong Kong.

Secondly, I like how you are the one accusing me of posturing and then say that Snowden has received harsher repercussions than anything I have experienced, talk about posturing.

I didn't make the same decisions as Snowden. I know that most of us wouldn't make the same decisions in his situation. That is why the system exists how it does as countless people allow it to happen. Like I said, that is why we champion whistle blowers. They do something uncommon and difficult. But that choice also involves facing their accusers. Going to jail is often part of it for anyone practicing civil disobedience. It was part of the missions for everyone from MLK Jr to Gandhi. Yes, it is a lot to ask of Snowden to compare him to people like that, but once again no one put Snowden in that position but Snowden.

<comment><USER7> Hmm - your point seems to come down to: "He put chose to put himself in that position. Therefore, he should accept whatever wildly unjust persecution the system will surely hit him with the moment they get their hands on him. And therewith, further promote the chilling deterrent effect against anyone who might contemplate taking a similar, principled stand."

You can hold that position if you want. But I just don't buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Moreover, the material Mr. Snowden stole pertains to lawful intelligence > activities authorized and overseen by all three branches of government.

Exactly.

To those who question why Snowden didn't work through the system, here's your answer--straight from the House Intelligence Committee.

<comment><USER11> How was it overseen by Congress when they were lied to, repeatedly, about the existence of the programs they supposedly oversaw?

How was it overseen by courts who had never been permitted to see evidence of existence?

As far as I can tell, it was unilateral executive action started by the guys who brought us waterboarding, and continued by an executive who mostly continued the same foreign policy. And it is a tool whose largest beneficiary is the same executive branch that authorized it.

<comment><USER12> It isn't an all or nothing. Snowden leaked information on a lot of different programs - some of them presumably weren't known to Congress, some were. It is known that Snowden both leaked information on illegal activities and legal actives of the NSA. Leaking information about legal activities generally isn't protected by whistle-blowing laws or otherwise.

<comment><USER11> The presumption that they weren't known is based on direct testimony to Congress from the CIA saying that they had no such program in place.

See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper#False_testimo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper#False_testimony_to_Congress_on_NSA_surveillance_programs) for verification.

As for the rights of whistleblowers, the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers more than all other previous administrations combined. Would YOU trust this administration if you thought they were doing wrong?

<comment><USER12> I wasn't saying anything against that - read my comment again ("It isn't an all or nothing. Snowden leaked information on lots of different programs ..."). What I'm saying is that Snowden leaked a lot more then just the fact that the NSA gathers data on US citizens. Some of that data was on legitimate NSA activities, which is why claiming he is purely a whistle-blower is a bit hard to do: Leaking the data on illegal NSA activities is a legitimate argument for a whistle-blower defense, leaking data on legal NSA activities is not.

All I'm saying is that it is not a black and white issue. The reality is that even if you accept that he should have immunity for blowing the whistle on illegal NSA activities he revealed (As I do), the other things he did are still serious and it is hard to argue he should be pardoned in full for it. He could have only leaked information on the NSA illegal activities, but he didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Snowden's leaks were damaging to the members of this committee, because they showed the American public that the American intelligence apparatus is not subject to any meaningful oversight. So it is entirely predictable that the members of this committee would try to protect themselves by shifting focus to Snowden, away from their criminality.

Three years have elapsed since Snowden's revelations, and the intelligence community has not been able to show how the leaks have compromised national security. This is why the signatories of this letter have to avail themselves to gauzy arguments about Snowden's character and insinuations of collusion with Russia or China.

</comment><comment><USER14> To play devil's advocate, is there some truth to this?

> _Mr. Snowden 's claim that he stole this information and disclosed it to > protect Americans, privacy and civil liberties is undercut by his actions. > Rather than avail himself of the many lawful avenues to express legal, > moral, or ethical qualms with U.S. intelligence activities, Mr. Snowden > stole 1.5 million classified documents from National Security Agency > networks. The vast majority of the documents had nothing to do with programs > impacting individual privacy interests, but instead pertain to military, > defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's enemies._

<comment><USER15> My only concern is that he chose to flee. Staying would have been a very different statement.

<comment><USER16> I understand that as a feeling, but I can't logically justify it. What reason did he have to trust in the system to treat him fairly? The rightness of the programs he exposed, and our right to know about them, don't depend on whether he decided to martyr himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Check out this Intelligence Squared debate between Daniel Ellsberg (pentagon papers) vs. a former CIA director - it provides a deeper insight into the perspective behind this letter, and the vacuous arguments made by the anti- Snowden cohort: [http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/snowden-was- jus...](http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/snowden-was-justified)

The letter reminds me of how the DEA is consistently hyperbolic regarding the public health dangers of marijuana. To concede that weed is essentially harmless and medically useful would invalidate much of the drug war the DEA has waged for the past 40 years.

Similarly - to acknowledge Snowden in any positive light would invalidate the spying regime instituted by the U.S. government. And force the to acknowledge that their powerful spy tools require equally powerful oversight.

The lesson the NSA, the House committee, and others should take from Snowden is not that he's a villain. Rather, that one way or the other substantial oversight is going to occur, even if it requires the largest leak in history. Create truly transparent and accountable systems and there will be no more Snowdens. Throw the book at him, become more insular and secretive, and the problem will only get worse.

<comment><USER6> Why would the House Intelligence committee be opposed to oversight of the NSA? That's their job.

<comment><USER18> Because admitting that Snowden was a whistleblower or a patriot would imply that they had not been doing their jobs as overseers. It would also potentially limit the power of the intelligence apparatus, which would in turn limit the power of these congressmen as some of their clout comes from being on a committee overseeing a constellation of powerful agencies. Their incentives are completely misaligned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This tired trope:

> _Rather than avail himself [Snowden] of the many lawful avenues to express > legal, moral, or ethical qualms with U.S. intelligence activities ..._

Yes, Snowden obviously should have chosen to sit in USG's cage instead of having meaningfully exposed their criminal conspiracy!

I guess the struggle of being on the wrong side of history is that you have to double-down on efforts to keep the temporary condition going. These skinjobs know that when their reign is over, it's over for good.

FWIW I think this idea that Obama is all of a sudden going to pardon Snowden is laughable. But the outcome of this situation will be a good indicator of whether Obama was actually a decent person trapped by politics, or yet another empty salesperson for the status quo.

<comment><USER20> Did you just call them Cylons?

<comment><USER19> The original reference is to Replicants, but the concept is general. They look human, but only function mechanically.

(Yes I'm aware this is unfair to actual artificial intelligence, which will likely be complex enough to have feelings. But for now that's just in movies, and hopefully by the time we actually have that kind of AI the term will no longer be needed as _no_ individual will be pushed into acting as a robot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Mr. Snowden is not a patriot. He is not a whistleblower. He is a criminal.

Quite a statement! It's obviously not black and white. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I think the conversation needs to be inclusive, frank and factual. And this statement from our representatives shows a major problem. They don't want conversation, they want sound bites.

As an aside, I saw the movie last night and highly recommend it to anyone unsure or not aware of what happened. It seems to be accurate enough to portray the essence of his experiences and decision making process.

<comment><USER22> Pardon me (no pun intended) - which movie??

<comment><USER23> Snowden [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774114/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774114/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well pardons are not granted to innocent people. He committed a crime yes. But wasn't it for the greater good?

<comment><USER25> This is the main issue.

Treason is a political crime. Snowden committed a crime to reveal much bigger crime and danger to constitution and American people. He didn't benefit from it personally.

Legal system or constitution is not end-all. Laws just approximate what is considered morally correct action and their interpretations often follow little behind the changes. Big positive changes in society often start with breaking the law. Snowden may be legally traitor now but in the deeper sense he did not betray his country.

<comment><USER6> Snowden is not, and cannot be, charged with treason for his actions in leaking those documents.

<comment><USER25> I used treason as colloquialism to describe two felony charges under the Espionage Act.

The intent of the Eespionage Act was to protect U.S against traitors inside US.

>I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life;

[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29556](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29556)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I believe that Snowden's actions were technically criminal, even perhaps technically treasonous. I also believe that he was a patriotic whistleblower, and that his actions are pardonable. The letter seeks to oppose these two ideas, but they are not logically contradictory. The law is not always morally correct, and a presidential pardon is a way to correct this in extraordinary circumstances.

I do believe that Snowden should have been willing to be incarcerated for what he did. However, I believe he did his (my) country an exceptional service, and he should be exonerated on that basis.

<comment><USER13> > "I've volunteered to go to prison with the government many times," Snowden > said in an interview with the BBC that aired Monday. "What I won't do is I > won't serve as a deterrent to people trying to do the right thing in > difficult situations."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2015/10/06...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2015/10/06/edward-snowden-says-he-would-go-to-jail-to-come-back-to- the-u-s/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> In case anyone is wondering, here are the signatories on this: [http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority- members.h...](http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members.htm)

Devin Nunes, Chairman 22nd District of California

Jeff Miller 1st District of Florida

Mike Conaway 11th District of Texas

Peter King 2nd District of New York

Frank LoBiondo 2nd District of New Jersey

Lynn Westmoreland 3rd District of Georgia

Tom Rooney 17th District of Florida

Joe Heck 3rd District of Nevada

Mike Pompeo 4th District of Kansas

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 27th District of Florida

Michael Turner 10th District of Ohio

Brad Wenstrup 2nd District of Ohio

Chris Stewart 2nd District of Utah

<comment><USER6> There are 23 signatures, and it's easy to find several of the minority's members among them. It looks to me like every member of House Intelligence signed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There was never, ever, the remotest chance in hell this was going to happen. Obama has nothing to gain from this, and has never said or done anything to give the slightest impression he had any sympathy for Snowden.

<comment><USER29> This is precisely the reason presidents wait until the end of both terms before making any pardons. It's possible (however unlikely) that Obama, deep down, doesn't actually condemn him as much as he has let on publicly. Regardless of how he personally feels, until now, there are appearances that had to be kept up. So while now he still has nothing to gain by pardoning him, there is now much less to lose than there had been previously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As an Indian immigrant who does not have voting rights in USA nor very keen follower of American politics it appears to me that the biggest danger to American freedom is the leading presidential candidate who has received several billions of dollars from corrupt foreign powers for dubious reasons and might become Commander-In-Chief of USA and also appoint judges who are expected to pass important judgements about what freedoms Americans can have.

Threat posed by Snowden is not even on the same plane as the threat posed by such potentially compromised political leader.

It totally baffles me that this is not THE biggest issue in American politics. Imagine Uber is appointing a CEO who is getting $$$ for Lyft!

</comment><comment><USER31> My view is that he has failed. The media where I live don't report anything at all about Snowden anymore, he might as well not exist. But then the media where I live are supine lickspittles who spend their time regurgitating Government media releases and celebrity news.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's hilarious, these are the people supposed to do the oversight. And they're calling a whistleblower a criminal who triggered actual oversight and new laws.

Sure, the new laws are bullshit, but surely you can't do this play right here without losing face.

</comment><comment><USER33> Whatever your opinion on Snowden, his actions pre- and post-exposure, let's at least agree on the following:

1) Snowden would probably not have gotten a trial, he would probably have gone to Gitmo, forever. That's how post-9/11 USA rolls.

2) Intelligence services everywhere operate outside the law wherever and whenever possible. That's why they exist. And they do not respect the legislature or the courts, except where it serves theie purposes.

3) Internal mechanisms such as IG don't work as efficiently as people would have us believe. Whistleblowers are considered, by and large, as "rats." And those whose job it is to maintain accountability are frequently shunned -- think of a police department's internal affairs.

4) Lawful does not mean moral, righteous, or even in the best interest of one's country. Before launching into a Joe Friday "if you don't like the law, change it" speech, ask yourself this -- when was the last time a cop or any other government minion ever took a public stand against a law they thought was wrong? Ever wonder why?

</comment><comment><USER34> Those signatures are illegible.

Not that he ever really disappeared, but it's definitely interesting to see the resurgence of Snowden in the zeitgeist now that Pres. Obama's term is coming to a close. A big part of it is undoubtedly people knowing that pardons uptick in the November - January time period for obvious reasons, but I wonder how much of it is worries that the next administration will not be so amenable.

<comment><USER22> Have either Clinton or Trump publicly/officially stated their opinion on Snowden?

<comment><USER35> Clinton said, "In addition—in addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don't think he should be brought home without facing the music." in a debate. Not sure about Trump recently, but in 2013 he was very against Snowden and referenced execution as a punishment for him several times.

<comment><USER29> What a presidential candidate says about pardons during their campaign should be taken with a huge grain of salt. The reason they wait until the end of both of their terms is so that the decision does not affect their support from voters or any potential bi-partisan support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe the House Intelligence Committee should look in the mirror to find the treasonous criminals.

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone who is refusing to see that the whole Snowden issue is not black and white in my opinion does not deserve serious attention.

Snowden has done an important public service there is no doubt about it. But without looking at all the information he has leaked we can not say for certain he might have erred or put lives of Americans at risk. That is still a crime.

Of course if Hillary can present "recklessness" as defense I think Snowden should be able to do the same. He was a bit reckless in his zeal for protecting rights of Americans.

</comment><comment><USER37> So this is probably just semantics, but can someone be "pardoned" when they have not yet been tried and found guilty of a crime? Until Snowden is tried and found guilty, he is innocent. What is there to exonerate at present?

<comment><USER38> Yep. Most famously, Richard Nixon was pardoned before being convicted of anything.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not sure I'm going to get behind a committee whose membership includes a terrorist sympathizer (Peter King.)

</comment><comment><USER39> Seems to be a response to the following op-ed from today's _NYT_ \--

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/pardon-edward- snow...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/pardon-edward- snowden.html?ref=opinion&_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER22> @marcoperaza: Define treason?

<comment><USER40> "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted."

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii)

<comment><USER22> uh... thats not what I meant.

Define how what Snowden did was treason, definitively.

<comment><USER41> He is a hero, but he gave confidential government information to foreign powers. Objectively speaking, he betrayed the NSA and the US government. That's treason

Debating whether or not what Snowden did was treason is, I think, folly. You can't. He's a traitor to the NSA and the US government.

The question in my mind is whether or not his act of treachery had a net positive effect on the citizens of the US and the world. I think human beings have a right to know they're being spied on, en masse, without any reasonable suspicion, so that they can do something about it. For me, Snowden is a hero for what he's done, and for the sacrifices he's made in an effort to make the world a freer place (or at least get the ball rolling).

Remember that you don't pardon the innocent. Even those calling for his pardon know that he's guilty. Their argument is just that what he did was worth breaking the law.

<comment><USER22> This is a fantastic response and perspective. Thanks</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pomodoro Calendar: custom printable planners for Pomodoro technique - <AUTHOR> https://pomodorocalendar.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback would be appreciated!

*and I just launched it on PH: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pomodoro-calendar](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pomodoro-calendar)

<comment><USER2> I think I know what the pomodoro technique is, but I can't quite figure out what I'd use the print out for? I track the total I've done in a month? The PH description has a good backstory, but I'm still not quite sure what to do with my print out. Maybe this is obvious to those that are pomodoro technique experts?

<comment><USER3> Shit, I've been using the Pomodoro technique for a few years (get up, make some checkboxes representing 25-min units of work you would like to do today, check them as you do it, possibly use a whimsically-shaped kitchen timer to keep myself aware of time passing (the original was shaped like a tomato, hence the name), add other notes/symbols for stuff that took longer than anticipated or that showed up, look over old checklists now and then, repeat) and I have no damn idea how I'd use this. Where do I put task descriptions? Why can I make far more checkboxes than I can use in a day?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I know what you mean. Used it in the same manner for some time, but it didn't work for me.

What works for me is separating tasks (in Trello) and time tracking (on paper! DeskTime/RescueTime didn't work for me as well, I've used it for quite a while as well).

And I'm sure I'm not alone (not so sure now, though).

In todo (in trello, huh) there is a task to record a video to describe my approach... I guess I should make it asap!

Thank you for the feedback! It really means a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I... guess? ... that you're supposed to check off pomodoros as you do a task, and I... guess?!?... that once you've checked off all the pomodoros in your printed calendar, the task is supposed to be done...?...

Is that what you're supposed to do with those tomatoes?

Here's a few pieces of advice:

1\. People just aren't that good at estimating their time. 2\. You need to use paper for more than just a counter. If I just want a counter, I'll use stones in a bowl. 3\. You need a reason why people would want to keep around their printed copies of the number of pomodoros.

Here's how I would change things: Think about helping people get better at estimating the number of pomodoros they took to do an exercise.

The printout should have a date, a description of the task, and an obvious way to count off pomodoros BEYOND THE NUMBER ESTIMATED.

Suggest that people refer back to previous printouts of pomodoros, so they can figure out why tasks are taking longer than estimated. (Tasks never take shorter than estimated.)

That might be useful. But you'll still need to say why it's better to have this printed out, than to have this information on your tablet, hidden behind a password.

<comment><AUTHOR> >that once you've checked off all the pomodoros ... the task is supposed to be done

Not really. I manage tasks in a todo manager (Trello), pomodoros are just for time tracking (100h+ working hours per month, 6h+ per working day, so it's 200/12 in a 30-minute pomodoros). It really helps to estimate my progress and schedule stuff, planning free days, limiting working hours not to burn out, etc. Or at least it works for me.

Thank you very much for all your points and suggestions, all of them have sense and are helpful! I really do appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> FYI, I'm not a trademark police, but "Pomodoro" is a registered trademark of Francesco Cirillo [http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:gia...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:giavjn.5.21)

"... ELECTRONIC AND MECHANICAL TIMERS FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF TIME FOR USE IN THE FIELD OF TIME MANAGEMENT ..."

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I really hope that trademark gets revoked, as the phrase has clearly been genericized at this point:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, thanks! That way I'll sleep well today :3

</comment></comment></comment><comment> digital-sunbear If the tomatoes went down the page (vertical) instead of across (horizontal) I could write things next to them, like task descriptions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added it to a todo-list! Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love this idea. So much potential. A way you might improve it is include tomorrow's Todo list below the tomatoes? That would also make better use of the paper.

P.S. The price for the PDF may be a touch high. I'd drop it by a buck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words and suggestions!

It's free ("buy" button there is just to motivate people to leave feedback, i. e. on click there is a message "it's free! to download please submit the form"). I'll remove it as it doesn't work (7 submissions per 1.5k visits).

Even a cent will be an overprice for a blank sheet with pomodoro images, I guess. But if I'll be able to ship a really good quality (including downloading multi-page PDF, per-week planners for the whole year, etc.), then charging a buck or two will have some sense.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> just curious, are there really customers who really paid for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's free.

On the "buy" button click there is a message to leave feedback/suggestions to download.

I thought it'll be a great idea to motivate people to post their ideas. Counting numbers, it's not: only 7 form submissions for 1.5k visits.</comment></comment>


Markov Chains using CouchDB's Group Reduce - <AUTHOR> http://jchris.mfdz.com/code/2008/6/markov_chains_using_couchdb_s_g

<comment><USER2> Do you really need CouchDB in particular for this? Any Berkeley DB-style key- value pair database would excel at this.

Languages like Python have high-level wrappers that let you access such databases like a normal hash:

        wordpairs[foo] = wordpairs[foo] + k # reads from disk then writes

In my experience you can get really fast simple persistence with basically no code this way. It's not as fast as can possibly, but then again the overhead of communicating via JSON and HTTP isn't, either.

Maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER3> Well, of course, with a language this sort of thing is possible. The beauty of the method described in the article is that it's built in the database system itself. No "language" is required (besides simple javascript for a view).

No one said couchdb was required. This article is simply showing how easy it is to accomplish incremental reduces.</comment></comment>


The FyreTV Porn Streamer Maker Is Suing Amazon For Trademark Infringement - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/24/the-fyretv-porn-streamer-maker-is-suing-amazon-for-trademark-infringement/

<comment><USER2> How does something like this usually go down? What can we expect from Amazon?

<comment><USER3> It's a core principle of TM law that similar, not just identical trademarks will infringe a registration. "Soundalike" searches are also standard practice before adopting a brand. Amazon is lawyered-up and would certainly have adopted this mark knowing about FyreTV's existence.

The TM rights are pretty directly accessible... they have registrations for the logo[0], the domain name version[2], and the word on its own[3]. If the rights are well-maintained and still active (they seem to be), then the case should not be complicated for FyreTV to win.

No doubt Amazon took the view that the brand tie-in with Kindle Fire was worth the cost of the inevitable settlement. Also, in the battle of Amazon vs instant access PornCo, it's obvious where the public morality vote will lie, so that will be good for Amazon as well.

Having to put up the funds to sue Amazon defensively is pretty unfair. It does go to show that good IP protection can be a real asset. The settlement figure will no doubt be confidential but (happily for FyreTV) the amount will probably be figured off the value to Amazon not the cost to FyreTV. That could be very lucrative for them. Without the TM registrations, FyreTV would have a very difficult case ahead of them.

[0] [http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85236220&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85236220&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch) [1][http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77222095&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77222095&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch) [2][http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77222093&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77222093&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo announces partnership with Yahoo - <AUTHOR> https://duck.co/help/company/yahoo-partnership <comment><USER2> I think a better link to explain is here: [https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo- technical-implementation](https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-technical- implementation)

It looks like they are just querying yahoo for results and ads as a proxy and it sounds like, through some contractual/technical limitations, they have to make that request from a yahoo controlled domain name (duckduckgo-owned- server.yahoo.net). However, they say they fully control the server and yahoo does not get to touch it, as yahoo delegated DNS to them.

The change does not seem malicious and if what they say is true, then the implementation might not be too bad. The volume of traffic they get probably means you cannot profile an individual from Yahoo's side. However, this potentially means that your search history is leaked to Yahoo, albeit in an aggregate manner with other DDG users, which may have attacks that I'm not aware of.

What I can see, however, is a lot of noscript users get startled by this change as they will see DDG use a script from yahoo.net (actually duckduckgo- owned-server.yahoo.net) as by default noscript does not show the full domain.

<comment><USER3> The cynic in me says that it all starts like this. With multiple, gradual ToS changes, eventually, it will become like any other company out there. And what if Yahoo acquires DDG?

<comment><USER4> Isn't that basically the MO of every startup?

* Offer something for free, with VC money. * Gain market share since you don't need to worry about profit. * Realise you need to make money, so start turning into the companies you stole market share from.

<comment><USER5> Just want to point out that although that may be a model for many startups, DuckDuckGo is already profitable through (non-tracking) advertising and affiliate revenue. More info: [https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and- affiliates](https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates)

Disclaimer: DDG staff

<comment><USER4> I don't want to be rude, but I don't think DuckDuckGo has actually taken much market share to worry about yet, so maybe it's not following the usual startup route.

<comment><USER6> Does it matter if it's following the "usual startup route"? If it's profitable, and it hasn't compromised on it's values, then it's winning.

<comment><USER4> Maybe. It's not difficult to be profitable though. Servers are cheap. I don't think it's going to trouble Google though, which is a shame. We could do with some serious search competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been astounded at how rare it is for a search API to offer date information. I talked to Gabriel about the problem many moons ago, and even with their significantly greater clout (than a random dude working on a tiny project that uses search engine APIs), and despite asking for it, they couldn't get that info from their partners. So, it's good to see they finally made it happen with Yahoo.

But, I thought the Yahoo BOSS search API was gone, and the only way to use Yahoo search was basically just a black box sort of deal (i.e., you pass them the query and they hand you results, which you display as yahoo sent them). I'm not sure I understand what DDG is doing, and when you'd hit those Yahoo results. It's especially convoluted since Yahoo gets its results from Bing, right?

</comment><comment><USER8> Always loved DuckDuckgo - kinda came across as a search engine that didn't seek to takeover the world, and only sought to fill a (necessary) niche. That seems more genuine than "don't be evil".

<comment><USER9> Google originally won everyone over with superior results, the rest of it came pretty organically.

The underdog is always everyone's favorite until they somehow wind up on top.

<comment><USER10> > The underdog is always everyone's favorite until they somehow wind up on > top.

Google was everyone's favorite for a while even after becoming the market leader. And it seems the reasons to dislike google are pretty diverse (although around here I mostly hear "because they forced g+ login on youtube" or "because they killed reader". FTR my biggest annoyances with them was 1: when they killed off Google Desktop Search, 2: the years when they insisted on fuzzing any search until it returned millions of results )

<comment><USER11> >> although around here I mostly hear "because they forced g+ login on youtube" or "because they killed reader"

You forgot {{insert all possible privacy concerns}}, and on that wave, total disrespect for user choices. As a very tech savvy human I still can't dodge all their malicious attempts to collect my data, imagine the non savvy human fellow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Please help me understand why DuckDuckGo decided for the query to go in the URL, as opposed to being encrypted on the client before being sent to the server as a get or a post.

Most users probably have their browsing history switched on, and synced with their friendly browsing software provider anyway, totally reversing any privacy advantage a user might potentialy gain by using DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER13> They do have an option to turn on POST instead of GET.

This is from their page on privacy ( [https://duckduckgo.com/privacy](https://duckduckgo.com/privacy) ):

> Another way to prevent search leakage is by using something called a POST > request, which has the effect of not showing your search in your browser, > and, as a consequence, does not send it to other sites. You can turn on POST > requests on our settings page, but it has its own issues. POST requests > usually break browser back buttons, and they make it impossible for you to > easily share your search by copying and pasting it out of your Web browser's > address bar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want to use DDG. I've made it my default search engine. But the result page is just so slow. Both in slow to load (v Google), and actual responsiveness. It's just slightly laggy, or at least it feels like that. Google has neither problem. I'm willing to put up with not-excellent relevancy, but the slowness is killing me.

I'm using FF 49 64-bit on Win8. Am I anomalous or does anyone else feel this at all?

<comment><USER15> No slowness here.

The only downside is the quality of results.

Most of the time when searaching technical questions I get better results on google compared to ddg.

It looks like ddg doesn't like stackoverflow.

<comment><USER16> Agreed: underranking SO is my biggest issue with DDG.

<comment> q-base Which of course depending on their ranking implementation seems kinda odd, as you could expect a big part of the users of SO also to be the ones using DDG. But again if it categorically undervalues results from there, then those users will of course find alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do sure hope that any agreement DDG has made with Yahoo doesn't get cancelled by their eventual new owner.

But if Dan Gilbert ends up being the buyer my guess is that he'd actually like Gabriel Weinberg enough to continue. Not so much with Verizon or the private equity firms bidding.

</comment><comment><USER18> DDG is a meta search engine that uses mainly Yahoo and/or Yandex (depending on the region).

Yahoo had turned their Yahoo BOSSS API (acccess to Bing search engine) from free to pay-for-each-1000-queries and completely discontinued the API earlier this year. So now we learn DDG gets access, but no one else of the smaller fishes (other meta search engines, etc).

<comment><USER19> For the layman like me: if I do a search for "cute cats", does the results comes from Bing after it has been through Yahoo before DDG shows it? Who does the actual searching?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yeah been seeing the Yahoo logo on the bottom right of my DDG results, for a couple weeks now.

Not going to be moving away because of this, we'll see if it gets even better.

<comment><USER21> I'm still getting Yandex, guess Gabe's algo suspects I'm not much of an ad clicker :-)

<comment><USER20> Which is funny since I have changed my hosts file and use uBlock Origin and extensions like that for anything that might have missed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't have any technical concerns about this, because I trust DDG based on their actions to date.

But TBH it does tarnish their brand a bit, in my eyes, and I don't fully understand why this is a big enough improvement to dilute the brand at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this actual Yahoo tech or Bing result enrichment by way of Yahoo?

<comment><USER24> I heard Yahoo has a search team but I don't know exactly if they were just enhancing on top of Bing really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For those who'd been missing date-restricted searches, DDG now offers these, thanks to the Yahoo partnership.

It's not as flexible as Google's date-ranged searches, in which specific start and end dates can be specified, but you now _can_ restrict searches to the past day, week, month, or year. I'd noticed this (and submitted to HN) about a month back.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11819435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11819435)

(The control's moved to the Hamburger Menu since.)

(I'm hoping more controls come into effect.)

</comment><comment><USER26> Great! Missing date filtering was a major downside.

<comment><USER27> I switched to using StartPage[1] a while back, because I got sick of waiting for DDG to add date-filtering. I've kind of got used to StartPage now, so not sure if I'll switch back... although some of DDG's 'bangs' were handy.

[1][https://startpage.com](https://startpage.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> DuckDuckGo should wait a little longer and then buy Yahoo.

</comment><comment><USER29> Why do they say "duckduckgo-owned"?

It appears they are using AWS. Who really owns the server?

       echo 126.96.36.199 duckduckgo.com >> /etc/hosts

Avoids needless DNS lookups; saves DNS logs from your footprints.

<comment><USER30> ... and will break as soon as that instance is shut down.

<comment><USER29> That's why I'd prefer a search engine that was not using AWS, or Yahoo. Too many needless dependencies.

Out of curiousity I'm starting a counter today. Will post something when this IP addr fails. Feel free to take a guess how long it will be used by DDG.

And when it does change, if ever, I have a one line shell script that uses ed to remove entries from files, so all it takes to add a new IP addr to HOSTS is typing

        ed-script-name domain-name /etc/hosts
        echo aa.bb.cc.dd domain-name >> /etc/hosts

In my opinion, the usefulness of a website is inversely proportional to the frequency with which it changes IP addresses.

For example, the IP address for HN rarely changes.

But feel free to keep looking it up in DNS every day. Just in case.

If there are problems with DNS, most users will probably not remember the IP address for HN and will not be able to read the stories.

Meanwhile, the user that stores IP addresses as a backup will have no such problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "We've worked closely with Yahoo to implement these new features in accordance with contractual terms and our privacy policy. To be as transparent as possible, we've written up details on the technical implementation."

As a search user, I couldn't care less about this stuff. I don't think it's even possible to build a good search engine "in accordance with contractual terms".

</comment><comment><USER32> Yet another Privacy Oriented Search Engine: Oscobo [https://oscobo.co.uk](https://oscobo.co.uk)

<comment><USER33> Oscobo is a Yahoo partner. It is Motherpipe.com, so similar setup as DDG, but without the "owned" server in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> i noticed a slow down sometime ago... did Duckduckgo slow down when/because yahoo got involved?

</comment><comment><USER35> If you look at their search statistics, they've been growing slower this year.

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/7/](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/7/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Does this mean that Yahoo results appear in DDG?

Will DDG power Yahoo search in any way?

<comment><USER37> From the "technical implementation" article they link to

>When you do a search on DuckDuckGo, depending on the particular search, we will make a call to Yahoo for links, ads and other content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Motto of DDG was "Still better than Yahoo" ; )

</comment><comment><USER39> That's great. Anything that sees more competition in the search space is good for the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER40> In most cases I'd worry, but I think Gabriel is trustworthy and long-term focused.

</comment><comment><USER41> Interesting. Probably won't do a ton though for their bottom line.

</comment><comment><USER42> And so it ends. The mere act of partnering with Yahoo indicates desperation and signals poor decision making.

I'm not sure I understand HN's fascination with this site but this is not a good sign for those who claim to use it in these never-ending threads.

<comment><USER43> How? its all proxied and the 'yahoo server' is duckduckgo owned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Privacy Statements are the tech equivalent of calling food organic.

You need a reputable third party to audit your practices. Or your software needs to be open source so anyone can see what you're doing.

I'll be switching from using DDG because of this. I don't trust Yahoo, and I barely trust DDG.

<comment><USER45> Ironically, your name is organic_tech34. For the record, the term "organic" is regulated by the USDA.

<comment><USER46> > the term "organic" is regulated by the USDA.

I think the point the previous poster was making is that even though it's regulated, there are so many black boxes that it's rather easy to sneak in a violation and no one notices (whether the company is doing it or it's accidental). Just look at how many organic product recalls happen in any given year due to various causes.

<comment><USER45> Ok, that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sorry could not abstain

Two turkeys do not make an eagle

</comment><comment><USER48> For the record, this isn't really _news_.

A lot of details can be found at [https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo- technical-implementation](https://duck.co/help/results/yahoo-technical- implementation)

[https://duck.co/help/results/sources](https://duck.co/help/results/sources) also states that they partner with Yahoo!, and in some regions and scenarios, Yandex and Bing.

<comment><USER49> Different topic:

Why do they use www.duck.co as their development url and www.duckduckgo.com as their search engine name?

The latter is just way too long to type. Especially for casual users who has google set at their main search engine. Compare URL lengths:

duckduckgo.com 14 (10+4)

google.com 10 (6+4)

yahoo.com 9 (5+4)

yandex.ru 9 (6+3)

bing.com 8 (4+4)

baidu.cn 8 (5+3)

I really want to like duckduckgo, but the name is really not well chosen. Even google (with a relatively long name) at least have two repeating characters.

<comment><USER7> I can't remember the last time I typed in a search engine URL. I type my queries into my browser URL field and let it do the right thing. When I want Google, I use "!g query" (because DDG is my default, and that's how you tell it to redirect the query to Google).

Under what circumstances do you type in the name of your preferred search engine?

<comment><USER49> When I want to use the non-default search engine (non-default is usually ddg). When trying a search engine for the first time. When using a public computer.

Biggest problem is on mobile. On Chrome (for iPhone), I have the following options:

1\. Google

2\. Yahoo!

3\. Bing

I don't see any way to add a search engine not on the list.

<comment><USER50> > I don't see any way to add a search engine not on the list

Then that's a problem with Chrome. Using Safari on iPhone you can set DDG as your default search engine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Wow, what are our options now?! Also, Yahoo now has information about general searches made by DDG users even if they can't get info on a particular individual.

</comment><comment><USER52> Yahoo, the company that saves your unsent and deleted email drafts forever and will turn them over to law enforcement even though they say that should be impossible?

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-deleted-yahoo-emails- le...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-deleted-yahoo-emails-led- to-a-20-year-drug-trafficking-conviction)

Maybe Yahoo is sincere in their privacy pledge, maybe they're not, but one thing has already been proven: they don't have a good enough grasp of how their own servers work to make that promise.

Very disappointed in DuckDuckGo. I expect they won't be around for too much longer, much like Yahoo.</comment>


Vert.x heading for Eclipse Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Vert-x-heading-for-Eclipse-Foundation-Update-1787214.html

<comment><USER2> I recently discovered Dropwizard, which I found to be incredibly easy to use and eminently readable. The example code I saw for Vert.x, on the other hand, reminded me of the "callback spaghetti" I've heard lamented as a problem in NodeJS. Do I have a poor first impression? Can someone sell me on Vert.x for web-facing applications? Am I the wrong audience because I'm using other technologies like RabbitMQ to handle distributed polyglot work? [Apologies if I come across like a hater, because I'm not; I'm genuinely confused about whether Vert.x represents an improvement or an alternative to my situation.]

<comment><USER3> We're using Vert.x internally to do basically all of our IO (network client and server, disk) in an asynchronous manner, because its API is super simple and elegant. Because much of our other code is already asynchronous and event- driven, Vert.x fits in nicely.

The callback hell is certainly something that you can run into , but we've created a sane Java construct to avoid it:

<https://gist.github.com/727425ac3069f6465959>

The neat part of this construct is that it decouples the API from the implementation.

I haven't quite tried to sell you on Vert.x here, but feel free to reach out to me if you have questions. We're really liking Vert.x so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bravo to VMWare for doing the right thing in the end.

<comment><USER5> Were they ever doing the wrong thing? The idea that the IP and full control of the project could just walk over to Redhat with the developer when he took a new job to work on it there after VMware initially funded it all seems incredibly naive at best.

<comment><USER6> When VMware said that Tim Fox couldn't be in control any more but they didn't name anyone else to lead the project, one possible interpretation was that the project would have no official leader at all. VMware could have avoided that confusion.</comment></comment></comment>


Where should I start to become awesome computer algorithm hacker/programmer? - <AUTHOR>

To compete in competitions like TopCoder, Google code jam and International Olympiad in Informatics.... Where should I get started ? Any tutorials books suggestions ... <comment><USER2> International Olympiad in Informatics on Wired: [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_algorithmolympics/a...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_algorithmolympics/all/1)</comment>


Ask HN: How did you find Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> If I remember correctly, somebody who knew me from the Business of Software forums mentioned my business here, I saw it in my logs, and started reading. I had no idea any of this startup stuff existed prior. I had heard of pg but only knew him as the Plan for Spam (Bayesian spam filtering article) author, and thought he was actually the same person as John Graham-Cumming (who is also an HN user, also has a cognate for Gram in his name, and also wrote Popfile, a Bayesian spam filter).

My early impressions of HN were "Oh wow, a place where developers talk about topics like AdWords? This is relevant to my interests."

That was about ~2,000 days ago.

<comment> T-hawk I've wanted to share this story for a while and now is as good a place as any. I found Hacker News from you via the Motley Fool. You wrote a long post on the Fool and mentioned it was copied from another internet forum. I picked a particular unusual-looking phrase in it, searched, and found it which turned out to be on HN. I stalked through your HN comment history and then I was hooked.

HN clued me in on how technologically backwards my then-employer was, and led to Stack Overflow Careers from which I found my current job, so yes you've substantially affected the direction of my life.

<comment><USER2> Hah, awesome. That was me explaining subprime mortgage products by reference to insurance on disease-prone cow herds, right?

I run into fellow Fools fairly infrequently (and don't spend much time there anymore) but always fun when two parts of my life intersect like that.

<comment> T-hawk Yup, that's the one. "Sickly cows" was the key phrase and you're still on the first page of Google results for it. Link (wow, a 6 digit HN item number): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=472985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=472985)

I didn't want to give specifics for preserving your Fool anonymity if you still wanted it, but guess you have a public enough internet persona nowadays that that ship has sailed. Thanks again for helping direct me into a better level of software experience and knowledge, as inadvertent and roundabout as it was. I started stalking you on HN in hopes of more Japanese slice-of-life stories that you shared on the Fool, and wound up discovering a much greater world of software instead.

<comment><USER2> I keep a fig leaf of pseudonymity there, but it's a ridiculously thin fig leaf for anyone who knows me from HN. A few folks have figured it out over the years, but I appreciate your discretion, as back in my nobody-knew-who-I-was days I talked about some fairly personal stuff there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I followed the link here from Paul Graham's personal website, where he keeps his collection of essays.[1] A local friend recommended that I read his essay "Why Nerds Are Unpopular"[2] back before Hacker News existed, and later an online friend recommended that I read "What You'll Wish You'd Known."[3] Then I started keeping an eye out for new essays by Paul Graham, and eventually while reading one of them I followed the link to what was then known as Startup News.

I was in lurk mode for a while, not having anything to say about most of the core topics here, until one day a discussion of linguistics or something else I actually know about drew me into commenting. An odd coincidence is that patio11, one of the community's favorite commenters and one of mine, and I have the same join date. Of course patio11 deservedly has far more karma for both submissions and comments than I have. I'm very grateful for his efforts and the efforts of many other participants to keep this a community friendly to thoughtful, informed, international discussion.

P.S. I found this thread by looking for active threads. I do that sometimes here on HN to find interesting threads I missed while they were most visible on the HN front page or new page.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://paulgraham.com/articles.html)

[2] [http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

[3] [http://paulgraham.com/hs.html](http://paulgraham.com/hs.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I saw it referenced on Reddit. It was probably /r/programming but I don't recall fully.

</comment><comment><USER5> In 2008, my laptop was insufficiently powerful to produce some of the renderings I was building and so I had to do some research and that got reading about computer hardware after more than a decade of just buying stuff off the shelf. Reading computing articles became a worklike activity as the the economy tanked and the construction pipeline dried up and with it design work.

At some point, I started reading Techmeme regularly, and at some point after that I started following the links to additional coverage of the stories, and one day there was a link to HN.

The quality of the articles kept me coming back more and more over several months and gradually I started reading the comments. Eventually almost four years ago, there was something that so compelled a need in me to shoot off my mouth that I made an account and posted something. This was more than two years after my interest in computing had been rekindled.

At the time, it took 200 karma points [which a middling popular submission can earn in a few hours these days] to get the downvote, and I thought, well maybe one day. Then as I approached the magic threshold, it was raised to 500 [a number of karma points that can still be hit with something appealing to populist sentiment].

What kept me coming back is that HN is all the Really Fucking Smart People™ who write comments and find articles [or write them]. It may not be the center of the computing universe, but it's pretty damn good. And trying to write in a way that is similarly engaging turns out to be a lot more rewarding than trolling ever was.

</comment><comment><USER6> I found it as a referer in my weblogs. The article in question was in the process of being Meh'd and Die-in-a-fire'd at by the crowd at Reddit, whereas here there was a small yet intelligent discussion about the technology used to build the thing the article talked about.

Fishing it out of my history, it seems it was submitted by this user named "pg".

</comment><comment><USER7> I googled something like "Paul Software Engineer" to see if I myself would come up and found Paul Graham's articles which lead to hacker news. I had no idea what a startup even was but found the content to be of such a higher quality than anywhere else that I visited often.

</comment><comment><USER8> It was pre-bookmarked in the Firefox bookmarks on a Linux distro I installed.

</comment><comment><USER9> It was mentioned in a list of alternatives to Slashdot. That site became trash the when dice.com took it over. Too bad. I liked it better than here. The users were way less optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER10> A blog post of mine was posted to HN a few years ago, and I thought, "where is all this traffic coming from?" I'm not sure how I missed HN before that.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was looking for a replacement for Slashdot, which became more childish by the day it seemed, and someone suggested HN. I haven't seen much of Slashdot since. :)

</comment><comment><USER12> For me the route was via StackOverflow (SO). I looked for a question like what other sites are there like SO for gaining some real world wisdom.

I've always found good stuff with this technique - It's like poor man's machine learning algo applied to oneself. People who liked this item also liked...

One such thread of my current favorites looks like:

SO --> HN --> Reddit --> Less Wrong --> Yudkowsky's blog --> Marginal Revolution blog

</comment><comment><USER13> I worked at Justin.TV. My impression is early yc companies used it as an internal reddit that just got more and more external over time.

</comment><comment><USER14> A friend had applied to YC and told me about when I mentioned a start-up idea years and years ago.

</comment><comment><USER15> I found out about about HN after I encountered Paul Graham's essays in the late 2000s.

I think I first saw a reference to PG on John Gruber's DaringFireball. I think this[1] may have been the link that first sent me to PG's essays.

I read all of the essays, up to that point, and then became curious about this thing called YCombinator, and this other thing called Hacker News. I lurked on HN for a while and finally started an account 1703 days ago, which was Monday, 14 September 2009.

1: [http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/02/18/graham](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/02/18/graham)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think Joel Spolsky mentioned something about "the ycombinator kids" in one of his blogs many, many years ago. Can't find a link to it but that's where I first heard the name and investigated.

<comment><USER17> I came here by way of reddit, by way of Spolsky.

I first heard of reddit from Joel Spolsky when he mentioned it sometime in late 2005 or early 2006, which is where I discovered of Paul Graham and ycombinator. For a long time a blog post by Paul Graham was the top up-voted article, with a few hundred upvotes. I was active on reddit from 2006-2009, then migrated to Hacker News.

I now frequent HN but reddit has devolved into a image board for memes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A random Google search. Thought, with a name like "hacker news", I'd come up with a lame "script kiddie" site full of teenagers or something. Couldn't have been proven more wrong.

</comment><comment><USER19> When I started searching for serious topics in Google, HN kept appearing in the 1st page results so I decided to bookmark it lol. But I only joined when I felt I could post something meaningful.

</comment><comment><USER20> EDIT: forgot, I found this site much earlier. I was learning Lisp, found the pg Lisp story of running Yahoo stores, had no idea who he was, found HN through his page on wikipedia

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd been reading the stories/comments long before I joined. I remember the motivation to open this account (worst decision in my life in terms of productivity but I would have still joined in the light of this knowledge =) ) but I don't remember how I first landed on HN. Definitely not a Google search. Likely a reference to a comment here linked somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was at PyCon a few years back and pg was one of the keynote speakers. I actually didn't know who pg was at the time, but I really enjoyed the talk. There was a Q&A session after the keynote, and a bunch of people got up and asked pg questions about Hacker News and I remember thinking "wtf is hacker news?".

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't remember the exact ordering of events anymore but I was looking for a programming language alternative and stumbled upon lisp, and read PG's essays. Then shortly after, he introduced YC, and then I think HN was linked from the YC website or so. I didn't create an account for another 1-2 years.

</comment><comment><USER24> After playing MineCraft, I got interested in Java. I started reading a Java textbook. My curiosity for programming grew, and I was curious to read about all the different kinds of programmers (including the mischievous and law- breaking ones). Googled "hacker." Stumbled upon hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER25> Shared an apartment with a guy in YCS07.

</comment><comment><USER26> I found Hacker News via the Stackoverflow podcast. Jeff or Joel mentioned it in one of the early episodes.

</comment><comment><USER27> Mine is a bit less professional, I was playing a MMO (forgot which), and someone had hacked their way into the company's servers and stole some credit card numbers. I googled "MMO name" hacker news, and saw some interesting article a couple of results down.

</comment><comment><USER28> While working my first job out of college as an A/V Tech (I'm a web developer now - front-end) I had a lot of downtime and was bored. I asked a friend, another programmer, to recommend good sources for articles/posts and such and HN made the list.

</comment><comment><USER29> I found it on r/programming

</comment><comment><USER30> I was looking for security-related news and typed "hacker news" on google.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have been reading posts for about a year, I only recently (in the past couple of weeks) got an account.

I heard about HN while talking to my father (we are both software devs) so I went to check it out, and thats when I heard the angels.

</comment><comment><USER32> Moved to San Francisco and saw a few people on the Caltrain reading the site.

</comment><comment><USER33> Surfing the web. I believe that was after reading a PG essay.

 _" The good son always comes back home"_portuguese proverb_

If you belong somewhere you'll get a way of finding it. It is just a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER34> For me it was a colleague when I mentioned I feel so out of date.

</comment><comment><USER35> This question seems to be impressively bad at generating discussion.

I have no recollection at all, I'm afraid; I only know it was about 6 years ago because my profile tells me so.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would make it better?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Heard about PG essays from a friend in Mumbai , then saw HN for first time and got addicted to it since , and now it's in my default tab in chrome !

</comment><comment><USER37> I mentioned to a friend an article on /. He said "buh, I mostly read HN, /. jumped the shark a long time ago".

He was right. Been here ever since.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wikipedia binge (programming languages) -> Greenspun's Tenth Rule -> Paul Graham Essays -> YCombinator.com -> HN

</comment><comment><USER39> Fellow, older developer in startup when I was younger I think. He also introduced me to IRC. It was like losing my virginity

</comment><comment><USER40> It kept showing up in Google search results so I joined. Kind of sad that it doesn't really show up as much anymore.

</comment><comment><USER41> Michael Arrington mentioned it on TechCrunch.

</comment><comment><USER42> Fun because I do not remember exactly, but I remember I was reading the weekly mail newsletter before the actual site.

</comment><comment><USER43> Found it several times through organic search. Then, I went to the main page and thought that it was interesting.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's one of the sites on [http://www.jimmyr.com](http://www.jimmyr.com)

</comment><comment><USER45> I heard about YC first. That was just a little more than a year ago, so HN was already strongly related to it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Strangely I've been here for less than a year but I don't remember how I came across HN, not a clue.

</comment><comment><USER47> I haven't got the faintest recollection.

</comment><comment><USER48> I _think_ it was through Slashdot.

</comment><comment><USER49> A friend of mine shared some hacker news on Google Reader (the best google's social network)

</comment><comment><USER50> [http://popurls.com](http://popurls.com)

</comment><comment><USER51> TechCrunch 1771 days ago. Before it became AOLCrunch. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm fairly sure it was a link someone posted on IRC.

</comment><comment><USER53> 2248 days ago I saw a post on Techcrunch, I think..?

<comment><USER54> 2232 days ago, I also saw a post on Techcrunch... Discovered a whole new world.

Interesting how a small tiny link can lead to information that can reshape your entire reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I found it via Flipboard magazine recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER56> through android application "Pulse". It was (actually is) a suggestion under "Computer" category

</comment><comment><USER57> A friend recommended to me.

</comment><comment><USER58> i heard about HN in some video of mejorando.la several years ago.

</comment><comment><USER59> I found it a bit grumpy.

</comment><comment><USER60> i stumbled upon Kale Davis Hacker Newsletter some time ago

</comment><comment><USER61> the global shared stories section of newsblur.

</comment><comment><USER62> Word of mouth.

</comment><comment><USER63> Flipboard

</comment><comment><USER64> By meetup

<comment><USER64> That is HNLondon but the funny thing there was no url on HNLondon page so I was forced to find it myself

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> jimmyr.com</comment>


The Obligatory WePay "Company Culture" Blog Post: Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wepay.com/2010/09/the-obligatory-wepay-%E2%80%9Ccompany-culture%E2%80%9D-blog-post-part-2/

<comment><USER2> Reading posts like this always gives me this startling thought: there are way more companies than not where people don't work to work there, devoid of the "fun" you mostly read about on HN. How saddening...

</comment><comment><USER3> i too believe company culture is extremely important.

after contemplation i've requested that the 'company' i'm starting a friend will be a vegetarian company, in a sense that the company will never pay for taking sentient beings.

i'm consciously extending personal culture (i'm veg), to company culture.

anyone who thinks this is a good/bad thing for a founder to do?

<comment><USER4> _anyone who thinks this is a good/bad thing for a founder to do?_

From what I know so far - by reading, including scientific works, and studying biochemistry, it appears that the humans evolved to obtain at least some of their diet from animal sources (Vitamin B12, Omega 3 fatty acids come to mind). So I would consider this sort of culture as destructive for my health, even if it is only mildly destructive and the results may not be obvious for years and sometimes decades ...

It is easy to find nations/tribes in history who enjoyed excellent health on a variety of diets, but not so easy to find ones who did that on a strictly vegetarian diet.

<comment><USER5> This just isn't the case these days.

Who cares about 'tribes'? We understand nutrition, we have access to a complete and vast range of fruits, vegetables, grains and processed foods year long, unlike any other group of humans in history. Take a vitamin for b12 and there is NOTHING a vegan/vegetarian diet does not provide. It is vastly healthier than the average person's diet, really.

<comment><USER4> _We understand nutrition_

No, we can not say that. Nutritionists can not even decide on the reasons for the obesity - some say people just eat too much and exercise too little (aka "calories in, calories out"), others point to more complex reasons. Not to speak about more complex issues.

 _It is vastly healthier than the average person's diet, really_

To that I agree. But "better than X" still does not mean optimal.

<comment><USER5> Of course, but we have a much clearer idea of what sustains health than ancient civilizations.

I agree, a variety is your best bet.

But if better than X is not optimal, where X is the standard diet and the varied vegetarian diet is the alternative - what's the other option?

<comment><USER4> _Of course, but we have a much clearer idea of what sustains health than ancient civilizations._

I'm not so sure about that. I usually offer two of my favourite links that describe well how the human health deteriorated when agriculture became widely adopted.

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/paleopathology...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/paleopathology- at-origins-of.html) [http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/m...](http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/mistake_jared_diamond.pdf)

I think that paleolithic diet is more natural - one can eat pretty much all fruits and vegetable but does not have to avoid animal products. The idea is to avoid 'neolithic' foods - those that came into human diet less than 10-20K years ago: processed foods, sugars, grains etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


You don't need a plan, you need skills and a problem. - <AUTHOR> http://shtikl.com/2007/you-dont-need-a-plan-you-need-skills-and-a-problem/ <comment><USER2> That's a great sentence. Could possibly even be boiled down to "you need a problem," since trying to solve problems is the way to develop skills.

</comment><comment><USER3> "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" -- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

<comment><USER4> "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

...but, planning in place of action is planning on failure.

<comment><USER5> I'd heard that as Winston Churchill.

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Churchill>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A member of the National Academy of Sciences of my acquaintance once said that life was too chaotic to plan beyond six months.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice article, except the Columbus reference.

</comment><comment><USER8> "I will solve XYZ problem" is a plan.

<comment><USER9> More of an intention.

I somewhat agree -- my first reaction was to append "and then a plan" to the end of the sentence.

But I think the most accurate take on the subject is this:

"I have always found plans to be worthless, but planning indispensable." \--Dwight D. Eisenhower

An important distinction I think.</comment></comment>


An alternative to lengthy Twitter arguments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nurph.com/a-new-way-to-workaround-twitters-140-characte

<comment><USER2> Chatting at the moment, seems like a nice and useful tool. There are some problems (people not being able to speak by default before being followed by the channel creator), which I've already reported to the developer.

For me (been IRCing for 15yrs), this is different from both ad-hoc webchats and IRC. It's better integrated into Twitter experience than your typical webchat. If you're a Twitter user and would like chat-like capability, you don't need to register, invite your followers over, etc (technically, you do need to do all of that, but it uses Twitter auth & profiles, so it's like an extension of twitter).

On that point, maybe it'd be great to provide plugins/scripts for other clients (see Embedly's Parrotfish) to instantly create & invite someone to a room from inside your Twitter (the official web, or some other) client; ie. a shortcut for creating the room and copypasting the url.

EDIT: I don't think it'd ever be a replacement for IRC, but neither do I think it should. I like the "IRC for Twitter" niche (how about "IRC for Facebook?").

<comment><USER3> Chat is already built in Facebook.

<comment><USER2> Group chat? I haven't seen that feature (OTOH I don't use Facebook chat so I might've missed it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was wondering when something like this would be released. Well at least in an easy to use way that supports the Twitter ecosystem. I remember having long active discussions in #gamedesign and we found out how Twitter was not built for any type of real conversation.

<comment><USER5> Why not just make a great irc like webapp? Logged/searchable

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've used this before and can highly recommend it. It has seamless Twitter integration, and took no time to get setup.

I was participating in a Twitter exchange and one of the participants suggested we use Nurph to carry on the conversation. We were discussing a TechCrunch article about bootstapping startups, and at one point the Editor of TC Europe joined the chat.

It is a great idea, would like to see more people using it.

<comment><USER7> I use Nurph. We have a regular Friday afternoon start-ups discussion slot. Last Friday we discussed the idea of a "Get a room" service -- I believe it had come up before. In other words, when a twitter exchange gets too detailed for 140 chars, multiple folk, and filling your stream, you can switch to Nurph.

It's a great tool. Might really catch on with a bit more traction. Could work nicely with HN too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the idea but in order to succeed you need integration through the Twitter distribution system -- this needs to be part of TweetDeck, my Android app, etc (those are just the desktop / mobile clients I use, it needs to be in all of them)... I don't like it enough to want to have a browser tab open to maintain it.

<comment><USER9> May I try to reframe your excellent suggestion?

 _I like the idea._

In order to _take this to the next level_ , you need integration through the Twitter distribution system -- this needs to be part of TweetDeck, my Android app, etc (those are just the desktop / mobile clients I use, it needs to be in all of them)...

 _Great concept, but is it good enough enough that users will want to have a browser tab open to maintain it?_

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So this boils down to a classic chatroom, but with Twitter login and integration.

BTW, I clicked the 'login' button, authenticated, and got the text below. After going back to nurph.com, I am logged in and it seems to be okay.

var NurphBarOptions = { name: 'NurphHQ', panel_type: 'link', html: '\n \n \n <\/div>\n Chat with us<\/a>\n © Nurph. 2010<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Share This:<\/li>\n Tweet It<\/a> •<\/li>\n Email<\/a> •<\/li>\n Facebook<\/a>

<comment><USER11> Sorry about that, we're working on it. In the meantime you can work around it by refreshing the page or re-visiting <http://Nurph.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The last time I saw some real time chat app made by an HNer (Edit: <http://twich.me>), I suggested my followers of the possibilities of using that to reduce noise made of chatting on Twitter. No one seemed to care. People don't like go off the ease of Twitter. They just chat away. Perhaps only twitter can do something for that.

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://Nurph.com/AllStartups> might be of interest to the Hacker News community (Twitter @AllStartups) - it's real-time Twitter chat for startup founders. We're chatting about the latest Apple news right now.

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems like half the articles I read about Twitter are trying to workaround its limitations.

<comment><USER14> ...and that's why there are over 300,000 Twitter applications <http://twitter.com/tweetsmarter/status/26005694364778496>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also, sometimes I feel like it would be better to read Twitter in the reverse order, and with "Mark as read", just like email.

I read Twitter by going backwards, reading stuff until I read a tweet that I recall having already read.

</comment><comment><USER16> A way to have a real time conversation with someone on the internet? What a novel concept. I guess IRC and the litany of instant messaging protocols didn't fit the need here. Hooray for re-inventing the wheel.

<comment><USER17> If it's not accessible via browser, it doesn't exist to most people.</comment></comment>