Chaos Computer Club on the blocking of our website in UK - <AUTHOR> http://ccc.de/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in-uk

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion around this TL:DR

This is an optional filter provided by ISPs. Most are opt-in for existing customers; opt-out for new customers. They've been around for a long time for mobile users. Turning them off usually means visiting a web page and clicking boxes.

This is not a court-ordered ban - seen when torrent sites get blocked. This is not part of the IWF blocklist of images of child sexual abuse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely the future of the Web will be a decentralized one, without a single point of failure. No matter the policies or laws we have in place, this will continue happening somewhere. We need to fix this from a technical point of view if we truly want everybody to continue using the Web.

Thanks to relatively new technology like Bitcoin, I'm more convinced than ever that decentralization of information is possible with little latency to propagate changes across the whole network.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's definitely not blocked by Sky, I can get to their site fine. Are we talking about the default blacklist at an ISP level that you can turn off? I agree that it shouldn't be there, but it's not a 'Great Firewall of Britain' (the closest to that would be the Internet Watch Foundation: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation) )

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8706366](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8706366)

</comment><comment><USER6> Alternative link in case of censorship:

[https://188.8.131.52/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in- uk](https://18.104.22.168/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in-uk)

</comment><comment><USER7> Its not blocked for me. Never seen it blocked anywhere in the UK

</comment><comment><USER8> UK - _facepalm_</comment>


New ELF Linker from the LLVM Project - <AUTHOR> http://blog.llvm.org/2015/11/new-elf-linker-from-llvm-project.html?m=1 <comment><USER2> Linkers are very much like hyperdrives. They're one of those ancient but ubiquitous technologies; no one knows how they work, but no one cares.

The basics of dynamic linking is actually pretty simple, but it's tricky to find reference materials outside of reading the source code itself. A modern, mature dynamic linker supports a lot of very interesting and very powerful features, from LD_PRELOAD to LD_AUDIT to `dlmopen` (linker namespaces.)

I wonder whether this new linker plans to support all of these advanced features.

I've spent some time with these features to accomplish tasks such as:

\- embedding Python interpreters within themselves using `dlmopen` (linker namespaces): [https://gist.github.com/dutc/cf808ec7d8e1c36e01cc](https://gist.github.com/dutc/cf808ec7d8e1c36e01cc) [https://gist.github.com/dutc/423d0d0ccba771cf910f](https://gist.github.com/dutc/423d0d0ccba771cf910f) [https://gist.github.com/dutc/eba9b2f7980f400f6287](https://gist.github.com/dutc/eba9b2f7980f400f6287) [https://gist.github.com/dutc/2866d969d5e9209d501a](https://gist.github.com/dutc/2866d969d5e9209d501a)

\- writing LD_PRELOAD-like modules in Python: [https://gist.github.com/dutc/6500c804b2f0141c9757](https://gist.github.com/dutc/6500c804b2f0141c9757)

I think the LD_AUDIT approach taken by the latter project could also lead to re-implementing a dynamic linker in Python itself via the system's linker's auditing mechanism. This might be a very interesting educational exercise!

<comment><USER3> Hyperdrives ancient technology? Are you from the future, or from the Star Wars universe? :)

<comment><USER4> This may be a reference to a SciFi trope where a space faring society has use of hyperdrive technology that it bought/stole/inherited from an older civilization, but doesn't have any ability to create and/repair

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's curious that linking speed can be improved by so much when gold was itself written for speed only 7 years ago. I wonder, what's the trick?

<comment><USER6> Probably because the GNU utils are written with support for each and every architecture and format in this world in mind.

lld however supports only x86_64, according to the blogpost. It's got to be fast if the cruft is cut.

What are the most dominant archs in actual usage today anyways? I'd guess x86(_64), armv6/v7/64, MIPS for cheap/crap routers and some SPARC... and ELF as the dominant binary format on *nix and PE/COFF on win32/64/arm.

<comment><USER7> Are you sure MIPS is only used in crap routers? For example [https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter- lite/](https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-lite/) this is MIPS as documented for example [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/MIPS/ERLite-3](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/MIPS/ERLite-3) here. Also, one of the first 802.11ac Wave 2 routers from Xirrus, that's also MIPS, isn't it? [http://www.wireless-mag.com/News/34108/xirrus-selects- cavium...](http://www.wireless-mag.com/News/34108/xirrus-selects-cavium- octeon-iii-processors-for-80211ac-wave-2-wi-fi-.aspx)

<comment><USER8> MIPS (Cavium and Broadcom) and PowerPC (Freescale QorIQ) are big players in the Networking market currently, but the next generation of processors from those companies mentioned above will be ARMv8

<comment><USER9> Cavium is still producing MIPS64 as well as ARM64, although whether they will continue to do so is unclear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If any of the developers see this thread, does this new linker fix the issue of circular library dependencies requiring that a given library be specified multiple times? Also, can we get rid of the dependency on the order libraries are specified? IMO order of the libraries should not matter, just that they are all listed.

<comment><USER11> If you are talking about archive files (.a files), then the answer is yes. lld is not sensitive to the order of archive files in the command line. For any undefined symbol, if there exists a file that defined the symbol, the file gets linked no matter how files are ordered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congratulations to the contributors. A lot of this kind of work goes unnoticed by many. I personally appreciate the expertise and effort required to even be part of these achievements (though I share none of it myself). Based on the recent trend of posts on HN, I hope that others will see these efforts for what they are.

</comment><comment><USER13> No mention of why this was rewritten, or any comparison to the existing code...</comment>


The biggest iOS 5 bug you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://watilo.com/the-biggest-ios-5-bug-youve-never-heard-of

<comment><USER2> This exact thing happened to me last night. A friend got a new number and send a group message out to around 50 people, I then got probably over 100 texts the rest of the night as people had conversations through the group messaging, and I was pretty sure those messages weren't supposed to be seen by me. Thanks HN, now I know why!

</comment><comment><USER3> This entire bug report is confusing to me. What is your expected behavior?

From what I can gather, you do (or did) not have group messaging enabled. You were on the receiving end of a group message. Replies to that group message also came to you, a recipient of the initial group message. Because you do not have group messaging enabled, the messages which were in response to the group message were not grouped.

I know I sound pedantic, but I do QA. If we're calling it a bug, let's get some expected results and steps to reproduce.

<comment><AUTHOR> A commenter on the blog post summarized it well. Not necessarily a bug; just bad design:

Group Messaging = OFF Expectation: Messages NOT sent to the Group

Group Messaging = ON Expectation: Messages sent to the Group

But Apple has it wrong ... reversed ... because message sent with GM OFF are sent to the entire Group, and those sent with GM ON are not.

How can that possibly be intuitive/logical/intentional? It's a bug. Crappy design.

<comment><USER4> It's not a bug. The problem is that most people don't know that MMS messages can be one-to-many AND that iOS 5 turned Group Messaging on by default (which causes group messages to be MMS instead of SMS).

The Group Messaging setting only affects messages you send out. If a third party wants to (or unwittingly) 'reply all' to an MMS message that included you, your individual Group Messaging setting won't stop that and you will get that message regardless of your setting.

If you don't think it should work this way, then you are asking Apple to not deliver messages that technically are addressed to you.

I do agree that Apple should have done a better job educating users on how it works.

<comment><USER5> I think this is not the case. TFA seems to say that replying to a many- recipient message sent with Group Messaging off is automatically considered a "reply to all" action when it shouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh wow, I thought this was a static feature.

It drives me insane when my mom sends out announcements to her five siblings and their respective families who all happen to have iPhones. I never see the end of the conversations.

It's bad enough I have to listen to them all compare apps at the dinner table. "Hey Firebrand, how come your game isn't selling as much as Angry Birds is?" Ugh.

<comment><USER7> > It drives me insane when my mom sends out announcements to her five siblings > and their respective families who all happen to have iPhones. I never see > the end of the conversations.

I've been there too and wanted to throw my phone against a wall. It's like being stuck in a chat room that you can't exit. Hard to believe Apple didn't notice this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've had this happen with a non-smartphone when I sent an MMS to a group of people and one of them had an iPhone (well before iOS5). His replies went to everyone else that I included.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is with iMessage, not sms, right? AFAIK can't do that with normal sms messages?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's correct, although I've seen the same sort of thing happen with MMS.

<comment><USER10> With iMessage, everyone will see "Group Message" at the top of their screen (see blog screenshot), which I think is pretty obvious.

<comment><AUTHOR> _If_ you've got it enabled...

<comment> X-Istence It's enabled by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This happened in iOS 4 as well.

In fact, it happened to me on WinMo phone years ago.

</comment><comment><USER12> This happened to me, too. However, it seems that this only happens if the two iDevices were actually logged into the same account at some point--so no total strangers.

Logging out of iMessage and back in solves the issue. I've seen it happen with calendars, too.

This is the primary reason I can not recommend Apples online services to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the availability of this setting is controlled by carrier settings as I can't enable or disable group messaging - <http://cl.ly/3m2N1m3V3i0O1B0d451s>

</comment><comment><USER14> The title is a little sensationalist, isn't it?

I mean, this would be annoying to encounter and should be fixed, but I don't imagine it'll cause the end of the world, as the title might suggest.

<comment><USER15> Not only is it sensationalist, but plenty of folks are already aware of this problem. And frankly, I don't think it's that big of a problem. In fact, other group messaging apps do this if you have SMS enabled when data is unavailable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I personally love this feature. It's how I always imagined group messaging should work. Kind of like a group chat.

<comment><USER7> Except the part where you don't know who a message is going to. It's very unintuitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is the part that's concerning. That and you might not even know it's a group message.

<comment><USER10> Except for the fact that it says "Group Message" at the top of the screen (see screenshot of blog post).

<comment><AUTHOR> I included the Group Message screenshot as an example of what it's supposed to look like when it's working right. The first screenshot was how they all came through for me.

<comment><USER10> That's strange. Group Messaging was turned off in my preferences, but all of mine looked like your screenshot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another bug is that this option only exists in the USA. Why?

</comment><comment><USER17> This is not exclusive to iOS and it is not a bug.

<comment><USER18> It is if there is no _indication_ that you are replying to everyone though.

Disclaimer: I don't have a fancy phone so I don't know how clear things are.

<comment><USER17> Just because something doesn't work the way you want it to doesn't mean it's a bug.

<comment><USER18> True, but an interface that you tend to use for messaging to one person should give an indication that you are, instead, messaging to several.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Future of mobile computing : Rolltop - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7H0K1k54t6A

<comment><USER2> Sorry, no. We're already so far beyond something that design that we'll never take that path.

Slates are the way forward.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can have my mechanical keyboard when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

It's cool as a design study, but that full-size-ish mechanical keyboards will remain popular as long as working with more than a paragraph of text at a time remains popular. A device like this could probably do fairly well around the $500 price point, but I think it would be very niche much higher than that.

What I _would_ like to see is a better implementation of the basic concept behind the Touchbook - a tablet that becomes a clamshell notebook when attached to a removable keyboard/base. That base should certainly include an extra battery and might also add more processing power, storage and connectivity.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting idea, I think OLEDs are still very expensive but they have started to show up in consumer electronics in small sizes. This combined with 10GUI.com interface enhancements and it would be awesome.

I still wish there was a way to do more tactile keyboard. My wish is a gel keyboard win with you partly immerse your fingers and keys are configurable in software.

</comment><comment><USER4> What happens when it rains?</comment>


Twisted Vine: As Twitter Pursues Amplifiers, It's Becoming Noisier - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/25/twisted-vine-as-twitter-pursues-amplifiers-its-becoming-noisier/ <comment><USER2> Twitter is becoming more like Tumblr in its pursuit of in-line media. Vine is only the most recent example.

The developer angle, from the story: "The combination of the building out of the platform and Twitter's pushing away of third-party developers has the company somewhat at a crossroads. In order to serve each type of user best, Twitter has to give users more ways to filter their timelines (i.e., all tweets by people I follow with video, or all tweets with video and a given hashtag.) But experimenting with these kinds of "client" features is what the dis-invited third-party developers do best. Perhaps there is a middle ground where developers can write "plug-ins" to allow users to transform their experience within Twitter, the most popular of which Twitter would buy and fold into the main product."</comment>


The Secret to Small Talk - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/06/the-secret-to-small-talk.html <comment><USER2> > I'm no better at making small talk now than I was before I met Eli.

I guess the title was written by an editor not the author.

> Eli D'Angelo has a superpower: the ability to win over strangers in seconds > flat.

There seem to be two parts to the superpower. The first is a genuine interest in other people. Eli makes many mistakes, but always seems to genuinely care. People pick up on his caring and forgive his mistakes quickly. The second is practice. Eli seems to enthusiastically approach almost anyone and has likely been doing this since he was able to talk.</comment>


Ask HN: What's worth seeing in Mobile World Congress 2013? - <AUTHOR>

I'm going to MWC in Barcelona for the first time, so if anyone else here is going, does anyone have any suggestions about what's worth seeing or any other tips in general? <comment><USER2> I've never been. From a market intelligence standpoint, I'd say pay attention to phones from China that might make their way to American pre-pay carriers. Their lower unsubsidized prices could change the game for many. Personally, I'd like to fondle the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 and see what new multi- windowing capabilities it's added, if any.</comment>


Over 1,200 Hackers Are Attending MHacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2013/09/10/over-1200-hackers-are-attending-mhacks-at-university-of-michigans-stadium-this-month/

<comment><USER2> Incredible that they've found a way to fund the attendance costs for everyone from travel to food.

On a sidenote, lot's of awesome stuff coming out of Ann Arbor. Rapt.fm was born at a Startup Weekend there ([http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/05/rapt-fm- beta-public-launch/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/05/rapt-fm-beta-public- launch/)).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is insane!

Last year they had an entire floor in a massive building dedicated to sleeping hackers!!

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like an awesome event. I'm excited to see what comes of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't wait! The last MHacks was so awesome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does this make it the largest hackathon ever?

<comment><USER7> The fact that it's in The Big House should count as a +300 people.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Alohomora – secret distribution over credstash - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/razorpay/alohomora <comment><USER2> Wouldn't the Fidelius Charm be a more appropriate Harry Potter reference? :)

[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Fidelius_Charm](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Fidelius_Charm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty interesting. Does this fit in with Vault ([https://www.vaultproject.io](https://www.vaultproject.io)) or is it an alternative?

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't use credstash; we've had much pain with it. Many breaking changes not documented as such.

Move to AWS Parameter Store or AWS Secret Manager.

<comment><USER5> Just out of curiousity, what broke? (I'm using it and haven't ran into issues, but always interested in hearing about other's experiences so I can proactively avoid the same issues).

<comment><USER4> It has been a while but the issues that are coming to mind are: \- A (semver) patch version after 1.13.0 made a backwards incompatible change to the way the hmac field was stored in dynamo, IIRC. This broke older versions and alternative implementations (jcredstash) ability to read secrets stored by newer versions. IIRC it was some double base64-encoding issue or something like that. \- Early versions of credstash didn't use zero padded version numbers, and then later versions switched. This was documented but still caused some headaches. \- Recently coworkers have made some noise about incompatibility with python3. I haven't had a chance to evaluate that though.

Not a breakage, but annoyance: \- Lack of handling pagination for dynamo queries so you only get a list of the secrets+versions that are returned in the first page of results. We don't need to list all that often, but when you do... (rage). I would end up having to make queries against the dynamo table itself to find available secret names or versions.

Finally, it is much slower than using SSM parameters. It was a usable but warty tech for a while, but now that AWS has native support for storing secrets there seems little reason to continue with it.</comment></comment></comment>


Gizmodo RSS feed full of porn this morning? - <AUTHOR> http://kellyhirano.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/gizmodos-rss-feed-points-to-fleshbot/

<comment><AUTHOR> This morning, my normally SFW "Tech News" folder in Google Reader was full of full-on explicit pornography - apparently at some point the feed URL was redirected to their Fleshbot site. Are we being encouraged to "sample" some of the other Gawker properties?

</comment><comment><USER2> totally!! been testing Quanat (a news curation app) and been seeing that. thought my developers were playing a prank.

salah quanat.com</comment>


Ask HN: Area to study to learn writing code for navigating inside a building? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
Down the line I will be working on a project finding the fastest route from point A to B inside of a building. The building is very complicated and has multiple ways of getting somewhere.
The piece of software will not need to actually "navigate" the user as, for instance, Google Maps. Instead the user would tell the app where they currently are and where they want to go and the app would give them a static route.
Is there an area of research I should be studying that helps with this type of programming? Obviously I need to take into consideration walls and figuring out the fastest route, but I don't have a great idea on where to start my research.
Thanks in advance for any help! <comment><USER2> Graph theory might be somewhat helpful here. Just like a gps program can show traffic perhaps your app can have similar features although not sure how to grab that data unless you have access to cameras within the building that could relay meaningful information to you. If you are trying to help people working in the Pentagon maybe its best to let this one skip</comment>


Congress's Scientific Illiterates Are Resigning the World to Ruin - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/congresss-scientific-illiterates-are-resigning-the-world-to-ruin

<comment><USER2> I loved this bit in the article: ...Scientists...are doing their version of standing atop a mountain with a megaphone...banding together by the hundreds, issuing grim reports, making sweeping, unambiguous statements and policy recommendations.

But nah, not the GOP - they don't need that there book learnin' stuff.

I just want to know: WHO KEEPS PUTTING THESE BUFFOONS IN CHARGE? AAAARRGH!</comment>


Uber Q2 financials - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/exclusive-uber-financials-2475912645.html <comment><USER2> "Uber had $6.6 billion in cash at quarter's end, down from around $7.2 billion at the end of Q1 ... Uber's global ride-share business was margin positive last quarter, which is a flip from Q1."

Uber is on a loss run rate of $2.4 billion annually mainly from the US market. The questions become:

* Given that global is positive, what is the loss in US? What will it take to flip US to positive? What will Lyft do?

* Can Uber keep global markets positive or will they have similar challengers that will force additional investment?

<comment><USER3> You can't just extrapolate out to 2.4B. Just one quarter ago, that same extrapolation would have been more than 2.8B. They are improving their efficiency while increasing their revenues. I wouldn't be surprised if that loss run rate is $2.0B flat by end of Q4 while gross revenues continue to rise.

Lyft on the other hand has losses almost twice as high as Uber's relative to gross bookings. People accuse Uber of buying market share, but the truth is that Lyft is the one actually buying market share instead of earning it.

<comment><USER2> Sure you can. It is not obvious what the right methodology would be:

* Should you assume that losses are going to get worse? Lyft raised their largest round so far: $600M at $7.5 Billion. Presumably, they are going to use that money to get even more aggressive. I hear that some US markets are already a mess for Uber. Others are good.

* Should you assume it is going to get better? In the past quarter it has, so you might want to assume that it will continue. Also, I don't know if I trust Uber's financial reporting. This is clearly a PR move and you have a lot of choices in private accounting.

Assuming steady state does not strike me as an unreasonable way of forecasting.

<comment><USER3> Losses may or may not get worse. AFAIK, they have gotten better every quarter since China was sold off. Assuming steady state or steady state of change are both reasonable ways of forecasting. A strong trend line spanning several quarters better supports the latter in this case.

For what's its worth, I recently saw losses as a percent of gross bookings posted elsewhere: Lyft at 13% vs Uber at 8.5%. Are you assuming that Lyft will increase subsidies after this new round of funding? If so, that will only worsen its losses as a percent of gross bookings. Furthermore, that isn't Lyft's biggest round. They raised $1B in January 2016.

Uber just needs to remain more efficient than its competition in all markets, which is easier to do with global operations and multiple business lines that are easy to scale out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explain to a layman how a company losing $600M every 3 months, with $6B remaining of $12B raised (50% loss over 8 years) is "worth" $62B?

<comment><USER5> The long term goal for Uber is to build a global monopoly of self-driving taxis in a world where no one owns their own car. That would be worth _trillions_.

For a long time they looked like they might manage it, but things haven't been going well lately. The latest valuation doesn't factor that in.

<comment><USER6> Maybe if they were the only ones working on autonomous vehicles plus they may not come out well liked... it's not looking like they will in my opinion

<comment><USER7> Even if they don't get the first self driving vehicles on the market they're still in the best position to partner with whoever does and make slightly less but still a fuck tonne of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm interested in how the tipping will enable Uber to really focus drivers on service. Tips are likely to be a pretty strong indicator for what customers want, and may be optimized by Uber should they choose to do so. I assume that 100% of the tip amount goes to the driver, but is that actually true? Uber does have an expense in adding the feature to it's app & operation.

Uber will collect a lot of data that they can share with drivers regarding what they can do to increase tips. Basics like keep a clean car, or how much to chat with customers, or perhaps even customer-specific services like 'don't speed at all', or 'get out and open the door' for them, or, 'likes the car temp at 80 degrees...'.

Moreover, it can indicate what cities or localities tip best, what time of day, what types of people tip well, ...

I am trying to think of another platform better suited to recording this type of data, but it's not coming to mind. Will Uber use it to benefit customers and drivers, or, abuse it for it's own gain?</comment>


IPhone Virus?  Turn Your Phone Off - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/07/30/iphone-virus/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the heads up.

</comment><comment> onreact-com \- iPhone developer suicide

\- Google Voice fiasco

\- iPhone SMS virus that can overtake the phone

Bad news for Apple all the time.</comment>


Demonstration of Two-Qubit Algorithms with a Quantum Processor (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.2030 <comment><AUTHOR> This paper was published in 2009 with a bulk of the work coming from the Yale Quantum Institute. I like it because they talk about how the processor is built, and how the qubits are controlled to perform the algorithms. Superconducting quantum processors have advanced by leaps and bounds since then.

<comment><USER2> I was thinking the same thing. This is crazy old news. Even nmr quantum computing is miles beyond this.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I sue startup co-founder over these ethical violations? - <AUTHOR>

The less said about this the better. I'll speak in private correspondence using the email address the28thofmarch2011 at gmail dot com.
One note: I do not want to sue him. I'm pretty sure I could end his company, because even if it's not legally actionable this could become a PR disaster, but that's the last thing I want. I'm announcing my resignation tomorrow and what I do want is fair severance: a positive reference, fair treatment of my equity, and a schedule for repayment of back salary that doesn't subject me to financial hardship. (I burned through my savings to help build this company.)
What happened is this. There are four of us in the company. One of my co-founders is great and I would recommend (or hire!) him anywhere. He's a friend of mine from a previous job whom I hired into the company, which is one of the reasons I feel I have an ethical obligation not to destroy it. On other hand, one of the original founders is just a bad human being-- drug abuse on the job, physically violent issues with women, criminal records, bad work ethic, and abysmal quality of work. Some of the shit he's done I did not think a person could do and hold a job in the same life. In my opinion, this startup is not going to succeed and he (still not fired!) is the main reason why it has struggled and will fail.
Our CEO did not disclose these problems with the bad co-founder until after I'd been with the company for over a year. I'd been working purely for equity for most of that time. The CEO continues to show a complete lack of leadership not just by retaining the piece of shit but by allowing him to remain employed on ridiculously lenient terms that cause the rest of us to suffer. It has gotten to the point where the CEO, who seems to be slipping into serious crazy territory on account of the stress the bad founder has put upon him, refuses to acknowledge the bad founder's contribution to our slow progress (schedules have slipped by years). Instead, the CEO uses kid gloves around the problem founder because, for the past 3 months, that person has been actually doing work and the CEO doesn't want to upset the apple cart. Now, the CEO (who is seriously cracking up) blames me for the company's problems, when the only thing I've been doing to justify this claim is taking some time off (job interviews) in the past couple weeks.
Maybe I'm not a "real" investor, even though I think my back salary obligation makes me a legitimate bondholder, but if I were, at least the criminal activity of the rotten co-founder and probably the drug abuse are matters that he'd be legally required to disclose. Certainly in a partnership in the context of the financial industry, that would be true. (If it matters, this occurred in the state of New York.)
To make it clear, I do not want to sue him. Not at all. I want fair treatment of my back salary and equity, amicable separation, and I want to move on with my career. I'm young and talented and the last thing I want is to waste a year of my life suing the guy or ruining the company. But knowing that I can do so gives the me the leverage to negotiate fair terms of separation, and the knowledge that I can wreak Nordic indignation on him if he, e.g., gives me a negative reference or just decides not to honor my back salary, causing me financial hardship.
Also, I quite frankly think the reason for certain sloppy paperwork is that the CEO wanted to be able to scumbag me, which is why I don't expect to see most of the back pay, but it could give me a trump card: I never signed paperwork that would give code I've written work-for-hire status. I have no desire to use or "steal" any of this code (even if I legally could do so, it would be unethical) but, without my signature giving him ownership, wouldn't code I wrote while working for free be mine? (I do, of course, fully intend to transfer unambiguous ownership of the code to him, as long as I get fair terms of separation.) That's another piece of leverage I'd like to know that I have. <comment><USER2> IANAL, but...

Can you? Yes.

Should you? No.

Even if you win, you probably won't collect. You just destroy the company. Now you have a career hole (a company failed because it got sued-- by you) that just isn't worth the upside. The collection rate on judgments is really low: like 20%.

Use your trump card to negotiate, sure, but if he thinks the company has no future then you won't get severance. He'll just dissolve the company.</comment>


Lesser-Known Search Engines That Are Worth Checking Out - August-Garcia https://www.256kilobytes.com/content/show/3004/search-no-further-7-search-engines-that-are-worth-checking-out <comment><AUTHOR> I don't know if DuckDuckGo counts as "lesser known" but I find it incredibly useful.

The !wa bang command is great for weird conversions. (Ex: Sometimes watching mad men I might plug in "!wa 100 dollars 1960" and out pops an inflation adjusted figure)

!fake can check a given amazon product for fake reviews

Stuff like Wikipedia (!w), reddit (!r) etc.

Some people complain the results aren't as good as Google but I think they have either forgotten and/or never learned how to search. Since the engine has no PII on you, it can't handle ambiguity well. A good heuristic is if your query would give you a disambiguation page on Wikipedia, add a few terms.

I've been using it exclusively for a while, and the only time I really go back to Google is for their maps.

<comment><USER2> Every time ddg is mentioned on hn, it receives a lot of praise in the form I use this or that bang - in essence negating its usefulness as a search engine and making it a glorified shortcut app.

<comment><USER3> I'd counter that with the fact that DDG returns SO answer cards and various cheatsheets when searched (i.e. "tmux cheatsheet".) I think Google beats DDG in some ways (better news search results, for example.) But DDG is a much better programmer-focused search engine IMO, they just don't market themselves that way.

Back to your bang feature point, I really appreciate that DDG makes it easy to search Google instead by simply using !g. Tech companies don't always make it easy to use a competitor, and there's something to be said for DDG not creating barriers to using other search engines.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Back to your bang feature point, I really appreciate that DDG makes it easy to search Google instead by simply using !g.

Or you can use !s to use StartPage, which uses Google's results to seed it's own and is more privacy respecting

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's also Wiby, a search engine for "oldschool", static, single-person- curated sites: [https://wiby.me](https://wiby.me)

I've copy-pasted this to HN previously, but it's worth posting again -- explanation from their About page:

"Search engines like Google are indispensable, able to find answers to all of your technical questions; but along the way, the fun of web surfing was lost. In the early days of the web, pages were made primarily by hobbyists, academics, and computer savvy people about subjects they were interested in. Later on, the web became saturated with commercial pages that overcrowded everything else. All the personalized websites are hidden among a pile of commercial pages. Google isn't great at finding those gems, its focus is on finding answers to technical questions, and it works well; but finding things you didn't know you wanted to know, which was the real joy of web surfing, no longer happens. In addition, many pages today are created using bloated scripts that add slick cosmetic features in order to mask the lack of content available on them. Those pages contribute to the blandness of today's web.

The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. In addition, Wiby helps vintage computers to continue browsing the web, as page results are more suitable for their performance."

EDIT: Apparently Wiby also has !g and !b for Google and Bing redirections.

<comment><USER5> I wish it worked as intended. Here's a sample query I put:

[https://wiby.me/?q=bag+of+word+model+matlab](https://wiby.me/?q=bag+of+word+model+matlab)

See the results and decide.

<comment><USER4> As I understand the engine solely consists of user submitted sites. I wonder how many pages they currently have in their database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Million Short" [https://millionshort.com/search](https://millionshort.com/search)

It's a search engine that returns results but without the first 100 to first million popular results with logarithmic steps. It's a great way to step out the normal popularity filter bubble and find new things.

<comment><USER7> Google less pinterest and ebay is like a dream come true.

<comment><USER8> What a great feature idea. I wish I could configure some regex settings in [search engine] to force it to never show me certain domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gotta plug shodan, the search engine for refrigerators (and any other connected device/service)

[https://www.shodan.io](https://www.shodan.io)

</comment><comment><USER10> Searx[0] is also worth checking out. It's fully free/libre and easy to host yourself.

It uses other search engines, but so does at least DDG and Ecosia that are listed there.

[0]: [https://searx.me/](https://searx.me/)

<comment><USER11> I switched from DDG to Searx. Both are pretty good, but Searx is actually FOSS while the only reason I was using DDG is because it's not Google.

There are actually several Searx instances you can choose: [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx- instances](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-instances)

<comment><USER12> You can also just run your own instance on your PC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Have two engines I'd like to eventually see:

1) An engine that removes all results from corporate entities. Essentially all pages would be from mostly independent entities. Obviously this would not be a primary search engine in and of itself since it's restricting a lot of content that could be useful, but at times I'd rather see what people are creating instead heavily SEO'd corporation #64728321. The description of 'Yippy' seemed promising here, but a search for 'space' quickly lowered my optimism.

2) A truly semantic search engine. It's amazing that e.g. Google was founded 20 years ago. And it was a major step forward in that searches for 'Abraham Lincoln' would no longer return hardcore porn. But since then we really haven't really improved much beyond that. Imagine a search for _' pages updated within the past 30 days about the launch of the crew dragon excluding large media and all social media results'_ would actually return what I'm looking for. Wolfram Alpha [1] is a very good proof of concept here, where the entire internet could effectively be a subset of all results.

[1] - [https://www.wolframalpha.com/](https://www.wolframalpha.com/)

<comment><USER14> I would love an engine that knows my blacklist. Stop showing me results from xyz.com!

If they want to go the extra step and identify sister corps, that works too!

<comment><USER15> Google once had this feature where you could blacklist domains. Unfortunately they removed it like 5 years ago :(

<comment><USER16> You can still do this with the "Personal Blocklist (by Google)" Chrome extension.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal- blocklist...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by- goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not mentioned, but there's SymbolHound when searching for programming language syntax: [http://symbolhound.com/?q=%26%3Amethod](http://symbolhound.com/?q=%26%3Amethod)

</comment><comment><USER18> I have been lately surprisingly happy with www.qwant.com . I feel like I need to add !g much more rarely than with duckduckgo.

<comment><USER19> Somehow this seems relevant [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2602&mobile=1](http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2602&mobile=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Ecosia's operation leaves a negative CO2 footprint on the world – their servers operate on 100% renewable energy and each tree that they plant removes 1 KG of CO2 from the atmosphere." But then later it says that Ecosia search results are based on Bing? If they are effectively searching Bing in the Background, wouldn't they have to factor in the CO2 footprint of a Bing search?

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.givero.com](https://www.givero.com) \- just launched. Givero is a search engine that shares its revenue with good causes you choose.

We silently opened to the public about a month ago, and we are currently putting the final touches on the site and story, and working on onboarding more charities. Right now you can support charities working for climate, animals and children.

Since we have a lot of DuckDuckGo fans on here, I think I should mention that Givero: * Has DuckDuckGo compatible bangs * Has Instant Answers (just launched the first 3, more to come) * Is Privacy centric. * Is Bing based, like DDG. * Is Euro hosted.

So a good mix of DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, with the key difference being that we donate 50% of our entire revenue to charities you choose.

Full disclosure: I am the founder. We're a small team based in Denmark, formerly working on Findx (privacy search engine with own index), which shut down last year.

<comment><USER5> How privacy centric are you guys?

<comment><USER21> We do not keep a history of your searches and has no user profile.

We do not use third-party analytics tools, so your IP is not shared that way.

Your IP is anonymized immediately in our analytics tool (self-hosted Matomo), and we don't store your queries there.

We anonymize our raw weblogs, which are only used for debugging purposes, after 5 days.

We do have to pass on your IP to Microsoft at the moment, but you have the option to turn off personalized results (the "filter bubble", basically) on the search result page. We are working on getting permission to further tighten the privacy options here, but Bing requires a certain volume before they're willing to discuss it (several million searches/month) as we discussed with their VP of Search Partnerships in Europe. So we're on-par with Ecosia right now, but working to be on-par with DDG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I asked this the other day. But I am asking again as I didn't get an answer. Suppose I want to make a small niche improvement on top of existing search engines. I want to them to provide first level results and then I will provide additional filters on top. For example, I would get the results from Bing for example, and then remove all websites which are ad supported.

How should I go forward with this plan? Are there any APIs available? Or should I put on a biz dev hat and talk to Bing guys?

<comment><USER23> This [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive- service...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive- services/bing-web-search-api/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Ecosia's operation leaves a negative CO2 footprint on the world – their servers operate on 100% renewable energy and each tree that they plant removes 1 KG of CO2 from the atmosphere.?

Only 1kg? Most of a tree's "dry" mass is carbon, it gets that carbon from the atmosphere, and most trees weigh more than 1kg...

<comment><USER20> I actually went ahead and looked it up for you: "And that's not all. Since we use our profits to plant trees, every search with Ecosia actually removes approximately 1 kg of CO2 from the atmosphere. How? On average, it takes around 50 searches to finance the planting of a new tree. An average tree planted by Ecosia will remove around 50 kg of CO2 from the air during its lifetime."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is there ever going to be search engine that will replace Google as Google replaced Altavista ?

<comment><USER26> If somebody created true AI, they could create a search engine with it that is better than Google.

<comment><USER27> True AI likely wouldn't be able to deduce context much better from the words given (i.e. a clear 'this' or 'that' situation, like Hamilton the musical or Hamilton the individual). It's just impossible to tell sometimes, and would require user effort to specify. Maybe the value in the AI could be sorting results into the 'this' category or 'that' category, making perfect results just one step away for the user?

Also, I've heard that the issue with AI in some specific domains is substantially slower responses than traditional / non-AI. Would this / how would this be reflected in a search engine? Would query results be updated less often?

<comment><USER26> True AI would perhaps know the user well enough to know their intent (even Google already knows the user and perhaps even know they have a likelihood for a person being more interested in musicals or in maths).

It could also actually understand web sites and create meaningful summaries. And all sorts of other things.

As for speed, I don't know - it seems in many applications AI is way faster than traditional approaches. Also things can be parallelized. DeepMind trained for many years (measured in computing time), but it was parallelized so it didn't actually take years to train.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > At this time, Blackle claims to have saved over 7 million watt-hours of > energy.

That's only 7000 kwh, or 100 full charges of a Tesla. Seems more like a gimmick than anything impactful.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Learn about a handful of helpful search engines that are not Google, Bing, > or any of the other really obvious ones

The _engines_ behind all of the general-purpose search products mentioned in the article are still Google or Bing.

I would love to see a competitor.

</comment><comment><USER30> Can websites please stop using these bright, loud colors to display text and html links? Its very hard for me to read this article!

<comment><USER30> I can barely read orange over blue text...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Nice. I'd forgotten Wolfram|Alpha.</comment>


Eleven countries studied, one inescapable conclusion – the drug laws don't work - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/30/drug-laws-international-study-tough-policy-use-problem <comment><USER2> Making drugs legally available in pharmacies would lead to: (1) organised crime looses a large chunk of its business, (2) no need for dealers to advertise to new users, they won't get the business anyways, (3) drugs would have medical-grade quality control and likely be cheaper than on the black market, (4) drugs can be taxed and this money can go into prevention and medical care, (5) users are less likely to need to commit crimes to support their habit, (6) resources in law enforcement get freed for other things.

The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path. If the article is right that won't be so.

<comment><USER3> Organised crime would target the legal-drug supply chain. Counterfeit medication making its way into legitimate supplies is already a problem.

When you tax something you create a space for the illicit market. See the UK for one example where very many cigarettes are counterfeit. And criminal gangs don't just sell real but untaxed product; they produce counterfeit product which can be more dangerous than the actual product. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- sussex-16786358](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16786358)

(I am strongly in favour of decriminalising all drugs)

<comment><USER4> I think there's already a problem with low-quality, impure product being sold on the street w.r.t. illegal drugs. If the drugs were legalized, people would at least have the alternative of buying them legally from a large drug store with a reputation to protect. I imagine the problem you describe would not get _worse_ under legalization.

(Found one source on street drug purity: [http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how- pure...](http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-pure-are- street-drugs))

<comment><USER3> That's a great point: I would much rather buy 5% amphetamine 95% sugar from a licensed seller than whatever the hell I'm getting on the street. While contamination with rat poison is mostly a myth contamination can produce nasty results.

Anthrax in injecting heroin users: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- glasgow-west-18981196](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow- west-18981196)

Glass microbeads in cannabis: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/638...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/6386311.stm)

<comment><USER5> It's more than that though. Not just licensing, but motive to self-regulate.

You don't buy "(Cartel X) branded (drug of choice)", so there is no reputation to protect by it; if one batch is bad, meh, no big deal.

Whereas if it's available at a drugstore...CVS and Walgreens compete, and have reputations to maintain. Any contamination not only would have federal implications, but also would have direct economic ones, such that they are incentivized to self-police. To ensure their entire supply line is coming from reputable sources, is randomly tested for contaminants, and anything that slips through leads to a recall. Otherwise, they face a loss of business to the competitor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suspect they work just fine, its what they are actually supposed to do that most people are unclear on.

I'm not quite tin hat enough to think that they were actually _created_ for these purposes, but I do think they've stabilized on a sub-optimal local maximum where the general populace is complacent because they feel like "something was done" about those awful (counterculture) drugs and they laws themselves have become broadly useful to the political class for all sorts of reasons that have nothing at all to do with the reality of drug use on the street. So here we sit. It will take substantial political force to budge off this local maximum point.

<comment><USER7> I've been having similar thoughts about the purposes behind the prohibition being misunderstood. There are many effects that the war on drugs is having, and the people that are executing the process are more aware than any of us what those effects are. As a clueless civilian, I have been attempting to come up with some completely conjectural ideas about what those might be:

\- Strengthen law enforcement through constant practice, and provide revenue to supporting companies

\- Siphon money from one industry (drug trade) to help support the government and therefore support other industries that it feels are more beneficial to society

\- Stigmatize unproductive habits, conditioning society to more productive/controlled behavior, incarcerating individuals who resist to make the society seem more productive overall

I'm sure there are many intentions that are well known that might overlap with what I'm suggesting, but I think the main point is that the war on drugs is not for the purpose that most people assume: to eliminate drugs from society. I think in a lot of ways it intentionally has the opposite effect. Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar reasons.

<comment><USER8> > Also I think if society would have tolerated alcohol prohibition that the > government would have been happy to keep that going as well for similar > reasons.

See my comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542155). In fact, at the time prohibition was proposed, alcohol taxes made up fully 1/3 of federal revenue. The money and moneyed interests were aligned against prohibition, not for it.

I think a lot of people look for ways to get around the fact that when you give people self-determination as a group, they might vote for things you don't like with no nefarious undertones in play. The simplest explanation is this one: I don't vote, my mom does. There are more puritanical people who simply don't want to live in a society that condones drug use than the opposite. It's just like how when people in arab countries got the opportunity to vote, they voted-in conservative Islamic governments. Sure they are opportunists taking advantage of those tendencies, but at the end of the day, you have to grapple with the real fact that people have ideas about what their societies should look like, and democracy means that they get to carry those ideas into fruition.

<comment><USER9> In theory this is why we have a republic rather than a direct democracy. The people say what they want (e.g. less drug use) and the representatives do the hard work of figuring out how best to achieve that result (e.g. discovering that it's empirically more effective to treat it as a medical and social issue rather than a criminal issue, and enacting laws consistent with that result).

But then they don't and we're back to nefarious undertones.

<comment><USER10> No, that's why you have _representative_ democracy rather than _direct_ democracy.

You have a _republic_ rather than a _monarchy_. In order to establish its leadership, a republic can use representative democracy, direct democracy, fascism, dictatorship, whatever -- as long as it defines the power of the state as flowing from the entirety of its people, rather than from a subset of the population or by a divinity, it's a republic, end of. "Republic" is _not_ a synonym of "representative democracy".

I wish I had a penny for every time I had to dispel this awful misconception in constitutional studies that only Americans seem to have.

<comment><USER11> Historically and in political science literature, "republic" IS synonymous with "representative democracy". In the 20th century autocratic/oligarchical/fascist states adopted "Republic" to sound democratic, and that use is becoming more common.

[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/republic)

A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

[http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or- repr...](http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket/2011/09/republic-or- representative-democracy.html)

we regard the terms "republic" and "representative democracy" as being interchangeable, as does the political science literature.

[http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic...](http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/163158?redirectedFrom=republic#eid) a. A state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; spec. a state without a monarchy. Also: a government, or system of government, of such a state; a period of government of this type.The term is often (esp. in the 18th and 19th centuries) taken to imply a state with a democratic or representative constitution and without a hereditary nobility, but more recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state headed by an elected or appointed president.

<comment><USER10> Note how all those definitions are _not_ antithetical to _direct_ democracy, which is the concept I was objecting to and something that only Americans keep repeating -- note how the only source you link with a whiff of support for such dichotomy is American and explicitly covers only _" the American republic"_ (and basically says "yeah we know the terminology is imprecise, but whatever"...).

The word "republic" was coined by Romans, whose political system was a mixture of direct, representative, and oligarchic rules: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_elements_of_Roman_Republic) Were they not living in a "republic", despite inventing the name itself?

"Representative democracy" and "republic" have often been used as synonyms _to indicate the absence of monarchical or divine intervention in the choice of leaders_ , not to _exclude direct intervention by the people_ , which is something only Americans say it does not belong in a republic, for whatever reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Drug laws aren't supposed to stop people from using drugs, and that hasn't been the goal for a while now.

The goal is to give them a reason to request military-grade toys, and to give them a "reason" to use said military toys despite not being in a war zone. Their thinking (perhaps correctly) is that if they don't use it, they'll lose it.

And this is before we consider lobbying of the for-profit prisons who are literally trying to have innocent people thrown in jail. (0)

(0) [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/02/22/judge-found-guilty-in- ca...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/02/22/judge-found-guilty-in-cash-for- kids-case-mother-of-child-not-pleased/)

Edit: Corrected the link, my mistake.

<comment><USER13> FWIW this article is about the UK where we don't usually have these issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a really good mini-series on PBS called "Prohibition" that gave me a totally new perspective on the Drug War: [http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition](http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition).

The ban of alcohol in the United States was actually a triumph of democracy over moneyed interests and the government. At the time, alcohol manufacturers had tremendous political power, and excise taxes on alcohol made up about 1/3 of federal revenue. What made prohibition pass legislatures around the country was a concerted effort by devoted constituencies: Christians and women. Indeed, one of the primary drivers of women's suffrage in the United States was prohibition--alcohol was seen by many leading suffragists as being at the root of social ills like domestic violence.

One of the most interesting charts I've seen with regards to the modern drug war is this one: [http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now- supports...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports- legalizing-marijuana). My recollection of childhood, of school assemblies with adults shrieking "Just Say No!" wasn't wrong. When I was a kid in the early 1990's, the popular position was in favor of keeping marijuana illegal by an almost 80-20 margin. This is a country that couldn't agree on anything (in 1992, they voted for Bill Clinton over George Bush by a 43-37 margin), yet they almost all agreed that marijuana (we're not even talking about harder drugs) should be illegal.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't call prohibition a triumph of democracy; just a different kind of failure mode for democracy. There was a relative minority of the population that wanted prohibition and were able to form a very effective "lobbying" effort, otherwise known as destroy any candidate who was against prohibition in the primaries. It is the same type of thing we see today in issues such as gun control, where we have massive popular support for one side of the issue (increased background checks), but it is still politically dangerous to pursue it because of a powerful lobby.

<comment><USER15> >It is the same type of thing we see today in issues such as gun control, where we have massive popular support for one side of the issue (increased background checks)

I don't think that this is true. I'd have to see some sort of evidence because my impression is that about half of people are for/against stricter gun laws, and that this is sharply divided over red/blue, urban/suburban-rural lines.

I actually think that the NRA covers up a lot of support for increased liberalization of gun laws, because the advocacy from the gun lobby seems largely driven by racist dog whistling.

<comment><USER5> IT's a bit weird. On the one hand, general feeling for 'gun control' has gotten less popular (and < 50% feel we 'need stricter gun control' \- [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/s...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/23/six- facts-about-guns-violence-and-gun-control/)), on the other hand, 90% of Americans think we need expanded background checks ( [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- fix/wp/2013/04/03/90...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- fix/wp/2013/04/03/90-percent-of-americans-want-expanded-background-checks-on- guns-why-isnt-this-a-political-slam-dunk/) ).

What's absolutely bizarre to me, though, is how many people seem to treat expanded background checks as a -major issue- when it comes to voting. As in, I've seen threads where people have said "OMG, this Democrat wants to require background checks when private gun owners sell to other private gun owners! Thank God all the polls are favoring the Republican!" Nevermind the economy, civil rights, etc, we have to be able to legally sell guns to each other without the government knowing about it!

<comment><USER16> One big problem with "expanded background checks" is the gaping distance from that seemingly innocent phrase and what's actually proposed, and in the recent case of Colorado, imposed.

These are "flypaper laws", clearly designed to zap innocent gun owners as well as what they're ostensibly supposed to do, which in practice turns out to be nearly zilch, preventing temporary transfers, AKA lending your gun, at gun ranges, while hunting, etc. It's telling that back when there Colorado has some serious flooding, the authorities felt compelled to promise that they wouldn't prosecute people who temporary placed their guns with friends or relatives on higher ground.

It's a _major_ , in your face issue, never mind those of us who know our 20th Century history and are therefore rather allergic to "the government knowing about it". Or the implication that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) is not a _fundamental_ civil right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wish Singapore was part of the study. I think generally, drug laws do not 'work' (by work I mean, it doesn't stop people from doing drugs and in many ways it probably gets them into situations to commit crimes not related to drugs), but I'm curious how much the study would have been thrown off by Singapore's results.

<comment><USER18> I think Singapore honestly remains as a serious anomaly to political science. Defacto one party government with extremely illiberal policies and yet the people are happier, more educated and more well off than many other countries that have liberal democracies. What's further more surprising is that it remains very multiethnic and yet the people get along with others just fine unlike other parts of the world.

<comment><USER19> Actually, a rather prominent study a while back found that Singapore is the least happy wealthy country on the planet, losing out to eg. Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Syria.

[http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore- least...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore-least-happy/)

Singapore is also multiethnic, but it's quite resolutely not a melting pot. The heavy hand of the government is keeping a lid on a _lot_ of tensions, not all of them obvious to the casual observer (Singapore-born Chinese vs mainland Chinese, etc).

Last and not least, Singapore's wealth distribution is extremely unequal. It scores well on raw GDP per capita etc, but the poorer parts of society compete directly with foreign labor working in slave-like conditions(+), and thus work extremely hard for paltry salaries.

(+) Quite literally, especially in the case of maids: it's not uncommon for them to be on duty 24/7/365, not allowed means of communication and physically locked inside the home when their masters are away.

<comment><USER20> I remember a HN thread, Singapore was described as being described as sterile and without a lot of culture. Probably a good place to work, but to live? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does this even make sense? Japan has a "zero tolerance policy" on drugs and one of the lowest drug related death rates in the world (extremely lower than decriminalized Portugal).

[http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug- use/b...](http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/by- country/)

And guess what? Singapore has even tougher drug laws than Japan and a lower drug related death rate than Japan. What am I missing here?

<comment><USER22> Japan could just be an outlier.

<comment><USER21> Not exactly. There's also Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China (all countries with extremely strict drug laws and far lower drug related death rates than Portugal)

<comment><USER23> According to this list, Colombia has fewer drug related deaths than any of the countries you mentioned, Sierra Leone about the same as Japan and the Netherlands is below Saudi Arabia.

I can't find the source of this list or any comparable ranking. But except for some countries, this lists seems completely random to me or is using not comparable numbers from each countries in/official statistics

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It might be true they don't work but do we really want the likes of Big Heroin, Big Cocaine and Big Marijuana like we have Big Tobacco? That would be a disaster. I think it would have to be totally government run to avoid that extreme danger. I wouldn't even want it to be possible for the government to get any tax revenue from it. Perhaps all the profits could go to an addiction prevention charity. Probably politically impossible though.

<comment><USER25> You might not have to worry about "Big Marijuana", as it seems much easier to grow your own Marijuana then it is to make your own cigarettes. There would be so much competition between big and small companies who are selling it. The following article was written in 2011 but I still think it makes an interesting point about the business of growing and selling marijuana vs tobacco.

"Why is marijuana banned and cigarettes legal? There are two reasons. They are the same two reasons why marijuana will never be legalized. Money and horticulture.

Approximately 20% of the population smokes, just over 40 million adults. That is tens of millions of dollars a day in local, state, and federal taxes.

The government has a captured cash cow in cigarette smokers. People cannot just grow tobacco and manufacture their own cigarettes. Tobacco is a land, labor, and time intensive crop. After it is harvested it must be cured, aged, and dried in a specific manner.

It would take a good sized plot of land, a lot of work, and about a year and a half for you to produce a few cartons of cigarettes. You need more than one plot of land as tobacco depletes soil and the crop must be rotated, or you must invest in expensive fertilizer and nutrient mixes. You cannot easily or economically grow tobacco to make cigarettes for personal consumption.

Marijuana, on the other hand, can be cultivated anyplace. You can grow enough in pots to continually supply you and your friends. If you have enough space you can turn it into a cash crop. All you need are seeds or plantings, and in a short time you can fly higher than a kite. Anyone, anyplace can grow marijuana. And they do.

The government cannot control, regulate, or easily tax pot. This is why marijuana will never be legalized. There is no way to make it a commercially viable and profitable product and no way to effectively tax it."

Read more: [http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle-c...](http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle- class-guy/2011/oct/8/cigarettes-versus-marijuana/#ixzz3Hp9T5TTy) Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

<comment><USER26> The tobacco taxes aren't that huge a source of revenue:

[http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-tobacco-tax- revenue...](http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-tobacco-tax-revenue- percentage-total-state-local-tax-revenue)

Significant, but not huge. Federal seems to be around 0.6% (the way I rounded, should be somewhere close to but lower than that).

<comment><USER27> 0.6% is still a lot of money. I'm not sure who the US does it's budgets, but in other countries the politicians are fighting over perhaps 1 - 5% of the actual budget, the rest is fixed. The Danish government has a budget of around 1 trillion Danish kroner, but the actual negotiations in parliament only revolves around 5 - 10 billion.

Missing 0.6% pretty much removes the entire bargaining platform.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, it's a lot, but it's low enough that I wouldn't expect taxation to be a primary issue in the policy debate over marijuana.

<comment><USER25> There is just no interest in making it legal because it is a cash crop that anyone can grow and benefit from.

There is more to marijuana then it being a recreational drug. It is also a very valuable material that can be used in a variety of other products. Search hemp products on google and you will find a variety of uses.

The fact that we have outlawed hemp in human society is insanity but it makes sense in the context of big business and competition. Do some research on what is takes to grow cotton vs growing hemp.

"The "fabric of our lives" needs approximately twice as much territory as hemp per ton of finished textile, the land-use miser of the bunch. Further complicating matters is the inverse relationship between chemical use and land requirements." \- [1]

Hemp is a plant that is so valuable for its use in products, and it is really easy for anyone to grow. It's a weed, its grows like crazy! Doesn't sound very profitable from a big business perspective does it?

[1] - [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_l...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2011/04/high_on_environmentalism.html)

<comment><USER26> At least if you ever have to eat your hat, it will be made out of a strong and durable natural fiber.

<comment><USER25> I am pretty confused about your comment, care to explain?

<comment><USER26> I was riffing on an idiom and your apparent interest in hemp.

The use of the idiom in this situation would be something like "If industrial hemp production is allowed in the United States, I'll eat my hat.", meaning that you don't think it will ever happen.

So I was joking that if it did become legal, because of your appreciation for the material, at least the hat you would have to eat would be made out of hemp.

<comment><USER25> That is not what I think.

If there is enough public pressure and people start demanding that hemp production be legal, the laws will change.

As long as a large percentage of the population is fine with hemp being illegal it stands no chance. Most people really don't know what they are missing out on, its not just a drug, it is a very valuable plant that has documented use in human society for thousands of years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I believe the very very first step is to move certain drugs out of Schedule I and into proper categories that are consistent with science, thereby freeing doctors and researchers to study --and subsequently, destigmatize-- proper medicinal use. MDMA holds great potential in treating PTSD; Psychedelics with addiction and depression, and so on. Once this step is made I feel a proper, less fear-based discussion can be had regarding the dangers of recreational use and abuse.

<comment><USER29> As a matter of fact, the scheduling of cannabis is under the gun right now:

[http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/10/30/tables- turne...](http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/10/30/tables-turned- government-prosecutors-forced-to-defend-pot-prohibition-in-federal-court- thursday/)

Some good history in there. Note the circular benefit to law enforcement: Schedule I prevents testing for medicinal qualities, so the government gets to try arguing that it can't be a medicine because it's not FDA approved. These people are the glue that hold the gears of progress together.

<comment><USER28> Exactly. Once medicinal qualities can be explored further the "Reefer Madness" that the country has endured for the past fifty years can be toned down. By understanding what we consume we are effectively reducing fear, and by reducing fear, undue harsh penalties can be understood to be what they are -- an overreaction. Its only a matter of time, but I feel for those millions who have been jailed, and continue to be jailed, during the debate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it that the drug laws don't work, or like so many things, that people don't understand the incentive structures?

They're obviously working for many groups. They only don't work if we take the goal of the drug war at face value.

</comment><comment><USER31> I am genuinely interested in knowing how we go from here to there. Alcohol for example after prohibition - what was the transition from illegal to legal like. Did more people drink suddenly? What organisations sprang up to legally manufacture and distribute? Where the mafia still involved?

Saying "decriminalise" is all good - but if at any point in the supply chain we dip into the underground market we shall not escape the violence and control of crime. So are there plans for movin from prohibition to open market?

<comment><USER32> One idea that I have not thought through well, and don't know what the consequences would be, would be

to instead of possession of sale of the drugs being illegal, making it so that, for some collection of other crimes, if the crime was committed in a way related to the drug, the penalty for the crime would be greater.

The idea I was thinking is that this would create a disincentive to have the crimes and the drugs related, and might cut down on "drug crime" more than just removing the ban on the drugs?

I believe I've seen some say that even where a drug is legalize, there still remains a black market for that drug in that situation in order to avoid taxes on that drug. If tax avoidance had a greater fine if caught if money from (non medicinal) drugs was involved, would that perhaps discourage sellers from not paying taxes on the income, and as a result reducing the black market type stuff?

I don't know. I am not saying that I support this idea, its just an idea I thought was interesting.

I don't know what one would reasonably/realistically expect the results to be.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what results would result from such a law?

<comment><USER33> Countries, like Portugal have had a lot of success with just changing the issue from a criminal issue to a health issue with regard to possession. If you're caught with quantities that imply you're dealing you still end up in trouble.

I'd imagine that if you allowed sanctioned selling of drugs you'd create a fair market and crime around it would quickly vanish. Unfortunately we live in a world where we may never see an experiment like that come to fruition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Inescapable? Sure, if you ignore sample size. There aren't enough countries _period_ , and I don't think they're all similar enough in meaningful ways, for any subset to be considered a representative sample for just about anything.

I don't know enough about the debate to form an educated opinion one way or the other, I just can't stand hyperbole like this, especially when the underlying assumptions are so fundamentally flawed.

 _Edit: And over all of eight months. Wow, yeah, now I 'm convinced..._

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm wondering: did we measure thievery law against drug law?

Do law against theft work better than laws against drug, and would there be a call for repeal if that was not the case? I'm ok with changing the laws on drugs if it's good for society, but I want an honest assessment, not pure advocacy (and well, I don't smoke pot, but I drink beer, and I understand that people who smoke pot have a right to freedom as much as me).

</comment><comment><USER36> The American prohibition is working exactly as intended.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Portugal decriminalised drugs. Results? Use by teens doubled in a decade with nearly a fifth of 15 and 16-year-olds using drugs."

Laws might not work but there has to be some kind of strict control mechanism in place.

</comment><comment><USER38> Laws don't work.</comment>


Clojure 2015 Year in Review - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2015/12/31/clojure-2015-year-in-review <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10821493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10821493).</comment>


The 2551 iOS apps that Twitter scans for in AppGraph - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/cVZzFJ8Y

<comment><USER2> I'm really curious what the Apple AppStore review team has to say about this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple should bin [UIApplication canOpenURL:]. Apps can call openURL: and provide a fallback if it fails.</comment>


Zombie debts are hounding struggling Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/oct/15/zombie-debt-benefits-overpayment-poverty <comment><USER2> This is ripe for a lawsuit. Not only should the statute of limitations apply to all of this debt, but confiscating independently earned money from your children is a modern version of holding one's children responsible for the sins of their parents — a defacto caste system.

<comment><USER3> Suing the government is very hard [0].

There are many flaws in the US Tort system, but it at least incentivizes law firms to create class action suits to fix stuff like this article describes when private entities are the ones doing the behavior we want to change.

When it's the government, these types of class action suits are rare, I think.

A better attempted solution would be to write to congresspeople.

Cynically, I would try to find some globocorp that could benefit from having this function privatized. At least then there would be a regulator and two different orgs to argue.

[0] [https://www.wikihow.com/Sue-the-Federal- Government](https://www.wikihow.com/Sue-the-Federal-Government)

<comment><USER4> Class action suits against the US government (or states) are rare because even if the plaintiff class wins, the government still has to volunteer to pay (in most cases). Sometimes it even requires the legislature budgeting the funds for payment.

Since class action lawyers generally rely on the proceeds of the lawsuit to collect expenses plus ~35% of the proceeds as their fee, it's highly risky for them to take such a case.

Additionally, since the cases in the article are to essentially prevent a debt collection, even if the lawyers win, there isn't necessarily going to be a payout, just an injunction.

One way to handle these situations is to eliminate administrative courts. Two, the government should have to sue to recover money from individuals as any other entity would have to do.

That being said, the article admits that in at least one of the cases, the lady was making payments on what I assume was a legitimate debt, then abruptly stopped. She was surprised to find out she still owed the remainder some years later. That's on her.

But it also makes me question the extent of the problem. If one of the 3 most sympathetic cases that they chose to write about isn't even an illegitimate debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Government services are suppose to help people. When States are staving for cash, how can this possibly make up the difference? Surely getting all these elderly or working poor people for a couple thousand here or there (trivial for the government and the well off or middle class; disastrous for those on fixed incomes) cannot even hope to clear the cost of the State workers and contractors hired to do the collections work and handling the bullshit appeal process (even if it is just rubber stamping things).

This is the problem: the State is turning to the enemy of the poor in the US, and if you crunched the numbers, they're probably not even earning that much off these people. It's fucked up.

<comment><USER6> >This is the problem: the State is turning to the enemy of the poor in the US, and if you crunched the numbers, they're probably not even earning that much off these people. It's fucked up.

I honestly can't see how it can even be about money when you have government agencies stripping drivers licenses and vocational certificates from people for defaulting on student loan payments. At that point, the government's taking away their ability to work and earn an income in response to them not paying a debt. How is somebody, who likely couldn't pay it before, supposed to pay anything back when you take away their ability to actually earn a wage?

<comment><USER7> Because as with all legal matters in the US, it is about punishment, not rehabilitation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Government violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and harasses seniors for debts that are outside the statute of limitations" FTFY

<comment><USER9> Sounds like the government is exempt so they're not violating the letter of the law but certainly are violating the spirit of the law.

<comment><USER4> The law prohibits aggressively collecting expired debts. Government debts don't expire. I'd say that's still within the spirit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If it hasn't already, this will be used for the next round of phone scams.

</comment><comment><USER11> Statute of limitations should apply in situations like this. It's really weird that it doesn't.

<comment><USER12> Even the Statute of Limitations is gone in the US. Companies can sue you in court for debt right before the limit is up and your debt limitations has just increased 20 years. They also tack on interest. Someone I know had $4K debt that ballooned to $25K due to this tactic. The original debt is from 1997 and this person is still on the hook.

It's all corrupt.

[https://creditcards.usnews.com/articles/what-happens-when- yo...](https://creditcards.usnews.com/articles/what-happens-when-your-credit- card-company-sues-you)

<comment><USER13> > _Companies can sue you in court for debt right before the limit is up_

Nothing wrong with that. The point of any statute of limitations is to prevent action _after_ a period has elapsed, with the full range of remedies available before that.

Edit: why the downvotes?

Clearly many posters here do not know what a statute of limitations means, and assume it means something it doesn't.

Obviously this depends on the jurisdiction, but in general, and as mentioned, it puts a limit on how long one has to sue.

But if a lawsuit is started right before the limit then obviously the limit does not apply and the lawsuit and any court order will stand.

Nothing new here. This is how it is meant to work. Don't shoot the messenger.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't really jibe with the word, "limitation," if you can constantly increase it leveraging the court system.

<comment><USER13> That's exactly what 'limitation' means. It means no action after a certain period. That's how it works everywhere.

<comment><USER14> From what the earlier poster is saying, the companies are getting around that by filing a lawsuit just before that period would expire. Then they not only get to collect on the debt for however long they can draw out the lawsuit for, _they get to collect interest as well, as if the statute of limitations never existed_.

<comment><USER13> They are not getting around anything. As explained this is the way it is intended: As long as you _begin_ legal action before the deadline then indeed the statute of limitations does not apply at all (mileage may vary by jurisdiction).

A statute of limitations is not aimed at helping people wriggling out of paying what they owe (among other things). It is aimed at putting a reasonable time limit on taking legal action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone know what law governs ISAs? Like why would a Lambda school be able to forcibly collect income if a student tried to vanish without paying if they found a job?

<comment><USER16> They're contracts, so generally contract law. Although such contracts would have to be careful to not run afoul of employment laws, or laws against slavery.

It seems income sharing agreements typically include clauses which mitigate their risk of becoming invalid as voluntary slavery, such as limited time, a minimum income threshold, and buyout options. They could also be structured as a debt, with a payment structure based on income. Potentially bankruptcy law would affect their interpretation also.

<comment><USER15> Interesting. Yeah seems like a legal gray area. I could see one bad Supreme Court case turn them on it's head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "And then, in December 2010, the Claims Resolution Act passed. This historic piece of legislation settled an unresolved court case in favor of 75,000 black farmers unjustly denied agricultural loans in the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, tucked into its 801st section was a provision to increase the "collection of past-due, legally enforceable state debts". It quietly expanded which debts could be referred to Treasury, from only those due to fraud to those resulting from unintentional errors."

How the (#$*) did Obama let that get out of the first committee reading (Warren wasn't elected yet)?

<comment><USER18> Because he was never the poor man's savior that everyone made him out to be?</comment></comment>


Spotify cracks down on reverse-engineering and ad blocking - <AUTHOR> https://www.spotify.com/uk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s9 <comment><AUTHOR> User guidelines updated regarding reverse-engineering:

> If applicable law allows you to decompile any part of the Spotify Service or > the Content where required in order to obtain the information necessary to > create an independent program that can be operated with the Spotify Service > or with another program, the information you obtain from such activities (a) > may only be used for the foregoing objective, (b) may not be disclosed or > communicated without Spotify's prior written consent to any third party to > whom it is not necessary to disclose or communicate in order to achieve that > objective, and (c) may not be used to create any software or service that is > substantially similar in its expression to any part of the Spotify Service > or the Content.

And ad blocking:

> circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating > or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify > Service

<comment><USER2> I wonder if pi-hole blocks their advertisements. Is blocking specific requests network-wide considered to be against their terms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was blocking ads on my trial version for months without any problem. I was like having the premium without paying it, but one day I found an article about the Spotify debt and how it was growing and then I deeply regretfully switch to premium.

</comment><comment><USER4> Blocking advertisements when you have a trial version of Spotify is tantamount to stealing. Understandable.

I wonder where this leaves me, a paying user, who has blacklisted all outbound connections to ad/tracker hosts.

<comment><USER5> It's my opinion that since I pay for internet, and the Spotify service, I have control over what I see, what comes into and out of my network. There is no modification to the app itself, and Spotify's contractual reach should not extend beyond their app.</comment></comment>


Console productivity hack: Discover the frequent; then make it the easy - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/console-hacks-exploiting-frequency/

<comment><USER2> The money quote (of the analytical section):

 _Yet, research in human-computer interaction barely acknowledges the command line's existence. It's a strange omission, since the core principles of human factors engineering still apply to the console._

Why is this? I've also noticed a corollary, that interface testing for "experts" doesn't really use expert testing. One paper I've read (name eludes me) about text editor usability had the nominal "expert" users ignoring regular expression searching, and just scrolling about randomly for the assigned phrase.

Either truly "expert" users are so few and far between that researchers can't find them, or the researchers can't tell who qualifies as an "expert" and who doesn't.

<comment><USER3> Or, most text files are small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I highly recommend autojump[1] as a simple way to jump to commonly-used working directories. It's saved me a lot of repetitive typing since I discovered it.

[1] <https://github.com/joelthelion/autojump>

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the pointer!

I've updated the post with this and several other simplifications sent in by readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> (I have a feeling that) my frequently used commands change depending on what I'm doing, and with time. Instead of trying to alias my current favourite commands, I tend to just use the backwards history search built in to my shell, and access it with Ctrl-R. I can type the beginning of the command and have the rest of it completed for me.

The only thing that would make it better is Ido-style completion.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel validated , since I recently wrote some aliases that quickly switch me to my frequently used directories.

Logging to a database is an excellent idea.

</comment><comment><USER8> No real need for a Perl script here.

        alias frequency='sort | uniq -c'

Also, this should probably use exec.

        system(". cdto '@row'") ;
        exit ;

Otherwise, you are needlessly keeping Perl on your stack.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use cdargs (<http://www.skamphausen.de/cgi-bin/ska/CDargs>) for "bookmarking" commonly accessed directories. It doesn't automatically add entries though.

</comment><comment><USER10> keyfreq does this in emacs.

[http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/browse/trunk/packa...](http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/browse/trunk/packages/keyfreq.el)</comment>


Use captions to create video memes - <AUTHOR> https://testflight.apple.com/join/EqjxrW7W <comment><AUTHOR> Vadi is an IOS app lets you create 10-second videos by using captions written by other users. You can create; video memes, video answers and upload your videos on topics.</comment>


Banks Wanted to Keep the CDS Market to Themselves - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-11/banks-wanted-to-keep-the-cds-market-to-themselves <comment><USER2> This isn't terribly surprising. There is an entire company (Markit) that sprang up because it started with a database of CDO/CDS prices giving it an advantage over the rest of the market.

If you have a Bloomberg terminal, then you'll see that everyday there are 2 or 3 stories about the head trader for CDS's from one sell side firm moved to a buy side Firm or another sell side firm. The entire derivative industry is about as incestuous as you can get.

To be fair to the banks, the reason why the stock market is so open is that shares are fungible. CDS, CDOS's and most other swap instruments really aren't.

They all have their own terms, hierarchy in bankruptcy proceedings, and special terms that you really do need to examine each one that you are buying to check all the details. This implies illiquid markets, which has always meant the need for sales people to bring together two sides of the trade, which unfortunately leads to the situation described in the article.</comment>


What Makes Girls Fall In Love With Computers And Code? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/29/what-makes-girls-fall-in-love-with-computers-and-code/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also highly recommended to read the TechCrunch article titled "Why Tech's Hottest Companies Want To Hire More Female Engineers" at: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/06/why-tech-companies- hiring-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/06/why-tech-companies-hiring- female-engineers/)</comment>