For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Steppingstones - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/education/a-grueling-admissions-test-highlights-a-racial-divide.html

<comment><USER2> Not sure if it's just me, but it sure seems like a massive case of entitlement.

"You shouldn't have to prep Sunday to Sunday, to get into a good high school... That's extreme." Actually that's how it largely is for competitive colleges, and if people are arguing for a merit-based admission system that is _exactly_ what people should have to do if other people are willing to.

Tough to tell where the author is landing on this point in his article.

<comment><USER3> It's difficult for Americans to accept working harder (insanely harder) gets you further in life. Intelligence is supposed to be innate, not something you can manipulate by "working harder." Whether you are smart or dumb, you should be happy about it and still be a millionaire.

It seems so _unfair_ painfully studying and drilling makes you seem smarter. Why is it unfair? Because Americans obviously don't want to painfully study and drill math and science and culture when they could be texting or playing video games or drinking diet energy mountain dew xtreme (the dewiest).

<comment><USER4> This seems unfair. First, there are absolutely economic and cultural factors that cause noise in the meritocracy. Second, for those Americans who aren't in disadvantaged economic situations, there's certainly an emphasis on 'being happy' and being at least a bit of a generalist here which isn't as present in many other places.

Reducing that to 'text or playing video games or drinking diet energy mountain dew xtreme (the dewiest)' is dismissive and lowers the conversation.

<comment><USER3> Good point. I was approaching from a view of mostly well off Americans who get annoyed when fer'ners show up and become more successful than they are. It's completely different when you consider people who don't even know how to do academic things well being placed against extreme cram school cultures.

See: waiting for superman, the lottery, a few Frontline specials about it, and mst3k episode 816.

<comment><USER4> Ah, yes, I see the context now. I suppose I have less an less exposure to people like that these days, so they rarely factor into my understanding.

Probably fair to say there's a mix of different attitudes, understanding, expectations, and hopes in the American landscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article only covers the elite "specialized" schools, which are not the only decent option in New York. There are also the "screened" schools, where admission is based on grades and attendence, not to mention the "audition" schools, which focus on performing arts and base admission on an audition. Failing to get into the very best schools is not the end of the world.

But the big problem is that the vast majority of children in New York City (and many other cities all over the world, of course) come from families where the parents are either functionally or completely illiterate, have no understanding of how to study, and/or simply do not value academic achievement. This is a big problem that you can't exactly solve by relaxing admissions standards -- it was tried with CUNY, and it resulted in a mass exodus of all the good students.

In China and the rest of East Asia, there is a centuries-old culture of studying your ass off to succeed in life. The article cites Confucianism etc. but it really derives more from the Chinese Imperial Examination, which if you passed, guaranteed you a good job. Good schools and good jobs in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea even now are usually only obtained by passing an exam. When they immigrate over here and they encounter a situation where they can benefit by passing an exam, they tend to excel.

By contrast, most of the other places that send lots of immigrants to New York (the American South, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, to name a few) don't have this cultural history at all. They don't know what to do, and the schools are not entirely prepared to teach them.

<comment><USER6> _But the big problem is that the vast majority of children in New York City (and many other cities all over the world, of course) come from families where the parents are either functionally or completely illiterate, have no understanding of how to study, and/or simply do not value academic achievement._

I think this is by far the biggest problem with education in western countries, to the extent that it dwarfs any other consideration. Better textbooks, better teaching methods, better equipment, better teachers, better curriculums, better classroom sizes - they are all minor issues compared with the children wanting to learn and their families supporting them on that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The real question to be asked is that whether the tests are serving the intended purpose i.e that of finding the best students of the lot (best can be defined as being most knowledgeable of the subject being tested). A student with experience of solving of large number of questions will have an advantage over another student who knows the subject matter but have not done any test prep.

In India, where I come from, this is a almost a way of life. Almost all prestigious institutions including graduate schools determine whom to admit based on a test score (and an interview in some places), as opposed to the practice in the U.S (graduate schools) of considering a candidate's GPA,essays etc. On one hand this a very transparent method ,which is important in a country plagued with corruption like India. But on the other hand it leads students to play the "test-prep game" i.e practicing a large numbers of similar questions. This has led to test prep becoming a lucrative business. Students who do not attend the "coaching centers", which are often more expensive than the regular schools they go to, will lose out to students who do, even though the knowledge the subject is the same. In India it has manifested as a problem when students from rural areas losing out students from urban regions, due to lack of these test prep centers.

The truth of the matter is that such tests serves as a good mechanism to condense a large applicant pool to a smaller one. But to base the entire admission process on one test doesn't seem to be optimal.

<comment><USER8> Why should the best students (and what does that even reslly mean?) get the best teachers? Maybe the best students don't need great teachers.

<comment><USER9> I suppose in the context of abraham_s's post "best" is in the eye of the selector: who is likely to be a benefit to the institution, including to their fellow students?

"Should" high-achieving students and teachers be grouped together? I don't know about that, but I would guess that the reason they often _do_ is rooted in mutual preference.

<comment><USER7> "Best" is as defined by the selector i.e the schools. Whether the method chosen to rank the applicants truly measures what the selector wants to be measured is the real question. In other words whether the school end up with the best test takers who may or may not be the students they were really looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The $REDACTED, like other $ETHNICITY families who spoke about the exam in interviews in the past month, did not deny engaging in extensive test preparation._

Can anyone see this sentence coming out of the New York Times for _any_ other ethnic group? It's like studying geometry has the whiff of something _suspicious_ to it.

<comment><USER11> Lol. :)

Jokes aside, there are dichotomic interpretations of "studying geometry."

There is studying geometry for its own sake, _otiose learning_ if you will, just like the ancient Greeks did.

And then there's studying it to pass an exam, the extreme version of it as portrayed and as you are no doubt first-hand familiar with in Japan, is 100% guaranteed to cripple whatever inner inclination one may have had towards geometry. Which is sad, because there's something wondrous about the nature of space, and whoever sees a glimmer whereof shouldn't have that inner eye pulverized.

It takes the likes of an Einstein adamantine to recover: "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."

In an age of abundance why wouldn't we rather have a million $REDACTED of $ETHNICITY origin bloom?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is the relative success rate of ethnic groups who are accepted into the elite schools? If (making up numbers) 90-100% of Asians who are accepted into the school graduate, vs (again making up numbers) 40-50% of blacks/latinos/whites, that points to the entrance requirements (including exams) being a decent predictor of success; in that case, it should be less about messing with the entrance requirements and strengthening the support structure for other demographics.

If the numbers are flipped (a significant number of Asians get in but don't graduate, and vice versa for the other demographics) that points to something being wrong with the entrance requirements and those requirements should be re-evaluated.

<comment><USER13> 99%+ of Stuyvesant students graduate, so that's not really a good measure at the level of the specialized high schools. Also, there are practically no black or Latino kids to compare. In 2011 72% of the students were Asian and 24% were white.

[https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2010-11/AOR-2011-3102000...](https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2010-11/AOR-2011-310200011475.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "memorizing surface area and volume formulas"? A=Pi _R_ *2? This combination of simple problems and extreme time commitment embodies everything that is wrong with the aforementioned approach.

<comment><USER15> Yea right. I'll take the doctor, pilot, and engineer who 'wasted' their time on memorizing formulas and 'over studying' over the lazy, entitlement, 'just enough' professional any day.

<comment><USER16> But good engineers don't memorize formulas. They understand them.

<comment><USER17> False dichotomy much?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I'm getting from this article:

"It's not fair that asians get in because they work harder and try harder. We shouldn't let hard work be a determining factor."

But who knows, I'm asian so I'm biased. I had to work my ass off for things while other people went out, partied, slept in, went to bars and hung out with friends. I studied for my standardized tests by going to the local Borders and sitting there for hours without paying for the book but I guess not everyone is that creative.

<comment><USER9> Do you mean the article, or the non-asian voices in it?

I felt the article itself presented a fair picture of the sentiments from each corner, though I'm not particularly sensitive to bias.

As for the complaints about test-centrism, I felt they were echoing a belief that life should be and success is about more than cramming and solo achievement.

Extracurriculars, grades, and fuzzy-wooly essays/recommendations may be as strong metrics as standardized testing, but neither are our current tests nearly as good indicators as they could be.

For example, we could do more to promote problem-solving skills by providing test-takers with a much larger corpus, promote a minimum level of teamwork by allowing some collaborative problems, etc. Just some ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some context might be important here. The high schools mentioned in the article are primarily science high schools (the test is the SHSAT: Specialized High School Admissions Test), not general purpose super high schools. Other specialized high schools in the city focus on humanities, or performing arts: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_high_schools_in_New...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_high_schools_in_New_York_City)

I went to Stuyvesant and knew people in Bronx and Brooklyn Tech, humanities are not given nearly as much weight as math and science. That being said, the way the test is scored favors lopsided performance in one section: [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFC385A...](http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFC385A0C718DDDA80994DD404482)

</comment><comment><USER20> A high percentage of these admissions test questions do in fact call for analytical thinking rather than/in addition to factual knowledge (referred to here as "rote memorization"), so this thread definitely sets up a false dichotomy.

</comment><comment><USER21> What is the purpose of school, education or selection?

<comment><USER22> Why can't it be both?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Weak article. Typical bias/stereotype that has little strength or meaning that I care about in it. Talent exists but no matter how talented you are, there's education for a reason. And tutoring is just a boost for that. No genius just absorbs information by himself.</comment>


The Essence of Datalog (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://dodisturb.me/posts/2018-12-25-The-Essence-of-Datalog.html <comment><USER3> There is a very nice Datalog tutorial at: [http://www.learndatalogtoday.org/](http://www.learndatalogtoday.org/) Lean a little bit toward Datomic, but very nice examples nevertheless.

<comment><USER4> Loved going through this a few years ago, eye opening

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As I see people mentioning Datalog-related software, I'm gonna throw a pebble into the yard as well - <USER2> ([https://github.com/graknlabs/grakn](https://github.com/graknlabs/grakn)) is a declarative graph-based query language with rule-based reasoning heavily inspired by Datalog and Logic Programming.

Disclaimer: I am one of the maintainers.

<comment><USER5> Just to add and clarify: it supports recursion (since a couple releases back) and pattern negation based on set difference (on current master branch, soon to be released).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > recently become popular among the scalable program analysis crowd.

Can someone give some examples? I have read papers from the Athens University using datalog and pointer analysis. Has this become a major direction ?

<comment><USER7> Yes, the DOOP folks under Iannis Smaragdakis have been doing this for a while. They use souffle, I believe: [https://souffle- lang.github.io/](https://souffle-lang.github.io/).

This is Semmle's business model ([https://semmle.com/](https://semmle.com/)). They have a custom Datalog with OO features they call QL.

I've heard LogicBlox used to do program analysis as well, but AIUI they turned more towards business analytics and then got bought out, and the Datalog engine team all jumped ship.

The Rust compiler has been exploring implementing some of their type system (the borrow checker, I think?) in a Datalog.

On the academic front, Tamás Szabó and Sebastian Erdweg have been working on an incremental Datalog engine for static analysis; [https://github.com/szabta89/IncA](https://github.com/szabta89/IncA). I know Tamas has worked for Itemis, but I don't know whether they're using this tech.

I'm working on a functional language, Datafun, inspired by Datalog, but it's too much of a toy to do any real analysis with at the moment. All in all, Datalog is still a niche language and static analysis a niche application of it, but it seems to be on the rise.

<comment><USER8> Moar links!

(caveat: I am involved in many things)

1\. You can implement some minor flavor of Doop in differential dataflow ([https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential- dataflow/tree...](https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential- dataflow/tree/master/doop)). The fragment came from Yannis which he described as a minimal non-trivial analysis (vs other, even smaller fragments), but it still uses some 900 dataflow operators (updates in 10s of ms when inputs change, though). The DD impl isn't meant to be understood, I'm afraid.

2\. Many ex-LB folks are now at relational.ai doing .. advanced weird tech like they did with LB. I'd watch them (I do).

3\. Polonius ([https://github.com/rust-lang/polonius](https://github.com/rust- lang/polonius)) defines the Rust borrow checker as Datalog rules, and went from differential dataflow to datafrog ([https://github.com/rust- lang/datafrog](https://github.com/rust-lang/datafrog)).

4\. If you want to check out other incremental Datalog environments, in addition to IncA, there are

[https://github.com/comnik/declarative- dataflow](https://github.com/comnik/declarative-dataflow)

[https://github.com/ryzhyk/differential- datalog](https://github.com/ryzhyk/differential-datalog)

[https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential- dataflow](https://github.com/TimelyDataflow/differential-dataflow)

Good times for Datalog, imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Datalog is awesome as is Logic Programming generally. It's not only useful in static program analysis but also in areas as diverse as synthetic biology and data integration.

There's lots of datalog and similar technology in most Knowledge Graph platforms, too. For example, [http://stardog.com/](http://stardog.com/).

<comment><USER10> I don't see anywhere that mentions datalog in relationship to Stardog. I see OWL2 and SparQL, which as far as I can tell do not support recursion other than in experimental prototypes. If there is no recursion, it is just conjunctive queries and not datalog.

<comment><USER11> > If there is no recursion, it is just conjunctive queries and not datalog.

SPARQL has negation (FILTER NOT EXISTS), though, making query answering PSpace-hard, whereas conjunctive query answering is NP-complete, so the two are very much not the same, although still less expressive then Datalog (which is ExpTime-complete). CQ answering for the Horn fragment of OWL2 is already 2ExpTime-complete, however, making it vastly more expressive than pure Datalog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Datalog is also used as query language for Datomic

[https://www.datomic.com/](https://www.datomic.com/)

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cym4TZwTCNU](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cym4TZwTCNU)

<comment><USER12> No it's not. The query language of Datomic, and that taught on learndatalogtoday.com, is a Datomic-proprietary language similar to Prolog-in- LISP implementations or frame-based expert systems of old.

<comment><USER13> There is datascript, which has a foss implementation of datascript (with nice performance)

[https://github.com/tonsky/datascript](https://github.com/tonsky/datascript) And this (deprecated) project, that translate datalog to SQL(lite) [https://github.com/mozilla/mentat](https://github.com/mozilla/mentat)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is also Flix language inspired by Datalog that adds the features of monotone functions and lattice models. This post is such a coincidence for me since I have just started to work on Flix and souffle for my thesis.

</comment><comment><USER15> So for someone who is familiar with it, why hasn't Datalog supplanted SQL for relational querying? What's its limitation?

<comment><USER16> On the continum of relational algebra to logic programming catalog is somewhere in the middle.

It is better at handling recursive queries, and logical inference than SQL. On the flip side SQL can be better at more set style operations (for instance windowing functions are painful in datalog).

It is different tooling, essentially it comes down to do you want to extract answers from your data with varying relational algebra but holding the logic the same (SQL), or keeping the relational algebra the same but varying the logic (datalog).

<comment><USER17> Could you please explain what you mean by "varying relational algebra/logic"? Didn't understand that at all. I only know SQL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does Datalog differ from something like MiniKanren?

<comment><USER19> My take on miniKanren is that it's implementation is designed to be small and hackable. Especially small with microKanren. If you don't know scheme/lisp, but want to roll your own for educational purposes, then check this out: [https://codon.com/hello-declarative-world](https://codon.com/hello- declarative-world)

Vs Prolog, the emphasis in miniKanren is on constraint programming --- especially writing new constraints to extend it to more problems. Where (chief variants of) Prolog have been optimized in various ways for certain types of problems.

See Will Byrd's answer here: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the- ma...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the-main- technical-differences-between-prolog-and-minikanren-with-resp)

What I read about Datalog is that it is basically a recursive relational database. It's set up for "deductive queries". This wording reminds me of miniKanren --- but the Kanrens are Turing complete.

Ah, Wikipedia has this to say:

In contrast to Prolog, Datalog,

1.) disallows complex terms as arguments of predicates, e.g., p (1, 2) is admissible but not p (f (1), 2),

2.) imposes certain stratification restrictions on the use of negation and recursion,

3.) requires that every variable that appears in the head of a clause also appears in a nonarithmetic positive (i.e. not negated) literal in the body of the clause,

4.) requires that every variable appearing in a negative literal in the body of a clause also appears in some positive literal in the body of the clause[4]

I'd have to put some thought into checking this list against the capabilities of miniKanren. Generally it doesn't ring any bells.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> OP here. Happy to answer any questions.</comment>


US Justice Dept opens IBM antitrust probe - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0749558220091008

<comment><USER2> I always find it ironic that companies choose actions determined to against the public interest instead of solid business practices.

Out competing your smaller opponents is far different than undercutting them. Apple is essentially safe from an antitrust in commercial computers, because essentially every tom, dick and harry can open up a computer store and charge _less_ than Apple for an adequate computer. However people choose to purchase Apple products not because there's no alternative (ironically Apple is commonly seen _as_ the alternative in computing) but because it's regarded as a better choice.

IBM and other computer manufacturers wouldn't get themselves into trouble if they would just make computers and mainframes that people _wanted_. However, they go the grey route and make sure they're the computer people can afford by undercutting prices and selling in bulk while they have a monopoly of the market.</comment>


The #1, #3, and #4 best-selling smartphones in the US are Blackberries; iPhone #2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-outsold-by-blackberry-curve-in-us-last-quarter-2009-5

<comment><AUTHOR> If true, I think we can infer quite a lot from this:

1\. The business market for smartphones is much larger than the consumer market for smartphones in the US. Yet, the consumer market for phones is much larger than the business market overall. From there, we can infer that a huge number of consumers aren't interested enough in smartphones to pay extra for them.

2\. RIM is absolutely killing the competition in terms of units sold. I read elsewhere that the Storm sold almost as many units as the iPhone, which means RIM is selling at least 2x as many units as Apple in the US. I have no idea about profit margins, though.

3\. It's tough to be #1 in the US at anything if you don't have a single product available for Verizon customers. Either AT&T will have to pay out the nose for iPhone exclusivity next year, or the iPhone will be on both AT&T and Verizon, at least. But, considering they are only on AT&T now, Apple definitely did very well.

<comment><USER2> Blackberry is killing in the consumer space as well. A lot of younger people want the physical keyboard for texting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems that all I ever hear about is the iPhone, but what I see on the street, especially when traveling, is Blackberrys, so I'm not that surprised by this data.

I think a lot of average consumers balk at the iPhone price and business users are already happy with what they had been using.

<comment><USER4> I think your conclusion about business users may actually be inverted in certain markets.

Eg small business in Canada, pre-iPhone the networks have been smoking us on data rates on Blackberry/Treo. iPhone has forced this down. (Pre-iPhone my Treo rate for 8M was pretty similar to my iPhone rate for 2G)

From this perspective the iPhone turned out to be a far more productive small- business smartphone for me than I expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The iPhone is really really shitty at doing the one thing it should be great at-- making phone calls. An iPhone-heavy day in Seattle for me results in 3-7 dropped calls. Seriously.

I dunno whether this is Apple or AT&T-- I assume the latter. Given that I'm at the end of my contract, I will leap towards the first smartphone I find that doesn't suck on another network.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing Apple has something in the bag for all those early adopters whose two year contracts are about to end.

<comment><USER2> So does Palm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this really surprising? Blackberry has been an established market leader in this domain for years. Apple claiming the #2 spot with a single product in a 2-3 year time frame is pretty amazing, I think.

</comment><comment><USER8> whatever happened to Palm?

<comment><USER2> The Palm Pre has not been released yet. The word on the street is that it will be out just before the next iPhone is announced.</comment></comment>


How can I sell in Amazon FBA if my country is not on the list? - <AUTHOR> How can I sell in Amazon FBA if my country is not on the list of allowed countries? Will you be opening a Corp or LLC? Or with an Estonian e-residency? If there are other alternatives I would like to know them, I do not have a bank account in USA, but I have a Payoneer Account <comment><USER2> Partnering with someone in a greenlit country is an easy answer.</comment>


Elon Musk on universal basic income: 'It's going to be necessary' - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-doubles-down-universal-175300665.html <comment><USER2> I was thinking the other night, what if, instead of universal basic income, we paid people a subsistence wage to be students or apprentices? This has the positive benefit of encouraging the spread of information and a culture of self-improvement. Additionally, since it involves some "work" the argument that it would create freeloaders is greatly mitigated.

The only problem with this idea now is that our higher education system is way too slow, inflexible and bureaucratic. This idea requires a much higher density of community colleges than currently exists, though with the aid of MOOC they could be much smaller and leaner than the current community college model.</comment>


Ask HN: How are enterprise web apps distributed? - <AUTHOR>

Hey,
I have built a web application for a company and initially I wanted to host it on my servers and provide them access via a login and password. The company is insisting that the software and its data must live on their servers.
The web application is coded in Django with Postgres as the database. How do I distribute the application on their server without giving away the source code?
And in general, how are enterprise applications distributed? And how are updates provided?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> The way it have worked well for us is to give them a VM image (ovf) as a blackbox. Look at github enterprise for example.

Edit

Regarding protecting your code do it legally first by contract, then look at code obfuscation tools for python.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alright. I will try the VM method and see how to go about it. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you call it a SaaS app, they will understand that it lives on your servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially it was supposed to be that way. But some of their clients don't want any data living outside the country, hence they want to use their own server for storing the data.

<comment><USER4> Could you just find a host in their country?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: iOS Table View that automatically adjusts with keyboard show/hide - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sprynmr/FUNTable

<comment><USER2> During the code review (see below) I found that you are actually resizing the table view to accomplish the effect. This is (in my opinion) not the right way to do it. Here is a suggestion:

Instead of adjusting the frame of the Table View simply work with the contentInset property. This is how UITableViewController does its job.

Short Code Review if you don't mind: (I only want to help - not to be a jerk)

Line 35: Please remove your -init override. You are doing nothing there and if you want to have custom initialization use initWithCoder: and initWithFrame: instead of init

Line 61: id (star)appDelegate = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];

Please remove the "(star)"

Line 64: CGRect windowRect = appDelegate.window.bounds;

You are trying to get the window bounds. Why are you not using: CGRect windowRect = self.window.bounds;

Line 73: viewRectAbsolute = FixOriginRotation(viewRectAbsolute, orientation, windowRect.size.width, windowRect.size.height);

Are you aware of: CGRectGetHeight(…) and CGRectGetWidth(…)? I am not saying you should use these functions instead but you could consider using them. I like them very much:

viewRectAbsolute = FixOriginRotation(viewRectAbsolute, orientation, CGRectGetWidth(windowRect), CGRectGetHeight(windowRect));

Line 79: int remainder = (viewRectAbsolute.origin.y + viewRectAbsolute.size.height + keyboardFrame.size.height) - windowRect.size.height;

Again: Consider the functions mentioned above. More importantly replace "int" with "NSInteger" - or even better with CGFloat.

Line 80: if (remainder > 0 && !(remainder > frame.size.height + 50)) {

When using CGFloat you want to make sure to use 0.0 and 50.0.

Line 82: float duration = [[userInfo objectForKey:UIKeyboardAnimationDurationUserInfoKey] doubleValue];

Why are you assigning the result of -doubleValue to a float?

<comment><USER3> _When using CGFloat you want to make sure to use 0.0 and 50.0._

Actually, on iOS, CGFloat is 32 bits, so you should use '0.0f' and '50.0f'.

On the Mac, in, 64-bit, it's a 64-bit value, so your advice would be correct there.

It is slightly annoying there's no easy way to write a CGFloat literal in a cross-platform way apart from the overly verbose '((CGFloat)50.0)'.

<comment><USER2> You are - of course - correct. Did too much Mac development lately. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should be setting the TableView's `contentInset` and `scrollIndicatorInsets` properties, rather than adjusting the TableView's frame.

Convert the keyboard frame to the superview's coordinate system using `-convertRect:fromView:`, e.g. :

        keyboardFrame = [tableView.superview convertRect:keyboardFrame
                                                fromView:tableView.window];

The bottom inset is then simply the difference between the TableView's height and the keyboard's Y coordinate.

You would also set those properties and scroll to the selected row in the same animation block.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe I started to try that method but ran into issues. Wasn't aware of the scrollIndicatorInsets though, so maybe that was the issue.

Would that method have any significant advantages? Less code? Would it avoid all the crazy frame calculations depending on the rotation?

<comment><USER4> Yes, `-convertRect:fromView:` replaces your frame calculations based on rotation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah yes. I see now that I totally missed the fact that the keyboard rect also needed to be converted. Well that was a painful point to miss!

Cool. I'll give that a whirl. Those rotation bits were a biatch. Thanks for the pointers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully this is useful to someone. Obviously this could also just be a little display helper class (composition > inheritance) or even a category, but this was my original implementation. Might update it in the future. All the crazy coordinate stuff was the painful part.

</comment><comment><USER2> Isn't the same functionality already part of UITableViewController?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, if the tableView is your main view. Otherwise you are left rolling your own solution. In the case of the iPad, the tableView is rarely my main view for my controller, so I needed a little more flexible solution.

<comment><USER2> Why don't you have simply two UITableViewControllers + a Split View Controller in your example? Because of the divider of the Split View?

<comment><AUTHOR> Per iOS standard design, only one ViewController is supposed to manage a full screen (iPhone) or region of a screen (iPad eg. split view controller). That's because you want to keep the view hierarchy pretty straightforward, instead of taking the view portions of other view controllers and inserting them as subviews of another VC. (Makes you feel dirty). Suggest watching the WWDC 2011 video on Customer Container VC's for an explanation.

Also it would be quite a bit of overkill and extra communication and code to back every table with a full blown view controller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ironically, the screencast doesn't appear to be working on iPad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm.. It should have. I'll check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should be working now, although they don't seem to do the typical fullscreen thing. They should be able to with the file type and specs, but oh well.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hosted-Danger: Danger as a Service Written in Crystal by Yahoo Japan - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yahoojapan/hosted-danger <comment><USER2> This is really cool!</comment>


Petition to release Cameron D'Ambrosio - <AUTHOR> https://cms.fightforthefuture.org/teenager/ <comment><USER2> A lot of people on Reddit, etc... seem to be misinformed about what illegal free speech is, so here's some relevant case material: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio>

_"Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action.

...In this case, the court found that Hess's words did not fall outside the limits of protected speech, in part, because his speech "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time,"[1] and therefore did not meet the imminence requirement."_

From Cameron's case: _"The Methuen Chief of Police even stated: 'I do want to make clear he did not make a specific threat against the school or any particular individuals...'"_

Vague threats are not illegal.

<comment><USER3> _Brandenburg_ lays out the incitement exception to the First Amendment. If I understand the allegations correctly (and that's made more difficult by the lack of the actual lyrics) the prosecution claims that the speech would instead be unprotected under the true threat doctrine.

The leading Supreme Court case on that doctrine is _Virginia v. Black_ 538 U.S. 343 (2003)[1], but unfortunately it's neither as clear nor quotable as Brandenburg. Here's the gist of the rule:

"'True threats' encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats "protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence" and "from the disruption that fear engenders," in addition to protecting people "from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur." (internal citations omitted)

[1] [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi- bin/getcase.pl?court=US...](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi- bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=01-1107)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It should be noted that it's not the feds holding this kid, it's the police of his small-town Boston suburb. See: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/cameron- dambrosio-b...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/cameron-dambrosio- bomb-threat-boston-terrorism_n_3204149.html).

"Police learned of the threats after a student alerted a school official, the Herald writes."

"'When we're just recovering from what occurred in Boston, to make a threat and use what occurred in Boston to enhance your threat, is extremely alarming for us,' Methuen Police Chief Joseph Solomon said at a press conference after D'Ambrosio was apprehended."

Also: [http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x326078366/Judge-Hes-a- thr...](http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x326078366/Judge-Hes-a-threat).

"Cameron D'Ambrosio was in Lawrence District Court yesterday in a suit, tie and shackles for a hearing to determine whether and how he could be released from custody after being arrested May 1."

Not that it excuses the local police department's actions, but small-town shit like this has always happened. News of it just moves at light speed now thanks to the internet.

</comment><comment><USER5> I get two inferences from this:

A) The people of this society are turning into safety-obsessed, overly politically correct weaklings

or

B) The two sides of the political spectrum exist to distract us while they both behind the scenes exist to remove our freedom

Unfortunately, I'd have to say I think both A and B are true.

<comment><USER6> You missed (C): That the overwhelming majority of politicians in power right now sit on the same side of the political spectrum, and that the debate has not been two sided for a very long time.

<comment><USER7> only one party believes that an unborn human has rights and protections under the law regardless of whether or not the respective mother wants them.

only one party believes that two adults in love can be married under the law regardless of whether or not the respective people are of the same sex.

if nothing else just those two diametric positions seem to indicate an important and meaningful distinction between the two parties.

<comment><USER8> Even such an obvious litmus test as this is imperfect.

According to polling data, over 20% of Republicans self-identify as pro-choice and 34% of Democrats as pro-life.

There are plenty of Republicans who support gay rights. In fact did you know that the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell stems from a lawsuit about the matter filed by gay Republicans? Yes, I know that Obama publicly takes all of the credit for that one, but the bill that he pushed for took effect on September 20, 2011 while _Log Cabin Republicans v. United States_ forced an end to enforcement on July 6, 2011.

There is no simple litmus test. Each party is a coalition of people with enough common interests that they prefer one tent over the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Poor kid - his only crime was being a terrible rapper.

<comment><USER10> and living in USA

<comment><USER11> The UK is not far behind and using the recent Woolwich incident as an excuse to rapidly catch up: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/26/theresa- may-m...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/26/theresa-may-measures- combat-terrorism)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can I read the other side of the story somewhere? I feel like I'm not getting the full truth.

<comment><USER13> Sure. Here's a more complete version of his lyrics: [http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/05/23/a-methuen...](http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/05/23/a-methuen- teens-rap-lyrics-have-kept-him-in-jail-for-three-weeks/)

"[Bleep] a boston bominb wait till u see the [bleep] I do, I'ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!"

He's talking about beating murder charges too.

I love the 1st amendment, don't get me wrong! This dude was crossing the line though.

<comment><USER14> By this standard, nearly every rapper from the last 30 years should be in prison on terrorist charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://youtu.be/-wbJTHkdBMc?t=38s>

From his rap: "Every day with a life of crime, and I'm always screwing up my life"

Yeah!! That's pretty accurate.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hmm, free speech in the USA seems to be quite a costly exercise these days.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure he'd be fine in Europe.

<comment><USER17> Unless, of course, he "insulted Turkishness" in Turkey or insulted the Holocaust in Germany.

<comment><USER18> _insulted the Holocaust in Germany._

Eh? Deny, yes, but 'insult'? What?

The Holocaust and Nazism are special things, by the way. You can still speak out against Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am sorry....I feel no sympathy.

People need to understand that words have meaning. Just because 'free speech' is protected by the constitution doesn't mean that you can (and should) say any crap, at any time, without thinking about the consequence.

When you say stuff like:

 _fuck a boston bombing wait till you see the shit I do, Imma be famous for rapping and beat every murder charge that comes across me._

Let's take a step back here, and assume for a minute that he REALLY was planning something - and not just talking tough. If he did it, and he posted this stuff on Facebook, and the FBI didn't do anything about it.....what would the fracas be then?

The FBI is incompetent....they knew he would do it, yet they did nothing, etc, etc, etc.

It's really a lose-lose for them. They can either take preventive measures, or do nothing in the name of 'free speech protection' and risk the chance that this latest bozo is actually going to follow up with action.

Kudos to the FBI for taking this seriously and showing people you can't just say crap like this without any consequence. Living in a free society comes with a cost. Not saying that a recent terrorist event was "nothing" is one of those costs.

It's simple really.

Also, if you think you aren't living in a free society, try moving to Saudi Arabia, many countries in Africa, Cuba, Bolivia, many S. American countries, many eastern european countries, etc.

<comment><USER20> _Also, if you think you aren't living in a free society, try moving to Saudi Arabia, many countries in Africa, Cuba, Bolivia, many S. American countries, many eastern european countries, etc._

Just because other countries are _less_ free hardly proves that we are living in a free society. Maybe there is no free society on Earth?

 _Kudos to the FBI for taking this seriously and showing people you can't just say crap like this without any consequence._

I can't even begin to understand this mindset. In fact, it makes me a bit sick to hear somebody talk this way. But I suppose you think that if we all just sit back in the shadows, embrace fear, behave and do as the all mighty benevolent government tells us, then everything will be alright.

<comment><USER19> I know it's an unpopular thing to hear....but freedom is a relative concept. You are only as free as compared to someone/something else.

The world is a rough place, and is not a utopia. The fact is, people want to hurt the Western freedoms that many take for granted. Ignoring it, doesn't make those dangers go away.

I am not defending everything the gov't does in the name of security, but the fact is that these challenges are not easy. They are doing the best they can.

If they didn't act on it, and this kid did in fact do something, we would be having a COMPLETELY different conversation now.

The reason these things are so tricky is because many of these attacks happen by 'lone wolves' which are almost impossible to stop.

So as I said, this could have gone the other way - at which point I am sure you would be cursing the FBI for incompetence.

<comment><USER20> _I know it's an unpopular thing to hear....but freedom is a relative concept. You are only as free as compared to someone/something else._

That is the single most ridiculous thing I've ever heard uttered on HN. Freedom is binary, you are either subject to coercive force being applied to deny you your freedom of choice, or you're not. You can't be "sort of free" any more than you be "sort of pregnant".

 _The fact is, people want to hurt the Western freedoms that many take for granted._

Aaah, the "they hate us because we're free" bit. I hear that a lot, but haven't heard a plausible justification for it yet. From what I've seen, most of the non-westerners who are out to attack the West are mostly pissed off because we occupy lands they consider holy, invade their countries, depose their elected leaders, stage coups, supply weapons and training to "Group A" this week, then switch to considering "Group A" our enemy when it suits us, and generally meddle in their affairs.

 _So as I said, this could have gone the other way - at which point I am sure you would be cursing the FBI for incompetence._

No, exactly because I am fully aware of how difficult it is to prevent a single "lone wolf" actor from doing Bad Things. And as regrettable as that is, living in a free society has certain dangers that come along with it. Maybe in some hypothetical Unobtanialand you could impose a draconian dictatorship / totalitarian government sufficient to prevent all violent crime... but would anybody actually prefer to live there? I'm guessing "no".

I don't know what it is with people today... as far as I'm concerned, "Give me Liberty or give me Death" isn't just some archaic catch-phrase to study in the history books... it is the very definition of what it means to live. If we aren't free, what else could matter more than trying to become so - even if it means dying in the process?

<comment><USER21> > That is the single most ridiculous thing I've ever heard uttered on HN. > Freedom is binary, you are either subject to coercive force being applied to > deny you your freedom of choice, or you're not. You can't be "sort of free" > any more than you be "sort of pregnant".

Now _this_ is the single most ridiculous thing I've ever heard uttered on HN. Any human population with size > 1 has to compromise on this inane idealistic notion of "absolute freedom" for individuals, for the simple reason that your freedom to blast the music at 3am conflicts with my freedom to get some sleep. "Sort of free" is the best we can hope for.

<comment><USER19> Exactly...plus....what you consider 'freedom' someone else may consider tyranny, etc.

So it is always relative.

For instance, some people think living with their parents is freedom. Others think it is akin to jail.

It's all relative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Threats can be hard to parse because for the speaker, the point can be a very emotional self-expression, rather than some kind of accuracy of intent.

One interpretation is:

I'm going to do something insane that will make the news. It may involve the White House, and it will be worse than the Boston bombing. There will be multiple murder charges against me.

Or: I'm going to publicly murder people in a fashion worse than the bombing.

The last Facebook lyrics before he was arrested:

 _I'm not in reality, So when u see me [bleeping] go insane and make the news, the paper, and the [bleeping] federal house of horror known as the white house, Don't [bleeping] cry or be worried because all YOU people [bleeping] caused this [bleep]._

 _[Bleep] a boston bominb wait till u see the [bleep] I do, I'ma be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!_

The whole alternate interpretation (it's an insufficiently specific threat, and primarily rap braggadocio) hinges mostly on the interpretation of the inclusion and placement of the line "I'ma be famous rapping."

The problem is that the kid is clearly talking about himself killing people. The whole rap perspective doesn't fix that sufficiently, especially as Rappers talk about and threaten real murders, as well as merely "bragging" about them.

It certainly seems _likely_ that he's merely trying to "sound like a rapper" rather than threatening actual harm, but the words don't really absolve him of the threats contained therein. It is difficult to parse legally:

1\. Legal: It lacks imminence (Brandenburg)

2\. Illegal: It does _communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence_ (Virginia v. Black)

3\. Legal: It is not directed _to a particular individual or group of individuals_ (Virginia v. Black)

4\. Illegal: _The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat...a prohibition on true threats...protect[s] individuals from...fear...disruption...[and] the possibility that the threatened violence will occur_ (Virginia v. Black)

If there was a middle ground legally for people who's intent was less harmful than their speech it would benefit this kid, but how would you prove that? And it would muddy the law's ability to fight against true threats.

<comment><USER23> > It certainly seems likely that he's merely trying to "sound like a rapper" > rather than threatening actual harm, but the words don't really absolve him > of the threats contained therein. It is difficult to parse legally:

It did not seem that hard to parse, but I am not a lawyer.

> 1\. Legal: It lacks imminence (Brandenburg)

No deadlines, so nothing showing anything soon. "I'ma be famous rapping," but first he needs to be a famous rapper which suggest no time soon.

> 2\. Illegal: It does communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit > an act of unlawful violence (Virginia v. Black)

Threats in the lyrics are no different then threats and comments in many rappers famous and non-famous and more often then not seem non-serious( are not carried through, evidence of planning is lacking etc.)

> 3\. Legal: It is not directed to a particular individual or group of > individuals (Virginia v. Black)

He only mentions the white house, no specific individuals or groups. If he had mentioned individuals or party or a subcommittee it seems like it would still fall under political free speech which in general is heavily protected because it is supposed to at the root or a foundational pillar of the US's democracy.

>4\. Illegal: The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat...a prohibition on true threats...protect[s] individuals from...fear...disruption...[and] the possibility that the threatened violence will occur (Virginia v. Black)

I see no evidence in the rap lyrics I have read that he was trying to cause disruption in the government or to change a group or individuals actions through threat.

> If there was a middle ground legally for people who's intent was less > harmful than their speech it would benefit this kid, but how would you prove > that? And it would muddy the law's ability to fight against true threats.

Normally in the US, at least, you do not have to prove some one's innocence. The state has the burden of proving guilty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Disgusting, also, how can anyone not see how all this shitty things your government does tends to make people like it even less? maybe breeding more 'terrorists'? That's the most recent terrorism problem, no? American citizens turning against their own country or something?

I've got to be honest on one thing here, I don't plan on shutting my mouth about how much I think this things are terrible, and I guess I must also not plan to set foot around there anytime soon, would I get locked up for hearing "Paris - Bring it to ya" and posting it to my Facebook? I certainly COULD, apparently, so I won't be going there... before, I thought it would be nice to know California, where most of my favourite bands come from, go to the Burning Man, do a road trip and know the country and all the famous places but I'm giving those up.

</comment><comment><USER25> It unfortunate, but the kid is an idiot. how you can post lyrics like that and not think it would set off alarm bells all over the place after a kid (right around the same age did something so terrible) just weeks before is beyond me.

Hopefully he walks but I hope he finds the experience harrowing enough to learn a lesson or two about applying a little common sense to the concept of free speech.

</comment><comment><USER26> Prior discussion here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5748053>

</comment><comment><USER27> Oh no, white kid from the suburbs too? Time to get outraged.

<comment><USER28> I think the statement implicit in your post definitely sounds plausible, but is it true? Can you point to an individual from another group being given similar treatment for similar action, where people did not become outraged?

<comment><USER27> Are you asking me if there are other people who:

(1) make random threats against the POTUS or the WH or other public figures or places

(2) aren't actually a clear and present danger to carry out those threats

(3) that still get the full monty by secret service/fbi/local cops/prosecutors

(4) don't get to the top of HN

Yes, there are probably a lot of people like that. And everyone says the same thing about most of those people, "Christ, what an idiot".

Now I don't want to trivialize that this kid is clearly innocent and the victim of some injustice. I certainly don't think he "deserves it". But there's lots bigger injustice in the world to get outraged about and I think threads like this make decent platforms for calling the HN community out over it's blinders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> His previous documented criminal history of physical violence was used as evidence.

<comment><USER15> You mean the biting claim in an 8th grade fight and a fight with his sister (who appeared in court in his _defense_ for this current infraction) for which the Police were called (so, a domestic incident in other words). Yes, quite the terrorist - off to Gitmo with him! :-|

<comment><USER29> This is the way the law works and should not be a surprise. He has an established documented history of harming people and the court failed to see a legitimate artistic merit of his case. Fortunately, he can take these arguments to the appellate court.

<comment><USER30> Your first claim was documented criminal history. Where is it Sherlock?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you learn about a new industry? - <AUTHOR>

When researching new ideas, I have difficulty with attaining a really comprehensive understanding of a given market. For instance, if I were onto an idea that I think would help out online merchants, how would I go about learning about that industry, about the dynamics and specifics that keep it running, about what would work and won't work?<p>I find that at best I can achieve a rather superficial level of knowledge and understanding, and I think it's proven damaging in the past when I've steamrolled ahead with developing ideas that eventually floundered. <comment><USER2> I have a similar dilemma. I have an idea for a startup that would disrupt a 1bil(US$) & 4bil(Global$)a year industry. I personally have earned over 100k in this industry.Of course, I lack the technical skills to get it going myself(started CodeYear.It is also difficult when you have a great idea, capital you're willing to invest but lack the technical skills to get it going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try reports from IBIS, FactSet, etc. They helped me out a lot when writing pitchbooks/models. Of course, with a somewhat undeveloped market like that, however, it'll be hard, but try one of those dbs. Do you have access to any of those?

<comment><AUTHOR> Those look like great resources, but I unfortunately do not have access to either of them. I'll see if I can change that, though!</comment></comment>


China Rolls Out the 'World's First Driverless Bus' - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/10/china-rolls-out-the-worlds-first-driverless-bus/408826/ <comment><USER2> It is undeniable that China is growing up with science and technology, though there are too many pirates working on 'science and technology' to cheat the gov of fame and money.</comment>


Best paper awards - <AUTHOR> http://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards.html#sigir <comment><USER2> Important to note is that this is a rather limited list of conferences, so the resulting list of most influential universities/companies doesn't really say anything about their total output. For example, software engineering conferences are completely lacking (ICSE/ASE/FSE/etc.) as well as programming languages (POPL/PLDI/etc.)

<comment><USER3> Sure, but it's still an interesting collection of papers. I rather enjoyed perusing the articles. A commendable effort by Mr. Huang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Credit is given in decreasing author order as customary._

I think customary is quite variable. I would put weight on the first author and maybe last, but beyond that the order is usually meaningless. Some groups where I am will even go with alphabetical order and flip a coin to reverse it.

</comment><comment><USER5> What's remarkable about (non-retrospective) "best paper" awards is how poorly they stand up to time. It would be very interesting to add citation counts to get a crude indication of how good people are at identifying significant (or even just popular) work in their fields.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also see [http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-academic-papers-in- co...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-academic-papers-in-computer- science)</comment>


Ask HN: Which Laptop? - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
I'm updating my laptop at the end of the month (payday!) and was wondering which to choose. I've been browsing around the internet for the past week but there are so many to choose from its hard to know which is best.
Currently I have a HP tx2000 with dual boot Windows 7 Professional & Ubuntu. It has served me well over the last couple of years but its starting to fade now. Plus its not the lightest laptop around, even without the battery and CD drive, and since I do a lot of travelling I need something lighter.
The main use for the laptop will be programming/movies/internet and my budget is about $1000/€700.
I'm open to any suggestions?
Thanks, T <comment><USER2> I can really recommend lenovo thinkpads, my school has been using them as student laptops (t60p, t61p & w500) and the wear and tear ive seen these laptops go through is amazing. They are fast, robust and decently priced.

look at these:

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146731)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146656)

[http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo...](http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current- catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category- id=B004765D5705496FA8CB7EE99E68D075)

<comment><USER3> They are also hideous. This may be a bit shallow, but as someone that has even a little design experience, there's no way I'd be able to look at a ThinkPad all day.

<comment><USER2> I think you miss the point of functional hardware vs highclass design. Thinkpads dont really scratch, or atleast you dont see them, they arent flimsy like so many HP's and Dell's ive had to repair.

When i make my gin and tonic and im not in my kitchen i use the top of my thinkpad as a cutting board for my limes, i mean thats an extreme case, you cant see a single scratch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would recommend you to get a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, it's mind blowing (I'm a Windows/.NET guy and I'm telling you, it's mind Blowing). I still do .NET using a Windows 7 Ultimate on top of VMWare Fusion or you can use Bootcamp to boot on Windows 7 whenever you want. (I still don't need bootcamp, VMWare Fusion it's enough for me even when I do WPF, Silverlight + Expression Blend and stuff)

Conclusion: get a Mac, it's awesome!

<comment><USER5> Amen! I've used HP notebooks running both Windows (as supplied by HP) and Ubuntu. Having switched to a Mac Book Pro, there is no way I'm going back. VmWare Fusion lets me run Windows (several different versions for testing) and Ubuntu. Battery life is consistently 7+ hours. Everything "just works"(TM) and it doesn't constantly nag you with this update or that reminder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would recommend the Asus UL30A - 1.7kg, 13", very long battery life, about 650€ with 4GB RAM, silver color and matte screen. It has also good Linux compatibility. The display could be better, but I have yet to find a notebook screen with which I'm content.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://dell.com/ubuntu> occasionally has something ok. I've got a Dell Latitude e6500, which I got with no OS, and it runs Ubuntu fine.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why don't you make this an "Ask HN:"? Just prefix it, I expected a blog post when I saw the current title.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. have updated to Ask HN:</comment></comment>


Tech CEO Who Allegedly Hit His GF 117 Times Shares His Side Of The Story - <AUTHOR> http://www.chahal.com/can-you-handle-the-truth

<comment><USER2> "Thee tape in question that was thrown was also bullshit. If anything, it actually made the SFPD look bad"

"I didn't hit her 117 times, injure her, or cause any trauma as the UCSF medical reports clearly document"

"The girl in question here, was herself so appalled by the false allegations made by the police, that she agreed to be photographed to demonstrate that there were no bruises or injuries."

For someone who is making a lot of evidence-based claims, I notice a remarkable lack of supporting evidence. Surely the video mentioned would contain airtight proof that he didn't "hit, injure, or cause trauma". It would be the goal of an innocent man to get the video into the public eye as soon as possible.

My prediction is that he will not release the video.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's see the video then. It's your own private recording system throughout your apartment. I'm sure we can judge from that what the real take is. Maybe it wasn't 117 times but I'm guessing you had a good go at going way over the line. Just because the evidence was thrown out doesn't mean you didn't do it.

</comment><comment><USER4> My father taught me at a young age to question overly specific statements of denial.

"I didn't hit her 117 times" says nothing. It implies "zero" but its just as easily "116" or "118" or more.

</comment><comment><USER5> Did this guy seriously use the American Dream as a reason not to hate him?</comment>


The Warlike Origins of 'Going Dutch' - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-does-going-dutch-come-from <comment><USER2> So I'm sure this exists in other countries too, but in the Netherlands there is this website called "wie betaalt wat", which roughly translates to _" who pays what/something"_.

When going out you take turns paying and just keep track of how much you paid. Then at the end of the night (or the next day, or whenever) everyone fills the amount they paid, and once that is done the website calculates how to evenly spread the net cost with the least mount of cash transfers.

Basically, splitting the bill is such an essential part of Dutch culture - even though most people I know are not aware of this actually being called "going Dutch" in English-speaking countries - that we automated it.

[0] [https://wiebetaaltwat.nl/about/what](https://wiebetaaltwat.nl/about/what)

<comment><USER3> Younger people everywhere do this, especially in non-pub cultures where its not likely that the same group of people will meet up again. In the US its extremely common to split things - only some business meetings, family gatherings or extremely close friends is a group all paid as one, or sometimes one person pays while everyone uses a payment app to pay them back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ironically enough, out of the several dozens of wars the Dutch and the English/British fought where both parties were involved, in more wars we fought together rather than against each other (I forgot where I read that the other day). So in that sense the commonly held idea that we're 'long term rivals' is not correct. (I also don't remember if that accounted for 'number of years at war against/together', that may skew things).

<comment><USER5> And if William and Mary had had an heir you might very well have seen the Dutch and English united under one crown. Well, Crown for the English, Stadtholder for the Dutch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do people from the Netherlands refer to themselves? "Dutch" or "Netherlander"? Have Netherlanders shied away from the word "Dutch", as a reaction to the derogatory connotation that the word carries in English?

I'm asking because I read somewhere that "Dutch" was the original term used by inhabitants of the Rhine delta to describe themselves.

<comment><USER7> Dutch person here with my anecdote. Call myself Dutch and didn't know 'Dutch' has a derogatory connotation. Never heard the term 'Netherlander'

<comment><USER8> Anyone can derogate any nationality, but that doesn't make the word itself derogatory.

Some terms were once acceptable, but with widespread racism in the 20th century are now offensive (British English examples: Paki and Jap), but Dutch is certainly not one of these. There is no other reasonable word for a person from the Netherlands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hmm, given this description I would also expect there to be plenty of use of "English" as a denigrating term in Dutch, but... I can't think of any. Is that just me?

<comment><USER5> Well, except for "going Dutch" and "Dutch oven" all those phrases have fallen out of use, or in other words all the obviously denigrating phrases about the Dutch are gone. So its not surprising that if there were any similar expressions in the Dutch language they might be gone too.

<comment><USER10> not really.. Dutch courage, Dutch uncle and Dutch comfort are common enough

<comment><USER11> Double Dutch very common also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a Dutchman in London I was a bit appalled by the use of 'Dutch Courage' on a pub sign. It's not terribly civil of our British friends to use these phrases but knowing the context makes it all right - I mean, we both know our navy has always been better, we should let them have this one.

<comment><USER13> I hear the Dutch use that same phrase in the Netherlands, and they don't see it as derogatory.

<comment><USER14> We use the term "moed indrinken", if that is what you mean.

[1] [http://context.reverso.net/translation/dutch- english/moed+in...](http://context.reverso.net/translation/dutch- english/moed+indrinken)

<comment><USER13> Well, I've had Dutch use the phrase "Dutch Courage" in English when speaking to me about their drinking habits. You can be the judge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The Dutch oven, a lidded pot that can be used for baking, may or may not be > part of this trend: It's not truly an oven, but the Dutch may have simply > been good at producing them.

I don't think anyone who uses the term 'Dutch oven' is referring to cookware, and the definition they're using is far more insulting to the Dutch.

<comment><USER16> I'd never even heard of the cooking Dutch Oven until the internet and hearing Americans refer to it. They're not particularly common in the UK at all in my experience.

I would expect 80%+ //edit// _UK_ people to immediately think of farting under the covers if I asked them what it meant.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I'm not sure why the original post is being downvoted. It's exactly right!

<comment><USER18> This site is predominantly American. Thus, if you ever say, "I don't think anyone ..." it will be understood by a large segment of the viewership here to mean, "I don't think any American ..." So if you don't mean to say that, it's probably wise to specify where you're from before making broad comments.

A Dutch oven is a very common cooking vessel in the Atlantic USA. It has strong roots in colonial America, many traditional foods are cooked in them. It's colonial roots are precisely where the name comes from, they were originally produced in the Netherlands and shipped to the colonies (who were prohibited from producing iron goods very early on by the Crown). Additionally, it's widely used during camping, which is still a popular passtime in the American midwest.

<comment><USER15> > Thus, if you ever say, "I don't think anyone ..." it will be understood by a > large segment of the viewership here to mean, "I don't think any American > ..."

People on HN or anywhere else on the internet should not assume everyone else is American. Obvious hint: they're on the internet.

> it's probably wise to specify where you're from before making broad > comments.

No. If someone has a different experience, it's better to ask where they're from. I can afford the downvotes for a little bit of priciple.

<comment><USER18> I'm just helping you understand where the downvotes are coming from. You're right that the HN should be less Americanocentric, but it isn't.

If you had said, "here in Australia ..." people probably would have given you an upvote. FWIW, I try to preface my cultural statements with "here in the Midwestern US" for the same reasons: I try to provide context for my statements to people from different regions because what applies here, does not apply in Texas or California.

<comment><USER15> No problem. I already understand where the downvotes are coming from, you don't need to explain.

I'd edit my comment to add a "I'm from X" but it was too late and I'm not particularly concerned with points.

The best part was people keep talking about Dutch ovens with boy scouts which, in Aus or the UK, sounds like they're discussing farting in a tent.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Email thanking me for applying to Lockheed Martin but I didn't apply - <AUTHOR> Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I just got this email, from "firstname.lastname@example.com"
Subject: Your candidate reference number - Lockheed Martin.

    <My Full Name>,

    Thank you for your interest in Lockheed Martin. We appreciate the time and effort that you have taken to present your qualifications to us.

    This e-mail serves as confirmation that your resume has been submitted for the following position(s):

    Sr Mbr Eng Staff / Java, C++ / SW Apps Dev / 4-12 Yrs Exp / Moorestown, NJ 322160BR

    Your skills and experience may be reviewed against the requirements of all open position(s), including the one(s) to which you have submitted.

    Thank you for considering Lockheed Martin in your job search.

    Lockheed Martin is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

    Please do not reply to this email.

 I have a job. I did not apply to Lockheed Martin. The email was sent to an email alias I rarely use.
Googling the job listing, I find: http://search.lockheedmartinjobs.com/ShowJob/Id/33659/Sr-Mbr-Eng-Staff-Java,-C-SW-Apps-Dev-4-12-Yrs-Exp-Moorestown,-NJ/
"Security clearance: Secret"
I tried logging into Brassring with the email address this message was addressed to.  The account was recognized, but used none of my usual passwords. I could not answer any of the security questions.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Is my identity being stolen? Why would this be a step taken by an identity thief?
Worth noting I have been apartment hunting recently and I stupidly gave my SSN to a guy from Craigslist who it seems was posing as a landlord. But I don't see how lockheed follows from that. I would expect him to try to open a credit card or something. <comment><USER2> It is unlikely to be a identity thief - why would an ID thief want to pose as you, only to apply for a job.

Possibilities are a recruiter

something you put in for some time ago that just happens to match the job listing you found here

??

This position title of Sr-Mbr-Eng-Staff-Java matches longstanding positions... This could be a year or even more before they closed out the position, which then resulted in a letter going out to every applicant over a period of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought of that too.

But then why would I be unable to log into my account?

The most likely possibility I've thought of is that somebody setup a fake Lockheed profile on brassring (as far as I can tell, Lockheed does not use brassring), copied a Lockheed job posting, and applied to it with my email so that I would try to log into my account and answer security questions.

<comment><USER3> Assuming the folks behind Brassring are remotely competent at software development, they shouldn't be passing plaintext security question answers to the portal admins. (assuming there's not a link in the email directing you to a much phishier location)

Thinking outside the box a little, have you made critical remarks about the military industrial complex, working under security clearances or the stupidity of the F-35 in front of a friend that might think it was funny to create or sign you up for a "job offer" from Lockheed Martin?

Coincidences happen as well... I once had to make sales calls to a firm which turned out to be run by the _only_ living person I'm aware of that shares my name. I get sporadic emails informing me that my takeaway order will be delivered soon to somebody living in the same area and having similar tastes in takeaway food to my late grandparents too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why does FedEx send me e-mail about the status of my package, when I did not sent one?

That is: Consider that this might be spam and/or phishing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is your e-mail address on Gmail or some other service used by millions of people? If so, my guess would be that someone applying for a job at Lockheed typed in their e-mail address wrong (e.g., firstname.lastname@example.com instead of email@example.com) and happened to give them your e-mail address by accident.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have gmail. The address used was my gmail address (email@example.com), but "firstname.lastname@example.com". Gmail does not distinguish a difference between these two addresses, so it went to my inbox.

The email was addressed to me as "First Last".

I have a fairly rare first/last combo and I am not aware of anyone in software engineering who shares it with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't read too much into the "security clearance" part; I worked at LM and having that level of security clearance is pretty standard for any project.

</comment><comment><USER2> Could this be a recruiter having put you in?

Can you reset your password on the account and log in?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not a match for the profile at all, other than software engineering. I just graduated. Recruiter is unlikely.

I tried resetting password but I can't do it without answering security questions.

Is it possible that Lockheed does not actually use brassring for jobs, and somebody created a fake Lockheed listing on brassring to lure me into answering the security questions and/or typing in my password?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like phishing to me

</comment><comment><USER8> The black suvs will be there soon, just be patient.</comment>


Bruno Buchberger's algorithm: Gröbner bases and applications (1998) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www3.risc.jku.at/research/theorema/Groebner-Bases-Bibliography/gbbib_files/publication_428.pdf <comment><USER2> When doing some research for a final project about using Grobner bases for cryptography, I came across an interesting paper titled aptly titled "Why You Cannot Even Hope To Use Grobner Bases in Public-Key Cryptography: An Open Letter to A Scientist Who Failed and a Challenge to Those Who Have Not Yet Failed".

[[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aab4/9f22ed522d16111eca29ae...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aab4/9f22ed522d16111eca29ae8d5f47323de258.pdf)]

Not only is this paper written in a very wry style not super common in math papers (it is addressed to "Dear Deluded Author"), it seems all the authors are pseudonyms: Boo Barkee, Deh Cac Can, Julia Ecks, Theo Moriarty, and R.F. Ree. And it includes a large quote from Trithemius' (a 15th century occultist who wrote several books on magic that were actually "encrypted" books on early cryptography in disguise.) Steganographia in the abstract.

When I tried to do some research on this mysterious paper I couldn't really find any references or explanations for who these people are, where they are from, or why this wrote this paper. The only thing I could come up with is "Boo Barkee" sounds a lot like "Bourbaki", the last name of a pseudonymous group of French mathematicians [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki)].

All this to say, does anyone here know about this paper or who the authors are? Why is it all so mysterious? Is there supposed to be hidden steganography'd messages inside the paper itself? Are the other authors' names also references?

As for my final project, I ended up not being able to figure out a way to use Grobner bases for cryptography.

<comment><USER3> "The name of Boo Barkee, who lived in Ithaca, NY, is known for several papers he published alone (Barkee 1988) and with his colleagues (Barkee, Dennis, and Wang 1990, Barkee, Can, Ecks, Moriarty, and Ree 1994). As one can read in the work of Kreuzer and Robbiano (2005): [...] The truth is that Boo Barkee was a dog belonging to Moss Sweedler, who while writing his paper on cryptography decided to use his dog's name as a pseudonym. At least two of Barkee's coauthors were using fake names too: Deh Cac Can was a pen name of D. Naccache, and Theo Moriarty was in fact Teo Mora. Julia Ecks and Richard Francis Ree have not disclosed their identities" — [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00283-017-9763-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00283-017-9763-5)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the reference. Haven't looked into this in a few years, cool to see something has shown up about it now. I guess Sweedler was just having some fun then?

Still curious about the Trithemius quote and if it has any particular relevance to the paper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any context for why it appeared just now?

On a personal note, it is almost eerie that it appeared just as I finished a week in Chile at a workshop [1] looking into Buchberger's algorithm and the connections between Gröbner bases and bit complexity of proofs via sums of squares [2, 3].

[1]: [https://sites.google.com/view/vverdugo/events/hierarchies- an...](https://sites.google.com/view/vverdugo/events/hierarchies-and- symmetries-2019?authuser=0)

[2]: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~odonnell/papers/sos- automatizability...](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~odonnell/papers/sos- automatizability.pdf)

[3]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.05139](https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.05139)</comment>


Hacking Back Makes a Comeback, But Is Still a Bad Idea - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609555/hacking-back-makes-a-comeback-but-its-still-a-really-bad-idea/ <comment><USER2> This is an absurd idea. You can't "recover" stolen digital assets; when they're gone, they're gone. Meanwhile, virtually all attacks that would be handled under the rubric of this proposal will be done through pivot machines, which are also innocent people's compromised systems. Proposals like this are a license for companies like Raytheon and Leidos to break into random machines and violate everyone's privacy.

<comment><USER3> It's not just about recovery, it's about deterrence and reclamation of command.

If you've hacked my server and locked it's drive with ransomware and I can hack you back to retrieve the private key then I should be allowed to do so. If you're DOSing me I should be able to take out your C&C and patch the botnet with as many security fixes as possible.

<comment><USER4> > If you've hacked my server ... and I can hack you back ... I should be > allowed to do so.

Are you aware of any other circumstances where a private party breaking the law allows you to turn around and do the same?

<comment><USER5> There's many circumstances in which one party breaking the law allows another party to _legally_ perform actions which are typically not allowed.

For example, it is illegal to kill another human being. However, nearly all jurisdictions recognize "killing in self-defense" as permissible, if unfortunate.

I can't say if the same argument applies in this situation, but I _could_ see some parallels. If a malicious party is willing to cause you financial harm for their own gain, and you can reasonably prevent this financial harm by quickly inflicting equal-or-less harm on them, perhaps that's justifiable.

<comment><USER6> These situations exist but they are actually pretty rare. As lawyer can tell you, in the modern legal system attempts at "self-help" are generally bad for the plaintiff.

<comment><USER7> Seems like these days, the expected strategy is to let things happen and delegate making you whole to insurance and the legal system.

I can see how this is better - especially for society in general - than taking things into your own hands, but then insurance sometimes will try to screw you (is there insurance for insurance?), and lawyers are prohibitively expensive for many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like this is opening Pandora's box. What's to stop people from hacking a business rival or other entity and claim a hack originated from them. Once they have access to the box they could plant whatever incriminating evidence they need to corroborate their claim.

Who is responsible for service outages, degradations in service, damaged equipment if a pivot machine is damaged?

How do you guarantee that these vigilantes only access materials related to the hack and don't run wild on the pivot machine's network once they gain access?

As an analogy, imagine someone broke into my house and stole my computer. Should I be allowed to hire a private military contractor to raid all the safe houses or apartments my suspected assailants used to try to get it back?

</comment><comment><USER9> The correct solution to the problem this supposedly addresses is for companies to get their security act together. Until they can do that, they cannot be considered competent enough in security to 'hack back' anyway, and instead of hiring specialists to do it for them, they should be hiring specialists to fix their security.

<comment><USER10> And exactly none of that stops them from wiring a monthly fee to a PO box in Ethiopia to pay an "offense as a defense" service that's running out of an office in the Ukraine.

The possibility of having a public disclosure to the tune of "on $date $company was hacked, we were contracted to get to the bottom of it employing offensive tactics as necessary....blah blah..." followed by a write up covering attribution and a pen-test of whoever it's attributed to would dissuade a lot of actors.

Would you risk your botnet and C&C infrastructure by hacking a company knowing that they'll pay someone to try their best to figure out who did it and hack them back?

<comment><USER9> > Would you risk your botnet and C&C infrastructure by hacking a company > knowing that they'll pay someone to try their best to figure out who did it > and hack them back?

You are asking the wrong person, but my guess is that you are exaggerating the efficacy of this retribution, while at the same time regarding botnet operators as being uniquely responsive to the threat of deterrence, in comparison to other criminally-minded groups.

<comment><USER10> >You are asking the wrong person, but my guess is that you are exaggerating the efficacy of this retribution

Probably to some degree. Obviously you can't assure anywhere near 100% success rate but you don't need one. People go the speed limit in the left lane even though the cops don't ticket everyone who speeds.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to live when you live. In my area (and in every other motorized place on the planet that I heard about so far), people always go above the speed limit, precisely because cops don't ticket everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article highlights the problem pretty well.

A lot of companies can't set up a proper audit trail or system inventory, how can we trust them with managing other people's sensitive information and infrastructure if they can't even handle their own properly?

<comment><USER12> It seems like an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Require a license to be a "qualified defender" and make the corporate license requirements include some sanity checks on infosec practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's probably some nice historical analogies to be drawn between permitting hack-backs and older forms of self-help, especially in frontier setting where there was little or no criminal justice infrastructure.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- help_(law)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help_\(law\))

(In this case, the lack of infrastructure seems to be due to lack of technical expertise on the part of the government, which may change in the future.) Bounty hunters, repossession, and citizen prosecution come to mind, and I'd love to see a serious effort to compare things like these with hack-backs.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am having a difficult time trying to imagine the legal gymnastics that would be required for this to work without incurring liabilities on everyone involved.

I can think of hundreds of scenarios, but here is just one. I know your company stole data from me. I take over your BGP routes and force your traffic through my data-center. I underestimated the capacity I would need to take control of your data streams and now I am causing an outage for your customers. Am I immune to civil and criminal damages?

</comment><comment><USER14> Having to sort out logs of an attacker pivoting through systems combined with logs generated by victims "hacking back" isn't going to make incident response investigations any easier.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure. Yes, there would be more to look at, but the "qualified defender" will have already done some of the work. Assuming QDs are required to turn over info to law enforcement, all LEOs may have to do is verify the QD's analysis of events against the logs.

</comment></comment><comment> Digit-Al Okay. I have an idea to float.

Currently one can obtain a private investigator licence. Getting such a licence requires a minimum amount of training, mandatory firearm training, and is prohibited to criminals and such.

How about instigating a 'cyber investigator' licence. Applicants would have to prove a minimum level of proficiency with pen testing, gaining entry to systems without damaging anything or causing data loss, hacking software, etc., and would also be vetted for a criminal record.

Those who gained a licence would be expected to follow a code of conduct. Benefits would include immunity from DMCA laws and the like that get used to prevent ethical hackers from reporting vulnerabilities.

Companies that suffered a breach and wanted to find out who did it would be required to hire only a licenced cyber investigator. It might cost them a bit more but they would at least have the confidence that the hired person had the required skillset. It could be that a requirement of hiring someone for such a task would be to pay them to report on the vulnerabilities that allowed the breach to happen in the first place.

Labs that wanted to carry out vulnerability testing of software could apply for licences for staff so they would then be immune from companies informed of vulnerabilities trying to get them prosecuted.

Thoughts anyone?

</comment><comment><USER15> In the last two days I've encountered unprecedented resistance to adblockers (more accurately script blocking) around the net.

<comment><USER16> This particular blocker is insidious - even blocks incognito.

      We noticed you're browsing in private or incognito mode.
      To continue reading this article, please exit incognito
      mode

<comment><USER17> Wow. What would be the possible reason for blocking incognito?

You still get the full ad experience? I can't support any company that is demanding that they not only serve their ads but also be allowed to track the visitor after.

<comment><USER18> They explain this on the blocking page:

\</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Why we made this change

Visitors are allowed 3 free articles per month (without a subscription), and private browsing prevents us from counting how many stories you've read. We hope you understand, and consider subscribing for unlimited online access.

\</comment><comment>-----

It's not about ads, it's about free access before a paywall.

<comment><USER19> Yeah but I mean, if the mechanism they're using relies on not using incognito, that means you should just be able to delete their cookies and keep getting access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some deception vendors (i.e. yCombinator company Cymmetria) are quite vocal advocats of hackback

</comment><comment><USER21> The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a computer is a good guy with a computer! Legalize concealed computing!

...but seriously, us Americans live in a world where people make the serious argument that vigilante gun ownership helps cut the crime rate. I see this as more of the same. I think it's probably untrue, but if we accept one, shouldn't we accept the other?

<comment><USER22> That is a total strawman argument buddy.

The argument "gun ownership serves as a deterrent of crime and has been known to spoil criminal endeavours, therefore we should allow citizens to carry guns" has never been about vigilantism. Vigilante behavior is actually a quick way to get yourself locked up and/or your permit revoked.

There is a BIG difference between defending your home with a firearm, and looking up a thief and paying him a visit with a gun in hand. Likewise there is a BIG difference between keeping attackers out of your servers and collecting thorough forensic evidence, and going all out guns blazing with your 0day collection trying to outhack the hacker.</comment></comment>


Dropbox: should you opt-out from arbitration? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.peppercorn.it/dropbox-arbitration-clause-opt/

<comment><USER2> I would opt out - if the potential case raises important consumer protection or privacy issue - chances to find help with the legal representation are substantial.

In the other cases - what can drop box hurt you that you would be worth for more than a monthly subscription.</comment>


The Evolution of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8 <comment><USER2> Disease is going to be a major problem in the 21st century in general. Antibiotic resistance, diseases that "jump" from wildlife to humans, and even, perhaps, bioweapons, all seem to be major threats. Those interested in reading more might check out:

* Laurie Garrett's _The Coming Plague_ [http://amzn.to/2c9Vsoh](http://amzn.to/2c9Vsoh)

* David Quammen's _Spillover_ [http://amzn.to/2cm4ONj](http://amzn.to/2cm4ONj)

Garrett's book is particularly good. I've not read a better summary of the political, economic, and social power disease will have over the next century.

<comment><USER3> While I appreciate the cautionary anticipatory ethos, I wonder if we can actually predict the future.

<comment><USER4> This is a concern too vague to address, watch me predict the future "In a decade there will be farmers in the open air on the moon", watch me predict the future with conditionals "It is so likely that in a month's time, the average amount of sunlight in Europe will have declined relative to now that the chances of it not happening are almost indistinguishable from 0."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12470703)</comment>


Advice for Your YC Interview - <AUTHOR> http://myoung8.posterous.com/advice-for-your-yc-interview

<comment><USER2> My one piece of advice, and this is not confined to YC interviews but goes for any time you are selling (and make no mistake, you are selling), is to talk up the problem a little bit before you lead into your solution.

I expect PG and company are experts with regards to the needs of web startups and inexpert with regards to many fields of human endeavor. If you're going to be targeting one of those fields, mention the importance in ways which are easy for non-experts to understand. Our field is important: it employs X million, supports N companies on the Fortune 500, and did $ZZ billion in sales last year. Our problem keeps these people up at night -- they write journal articles about it, they spend hundreds of millions addressing it, it might even have killed a few thousand people they care about last year.

After you do that, people will be more inclined to view your solution in a positive light. Without the perspective of the problem, folks tend to latch onto things they understand about the solution: hmm, that button placement is off, this visualization lacks a bit of panache, I can't see myself ever really using this...

These are not the thoughts that typically precede writing big checks.

<comment><USER3> That's good advice in general, and I something companies interviewing would do well to be able to answer, but at least from what I've gathered from our interview and others we talked to is that you don't even get a chance to set up that sort of framing.

<comment><USER4> Yes. No prepared speeches please. It drives us nuts when we ask someone a question, and instead of just answering they launch into some long preamble they prepared in advance.

Interviews are only 10 minutes. We need random access; there is no time for sequential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In our experience (Mixpanel), your goal should be conveying what you're doing in the most basic form (nothing convoluted), getting all of them behind your computer checking out your demo with pg interacting with it, having pg throw out suggestions on what your product could do, and having Jessica distracted about the time limit while telling you "we're already 2 minutes over guys."

If you can do that I think you've sold yourself reasonably well as long as market size is reasonably resolved as an issue.

I would say showing that you're passionate about your company is important but it's not something you can make up. Having an actual product with real customers can easily help you prove your case.

I don't know if we would've got in without Garry from Posterous' help, so Tim and I are happy to grab coffee just like Garry did with us right before your interview and hear the pitch. Just let us know: email@example.com (goes to Tim and I)

<comment><USER3> Did you even get a chance to explain, fundamentally, what your product was? I got the sense almost that it needed to be 80% self-explanatory from a 1 line description, and that already in that it had to set up the "this could be potentially big".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is right in line with the three things early stage investors look for in a company: technology, market and team.

While we're sharing, we interviewed and didn't get selected for S09 also. Leaving aside any flaws with the idea itself, I believe the main thing we should have done during the interview -- and didn't -- was coherently express how we were going to make a ton of money out of the idea. pg et al may totally disagree on that, of course, and there are other things that -- in retrospect -- could have a) been better or b) been communicated better. But that's my main 'I wish I'd said...' from our experience, anyway.

The other thing is demo. Ours really wasn't great - it was a screenshot walkthrough which didn't show the tech in action. We had to do a lot of talking to overcome that, which meant not enough time to talk about everything else. If your demo explains everything in 30 seconds, you'll have a way stronger foundation than we did.

<comment><USER7> I recently had a similar experience doing a 3-minute pitch for a startup competition. We didn't get it and assumed it was for all the wrong reasons. We later met with one of the judges and he said we had everything right, we just really didn't stress how we'd make money and that killed it for us. Lesson learned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I enjoyed the bit about differentiation:

"Another way of approaching this challenge is to think: what's different about what you're doing? If the only thing that's different about what you're doing is that the product is easier to use, then you need to think long and hard about a better way to differentiate yourself."

I would also stress the value propositions and benefits of your solution and how those are exemplified in the features. It'll make for an excellent transition into the demo and not read like a boring feature list.

</comment><comment><USER8> "they're looking to fund companies with IPO potential" - Is that correct ? Difficult to make that out from PG's essays, maybe some founders can clarify.

<comment><USER4> Every investor prefers companies with IPO potential. However, IPO potential is more a property of founders than ideas. In 1975, writing a Basic interpreter for the Altair was an idea with IPO potential, because Bill Gates had it.</comment></comment>


Transwheel Robots an Alternative to Amazon Delivery Drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/transwheel_robots_an_alternative_to_amazon_delivery_drones

<comment><USER2> Very interesting concept. This might actually be the way to go for autonomous delivery. Especially if drones are banned from flying over houses, as California is trying to do. But all these autonomous delivery methods will lead to a ton of goods being stolen/damaged, there's no question about that.</comment>