Russian hackers targeted U.S. conservative think-tanks, says Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-hackers/russian-hacking-of-conservative-groups-sites-thwarted-microsoft-idUSKCN1L60I0 <comment><USER2> I remember when Romney was running for president, he kept saying that Russia was a big threat, and that we were underestimating them. At the time, I thought he was paranoid. Now, he almost seems prophetic.

<comment><USER3> Sort of. Russia is a threat in that they're an expansionist power whose interests are not always aligned with ours, and that their culture is one where you take any advantage you can and use it to leverage your power.

Many Americans don't realize just how _small_ Russia is in terms of the real numbers that matter. Their GDP is less than half of California's. (You can see why they've been funding Californian secessionist efforts - an independent California is a bigger threat to America than Russia is - but so far these have pitifully low traction amongst actual Californians.) Their population is less than half of the U.S, and is shrinking. Their military is a pale shadow of its Cold War size. Many people have this image of them as the second world superpower, which was always a bit of a mirage, but is doubly false after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which took away half their population and 25% of their land area.

There's a certain irony where most Americans think the biggest threat to American hegemony is either Russia, North Korea, or Islamic fundamentalism (the former two of which are bit players with outsize threats, and the latter of which has the organizational & technological sophistication of 200 years ago), while the real threats are either an ascendant China (4x the U.S. population, 60% the GDP and projected to overtake the U.S. by 2029, already the world's largest trading partner) or domestic disturbances that lead to the breakup of the U.S, much the same way the USSR broke up.

<comment><USER4> > they're an expansionist power

That's somewhat debatable, if you mean 'expansionist' like Russia would like to rebuild the USSR or a new Russian Empire.

What Russia is trying to do is ensure it has a strategic buffer zone between it and the West and friendly rulers and states on its borders, much like _any_ state with Russia's military history would be interested in doing. Combined Russian/Soviet casualties in WW1 and WW2 were on the order of ~60mm people out ~160mm total.

Both NATO and the EU have progressively expanded towards the former Soviet bloc since the fall of the USSR. From the West's perspective, this is bringing liberal multiparty democracy and stability to an unstable Eastern Europe. But from Russia's perspective, why should it fully trust the West that was so recently its enemy, and when the attempted adoption of liberal democracy and capitalism in the 90s failed so spectacularly (Russia's GDP fell by a full 50% and life expectancy dropped by years [2]).

Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it? [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Vilnius_Gr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Vilnius_Group)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116380/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116380/)

<comment><USER5> > But from Russia's perspective, why should it fully trust the West that was > so recently its enemy, and when the attempted adoption of liberal democracy > and capitalism in the 90s failed so spectacularly (Russia's GDP fell by a > full 50% and life expectancy dropped by years

You say this is because of the failure of liberal democracy and capitalism but your citation says it was most likely caused by:

"rising poverty rates, unemployment, financial insecurity, and corruption"

Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.

> Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, > but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving > steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your > hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it?

Here you describe NATO as a hostile force but it's clear that the countries joining NATO were wise to do so as a defense against a hostile Russia.

<comment><USER6> >Here you describe NATO as a hostile force but it's clear that the countries joining NATO were wise to do so as a defense against a hostile Russia.

The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO had an aggrement with Russia on this part.

>Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.

Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.

<comment><USER5> >> Here you describe NATO as a hostile force but it's clear that the countries joining NATO were wise to do so as a defense against a hostile Russia.

> The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion > (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not > wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO > had an aggrement with Russia on this part.

The argument that Russia is just defending itself against hostile expansion rather falls down when you count the number of countries that are members of NATO who have been the victim of Russian expansion (0) compared to the number that are not a member of NATO who have been the victim of aggression (more than 0). That rather implies that being a NATO member protects you from Russian invasion and explains the desire, for every country that can, to join NATO.

>> Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.

>Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.

Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.

<comment><USER6> >The argument that Russia is just defending itself against hostile expansion rather falls down when you count the number of countries that are members of NATO who have been the victim of Russian expansion (0) compared to the number that are not a member of NATO who have been the victim of aggression (more than 0). That rather implies that being a NATO member protects you from Russian invasion and explains the desire, for every country that can, to join NATO.

I see no contradiction here. Yes, Russia won't attack a NATO member and yes Russia will attack non-NATO member if Russia thinks this is an appropriate action. What countries did Russia attacked before NATO decided to go back on their word and started their expasion?

Offence is the best defence.

>Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.

Corruption is high, yes, unemployment is pretty low. Some issues are being addressed better than the others surely. Things like corruption which is almost part of culture and inactivity of locals will take a long time to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The ongoing "Russia is up to something" narrative is an unpleasant death by a thousand cuts.

China is doing 'interesting' expansionary work encroaching on territory in the South China Sea. America has no doubt spawned a generation of enemies in the Middle East from the last 15 odd years of warmongering.

The Russians have no demonstrated ability to do anything dangerous politically, or any particular motive not shared by the ~20% of the world population living in China. To even influence the conversations in American politics they will have to wait in line behind a maelstrom of corporate interests that have the political scene quite neatly locked down.

It is heartbreaking to see the usually vibrant US political scene get so lost in the bushes on foreign policy and threat assessment.

<comment><USER8> Russia can't do anything, Unless you are Ukraine(invaded), Georgia or Europe (remember that fuel crisis and pipelines) that is.

Or the United States in our case.

Or Syria (Russia is assad's Primary backer)..

So yeah, remember when Democrats ridiculed Romney for his Russia statements and Obama and HRC declared it was time for a "reset button" for the bad relationship betweeen the Bush white goose and Russia?

Or how about their efforts to back certain black lives matter groups and pro police group on the other hand to stroke racial tension does that not matter?

Or their current effort to discredit Republican Who have split from Trump.

We still live in that world, And the consequences for people both in the United States and outside of the United States are immense.

At some point this stops looking like normal relationships and start looking like an act of war

<comment><USER9> I am generally with you, the one exception being Syria. Time will tell if we were on the wrong side in Syria. If you understand Russian geopolitics, just taking Russian interests for account alone (not trying to wage some third party war with the US), it absolutely makes sense for them to have supported Assad. There were other ways to take him down, most of them were diplomatic. Instead, the US decided to fund Islamic Extremist mercenaries which don't necessarily have a great world wide reputation, either.

Generally, I am not a fan of the US's "regime change" strategies, at least in the middle east. They were unmitigated disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya is still struggling with warring factions, Syria would have descended into chaos with 3 interested parties struggling for control (pretty safe to say the Saudi-backed fighters would have won, after another bloody conflict, of course), and of course, it will remain to be seen what happens in Yemen which curiously has very sparse media coverage here in the US.

Warning - my own opinion - I think historically, American regime change efforts were more likely to be accepted and succeed when the values of America roughly aligned with the values of the nation in conflict. This is clearly not the case anymore in the Middle East (maybe once was in the US, but not anymore) One thing Western Cultures just can't seem to be able to grasp is just how large the resistance of a country that takes their faith seriously to the liberal agendas that have taken root and are antithetical to Islam. It's the one thing governments fail to understand time and time again.

<comment><USER5> Russia supports the Syrian regime because it contains the only Russian overseas naval base [1]. This is the same reason Russia anexed Crimea, which is now conveniently a Russian naval base.

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

<comment><USER9> Regardless of the reason, or reasons (there are many reasons Russia supported Assad, strategic military reasons being one of them as you mentioned), that was my point: That Russia had legitimate reasons to support Assad. The interests of Russia simply did not align with the interests of The United States. This happens sometime in the world, but taking that further and claiming it was somehow to hoist malicious intent on the United States is where the stretch was made and where you enter the dangerous rhetoric zone.

<comment><USER5> My argument is that the only reason Russia supports the Assad regime is for the benefit of its only foreign naval base. I don't claim that there is any malicious intent on the United States as far as that action is concerned.

<comment><USER9> Read into the intent too much, apologies. I don't agree that is the only reason, but certainly a reason among many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If US parties hasn't trained their followers for decades to believe any nonsense as long as it helps the party Russian hacking wouldn't be a problem. In my view it would be more important to get rid of the constant campaigning, distortion of facts, undermining of democratic institutions and partisanship. The Russian hacking seems just a sideshow that uncovers homemade problems.

<comment><USER11> Fake news only carries weight because people have been indoctrinated into blindly accepting appeals from authority and failing to engage in the most basic kinds of critical thinking.

<comment><USER12> Fake news is nothing new. We used to call it yellow journalism. It actually got us into a war.

<comment><USER13> _Many_ wars, that is. Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria...

<comment><USER13> 'ataturk you appear to be hellbanned, so I can't respond directly. (to see this yourself open this page in incognito mode) Your observation about NYT is correct, although their actions in fomenting that war were hardly worse than in the later wars I mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is really sad here is that all of this "Russian hacking" has accomplished a few goals. \- invalidate news organizations. People have mistrusted the news for a while. Now there is more reason for skepticism. \- Taken a marginalized nation and put their name front and center for about 5-6 years. They've got an enhanced stature on the world stage as a former super power regaining its former glory. The Streisand effect applies.

I don't like what has happened to the internet, and I'm not sure there is a way to fix it.

<comment><USER15> >invalidate news organizations

It should also be mentioned that this has been Putin's strategy since he's been in power: blur the line between political/historical fact and fiction, and exploit the ambiguities that arise.

Adam Curtis' film _Hypernormalization_ provides quite a bit of insight into this strategy and its consequences.

<comment><USER16> Glad to see this comment has risen from the [Dead]. As always, I would encourage HNers to think critically and fight bad language/ideas with better language/ideas, rather than downvoting or reporting anything that conflicts with your personal opinions.

Say what you will about Adam Curtis, he's no Alex Jones, which I hope would be obvious from his Wikipedia entry and filmography below.

I heard a lot about Hypernormalization online and finally gave in and watched it. I almost gave up 20 minutes in or so as there's no doubt it has a conspiracy theory feel to it, but am I glad I hung in there as it gets much, much better as it progresses. I found the portions on the history of Syria and the US Government's on again, off again, conveniently malleable relationship with Muammar Gaddafi particularly interesting.

I should also note, this documentary isn't a one-sided hit piece by any means, there's something for people of all political stripes.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis#Filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis#Filmography)

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

<comment><USER15> >I almost gave up 20 minutes in or so as there's no doubt it has a conspiracy theory feel to it

Agreed. Despite posting the parent comment, I'm not a huge fan of Adam Curtis because I feel like his ideas are often a bit wishy-washy and lacking in analytical rigor.

The point at which I almost gave up on _Hypernormalization_ was when the narrator basically declares the Raegan administration retreated from the Middle East because it was "too complicated". No explanation, no analysis of _why_ it was too complicated... nothing.

That said, the film left a lasting impression. I've decided to take it as something more holistic/descriptive than analytical/proscriptive, and even though I find much of it unconvincing, I think he does describe a few phenomena quite well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am not saying Russia isn't involved in this, but when _in general_ reading the media, it is always 'Russian hackers [this]' and 'Russian hackers [that]', almost like _any_ hacker is a Russian hacker. Hackers are everywhere, and - last I heard - the West is also quite good at it.

With regards to influencing elections (not only by hacking, but using any other 'legal' \- yet not-so-ethical - means) I wonder, if after the supposed effectiveness of the (still under investigation) previous election meddling (and also with parties like Cambridge Analytica in mind), _anyone_ involved in the mid-terms can afford to not go all-in with these same kind of tools (like a digital arms race)?

And if they want to go further and create fake news, use botnets to spread it, and hack opponents to get dirt, how easy it is to make it appear like Russia is behind it (could even be a possible win-win if you are anti-Russia)?

<comment><USER18> The file metadata and IP address geocoding that is used to identify "Russian hackers" in these stories is trivially easy to spoof with scripts, VPNs, and basic computer settings. The fact that it's being used as headline-worthy ID of the nationality of supposedly scary, dedicated, election-influencing government hackers is laughable.

At best a responsible journalist should mention the possibility, with some technical skepticism, inside the article. Not the headline.

<comment><USER19> Microsoft is well aware that things can be spoofed, and has a very talented threat intelligence organization that would not make this claim without substantial proof.

This includes things like encryption keys and other non-public identifiers. Should those items be made public, the adversary they are combatting would then roll those indicators and leave Microsoft blind. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, most security / threat intelligence companies have their own swath of private signatures.

The sites reporting on this are aware of that issue (non-public signatures) and as such do not need to offer a disclaimer. Microsoft is the one making the claim and they have the reputation to back it up. Unless there are solid reasons to question Microsoft's work there is no need to include your unlikely scenario.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Related discussion of Microsoft's official blog post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17807637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17807637)

</comment><comment><USER21> The amount of people downplaying Russia in this thread is absurd.

</comment><comment><USER22> A problem with reports like this is that we lack context. What are other countries doing to influence politics in rival or friendly countries? Does the US do similar in Russia?

Influencing political outcomes was what a lot of the cold war was. So, what are the actual "norms" these days. Are the recent Russian actions in the US new? Does it go both ways? Is it only the US?

It suspect that the main novelty here is how much publicity an otherwise secret subject is getting. I definitely could be wrong though, I don't know anything about spies.

<comment><USER23> Does it matter?

I'd think behaviour like this should be condemned every time and wherever it is exposed even if it is not unique to one country (and it isn't). "Everyone does it" is a piss poor excuse for pretty much anything.

But to also answer few of your questions...No, it is not new. It is not limited only to US. Russia is not the only one doing it, but it seems to be more aggressive than most. And not all of them do it the same way (I think there's an ethical difference between pushing a favourable view of your country or trying to destabilise one).

<comment><USER24> >"Everyone does it" is a piss poor excuse for pretty much anything.

It's really not. If doing "it" gives you some advantage, and not doing "it" means you're going to get outcompeted by someone else who is doing "it", then it's in your interest to do "it", which is a perfectly fine reason for doing things. If you can manage to get everyone not to do "it", or make doing "it" disadvantageous, then by all means. But that is not always a viable option.

It's probably not a viable option in this case. You can try to make it less advantageous by attempting to punish other countries that engage in it, while downplaying it when you do it, but it's still going to be worth it for countries to try.

<comment><USER23> Even if everyone did it (they don't; most countries have nowhere near the necessary capabilities), it does not follow that all can or do do it to the same extent.

And this is not a situation in which all sides doing it makes any less likely to continue. It is more akin everyone polluting because everyone else does.

Not all polluters are equal, but they should all be condemned and if possible stopped.

<comment><USER24> >Even if everyone did it (they don't; most countries have nowhere near the necessary capabilities), it does not follow that all can or do do it to the same extent.

My comment does not assume that everyone does it or that everyone does it to the same extent.

>And this is not a situation in which all sides doing it makes any less likely to continue. It is more akin everyone polluting because everyone else does.

You've lost me completely. What did I say to suggest that everyone doing it makes it less likely to continue?

>Not all polluters are equal, but they should all be condemned and if possible stopped.

It's a bit easier to pin blame for pollution on someone than it is to pin blame for meddling in another country's politics, which is almost necessarily clandestine. That's why it's reasonable to expect that countries will be able to make and keep agreements to limit pollution, even if they don't have a great relationship, but not particularly reasonable to expect that they will be able to make and keep agreements to not interfere in each others' internal affairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "The election was stolen from Hilary by Russian election hacking" the gripping new fantasy novel by 'ppl who watch TED talks'.

I for one think this could be a cracker of a fantasy novel but if you struggled to connect with LOTR because Orcs seemed just too unrealistic you may struggle with this book's plotline.

<comment><USER26> You're right, it was stolen by James Comey's witch hunt.

<comment><USER27> It was probably stolen by Hillary being a garbage candidate since the 90's, and everyone knew it including the left.

<comment><USER28> The only reason people think that is because of a GOP smear campaign that's been going on since she became involved in politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I really wish this article would have mentioned the fake domain names used and include some screenshots or at least have asked MS for that information. I'm also curious if these sites were hosted on MS clouds, then there might be some traffic data, etc. I wish they would also include that.

Lastly, I'm not sure how MS made the connection to Russia. Did they shared some data, IP, etc. with US government to verify this? Does MS have the kind of cybersecurity forensic to independently determine the source?

This reads more like fluff at this point.

<comment><USER30> [https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/08/20/we- are-...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/08/20/we-are-taking- new-steps-against-broadening-threats-to-democracy/) has a list of some of the domains in question

<comment><USER31> ...and although this doesn't show the nitty gritty details, that certainly explains why Microsoft is interested in this sort of thing. Four fake sites do look like government or think tank domains. But the other two reference OneDrive and SharePoint. Not exactly surprising that Microsoft would get involved with tracking those!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm really disappointed at the lack of critical thinking in the comments here. People are just accepting at face value what Microsoft says. _Microsoft_. I really must be living in some kind of parallel universe.

</comment><comment><USER27> How did Microsoft confirm this was Russia? Are they just blanket blaming Russia now?

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone on Earth can rent IPs from Russia to perform cyber attack on USA, and then scapegoat Russia...

</comment><comment><USER34> Incredible. But I also have to think about the amount of blatant political bias in mainstream (unhacked) media providers.

It's just plain hard to get unfiltered news these days. I rely on 'RealClearPolitics' to give me wildly biased headlines from both sides, then try to extrapolate where the truth must lie.

<comment><USER35> When you say bias, are you talking about the news articles or the editorials/opinion pieces. Can you give me some examples of political bias in recent news articles?

<comment><USER29> The Washington Post hit job against many independent entities was rather biased [1]

But the issue is many readers do not disassociate Op-ed from news anymore.

[1] [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics- features/the-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/the- washington-post-blacklist-story-is-shameful-and-disgusting-115978/)

<comment><USER36> One thing that has changed is that the Evening News on the big three American broadcast networks used to be pretty much a straight reading of the news by an anchorman. Now you have news "analysis" programs, especially on the cable networks. These tend to be strongly opinionated right or left, and include a lot of guest speakers who are not journalists, and who are also politically opinionated.

Because of the viewership these shows attract, traditional media outlets are now also less straight news and more opinion.

I generally feel it's pretty clear when I'm listening to an opinion show versus a news show, but I'm not sure how many others do.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/paper

<comment><USER2> Whats the difference to the regular facebook app? It just looks like a new UI for the apps newsfeed to me.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what it is. A new way of interacting with Facebook. They had to release it separately because it's too big of a UIUX change.</comment></comment>


How to Not Get Hacked, According to Expert Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/2016/how-to-not-get-hacked <comment><USER2> Note that some of his suggestions apply only to Macs (e.g. Little Snitch)</comment>


Pathways that extend lifespan by 500 percent identified - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200108160338.htm <comment><USER2> I am skeptical of this kind of animal study, at least as it related to human health.

Humans already have much better longevity than other animals. Other mammals have a lifespan of about 1 billion heartbeats, but humans live for about 4 billion heartbeats. It seems likely that our longevity pathways are already pretty well developed.

That doesn't mean they can't be improved, but you're likely to have better luck extending the life of a dog, cat, or rat than a human with a drug cocktail of some kind than you will humans.</comment>


Who Gets Into Accelerators? Persistent Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/who-gets-into-accelerators-persistent-men-with-saas-apps-says-study/

<comment><USER2> The money quote: "The figures were almost exactly the same for unsuccessful applicants [as for successful ones]"

<comment><USER3> A better title: "Who Applies for Accelerators? Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study"

<comment><USER2> Sorry for confusing this issue, but the quote is talking only about gender and team size.

They didn't mention how many of unsuccessful applicants did SaaS apps. Furthermore, people who were accepted had more applications behind them then rejects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Accelerators intentionally select for startups that fit within the constraints of the accelerator model. Even assuming the founder(s) are smart, disciplined, and competent, many startups do not meet the basic criteria that will allow them to be successful in the accelerator environment. The people that run these accelerators know this and filter accordingly.

Two big rejection criteria that many people misunderstand:

\- Accelerator programs require founders to do more, faster than can be reasonably managed by a single person, hence no sole founders. There is too much work to do without at least two people on the founding team. It is not that you can't successfully build a startup as a sole founder (I am one) but that you are unlikely to successfully execute an accelerator program as one, which is an important distinction.

\- Simple Web/SaaS applications fit the program timeline of accelerator models. They are not designed for hardcore technology or infrastructure startups that require an enormous amount of heavy lifting on the engineering side in order to have a Minimum Viable Product. These companies often require closer to a year to get off the ground, which is far longer than most accelerator programs run and often have very different customer sales cycles. The kinds of startups that fit within typical accelerator program scope are a small fraction of all startups you could build.

If you look at the statistics irrelevant to the constraints of an accelerator program, such as gender balance, you see that the statistics for accepted and rejected startups look similar, which is what you would expect if the selection process was working well.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've applied twice to an accelerator, both times unsuccessfully. However, it was not due to being female, but instead because I'm a sole founder. It's a bit of a conundrum unfortunately, because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S platform, I would not trust the figures. Some founders are unable to use it for a start, as they're insistent on only allowing logins with either Facebook or Linkedin. Not everyone uses or is willing to connect those services, like myself.

<comment><USER6> > As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S > platform, I would not trust the figures.

When we applied for both Techstars and 9MileLabs we had to go through F6s as well.

> because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

Why is that reasoning a gating factor for finding a co-founder?

<comment><USER5> Fortunately, the accelerator that I've applied for provides both, a F6S backed application process, and their own.

The co-founder quandary is due to repeated past experiences of having my work being overly-criticised, so lack faith in my myself. Although, I'm now trying to overcome those hurdles I've set myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is a paraphrase of a study it doesn't link to. It links only to the home page of the organization. Does anybody have the url to the original source?

HN strongly prefers original sources, as long as they're reasonably readable.</comment>


Major US Telcos Teeter Toward Bankruptcy - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191111/14172643362/apathy-isnt-business-model-major-us-telcos-teeter-toward-bankruptcy.shtml <comment><USER2> The headline refers to multiple companies, but the article itself discusses only one: Frontier. The reason for Frontier's potential bankruptcy is attributed mostly due to them taking on debt to acquire Verizon customers in a few states in 2015.</comment>


Pitfalls of Random Number Generation - <AUTHOR> http://ithare.com/random-number-generation/ <comment><USER2> So true!

even if your RNG is statistically perfect, people will still complain</comment>


The Code for Facial Identity in the Primate Brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2817%2930538-X <comment><USER2> Here [1] is a somewhat understandable interpretation of the study (and why it might not be as groundbreaking as it looks).

1 - [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.0055...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00550/full)</comment>


In-cloud data analysis and visualization - <AUTHOR> https://vida.io/documents/jnfkf2xP3gqpWToRC

<comment><AUTHOR> I made a visualization for Twitter tweet topics using d3 and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA).

It's a showcase of data analysis and visualization all done in the cloud.

Would like to hear your thoughts on use-cases.</comment>


Startup Says It's Changing Eye Care for the Better. Others See It Differently - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/business/media/hubble-contact-lens.html <comment><USER2> "The company said it switched to phone-only cancellations from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and suspended emails, like notifications about a customer's first paid order following a free trial, that were "reminding" people to cancel their subscriptions."

That's some scummy behavior.

<comment><USER3> Since July 2018 it's also been illegal for any business with paying customers in California, thanks to SB 313.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems entirely likely that two things are simultaneously true: Hubble contacts are more likely to have complications than the big manufacturers' lenses, and the big manufacturers engage in anticompetitive behavior.

Sounds like a great arena for some pro-consumer regulation or legislation.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would have more sympathy for this take if the average optometrist did anything more than prescribe whichever lens is offering the best rebate or whatever.

Like, has anyone had the optometrist try multiple lenses and work to get a fit? In my experience they put you in something and then maybe if it is unpleasant they'll try something else, but it's dependent on you being proactive, much as it would be if you were in Hubble.

<comment><USER6> Short answer: Yes. Absolutely yes.

Long answer: I have Keratoconus, which means my cornea has uneven thickness across its surface, which causes bubbles in my cornea, creating a very uneven prescription across my eye. The contacts I use are called "scleral" lenses, which use a liquid-filled void to nullify my actual cornea shape, creating a new cornea. They are expensive, require specialized training to adjust, and nailing down a prescription involves doing adjustments with them in, and working backwards to figure out the proper prescription.

My optometrist worked on my prescription for around 6 months solid, going through around 12 pairs of $250 (per lens) contacts on their dime.

So, yeah. A good optometrist is fantastic, and does a ton for you.

<comment><USER7> Interesting to see someone else with this condition on YC . If you don't mind me asking, which area are you in and if you could PM the info of the optometrist. I am wearing sclerals as well, but the cost was far higher - around $5000 for the first round, and around $3500 when I went back 3 years later to see if we can improve vision and comfort even further. On the other hand, the fitting process was much more efficient - there was a new set of lenses ready daily, so although we went through 9 lenses for the right eye and 4 for the left on the first round, it took under 2 weeks.

Did you end up doing CXL? Are you considering it, or any of the other procedures.

<comment><USER6> I have not done CXL; it's not that bad.

I'm in Montana, and a vast majority of the costs were covered as medical expenses, so my health insurance covered the optometrist costs. I only end up paying the cost of the lenses themselves. The optometrist office themselves build the cost of the followup fittings into their normal billing prices; there were no costs for any of the followup meetings.

Most of the iteration time was the shipping, since I'm _not_ near any contact lens manufacturers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's nobody to like here. Your eye doctor can make a bunch of money selling you contacts and therefore doctors will say lots of dumb things about how dangerous Hubble is. Were the same doctors also talking about how dangerous contacts were a few years ago when this technology was state of the art? No. They are doing a much better job of looking out for themselves than for patients.

At the same time, it's probably ALSO true that, if you can afford it, a brand using newer technology may be better. And you should talk to an eye doctor about the decision. I just wish eye doctors were not selling you anything and were in business to be doctors; that would make it a lot easier to trust that you were getting good advice.

PS I have a lot of experience with the price of contact lenses from my job, weirdly. For the best prices, you should buy contacts from either Costco or any online retailer besides 1-800 Contacts (Walmart, etc.). But I would suggest you buy the brand you've been prescribed.

<comment><USER9> In my experience, Optometrists are often not huge fans of contacts generally. Probably because, especially contacts that are worn too long, worn even when an eye gets irritated, etc. can lead to complications that generally don't exist with glasses.

Also FWIW, my optometrist just passes me to the front desk when he's done. No one pressures me to buy contacts or glasses from them and, in fact, I mail order my contacts from Walmart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone working in this area, this is an interesting article.

The core issue of compliance is somewhat buried in the text, but worth pointing out. Optometrists' chief complaint is that very few offices seem to be prescribing the Hubble contacts brand specifically and yet, Hubble seem to be selling them to customers. This implies to them that either all prescriptions aren't being verified or are somehow being "passively" verified. Within the current rules set in place by the FTC, they believe it's unlikely quite so many prescriptions are passively verified.

The FTC is actually actively working on developing new rules around prescription verification to address some of these concerns. [1]

[1]: [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2019/05/ftc-s...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2019/05/ftc-seeks-additional-public-comment-proposed-changes-contact- lens)

</comment><comment><USER11> > _When she was treated at an ophthalmologist's office, they asked about her > lenses. "I said Hubble and they said, 'Oh, that's it. You're not the > first,'" she said_

I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound like a solid diagnosis. Sounds more like "we don't like those people". My immediate question would be "why are they at fault?" A corneal ulcer has many possible causes, and if I was the patient, I'd really like to know what exactly caused this condition. I mean, if Hubble is selling faulty lenses that causes this condition, at the very least you would be able to hold them responsible.

<comment><USER12> Hubble uses a contact lens with poor oxygen permeability...which can lead to infection/swelling.

"Hubble contacts are made with an old material called methafilcon A, which has a Dk/t of 18.8. Research shows that a Dk/t of 24 is necessary to maintain cornea integrity and avoid swelling."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9o6a0h/ysk_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9o6a0h/ysk_the_contact_lens_company_hubble_is_fulfilling/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The so-called prescription confirmation they do is _incredibly_ bizarre.

[https://qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hubble-contacts- ro...](https://qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hubble-contacts-robocall- justin-bazan.mp3)

(From an earlier article on [https://qz.com/1154306/hubble-sold-contact- lenses-with-a-fak...](https://qz.com/1154306/hubble-sold-contact-lenses-with- a-fake-prescription-from-a-made-up-doctor/) )

</comment><comment><USER13> This article is really disappointing. There are a few key claims against Hubble but there's one in particular that it just astonishes me they didn't verify. If Hubble are substituting their own lenses when the prescription specifies a different brand it would be _trivial_ to just call an eye doctor and say "Hi, we want to investigate this, we want to get a prescription from you, request contacts from Hubble and then check how their process works" .

Yet, they didn't bother. So all we have is speculation.

<comment><USER12> You can read more here and here [https://qz.com/1154306/hubble-sold-contact- lenses-with-a-fak...](https://qz.com/1154306/hubble-sold-contact-lenses-with- a-fake-prescription-from-a-made-up-doctor/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9o6a0h/ysk_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/9o6a0h/ysk_the_contact_lens_company_hubble_is_fulfilling/)

listen to their "verification" message

[https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hubble- contact...](https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/hubble-contacts- robocall-justin-bazan.mp3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hubble's lenses cost $54 per eye per 90-day supply. The sphere version of the daily lens I wear (Hubble doesn't sell a toric lens) is $52 per 90 lenses where I buy them, potentially less if you shop around. I found several mainstream daily brands online for less than $54, some of which are Si-Hy. Brands made from materials comparable to Hubble are already close in cost to Hubble, you can generally buy them online, and most places offer a subscription already, so I don't really see the appeal here.

</comment><comment><USER15> One time user of contact lenses here: Most times, complications due contact lenses is because of improper care by the user. You need to clean lenses every time you want to wear or store them. You need to do this even with disposable lenses. It's a big hassle.

<comment><USER16> You don't have to clean daily disposables (like Hubble).

I mean, I'm sure some people are reusing daily disposables, but the idea is to just use and toss.

I switched to daily disposables a few years ago (out of ~15 years of contacts use) and I kick myself for not doing it sooner. I no longer have to spend like 4-5 minutes a day cleaning the lenses or throwing 2 week disposables 1 week into use due to protein buildup, and they no longer aggravate my allergies either.

<comment><USER9> People vary.

Extended wear disposables were so great for me when I switched many years ago. Protein buildup meant that even with cleaning contacts were uncomfortable by the time I had to replace them.

On the other hand I've never had an issue with 2 week extended wear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How do the rate of complications for Hubble compare with the other brands?

</comment><comment><USER18> I see what you did there

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks like a submarine story!

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

I wonder who hired the PR firm to get this article published? Was it the optometrists? No, they don't have that much money.

I'd guess this article was bought with a grant from Johnson & Johnson, your friendly contact lens giant.

In any case, if you need contacts, skip Hubble. Go direct to Daysoft.

[http://www.daysoft.com](http://www.daysoft.com)

<comment><USER20> Is every article focusing on a company a submarine? Maybe some events in business are just interesting and newsworthy on their own.

<comment><USER19> That is true...but this article is very slanted. And it has all the characteristics of a PR firm pitched article.

Spreading FUD about your competitors is a time-honored business practice. These upstart companies represent a threat to the profits of the industry giants.

But I recommend Daysoft in the UK. $8 for 32 lenses! And no prescription needed.

[http://www.daysoft.com/usa](http://www.daysoft.com/usa)

<comment><USER21> That doesn't really hold up. Reporters at the major non trade outlets complain about PR people constantly - conspiratorial to somehow tie this to a grant from J&J (?!) and not Hubble's shady practices and user harm.

Meanwhile, why are you promoting Daysoft so aggressively?

<comment><USER19> You created an account just to make this comment? Interesting.

Your "shady practices and user harm" quip makes you think you might be a flack. Did your firm get this article published? Good work!

My promotion of Daysoft lets you know I am not flacking for Hubble!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adobe CTO talks Flash performance on Macs, more - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/02/adobe_cto_talks_flash_performance_on_macs.html <comment><AUTHOR> In response to one rather trollish comment, John Nack says:

====

[Way to parrot Welch. Anyway, you're of course right that Flash should never crash. My beef is that suddenly we hear this HUGE groundswell of people saying that Flash is bringing them to ruin. Could it be that maybe--just maybe--some of these claims are overstated out of some tribalism (a desire to be close to Apple)? I mean, people identify with groups of multimillionaires who theoretically represent some nearby city in sports, so it's not hard to see why they want to identify with the people who make the devices they use all day.

I'm not saying that Flash never crashes. I'm saying that a certain corps of people are eagerly overstating the problem out of some desire to bond with Apple, to be part of something bigger and shinier than themselves.

The beauty part for them is that the claims are unquantifiable and unfalsifiable: I guarantee you're not seeing crash log data from Apple, so unless we go to your house and watch all day to see whether your browser ever crashes (and if then the problem is actually due to Flash & not, say, Saft, Glims, Inquisitor, etc.), we're talking about impressions, not real data. --J.]

====

So if you're having Flash issues in OSX, odds are you're just a lying fanboy.

[edit an hour later: that's how I read it, and I could of course be off base. I mean, he isn't calling everyone a liar but you can't really look at a large group of people and say "50% of you are full of shit" without casting aspersions on all of them. Also, as someone who has been bitching about Flash on Linux and OSX for most of this century, I take offense to the idea that "everything was peachy keen until Apple whipped up a fuss over nothing" (again, I paraphrase from my own perspective).]

<comment><USER2> While "lying fanboy" is a little harsh, I think there's something behind the misrepresenting how serious the crashes are and that their unquantifiable and unfalsifiable. I suspect most reports are anecdotal, like "Safari crashed while I was playing Desktop Tower Defense, and I was just about to have the highest score ever!", which is more of an emotional position than objective/analytical. At this point, it's in no one's best interest, other than consumers, to collect information on crashes and do something about them. Steve Jobs would actually have to (gasp!) eat his words if it's not flash that is crashing and Adobe would actually have to (gasp!) fix the bugs if it is. And bug fixing doesn't make headlines. This disagreement between Jobs and Adobe gets the pageviews.

Fedora 12 has an "automatic bug reporting tool" that is annoying in that it often shows up when you aren't expecting it, or when you know something crashed that Fedora folks can't do anything about -- so I've usually opted not to submit the things it wants to report. But that may be a losing battle in the long run, since more data collected could actually get bugs fixed, and then there are statistics on how frequently crashes are a problem for people. Thing is, I know how much bogus stuff gets collected with these kinds of tools, and it's difficult to sift through, so in some sense, I think I'm actually helping them by not submitting things I think may be bogus.

<comment><USER3> Anecdotal or not, the only time my browser ever crashes (at least since Java applets stopped showing up) is immediately upon opening a page with streaming video. Whether it's Apple or Adobe at fault, I don't care, but it seems to be exclusively triggered by Flash content.

Are there many people here running OS X that don't have problems apparently caused by Flash?

<comment><USER2> Of course you don't care whose fault it is, you just want it fixed. That's why I pointed out that it's only in the best interest of consumers that the bugs get fixed.

It seems that neither Adobe nor Apple actually want to make a good experience for users, flash or otherwise, because independent of whose fault it is the problems are not getting addressed. I'm reminded of <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html>, where Microsoft actually cared about the user experience enough to insert a massive kludge even though the bug wasn't their fault. And since the problems are not getting addressed, I'd be leery of using either Apple or Adobe products. Apple because they would rather destroy a product they don't like even though the users do, and Adobe because of the way they treat their products after release. Apple's defense is that they prefer the new and shiny vs the old and busted (which are subjective measurements). For years Apple was behind Flash, it was one of the reasons to use a Mac, at least for flash development. Apple was also behind Firewire for years, it was so much better than USB. Then all of a sudden it wasn't, much to the detriment of those people who had bought all that highend firewire hardware. Now, this usually ends up being good for the consumer, which is why Jobs has the reputation he does, and in Apple's defense, their standard MO of controlling the entire platform means they have to make the "hard" decisions about what they support, and it usually ends up being good all around, but the transition, when Jobs changes his mind, can be a real bitch.

<comment><USER4> Apple was the first computer manufacturer to adopt USB on a wide scale (for which they were ridiculed at the time). Firewire remains the better technology of the two, but it is accordingly more expensive to implement; Apple still supports it fully on their pro computers. I use plenty of "highend firewire hardware" on a daily basis with my brand new MBP without issue. What, exactly, are you referring to?

<comment><USER2> How quickly we (all) forget ( <http://www.google.com/search?q=apple+removes+firewire> ). I misspoke, firewire _400_ _was_ removed from a number of devices, as part of the regular upgrade path/hardware refresh, because "USB 2.0 won the connectivity fight in the lower end of the market". Despite me not being specific enough, and that Apple _currently_ ships a number of devices with firewire support, the fact remains that Apple does make hardware decisions based on their perception of user-experience, what they want to support, and which direction they want the market to go in -- I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with that, as I'm sure everyone makes decisions on what they want to support (other than maybe IE6), sometimes leaving users and customers in the lurch who are used to, or have a vested interest, in doing things the old, or a certain, way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This all sounds good, yet it doesn't change the fact that on my Mac, if something slows down my browser enough to be noticeable (on a Mac Pro), it's usually flash.

Hope the next version will be that big improvement that we've been waiting for, but I won't hold my breath.

</comment><comment><USER6> end users trying to watch videos on the web don't care about flash. they aren't customers. they're using flash because it's pushed on them, so when it doesn't work, they're not going to exert any effort to make the software better beyond swearing at the crash dialog and re-opening their browser.

i watch episodes of the daily show on thedailyshow.com every other day or so, using safari on mac os 10.5.8 on a mac mini. just about every single time i watch an episode in full screen, exit full screen, and click on a different episode, safari will crash and the crash reporter comes up saying flash caused it. i click 'report' to report the bug, it looks like it does something, and then i re-open safari.

this guy says flash doesn't ship with any "known bugs", but what are "known bugs"?

 _If you are experiencing issues please report them directly to the Flash engineering team via the public bug database and the team will investigate and resolve each._

oh, so only bugs they know about in their public bug database, which requires 1) a user to know about it, 2) the user to seek it out, 3) the user to signup for an account, 4) and the user to login and file a formal bug, all while that user just saw a dialog that says his crash information was just sent to someone.

if that crash reporter from safari is not sending useful information over to adobe, then they need to work with apple to get that resolved.

</comment><comment><USER7> Denying the problem isn't going to win them any points here, nor is off- handedly stating "oh, we're working on it, but don't blame us." They could start turning the discussion the other way to admit to problems, get releases out quickly to improve the performance, and be painfully clear how Apple could help make their software run better (system call information, etc).

Suddenly, it's Adobe who's coming out as the sympathetic market leader, and Apple has to turn and defend its stance as anti-Flash from a non-technical standpoint. As Apple is forced to make its pro-App Store stance official (even though all of us here understand it) they'll get looked by the masses as as a monopoly-maker or as a company that stifles outside development.

<comment><USER8> > _they'll get looked by the masses as as a monopoly-maker or as a company > that stifles outside development._

Well, they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought Adobe couldn't improve Flash performance on OSX because Apple has no API they can use? That was the story a couple weeks ago. CoreAnimation is years old now. No one thought of this earlier in the process?

<comment><USER10> The problem wasn't with performance in general, it was with hardware decoding of H.264 video. I don't believe anything has changed on that front. The core animation change is supposed to help with vector graphics rendering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You do feel the difference when you are on a Mac. I was using a Windows 7 netbook for a couple of weeks and watched flash on Youtube.com without any issues. Last night went back to my Macbook Pro and the same flash video turned my Macbook into a jet plane. I can imagine the amount of energy is being wasted on the processor and the fans to cool it while it's being worked by Flash.

Adobe is finally moving some of the flash processing to the GPU. Too little, too late? Or better late than never?

</comment><comment><USER12> Adobe CTO seems to have been suckered into a discussion that while factual, is almost beside the point and at odds with what apple is actually doing.

For the vast majority of users, being Windows based, flash works pretty much fine most of the time. At this moment in time a lack of good flash support is more of a problem for apple then adobe. If Adobe will manage to get a good droid flash port, then this tiff will turn more barbed.

i am reminded that the whole issue was really sparked not over the flash client on the desktop or laptops and its supposed performance, but rather its lack of its existence on the iphone and future ipad, of which apple is rightly criticized.

Most people who denigrate flash on osx, still have it installed, you can always avoid installing it, and keep the system pristine and flash free, but you install it nonetheless, why? because you want to see flash generated content.

while performance and stability of flash is indeed an issue, the decision not to have it on said platforms is much less due to bad code and much more because Flash undermines the entire app store ecosystem, it is easier to create a native app experience on Flash and ActionScript than it is using the iPhone SDK and Objective-C. There are really great Flash games, think what this fact alone can do to app store revenue, and of course there is the benefit of wider range of developers too.

Suppose they revamp the code of flash on OSX, its blazing fast and stable, i still doubt apple will include support for it on its cash cows.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am definitely biased- a flash hater. Hated it on Windows, hated it on Linux and now hate it on the Mac. Definitely we are seeing two companies (Adobe and Apple) playing fans off each other. In my opinion Adobe is the worse of the two evils. For example look how long it took Adobe to port Mac photoshop from PowerPC to Intel. It is not like Adobe didn't already have a lot of Intel experience with their Windows version of photoshop.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just installed flash 10.1 beta 2 on Mac, it does feel more responsive than 10.0.

<http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html>

<comment><USER15> Even if Flash 10.1 does bring performance parity with the Windows version, I won't be routinely enabling it. It's an unacceptable security risk and most of what it's used for beyond video is just annoying/fluff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Flash in Firefox on OS X 10.5.8 never crashes on me. Bogs down the cpu: sometimes. Usually when I have multiple videos open playing simultaneously. What are you folks doing?

<comment><USER17> so does <http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/> crash for you? It does on my 10.5.8

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Adobe's only real hope is to open-source and freely license the whole Flash stack. They've proven repeatedly that they can't manage the evenness, performance, and ubiquity necessary for something like Flash.

If they don't do this, Flash is dead, which is stupid imo because they could still make a lot of money off of the IDE.

<comment><USER19> > _"Adobe's only real hope is to open-source and freely license the whole > Flash stack"_

This, on the week that Jonathan Schwartz officially steps down? ;)

Anyway, if HTML5 does replace Flash, what difference would open sourcing make?

<comment><USER20> Nothing wrong with having multiple tools to accomplish the same task.

For reference, check out damn near anything computer related.

<comment><USER19> There's a benefit from a publisher's view point to focusing on a single standard.

If HTML5 gets similar market share to Flash, I imagine in the long run most content publisher will choose the one that's better supported and easier to implement rather than maintain support for both - for the same reason that many now choose only Flash, rather than Flash+Silverlight+whatever.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Net neutrality: Portugal shows how US internet could look if FCC ditches rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-portugal-how-american-internet-could-look-fcc-2017-11 <comment><USER2> Kind of reminds me of the cable channel bundles people had to choose back in the day. You'd get a couple you like but pay for a lot of utter shit to get it.</comment>


A parametric version of the Spectral font - <AUTHOR> https://spectral.prototypo.io <comment><USER2> I guess they haven't heard of METAFONT.

</comment><comment><USER3> The heavily animated demo is worrying. Animation is making the Web very unpleasant lately. It's extremely distracting when trying to consume text content. Please don't animate your fonts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pre-link-click: Ooo another site by Google these are usually pretty cool; at least they're well made... First impression: LOL this site was made by Google?! Page load is atrocious. Interaction using mobile is very bad. Lasting impression: This is like some weird developer designer hybrid that encourages...I don't even know...Extra....Weird...serifs

<comment><USER5> I'm just about 100% positive at this point that Google had nothing to do with this. I can't find anything internally that makes me believe we did (and i've looked _really_ hard)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the usefulness of this?

Part of the reason I ask is because while I would trust a UI designer to design the layout, colors, for an application, I think font design isn't as simple because there's a lot of factors that go into it, in some ways scientific and some ways artistic. I wouldn't trust someone who isn't trained in font/typeface design to use a tool like this.

Also: On Safari, this took maybe 5-8 seconds to load, and bogged down the entire browser for that time. Afterwards it took a lot of power to render something else on the page. For something that is only showcasing a font demo to take up that much power is pretty crazy.

<comment><USER7> I was thinking it might make more sense to design your font and then bake it into something normal for the browser.

On the other hand, I can't imagine seeing myself going "I need something with the Times New Roman curvature, but thicker serifs..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm collecting Chinese fonts for a project for a deep learning course.

Is there a tool where I can generate TTFs with different parameters to change the whole Unicode character set, not just ASCII?

<comment><USER9> The number of fonts that cover the whole Unicode character set is zero, as the Unicode character set grows faster than fonts are designed for obscure scripts.

The fonts that come closest are Google's Noto Sans (an Android-esque font that covers every script that's realistically in use), GNU Unifont (a monospaced raster font, great for multilingual coding), and Arial (bringing standardized mediocrity to the whole world).

These projects put a lot of work into finding one visual style that works across many different scripts. I doubt you will find anything that works with a parameterized range of visual styles across different scripts.

However, if you narrow your scope to fonts that just cover Chinese characters, I believe I've seen some projects that parameterize how to draw the strokes. I doubt the output will be neatly packaged in a TTF file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the serif width / serif height axes are switched

</comment><comment><USER11> A system and method for letting "The Marketing Guy" choose and design the font instead of a trained graphic designer.

This isn't going to end well.

Have you ever seen a font and thought "oh, that's ugly" but it's really hard to put into words exactly why? Font design is all about aesthetics and custom hand-tweaking every single curve of every single letter and making them look exactly right.

<comment><USER12> The Marketing Guy already has access to hundreds of fonts with thousands of variations, I fail to see how this will make a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This site doesn't load at all on Firefox on OS X for me. Loading your experience stays on indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does this actually have anything to do with Google? From what i can tell, prototypo is a completely separate startup company with some per-month pricing plan

If not, this looks like some bad trademark abuse, as everyone here seems to think this is somehow done by Google :(

<comment><USER14> As far as I can tell, Spectral is listed in Google Fonts:

[https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Spectral](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Spectral)

Beyond that, there doesn't seem to be a connection.

<comment><USER15> OK, we've changed the title above from "Spectral, the first parametric Google font".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've spent so much time playing with the parameters that now letters don't make any sense to me.

edit: also it's absolutely gorgeous, well done

</comment><comment><USER17> It looks really, really bad at my browser's current size:

[http://i.imgur.com/ZvyLwjB.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZvyLwjB.png)

[http://i.imgur.com/LC9cive.png](http://i.imgur.com/LC9cive.png)

<comment><USER18> It's also cut off at 2560x1440 on a Chrome web browser. Dunno how anybody can get excited about a font by Google that even Google can't figure out how to layout properly in a Google browser.

<comment><USER19> It wasn't made by Google... it's only _hosted_ on Google fonts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really hope this doesn't become popular like Lato and Montserrat. This is horrible to me as a dyslexic. It's near unreadable and distracting with the constant size changes.

<comment> forgot-my-pw I think the purpose is so people can create their own variations of the available fonts, not to make animated text.

<comment><USER20> I really hope so. The web will be an unusable mess to me if fonts change size on scroll like in their demo page.

<comment><USER21> They're just demoing the parameters you can adjust to build a font. I assume they built the demo the way they did because it's more approachable for most than a long list of sliders with names that might not be meaningful to a lot of people.

That said, the way it works would certainly be off-putting to some. You may find their actual font builder app provides a better experience: [https://app.prototypo.io/](https://app.prototypo.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Parametric fonts are cool. I think it's a stretch to say things like "Opening up to a new era of type design" though. Yes, the feature of "variable fonts" was added to the OpenType specification somewhat recently, in September 2016. But before that there was Adobe's "multiple master fonts", and even before that, there was Knuth's METAFONT, something that _could_ have been a truly "new era of type design" but never took off.

See [http://www.metaflop.com/modulator](http://www.metaflop.com/modulator) for an example of parametric fonts, inspired by Knuth's system: you can drag the sliders to adjust various font parameters, and get many different fonts. Knuth's article _The Concept of a Meta-Font_ [1], published in _Visible Language_ , is a classic. As you read the article he plays various tricks with the fonts as he describes them; it's a delightful read. (His followup article "Lessons learned from Metafont" [2] is also interesting.)

Unfortunately METAFONT as envisioned by Knuth never gained much adoption by other font designers, for (AFAICT) two reasons:

1\. Douglas Hofstadter wrote a response [3] pointing out that it is not possible to mechanize all typefaces into a single one, which although a valid point (the article is great), attacks a straw man, arguing against an absurd claim that Knuth never even suggested IMO. So some may have got the wrong impression from it.

2\. More importantly, as Richard Southall or Chuck Bigelow (I forget who) said, most type designers think with shapes; they don't think about shapes. Only a mind like Knuth's would prefer to think deeply _about_ the shape of each letter and come up with symbolic descriptions of each, parametrized across the whole family (see Knuth's article _The letter S_ [4] on his struggles with doing this for just one character).

Knuth has often said that we understand things better when we can teach them to a computer, and I still have hope for a future with parametric fonts that are better "understood": not because the shapes will be better, but simply because humanity will be better off with a deeper understanding of letterforms. But I think that whatever the technology, the task of parametrizing shapes will run into similar challenges, some of which were described in the above-mentioned articles and say Richard Southall's _Designing New Typefaces with Metafont_ [5].

[1]: [http://www.zigzaganimal.be/elements/the-concept-of- metafont....](http://www.zigzaganimal.be/elements/the-concept-of-metafont.pdf)

[2]: [https://s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/19.1/...](https://s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/19.1/lessons-learned-from- metafont.pdf)

[3]: [https://s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.4/...](https://s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.4/meta-font-metamathematics-and- metaphysics-comments-on-donald-knuths-article-161.pdf) / [https://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/techreports/TR136.pdf](https://www.cs.indiana.edu/pub/techreports/TR136.pdf)

[4]: [http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/Papers/The%20letter%20S.pdf](http://www.cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/Papers/The%20letter%20S.pdf)

[5]: [http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/85/1074/CS- TR-8...](http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/85/1074/CS- TR-85-1074.pdf)

<comment><USER7> I thought the problem was that font designers didn't like creating their font in a text editor.

The whole system seemed to be designed to cater to users who were both computer programmers and typographic artists. That's a demographic set that may consist of a single member: Donald Knuth.

<comment><USER22> Yes I agree, to a first approximation that's true. Dave Crossland (another computer programmer who works with typography) has said similar stuff: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwPObPbk90I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwPObPbk90I), [http://understandinglimited.com/2008/07/24/why-metafont- didn...](http://understandinglimited.com/2008/07/24/why-metafont-didnt-catch- on/), [https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb29-3/tb93crossland.pdf](https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb29-3/tb93crossland.pdf), [https://speakerdeck.com/davelab6/anrt-2016-why-didnt- metafon...](https://speakerdeck.com/davelab6/anrt-2016-why-didnt-metafont- catch-on)

This is related to the "thinking with shapes" versus "thinking about shapes" comment.

But looking more closely, there were a few people who made fonts with Metafont: Georgia Tobin, Neenie Billawala etc. made a few, as did a lot of people working with non-Latin scripts: e.g. Frans Velthuis and Charles Wikner made really nice Devanagari fonts. (See "The Many Faces of TeX" for Metafont- fonts as of 1988: [https://www.tug.org/tugboat/tb09-2/tb21wujastyk.pdf](https://www.tug.org/tugboat/tb09-2/tb21wujastyk.pdf) \-- that was probably their peak though.)

Still you're right, no "mainstream" type designers switched over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This concept of a parametric font is the modern-day reincarnation of Donald Knuth's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafont](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafont) .

<comment><USER24> There's also some of Adobe's Multiple Master fonts in there, too: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_master_fonts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_master_fonts)

<comment><USER25> [https://web.archive.org/web/20010104101800/webcom.net/~nfhom...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010104101800/webcom.net/~nfhome/fontgen.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The constantly changing box is almost impossible to read.

<comment><USER27> It's a good thing you would never do that for text you wanted someone to read, and would only do it to show what you can do with the font.

<comment><USER28> _You_ would never do that. You probably wouldn't commit any of the other extremely common typographical/design sins out there either, and yet the web is awash in ugly design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Page explodes for me into an unhappy tab, on OpenBSD/Chrome at least.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is a great example of a terrible website.

</comment><comment><USER31> Does not load for me, CORS request failed

</comment><comment><USER32> ...is this a good thing? It seems so? Being able to fine-tune your fonts seems like it's better than using something static.

</comment><comment><USER33> Iosevka is also parametric, but fixed for a given TTF, as far as I can tell.

Very nice for coding.

[https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka](https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka)

<comment><USER34> Parametric fonts go back to at least metafont.

Pretty sure you can do all the transformations indicated on the page in 'native' metafont.

<comment><USER35> The involvement of Metafont with parametric design doesn't necessarily mean that it's a sound typographic principle. As others have mentioned, professional font design is a business of total perfectionism and particularity: you can't really parameterize a font family in a totally satisfactory way (and italic is not in general just an oblique transformation of the standard characters).

This parametric approach is most likely to work if used with a "curve-fitting" mentality to approximate and interpolate sets of hand-tuned characters, rather than a methodology that aims to describe the essence of a character parametrically (as is routine in architectural parametric design).

<comment><USER36> This is like arguing linguistics is invalid because language is art.

<comment><USER35> Trust me, reducing a typeface family to a parametric formula with continuous and valid/beautiful transitions between the various fonts, let alone weights, requires superhuman intelligence and effort.

I'm claiming that the scope of parameterized fonts is limited, in an analogous way to linguistics not trying to explain poetry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> _Imagine shop windows that react according to the movements of passers-by_

I would prefer not to.

<comment><USER37> Not font related, but I'm imagining this -- [http://hackaday.com/2010/10/15/window-curtain-moves-to- scree...](http://hackaday.com/2010/10/15/window-curtain-moves-to-screen- pedestrians/)

<comment><USER28> I have to admit this is oddly delightful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow, this could be so GeoCities. Remember that a proportionately small, but numerically large, number of people really like blinking text. :-)

<comment><USER39> Teh feutur iz now

[http://www.wonder- tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=...](http://www.wonder- tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=1&music=4&url=https://spectral.prototypo.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Very cool. I'm seeing a future where fonts are stored as a series of transformations rather than a bunch of bitmaps/glyphs/vectors. A client could have specifications for adapting any font to make it more readable for their particular set of eyes while letting the font maintain a unique "look".

<comment><USER21> The vast majority of fonts are not stored as bitmaps. Most font formats store glyphs as vectors with a variety of additional information for pixel hinting, ligatures and probably a handful of other details that I can't even think of off the top of my head.

<comment><USER41> Right. They're even parameterized, in a sense, but pretty much the only parameter available on the client side is size, right? (Unless I misunderstand how boldface is applied these days.)

<comment><USER21> I think Prototypo demonstrates the parameterization is possible, but typically (for now) font weights are distinct fonts. Sometimes boldness or italics can be naively faked, but it's usually not pretty.

<comment><USER41> Right – I meant even traditional fonts could be seen as "parameterized" if you were squinting at them through a slightly foggy lens. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What a wonderful way to add massive complexity to font rendering while delivering spectacularly little value.

Don't get me wrong, it's cool, I just don't see the point. And I don't look forward to my battery life being used for pointless sugar.

<comment><USER22> Best not to confuse this _demo_ of their parametric font, with the idea of parametric fonts in the first place. This page tries to vary the font as you scroll etc., which is just a (suboptimal) way of interactively demonstrating the font parameters, but not the point.

For a better demo (that does not use the same tech), see [http://www.metaflop.com/modulator](http://www.metaflop.com/modulator) \-- you vary the parameters, then a fixed font is generated that you can download and use. (I mentioned this in another comment below: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14604890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14604890))

As for the value: the entire Computer Modern family of typefaces (used in TeX/LaTeX and friends) was generated with METAFONT which embodies the idea of font generation through "pens, programs, and parameters" \-- the regular, bold, italic (even typewriter) variants of the font, and at various point sizes, are generated from common font definitions. Similarly the shapes of the loops in say p and d, etc. This ensures consistency and lets you experiment. (Though to be honest, very few people have successfully designed good font families with this approach.)

The articles that I mentioned in the other comment are better at seeing what's the point.

<comment><USER43> That metaflop link is not only a great visual example of what makes this tech cool, but is also fun to use. The immediate feedback which shows input-output relations reminds me of fun had while messing with character-creation sliders in games like Elder Scrolls and Dark Souls.</comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu Kylin, a Linux Distribution with a Microsoft Windows Experience - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/ubuntu-kylin-linux-distribution-microsoft-windows-experience <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the GitHub repository of the Ubuntu Kylin project: [https://github.com/ukui](https://github.com/ukui)</comment>


Bubbles in Android Q will fully replace the overlay API in the future - <AUTHOR> https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-system-alert-window-deprecate-bubbles/ <comment><USER2> This will kill one of the biggest reasons I use Android over iOS - apps like Pie Control.

I am very angry about this. Security is good. Removing options from users that understand the risks is not. The way it is now with explicit permissions is fine and doesn't need to be changed.</comment>


OpenSSL Security Advisory - <AUTHOR> https://www.openssl.org/news/secadv_20150611.txt

<comment><USER2> Here's a writeup of CVE-2015-1788:

[https://jbp.io/2015/06/11/cve-2015-1788-openssl-binpoly- hang...](https://jbp.io/2015/06/11/cve-2015-1788-openssl-binpoly-hang/)

It's embarrassing rather than terribly dangerous.

edit: Please note: there are other issues in this advisory. You should read the advisory, first and foremost.

<comment><USER3> Your comment is probably correct regarding that one issue, but multiple issues were announced today. These include CVE-2015-4000, which is another nasty downgrade issue.

(I'm mostly posting this because I don't want anyone to read your post and think they can ignore this whole notice.)

<comment><USER4> I think Logjam is the only operationally significant bug in this announcement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the meantime, latest stable releases of Chrome and Firefox are _still_ vulnerable to Logjam. Is it that hard to fix?

<comment><USER6> Are you sure? I'm running Firefox 38.0.5 and Chromium 40.0.2214.91 through normal channels (ie, not nightly builds...) and they are both NOT vulnerable.

<comment><USER5> 40.0.2214.91 was released months ago [http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/stable- upda...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2015/01/stable-update.html). (Irony of no https).

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1166031](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1166031) and [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1138554](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1138554) say explicitly wontfix for 38.0.5

Maybe you manually fixed it some time ago and don't remember?

Check both [https://weakdh.org/](https://weakdh.org/) and [https://www.ssllabs.com:10445/](https://www.ssllabs.com:10445/)

<comment><USER7> 38.0.5 is safe. I learned it myself when trying to use internal service.

        Secure Connection Failed

        An error occurred during a connection to 10.xx.yy.xx. SSL received a weak ephemeral Diffie-Hellman key in Server Key Exchange handshake message. (Error code: ssl_error_weak_server_ephemeral_dh_key)

            - The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
            - Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

I wish they gave option to bypass it.

<comment><USER8> I'm running 38.0.5, the weakdh page says I'm vulnerable

<comment><USER9> It's hard to tell from the paper, because they don't include either specific build version numbers of browsers / servers nor date of publication, so their results are difficult (e.g., impossible) to reproduce exactly.

0: [https://weakdh.org/imperfect-forward- secrecy.pdf](https://weakdh.org/imperfect-forward-secrecy.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how many of these are found by hand versus with automated tools like Asan and AFL. Seems like some of these would be really hard to spot...

<comment><USER11> I can answer that I found CVE-2015-1789 twice with afl (through different input vectors) and a couple of other issues that were not security-relevant.

I'd assume that the null ptr pkcs#7 issue found by Michal Zalewski was also afl and the ecc issue as well (as documented by its founder). The CMS loop issue sounds also like it could've been found by fuzzing.

It's important to keep in mind what fuzzing can and can't do. It is a great method to find some bugs, but it has its limitations and can only find a certain class of bugs.

<comment> f- Yep, the two PKCS bugs were from afl-fuzz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Layman's explanation? I should apt-get update && apt-get upgrade?

<comment><USER13> This is OpenSSL's response to the "Logjam" attack ([https://weakdh.org/](https://weakdh.org/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good luck in updating it in OS X (try running `ssh -V` there). Good that OS X will update to a more recent version in El Capitan and also switch to LibreSSL (great step forward).

<comment><USER15> SSH under OS X uses OSSLShim, which is wrapper around Secure Transport. I'm not exactly sure when they started using it for this, but it has been a while.

If you're seeing OpenSSL in the output, you have probably installed SSH via Homebrew.

<comment><USER16> Usage of openssl has been deprecated since OS X 10.7 in favor of Secure Transport and Common Crypto. Furthermore, OpenSSL is not even supported on iOS. See: [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Securi...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Security/Conceptual/cryptoservices/GeneralPurposeCrypto/GeneralPurposeCrypto.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _" X509_cmp_time does not properly check the length of the ASN1_TIME string and can read a few bytes out of bounds."_

OpenSSL in C has had range errors discovered for over a decade now. Short of going to a safe language or full machine proofs of correctness, it's never going to be fixed. "Many eyes" don't help.

(Of course, one wonders how many OpenSSL security holes are deliberate backdoors.)

<comment><USER18> There's another option: Openssl code is terrible. Even interacting with it is terrible. I had to deal with x509 code lately, and it's probably the worst and least documented code I've seen in a long time.

For the "many eyes" situation to work, you have to have code which "many eyes" can understand. Asn1-related functions in openssl are not in that situation.

Edit: If you've never looked at openssl code, check this out: [https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/063dccd027033401912d...](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/063dccd027033401912d8c5e3f0f25b1f13de64b/crypto/objects/obj_dat.c#L465) \- yup - that's part of public interface. It's got a mention on the man page, but no idea what encoding it actually outputs. Maybe ascii, maybe something else. Good luck finding out from source.

Edit2: Just a few lines above you can spot: "/* memory leak, buit should not normally matter */"

<comment><USER19> Yes, the sources are difficult to read at best. The documentation for the public APIs is not much better either.

For example, the suggestion at this page: [https://www.openssl.org/docs/crypto/sha.html](https://www.openssl.org/docs/crypto/sha.html) to use the higher-level EVP_ functions was difficult to actually adhere to, given that the EVP_ functions themselves don't actually explain how to generate a message digest given some input data. I wasted half a day once trying to understand how those functions worked once before giving up and just using the digest functions directly. It's still not clear to me why the EVP functions provide a significant advantage, or even how I would use them to accomplish the use cases outlined in the digest functions.

I suspect that not understanding the OpenSSL APIs is a common problem, and possibly an underlying cause of a lot of crypto implementation errors.

<comment><USER18> > It's still not clear to me why the EVP functions provide a significant > advantage

In case of EVP_... your code is not hardcoding the hash type. You can provide the hash by its name in the config file without any code changes in the app. When using hash contexts directly, you're stuck with what you implement.

<comment><USER19> That's what I figured when I implemented it. In my application I'm fine hardcoding the hash type because if we have to change hashes away from SHA-2 we have to update all of the equipment in the field anyway, so we might as well update the software at the same time.

E: It also helps that the code with the hardcoded hash type is much easier to understand than the equivalent EVP code.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the Status of Self Driving Car Legal Policy in the US? - <AUTHOR> If someone hypothetically created a level 5 SDC, would it be able to drive without a driver in San Francisco right now?
What about elsewhere in the country?
Are there any important decisions coming up that would make sense to call political representatives and influence? <comment><USER2> Self driving policy varies by state. There are currently no federal level laws. You'll have to check any state you are interested in.</comment>


What It Was Like to Be a Woman at Goldman Sachs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/what-it-was-like-to-be-a-woman-at-goldman-sachs/265572/

<comment><USER2> Another factor may be the fact that Goldman Sachs, and investment banking more generally, requires sacrifices that, even to me (a college intern nearly 10 years ago) seems completely ridiculous.

Investment banks expect their employees to make their work far and away their first priority in life. Working hours are often 8am to 1am, not for any real purpose but just to compete on who is more committed. Weekends? What are those?

Yes, the pay is extremely high. But the vast majority of the partners at Goldman Sachs have sacrificed everything important in life -- family, friends, relationships, marriages, children, hobbies -- just to make tens of millions of dollars per year. It takes a certain kind of poor prioritization to commit to such a career and I'm not surprised that more men than women choose to participate.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Those facts are not in dispute, and no one who has not been inside this world has any idea how normalized this misogynist culture is, especially for a firm like Goldman, which has always prided itself on its "classy" reputation._

GS is a large firm, and has a very high profile. It's not a surprise that it's under fire for having an environment like this.

This didn't end with the 1990s. Even now, in 2012, lots of smaller broker- dealers and hedge funds have events that stretch (and cross) the boundaries of HR-acceptability. For those who object to this kind of environment, it's a real dilemma. Filing a lawsuit, or even an HR grievance, can be a severely career-limiting move - after all, what executive wants to promote a person who has a back history of suing their employers?</comment>


Insights From Street-Smart Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/10022/37-Pithy-Insights-From-Street-Smart-Entrepreneurs.aspx

<comment><USER2> _A lack of competitors is almost always a bad thing because it means the market you entered doesn't interest anybody else._

Completely disagree with this. There are plenty of successful startups that created a whole new niche that didn't even exist before they got into it. If anything, the lack of competition (and a high barrier of entry) were significant reasons for their success.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, I love gongs. I think more companies should seriously implement #5 - it'd make work a lot more fun, raising morale.

<comment><USER4> you say that, but our office actually does have one. The sales guys are usually pumped after getting a contract so the ringing is extra loud... when you're deep in thought, and the ringing goes off, it scares the jebus out of ... well, non-sales guys. Ever since, we've always had to keep an eye out for someone going close to the bell... definitely does not help in getting work done. We've always joked that we'd pad the insides of the bell. Now beer:30 (5:30) on fridays as a ritual...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait a second, who the hell does this site think it is? I thought this was a pretty good article and all, but then I started reading the one they linked to at the top - the one whose success prompted this article - and in the comments, I started recognizing little bits of text. They stole content from their commenters! WTF!

<comment><USER5> Uh... they say that's where the points came from right at the top of the article:

"So, to further the conversation and discussion, I decided to collect, edit and share some of the fantastic insights from reader comments.

Thanks to all of those that contributed such great insights. Sorry I could not include them all."

<comment><USER3> I am stupid!

<comment><USER6> It is worth mentioning that the upvotes are not in agreement of you being stupid, but rather the fact that you are humble/mature enough to admit you were wrong.

A good trait.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Science fiction for the young - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to gift a science fiction book (or a collection of SF stories) as birthday present to my 12 years old nephew. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy: "The White Mountains", "The Pool of Fire", "The City of Gold and Lead"

Robert Heinlein "Podkayne of Mars","Tunnel in the Sky", or "Beyond this Horizon"

Samuel Delany "Babel-17" or "The Einstein Intersection"

Roger Zelazny "Lord of Light"

</comment><comment><USER3> "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", Robert A. Heinlein. "Citizen of the Galaxy", Robert A. Heinlein. "The Rolling Stones", Robert A. Heinlein. "A Wrinkle in Time", Madeleine L'Engle.

Any of the ones skmurphy recommended.

</comment><comment><USER4> ender's game.</comment>