Build Real Time Web Apps More Easily with NowJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/03/build-real-time-web-apps-easie.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d7bdc8a920484c2%2C0 <comment><USER2> Another fairy just died.

These "articles" bear no meaning whatsoever. TFA is nothing more than a concoction of technical gibberish copy-pasted from the NowJS website, for the mere purpose of having another piece of content to publish.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. I have no idea how the article managed to get 30 votes. There is almost no content there.

Does someone have the capability to see if there is vote rigging going on here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not only is this article rubbish because there is little to no content and it is taken directly from the NowJS site, but the part about dnode is completely false.

> DNode is another RPC system for Node.js. "NowJS is a higher-level interface > than DNode," our own Pete Warden explains. "It offers an abstraction layer > to make calling remote functions very simple without worrying about ports or > sockets."

Pete Warden has no idea what he is talking about, both NowJS and dnode are built on top of socket.io which abstracts the sockets/ports part and makes it very much plug and play. Not only that they interface at the same level, the major difference is in how the functions are set and called on either end. NowJS focuses on explicit return statements where as dnode uses callbacks.

Why is this on the front page?

For more information about NowJS and dnode from their creators comments on another submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2316079>

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2316005>

</comment><comment><USER6> This could feel like "Rails for Realtime" even though it's backend isn't in Ruby. Very useful if you are writing real-time web applications.

What we really need to clinch native development is a common protocol to device's user notification streams. Imagine if mobile Safari and Android both surfaced their notification mechanisms through a standard Javascript API. Technologies like Node.js and frameworks like NowJS are primed for platform independent integration as soon as "tabs" or Javascript environments can run in the background.

<comment><USER7> Having a standard API for doing realtime notifications across devices would be great, but running Javascript in the background of a mobile device and exchanging JSON or XML sounds like a good way to chew through battery life.</comment></comment>


Monday morning mistake: sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root / - <AUTHOR> http://serverfault.com/questions/587102/monday-morning-mistake-sudo-rm-rf-no-preserve-root <comment><USER2> `rm -rf` is a knife blade with no handle.

<comment><USER3> Well colour me unimpressed. It has had idiot-proofing for ages. There is no defense against an idiot who manually _disables_ all the safeguards - this is very different from a whine of "Noooo saaaafeguaaaaards!" (what do you think that -f does? Hint: the long form is --force)

Also, who _accidentally_ types --no-preserve-root, a 19-character typo in a 30-character command, on top of yet another typo, either of which is idiot- proofed ?

I call an absolute pile of bullshit on that story.</comment></comment>


The Birth of the New American Aristocracy - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ <comment><USER2> 3000 words in, and the article has yet to make a point other than "the 9.9% kept their share of the wealth, while the 0.1%'s share grew at the expense of the lower classes".</comment>


Review: ImHonest.com Lost and Found Service - <AUTHOR> http://paulstamatiou.com/2009/04/06/review-imhonestcom-lost-and-found-service

<comment><USER2> My initial response was: "what a shitty reward". I'm not sure people will want to take found items someplace in exchange for a couple of labels they'll probably not use.

<comment><USER3> Why not have the person who lost the item be able to offer an additional reward?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why wouldn't I just stick my address / phone number on my stuff?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure how they compare, but I know I've seen StuffBak labels in stores for years - essentially the same concept.</comment>


Blockchains from the ground up: Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://johnmathews.eu/blockchain-introduction.html <comment><USER2> The Minimum Viable Blockchain ([https://www.igvita.com/2014/05/05/minimum- viable-block-chain...](https://www.igvita.com/2014/05/05/minimum-viable-block- chain/)) is by far the best introduction to blockchain I have read.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always find this introduction (including a "live demonstration") by Anders Brownworth very illustrative: [https://anders.com/blockchain/](https://anders.com/blockchain/)

<comment><USER4> This is a great video/site. After watching this, it made me think how amazing the blockchain would be if our accounting and trading systems were built on top of it. As a programmer outside the financial services sector, it seems to me something like this has to be the future. But it would be really interesting to see what quants and others in the field think.

<comment><USER5> Back in 2008 I invented an algorithm for tree structures where the definition of the hash of any node, was "the hash of hashes of all its immediate children". I had invented a way to do 'tree node comparisons' where any time two tree nodes on a tree had the same 'hash' i knew the content (recursively deep into the tree) of those nodes was identical. I never went forward on that algorithm, because i knew it meant each time a tree node was modified, the hash of all it's parents (i.e. path to root), had to be recalculate. But I had explained it to several developers who were all amazed by it. It now realize I had invented blockchain. I am pretty sure i'm not the first one to realize hashing actual hashes (in a recursive or chained way) is a powerful concept. I may add this to my current project SubNode (sbnode.com), and I could pivot that app into a blockchain technology!

<comment><USER6> I think Merkle got there first, in about 1979 or so.

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

<comment><USER5> Very interesting, thanks. I had never heard of Merkle Tree. Since a linked list is merely a special case of a 'tree structure' (i.e. one where there is always only one child), we can consider Merkle to be the true 'inventor' of blockchain. However, really the concept is so simple and obvious that I wouldn't be surprised if Babbage/Lovelace era folks had written papers on it.

I'm sure there's at least one arse who'll tell me the DIFFERENCE between a tree and a linked list. lol. Gotta love social media.

<comment><USER7> He'd also be the true inventor of Git then. It's a widely useful data structure.

<comment><USER5> Merkel WAS a genuine innovation, and it DOES collapse into plain blockchain if all 'nodes' on a given tree have one child, because in this case the directed graph (tree) is a linked list. If the key innovation in both structures were not the same then your snarkyness would have been appropriate.

<comment><USER8> The point is that there is more to blockchain technology than just Merkle trees, I think. Just focussing on the underlying datastructure is like saying filesystems are just B trees or something.

<comment><USER6> Yes. I think that there a bunch of interesting ideas in blockchain technology, not all of which are necessarily new, but they are often new to the blog writer and/or audience. So introductory articles often focus on those basic concepts, which leads to this confusion

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a really great video [1] which really made blockchains click for me. I believe this was posted on HN a while back.

[1] [https://anders.com/blockchain/](https://anders.com/blockchain/)

</comment><comment><USER10> This article has a few issues.

First, you spend the first half of the article explaining a signature scheme that isn't based on cryptography. It isn't really clear what that part of the article is actually about.

> "Signed by John" <\- John encrypts this line using his private key

This isn't how message signing works. It has all the problems you described in the first part, before you introduced asymmetric encryption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I corrected the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've found this a really clear and helpful explanation of blockchain concepts in the past: [http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin- protocol-a...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol- actually-works/)

</comment><comment><USER12> One thing that bothers me about all blockchain demos or tutorials is that they work on the concept of tracking outputs of transactions rather than just maintaining state.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there a Blockchain email system? Wouldn't that be a solid evolution forward, in terms of human communication?

<comment><USER14> > Wouldn't that be a solid evolution forward, in terms of human communication?

How so?

<comment><USER13> No spam, no solicitation, you know whose line (email) you're picking up, and whom you're dialing (sending).</comment></comment></comment>


Lisp Web Framework: Kanamit  - <AUTHOR> http://www.kanamitweb.net/ <comment><USER2> clearly an april fool's joke making the rounds late.

</comment><comment><USER3> Their webpage is TERRIBLE. I'll have to check it out when it works. I can't get to anything other than the front page and the "About us" page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Source is here: <http://www.kanamitweb.net/kwf1.0.0.tar.bz2>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Their front page reads like a pompous ad. Why can't people simply describe their product and let it speak for itself if it's so great? (or maybe it's not)

Here's a better version, IMO:

"The Kanamit Web Framework provides a templating engine and a persistence mechanism that runs on [list of supported relational databases].

This web framework leverages the power of Lisp well. We have developed a library that comprises many real-world usage scenarios. It's portable across lisp implementations. We got it running on several flavors of Lisp on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and we are currently porting it to our faithful Symbolics 3600. We even got it running inside Emacs 22.

You should get a decent development environment. Emacs 22, Slime and GNU-Lisp are what we use, but if you really want to use Eclipse (some people compare it to Emacs) it should work.

You can also order our book here. It took a while to write, but we wanted it ready for the public launch of our project."

<comment><USER5> I am sorry. We have already given up building the site and were ready to let the idea wait for another year, but then our co-prankster, who didn't read the e-mails where we communicated our decision to postpone, called us on the phone and said the press-release was already on its way to tech publications all around. Then I had about one hour to write all the text you see in the cover, a couple news items excepted, while my other co-prankster was buying the domain, setting up hosting and uploading the HTML skeleton and designing the logo. I was sitting in a café waiting to pick up my wife while I banged this page.

From that OMFG moment, the denial-anger cycle that followed, to uploading the last touches, we made it all in about three hours.

We will plan better for next April. I promise.

BTW, the Slashdot submission is still pending. We may even be able to see it re-boom in a couple days.

<comment><USER5> "we had alreaday"... That's what you get when you are writing this late into the night.

<comment><USER6> So when will Kanamit be up and running?

<comment><USER5> Well... You know that all the major hard to do components of our little imaginary framework already exist: there already is a Lisp-based web server that could handle HTTP requests (we assume it would stand behind a cache such as Varnish) and there must be at least a good few RDBMS persistence mechanisms for Lisp by now. As for the template engine, I would tend to go for something like ZPT (Zope Page Templates) as mixing code in the presentation layer does not hit me as particularly fancy. AFAIK, there is no implementation in Lisp, so, it would have to be done. For the rest, the glue connecting the HTTP to the persisted objects, it would be rather easy to do patterning after Rails or Django.

So, I think if we decided to really do it, even without full dedication, we could have it ready for release in about a year.

And it would be cool to launch it on April 1st.

<comment><USER4> Personally I wouldn't risk announcing anything that's not a joke within 24 hours of April 1st...

<comment><USER7> Gmail? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Major bug on SBCL. Line 4423 currently reads:

      ))

for portability purposes, it should read:

      #+(and :cltl2 (not (or :cmu :clisp :sbcl)))
       ))

<comment><USER5> Sorry. We will fix it ASAP.

Must have escaped out build tests. Won't happen again. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uh, this is a scam right?

<comment><USER10> Evidently. I don't know why they bothered with any code at all let alone the dotimes stuff. Anyone who could get that code to run wouldn't be fooled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> where's the screencast and documentation?</comment>


Show HN: List of car brands and models as a JSON string - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mhlavacka/car-list <comment><USER2> I guess that can be useful, but the third line is a list of Peugeot models, not Renault. The real Renault line also misses at least the Zoé model, so I think you still need to work on your data a little bit.

Also, there's the problem of which old models have to be included, since there are both discontinued models that are included, and others that aren't: maybe it would be better to include production dates which each model?

Ah and I think you should take advantage of JSON's unique charset encoding to include accents in your data (like Citroën).

Sorry for the criticism, but I think your project would gain from a little bit more consistency.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the constructive critique - fixed suggested points. It's actually a resource for another project but haven't found a recent list of brands/models.</comment></comment>


TSX turned off outright as the default for TAA-affected Intel CPUs on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/95c5824f75f3ba4c9e8e5a4b1a623c95390ac266 <comment><AUTHOR> So Intel decided to kill the HLE part of TSX on current CPUs via a microcode update... and on Linux it was chosen to kill the other part too instead of relying on mitigations.

Even more bizarre that this seems to apply only for the _new_ CPUs with MDS mitigated.

For older CPUs, [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/eb094f06963bb0fd8134c...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/eb094f06963bb0fd8134c6a9b805d4ad0002a7d4/Documentation/admin- guide/hw-vuln/tsx_async_abort.rst) which contains "The system will use VERW to clear CPU buffers. Cross-thread attacks are still possible on SMT machines."...</comment>


Ask HN: Best light-weight bug tracking tool, more robust than TRAC? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for the best light-weight bug tracking tool, more robust than TRAC? <comment><USER2> Redmine is awesome: <http://www.redmine.org/>

<comment><USER3> +1 for Redmine. The windows story is a lot better, too (Apache on windows = suck). Multi-project/repo out of the box with no kludgey plugins. Custom workflow is configurable through the web interface vs. text config.. in fact, MUCH more of Redmine's config is exposed via the web interface vs text files (pretty much source control binaries, email and database provider/location is the only stuff you need to configure via config file ootb).

Really, Redmine is _very_ similar, in my opinion to Trac. But I think it benefits from hindsight and doesn't carry any of the historical implementation limitations/baggage of Trac.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We use Pivotal Tracker to manage all our development projects. It's not only a bugtracker, but extremely usefull if you have any kind of agile process.

<comment><USER5> For low volume projects it could be a good bug tracker, too. And for those that don't know, its web based and they will host it for you for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fossil SCM: <http://fossil-scm.org/>

Fossil is a DVCS + Wiki + Bug tracking, though you can choose not to use the DVCS part..

* Light-weight? yes. it's just a single executable <1MB

* Robust? maybe. Projects using Fossil: SQLite, Mongrel2 etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> We use Lighthouse <http://lighthouseapp.com/> We needed a simple tool which can also be used by people who have minimal computer knowledge...

<comment><USER8> Another vote for Lighthouse - we use it and love it at Off & Away. Powerful w/out the bloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I absolutely love Fogbugz. I find Jira to be a bloated, complex mess. I've also used Trac and Bugzilla, both were clunky and lacking in creature comforts.

<comment><USER10> Very much agreed. Fogbugz also has one of the simplest "surface" interfaces. It manages to hide all the complexity, without sacrificing feature, leading to very smooth workflows. Trac, Bugzilla, and JIRA (I haven't used Redmine) all seem to lead a sort of "fragmented" style of use, where you transition between thought modalities, while Fogbugz keeps it very streamlined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Mantis <http://www.mantisbt.org/> works very well for us. Easy to use and to customize.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am going to suggest JIRA. I think it is pretty lightweight. You can either run it with the built-in database or let it talk to MySQL or PostgreSQL. It runs without the use of an app server. Just unzip and run.

<http://atlassian.com/starter/>

<comment><USER13> no offense, but JIRA is not in the slightest lightweight. JIRA is extremely abstracted out to be whatever you want it to be. It's good for project management and for different projects that require different work flows, but you definitely need to spend time in setting it up to fit your needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> GitHub has just enough issue tracking tools for my needs.

<comment><USER15> 280North built a pretty amazing front-end to the GH Issues using Github API and Cappucino - check out <http://githubissues.heroku.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Other than text files, I've only used bugzilla, which is decidedly not "light- weight". How does trac fail to be "robust"? I've not seen any complaints about it scribbling all over its database.

</comment><comment><USER17> We are huge fans of Mantis (www.mantisbt.org). It strikes me as lightweight compared to many solutions advertised here, and has the virtue of being agnostic between PostgreSQL and MySQL. It's also completely free.

We integrated it extensively with Subversion a few years ago, and there already exist pre-built Git integration modules for it. The plugin ecosystem has come a long way.

One important criteria to me personally was the suitability of it for use as a project management and/or feature roadmapping system, not just an actual _bug_ tracker per se, explicitly for bugs in the sense of defects. Mantis performs extremely well on this count as well.

Probably the biggest high-profile use of Mantis I know is Digium's issue tracker for Asterisk: <http://issues.asterisk.org/> \-- you can see it in action there. Their particular use of it relies on Mantis's extensive ACL features (optional--you don't have to get that complicated if you don't want to!) to open the process of enrollment and bug submission to the public at large, to allow certain people intermediate levels of access (e.g. QA testers), and to impose an actual hierarchy of developers, managers and bug marshals inside the company.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd also recommend Pivotal Tracker. Its simple, neat, and gets the work done.

<comment><USER19> I hate Pivotal Tracker. I've been forced to use it on a few projects and found it way too hard to use. E.g. it never shows what you're working on by default and you have to open up a special window for it. And you can't just mark something as done - you have to move it through a whole set of crazy states like accepted and delivered. I'd much rather use any other bug tracker or something simple like a spreadsheet.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure how you were using it, but Pivotal was one of the easiest task trackers I've used (used it for all planning and dev work for six months at a previous job). The tasks you're working on just show up in a separate column, and as for moving through states, I don't see how clicking a button to deliver/accept is crazy - you don't even have to reload the page like you do in Trac when you mark a bug as complete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would like to suggest www.groupsense.com it is a bug tracking tool with social features. So you can follow bugs / people / projects.

So for e.g. You can follow a particular bug that you are interested in. Or you may follow a particular user who might have filled interesting bugs in the past.

You get an activity stream from the bugs/people/projects that you are following.

I am one of the co-founders so take it with a grain of salt.

I would be happy to hand hold you to implement this and add features if you need them.

Send me an email at email@example.com I promise you it is a new software but we have been using it internally for over a year it is stable and you will love it when in 15 seconds everyday you will be able to look at your activity stream and exactly know what is happening.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like retrospectiva:

<http://retrospectiva.org/overview>

<comment><USER22> Looks nice. Can you create tickets by email?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We love Sifter...

www.sifterapp.com

It's beautifully done, the only drawback is that you can't send it e-mail.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone have experience with fogbugz?

<comment><USER3> This SO question does a pretty good job of running down my opinions on Fogbugz (used it once at a former client, wasn't really overwhelmed).

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any- unhap...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14293/are-there-any-unhappy- users-of-fogbugz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure what you mean by more 'robust' than trac.

that said, we use redmine at work.

saw this the other day <http://16bugs.com/> which looked like it might be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER25> Shameless plug- my own app, <http://trackjumper.com> is aimed at small teams with simple needs. No extra features and everything is unlimited.

</comment><comment><USER26> JIRA.

It's the best bug tracker around. The only downside is that it is so configurable people will start using it or non-bug tracking things, which doesn't work well

</comment><comment><USER27> Anything that ties into GitHub well? We just switched from SVN+Trac to GitHub. Considering still using Trac but wondering if any good alternatives exist.

<comment><USER28> If you want something more lightweight than Trac, why not just use the Issues feature in GitHub.

It seems to me the choices are:

1\. ditz (command-line based version tracker that keeps data in your version control repo - plays well with DVCSes like Git/Mercurial)

2\. whatever comes by default with your repo hosting (Github or BitBucket or Google Code for open source SVN)

3\. hosted Trac, Redmine or Bugzilla

For client work, I'm using Redmine, although I'm thinking of switching to ditz (or something similar) to make my life simpler.

For personal projects, I either use TODO.txt or the repo-provided bug tracker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> ditz: <http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/148367>

</comment><comment><USER30> Slightly off-topic, but if what annoy you in Trac is its setup or management, let me introduce pbp.recipe.trac ( <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pbp.recipe.trac> ), a buildout recipe which can help you automate deployment and administration of several Trac instances.

And sorry to Hacker News community for this shameless self-promotion.

</comment><comment><USER31> On demand (in the cloud) option is IMO nicer for startup teams.</comment>


Statistics of amplification DDoS attacks over last six months - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/reflections-on-reflections/## <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. AMA! This post was tough, since the industry doesn't really have common language for discussing the packet floods. In this article I tried to build some language and put focus on Gbps, Mpps, Unique IP's, packet lengths, duration of events in aggregate. I know the post is dense in numbers, but we want to encourage folks to be more open with attack data.

Finally, the "flowspec" section is somewhat controversial - for reasons I can't understand - even though Inter-AS flowspec should be a norm, it still isn't.

<comment><USER2> How long does cloudflare keep connection metadata/captured packets?

<comment><AUTHOR> This blog post explains our attitude to logging:

* [https://blog.cloudflare.com/what-cloudflare-logs/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/what-cloudflare-logs/)

For attack data we do two things:

* We find the attacks and log the attack metadata (dest ip, duration, unique IP count with HLL, etc). This is in database and stored forever. Most of the info in this blog post is from this aggregates.

* We automatically capture pcaps for some packet floods. The pcaps are pretty small, contain sampled packets (not full flows), and in many cases don't contain packet payload (netflow doesn't have payloads). These pcaps are kept for about a month and are automatically rotated. The "tcpdump-like" snippets in this blog post are from these files.

<comment><USER2> Cool thanks for the link to the blog post.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What the Internet thinks about, based on the most read articles - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/17/what-the-internet-thinks-about/

<comment><USER2> Infographics are dead, even the interactive one</comment>


Online Map Leads Archaeologist to Maya Discovery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/science/archaeology-lidar-maya.html <comment><USER2> This is almost the same way I hunt minerals, excepting I use LANDSAT and ASTER data overlaid with MRDS records, USGS geological units, Public Land Survey System, magnetic anomalies and gravity anomalies.

Last weekend I found a major agate deposit, very gorgeous white agate mixed with amethyst.

I'm the maintainer of the Google Earth LANDSAT and ASTER data access. Unofficially, the actual maintainer no longer works with the USGS so I've taken it upon myself to keep the dataset available and up to date.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're interested in lidar data for the United States, the USGS has a great tool online:

[https://apps.nationalmap.gov/3depdem/](https://apps.nationalmap.gov/3depdem/)

I've used it to map old quarries and other sites in my area.

New Hampshire has an ongoing project to map stone walls using lidar: [http://www.granit.unh.edu/resourcelibrary/specialtopics/ston...](http://www.granit.unh.edu/resourcelibrary/specialtopics/stonewalls/)

<comment><USER4> Here's a map I made for the UK, well, England and Wales...

[https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map](https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map)

<comment><USER5> How is that being used in the functioning of your website?

Or was it just a fun thing you were playing around with on a hidden page?

<comment><USER4> The latter really. It's a side project within a side project.

<comment><USER6> Hanoz - can you give some info on the coverage of the lidar data?

From viewing your map, it seems ~ 70% of England is covered at 1m resolution. Is the other 30% covered by different resolutions or are there some areas not covered at all? Any idea what the Environment Agency's thinking is? (e.g. some areas hit by 2015 Boxing Day floods are not covered at 1m).

(I'm maybe interested in using their data, depending on what the coverage is). Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's an open-data win here.

Also a technology win in that sites that have had digs still revealed new archaeology with lidar mapping (aeroplane and drone).

Presumably we have enough tech now that the Dr who found the 27 new sites can train an ML algorithm to recognise sites and buildings (and do metrological analysis automatically?)? Is there a generalised image analysis system for aerial imagery that catalogues buildings/roads/ruins/foliage/etc.?

<comment><USER8> Training data is an issue. Microsoft released some datasets of buildings in North America (125 million footprints). Later, they decided to use the same technology to generate building footprints in Uganda and Tanzania:

[https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2019-09/microsoft- releases-18M-b...](https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2019-09/microsoft- releases-18M-building-footprints-in-uganda-and-tanzania-to-enable-ai-assisted- mapping)

They needed different training data to cope with the different landscapes.

Facebook has faced similar challenges trying to use ML to generate road centerlines for OpenStreetMap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maya mia!

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's the text without paywall: [https://web.archive.org/web/20191009015429/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191009015429/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/science/archaeology- lidar-maya.html)

<comment><USER11> Didn't work for me. Caveat: I'm already at the limit.</comment></comment>


GoFundMe Founders Sell a Majority Stake - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/24/gofundme-founders-to-reap-a-fortune-in-buyout/ <comment><USER2> Heh.. every time I read one of these 30 somethings founders (as I am) striking it rich on some buy out deal etc.. I think to myself, why the f%$k am I still cranking behind this desk? Then I return to work the next day oblivious and pretty much content _sigh_...

<comment><USER3> These articles don't tell you about the 30-somethings that burned their life savings chasing an idea and not getting the same result. Ultimately, the narrative that success is directly the result of hustle isn't necessarily true.

<comment><USER4> Yep, pretty much this.

The math is pretty clear that 75% of the time, you will fail.

> There is recent research by Harvard University's Shikhar Ghosh that three > out of every four venture-backed firms fail, which was newsworthy because > the failure rate was higher than normally cited by the venture capital > industry.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact- checker/wp/2014/01/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact- checker/wp/2014/01/27/do-9-out-of-10-new-businesses-fail-as-rand-paul-claims/)

<comment><USER5> > The math is pretty clear that 75% of the time, you will fail.

The math is way worse than that: [http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/19/heres-a- look-inside-a-typi...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/19/heres-a-look-inside- a-typical-vcs-pipeline-a-must-read-for-entrepreneurs/)

If you manage to get VC funding, you're still going to fail three times out of four. But, that assumes you're one of the 8.3% of companies reviewed by a VC firm that gets funding.

What percentage of nascent companies don't even get so far as a warm intro to a VC?

<comment><USER4> [http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2002-03-03/the-bottom- li...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2002-03-03/the-bottom-line-on- startup-failures)

> The good news: Because few meaningful statistics exist about small, > privately held companies, the astronomical business-failure rates that we > hear quoted so often tend to be misleading. For instance, a survey done by > the U.S. Commerce Dept. says that of every 10 small businesses, 7 will > survive their first year, 3 will still be going after 3 years, and only 2 > will remain after 5 years.

> Most of us know through experience, however, that a lot of independent > businesses do indeed close their doors quickly -- with certain industries > more prone to see startups fold than others. Figures compiled by the > National Restaurant Assn., for example, show that 80% of independently owned > eateries fail within their first two years, for instance.

It doesn't seem to be much worse/different for non-VC. Just smaller scales.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if the numbers have improved any in the 13 years since that was written.

<comment><USER4> Doubt it, its been pretty much around there for a very long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would seem that the founders have "won" their own GoFundMe campaign. But kudos to them for realizing that the company's growth had exceeded their personal threshold for interest/time/size, and handing over the reins early.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm happy for these guys but is it just me or is a 5% transaction fee nuts? I know, I know, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, you name are all roughly the same, and yes, there is value in the "platform", publicity, etc. -- but you're basically just sending money from one person to another. Venmo (which is basically free) could roll out a platform like this in no time and charge 1 or 2%.

I just wonder why, in 2015, with all our technological progress and all the "innovation" in the payments space we're still tolerating really high transaction costs. /endrant

<comment><USER9> Because 5% may be way more efficient than what we have now? (If it's not, there's no point in doing this.) But then, in a year or two, Venmo or whoever can charge 1 or 2% and eat their lunch.

<comment><USER10> Did cheap auction sites eat eBay's lunch? I'm not sure a couple of percent is as important as the other features like ease of use, sharing, and promotion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > In North America alone, nonprofits are a $300 billion-a-year industry. > There's a lot of fat in there. If we do our jobs well, we can remove > friction as it relates to giving

Well that sounds scummy as hell.

<comment><USER12> I think the point is that people give to charities as a proxy for "helping people." Massive research oriented charities probably won't be displaced by something like GoFundMe, but the idea is that average people can directly fund the needy on a case by case basis (i.e. instead of paying for the administrative fees of a charity that helps sponsor scholarships, you can directly fund the recipient?)

<comment><USER11> No, I got it.

and they have no qualms about publishing the fact that they just want to skim right off the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> can't help but wonder how the employees fared in all this?

walking in to work today to find out the people you have been following have taken a check and bounced out is never a fun way to start your day.

</comment><comment><USER14> They never took capital and now they exited to an investor syndicate led by VCs. Wow - how times have changed. Founders (of hot companies) hold all the cards. No wonder valuations are sky high.

<comment><USER15> That's one advantage of bootstrapping. When you do decide to raise money, you can make sure you cash out some of your own shares as part of the deal.

Since they were already cashflow positive, they were free to say "no deal!" to any offer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I met the founders once at a StartUp-SD event hosted by Brant Cooper, back when I lived in the area. Great guys from my experience then and I'm really happy to see them get this outcome.

</comment><comment><USER17> TCV and Accel are smart investors but this on its face sounds like a terrible idea. Outsiders are typically clueless about why something is working.

However, it it ends up working out, I can see the model getting a lot of future consideration.

</comment><comment><USER18> If they take 5% of every campaign,it means that in order for the investors to make back their money, Gofundme will have to raise $12.000 million in its lifetime, assuming that their costs are 0.

I couldn't find stats for GoFundme, but Kickstarter was able to raise $529 million in 2014. [0]

Personally, this buyout does not make sense.

[0] [https://www.kickstarter.com/year/2014/data](https://www.kickstarter.com/year/2014/data)

<comment><USER19> That's not how company valuations work. A company doesn't have to bring in $1 million in profit for investors who valued the company at $1 million to break even.

At very late stages, a company valuation is usually a multiple of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The valuation (which is different than market cap, but we'll conflate the two for sake of explanation) in very late stage, non-growing companies, during times of slow economic growth is around 5-7x. If a company is growing quickly at the later stages (read: exponential growth curve) its P/E ratio (price/earnings ratio) could be, we'll say, 100 on the public markets (100x). That's really high, and would rarely happen unless the economy has really low interest rates (meaning less good places to put your cash, and you need to invest it somewhere anyway).

So, in other words, we give the company the benefit of the doubt and say they'll be worth 30x EBITDA. That means they'd need to bring in about 20m in one year, which is about 400m in total donations. High for sure (the buyers must really believe in them), but not completely unreasonable. If, on the off chance, they start bringing in 1B in donations, and their take is 50m, the investors will earn a great multiple on their investment. That's probably what they're hoping for.

<comment><USER20> I think Josu was actually correct and you two are talking about two different things. Josu is saying that if the purchasers cannot find another (greater?) fool to flip the company to then they will have to manage 12 billion dollars in transactions with 0 costs if they are only charging 5% in order to break even. That's just simple math, 5% of 12 billion = the 600 million dollar buy- out price. That's if nothing changes in terms of what percentage they keep and if they have 0 costs. If the purchasers are going to buy and hold they will need to handle 12 billion dollars in transactions at 0 expenses to get their buying power back to buy another company, unless they can flip the company or borrow against it.

You are saying that the purchasers have broken even on the deal so long as they have not lost money on paper in the valuation since they can probably either borrow against it or sell it off.

It comes down to are you paying for current value, or potential growth in value. Frankly, in my opinion, markets that rely upon a greater fool to bail you out to make your money rather than just getting it back the old fashioned way by providing a good or service are way too frothy.

Counter-argument is that you are betting on growth, not a greater fool bail out. In this instance the only way to get that growth while still handling less than 12 billion in transactions is by increasing their take from 5% to something higher or adding on ancillary sales. I'd bet on ancillaries, but this isn't my space.

By the way for those reading who may not know, I was referencing Greater Fool Theory, not making a pejorative statement (heh, beyond what the theory itself may make). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory)

<comment><USER18> Thanks, you put it much better than I did. And yes, that was exactly my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone know what size stake they had? It says they had refused to take capital earlier, does that mean they still held 100% between them?

</comment><comment><USER22> i think they saw the writing on the wall for the crowdfunding space.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting that it's a guy from Groupon that will take over. Even more interesting is that he wants to have an office in SF with the market this crazy...</comment>


The most popular Google+ user? It's Facebook's Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/07/05/google.plus.zuckerberg/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn <comment><USER2> Not surprising. Mark is interesting, and he's in the spotlight. Eric is boring, not that he isn't a great CEO, but the fact that Mark is on Google+ is far more interesting than anything else, and people want to see what he is doing on his profile.</comment>


The Coder and the Dictator - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/technology/venezuela-petro-cryptocurrency.html <comment><USER2> This is propaganda.</comment>


Oculus VR Order Cancellation and Refund Policy - <AUTHOR> https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201721253-Order-Cancellation-and-Refund-Policy

<comment><AUTHOR> Reddit is going a bit crazy atm [http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21d4jp/how_do_i_canc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21d4jp/how_do_i_cancel_my_dk2_preorder/)</comment>


Dyslexie: a typeface for dyslectics [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLtYFcHx7ec

<comment><USER2> Is it just me or is this also easier/faster to read for the rest of us?</comment>


Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon's growth is slowing - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-11/jeff-bezos-just-confirmed-amazon-s-growth-is-slowing <comment><USER2> It seems that Amazon grew its annual sales by around $50 billion from 2017 to 2018 for a growth rate of "only" 19% (compared with 24% the year before). I'm not exactly concerned for them.

> _In 2018, Amazon's nearly $300 billion in GMV was about a 19 percent jump > from the prior year. That was notably slower than the rates of increase of > 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively, in 2017 and 2016._

<comment><USER3> Seriously, and they grew faster than the ecommerce category as a whole. Plus, double digit growth in the 100's of billions of GMV is incredible in its own right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the poor management of 3rd party sellers is at least part of it. I've had several bad experiences with slow shipping, "out of stock" after the sale, items very much not as described, counterfeits, etc. And crazy bad support from those sellers...English bad enough that I couldn't understand the response.

I now only buy a very specific subset of what I used to buy there.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand how returns work anymore. I bought something thinking I could return it if it didn't fit but it turned out the cost to return it was more than the item itself.

It doesn't seem like they tell you that in advance.

<comment><USER6> that and some items are nonreturnable. Which it does not say on the product page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's always weird to me when this kind of things is treated as bad news: they haven't said they're shrinking, literally that they aren't growing _as fast_. I mean I don't particularly like amazon but this kind of reporting irks me.

<comment><USER8> Because the stock price has factored in the growth. A slow down in growth means the stock price has to come down. It is bad news for the stock holders.

<comment><USER9> > Because the stock price has factored in the growth. A slow down in growth > means the stock price has to come down.

Not necessarily. Maybe the market has factored in a slow-down in growth.

<comment><USER10> But then it would not be news, and TC wouldn't be writing articles about it, and we wouldn't be here discussing it.

<comment><USER11> This _shouldn 't_ be news. Amazon is a multi-billion dollar business that has been growing at phenomenal rates. _Of course_ its growth is slowing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't investors realize that mathematically, a business cannot grow at the same rate forever?

<comment><USER13> Of course they do, they just value you differently. When companies announce slower growth it impacts their valuation because it impacts the discounted value of their future cash flows.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. You can think of the stock close price as having two components:current value + expected future value (of cash flows).

If a company grows more slowly, you'll see the 2nd decrease, but the first will stay the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Shopping on Amazon has become like shopping on Canal Street in NYC (e.g. street lined with shops selling counterfeit goods). You never know what you're going to get.

<comment><USER16> I honestly think this is overblown on HN. We must have placed more than 100 orders a year as a family for approaching a decade, and I don't think we've ever had a counterfeit. Not sure if it's different in the UK.

<comment><USER15> It is definitely not overblown. Easy to do simple searches on Amazon and compare to a site that doesn't rely on 3rd party sellers like Best Buy. If you searched "wireless headphones" the top results are all knock off airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of likely fake reviews. It's a joke

<comment><USER17> > _If you searched "wireless headphones" the top results are all knock off > airpods and other suspect cheap Chinese made electronics with thousands of > likely fake reviews._

But isn't it a feature of all on-line shopping? If you type a generic query like this, you'll always get generic garbage as results. If you want to buy quality items, you search directly for those items - by their exact name or SKU.

E-commerce storefronts are not useful for product discovery.

<comment><USER18> Amazon commingles inventory, so counterfeits end up in the same bins as real products. So even by ordering a specific product or SKU, from a reputable seller, you can still have a decent chance of getting a counterfeit.

[https://sellercentral.amazon.ca/gp/help/external/G200141480?...](https://sellercentral.amazon.ca/gp/help/external/G200141480?language=en_CA)

[https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-fake-products-project- zer...](https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-fake-products-project-zero/)

[https://www.climbing.com/gear/counterfeited-how-illegal- knoc...](https://www.climbing.com/gear/counterfeited-how-illegal-knockoffs- harm-outdoor-brands/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if Amazon's days as the de facto online retailing site are numbered.

For nearly everything I buy on Amazon now, I wonder: "is this real? Are these reviews real? Will it break in 10 minutes?"

Obviously, Amazon is doing just fine, and we are a long way from my parents asking those same questions, and they have tons of businesses beside retail. So yes, they'll be ok.

But I think they've left the door open for competition with their approach to third party sellers.

<comment><USER20> This is my concern as well. They're becoming victims of their own success with knockoffs and scammers increasingly gaming the system. Everything from knockoffs piggybacking on real listings, to entire lines of products being dominated by no-name Chinese companies throwing armies of shills at the reviews.

Amazon figuring out how to deal with the problem is critical for their future.

<comment><USER21> They've had a long time to figure that out. It's been an issue for a while. They've just neglected to do anything about it.

It doesn't take a genius to look at all the reviews that some products have and realize that they're fake

<comment><USER22> This is a common sentiment, but seems wrong to me. It doesn't take a genius to recognise a spam or phishing email either, and yet no company has created a perfect email filter.

It's not neglect, it's a very hard problem, as is any problem where you are trying to make an inference with limited information controlled by an adversary. Amazon could spend billions on incredibly sophisticated fake- review-detection algorithms, but they still couldn't stop sellers finding real amazon customers and paying them to buy and review their products.

<comment><USER23> Neither the sentiment nor the difficulty of the problem matters. Big A gets a cut of a sale whether or not the reviews or products are genuine so they won't do more than the bare minimum to deal with it, until their tide starts to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They've clearly spent the last 10 years spending like crazy, in a frantic (and successful) effort to diversify their offerings.

Yes, they'll first and foremost be "internet walmart", but only a fool would think that the insane growth was unstoppable - Jeff Bezos is many things but he's not an idiot.

</comment><comment><USER25> isn't there an upside? feels like a return to bricks-and-mortar competition is good, not bad. well.. depends if you own amazon shares or not. Im a non-direct shareholder, my pension fund might have a consequence but I'd expect it to be both sides of this anyway.

totally feels like an upside to me.

<comment><USER26> > a return to bricks-and-mortar competition

That's not what is happening at all. Amazon dominates the ecommerce market, is still growing like crazy, is even still growing faster than the overall ecommerce market, and the ecommerce market is growing faster than the overall retail market.

No return to bricks-and-mortar competition remotely in sight here. It's a pity the spin in the article seems to have been accepted so uncritically in many posts here.

<comment><USER25> Well, thats a shame then. I might add I believed it because of the false assumption "what I do is what everyone does" and I stopped using AMZN and buy in bricks-and-mortar deliberately for a reason.

I do however, in some cases continue to buy online but from shops direct, not via their Amazon channel.

I assumed the background was this is a "thing" but your story makes more sense: the rate of growth of underlying trends makes a single-line measure "drop" but it isn't what they say it is, its a decline in relative scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Amazon is doing _great_... but its _stock price_ now seems _much riskier_.

This is because many self-professed "growth investors" head for the exits, swiftly and silently, the moment they get a whiff that growth is slowing down.

<comment><USER28> The growth numbers to keep an eye on aren't ecomm, it's AWS and Prime subscriptions.

<comment><USER27> I would say keep an eye on the whole top line, not just those two contributors to revenue. And also, watch out for any warning signs in the industry suggesting that cloud services are starting to become utility-like (low- margin, capital-intensive) businesses. That would not be good for AWS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm curious if acquisitions impact the rate of growth, Amazon has been on a buying spree these past couple of years.

<comment><USER30> they finally stagnated. the site is still as unusable as when I first used it.

Search and categories are complete garbage.

The listings that breakdown price (e.g. $/unit or $/Gb or $/ounce) are a inconsistent mess in the same search result, sometimes showing different units for the same product from two sellers!

and I still have no idea if a listing will be OK or from a seller worse thab ebay.

<comment><USER31> I can live with the unpleasant UX as far as that goes, but where it implodes for me is having to sift through endless fake reviews, counterfeits, and shit products. "Amazon's Choice" is frequently garbage, and everything else is a coin flip at best. I have to use Fakespot just to sift through the more obvious dreck.

Of course it's AWS printing their money, not retail.

<comment><USER32> Fakespot is pure trash. That thing doesn't work at all. According to Fakespot everything in Amazon is fake. Even small legitimate third-party sellers get bad ratings from Fakespot. But that's not even the worst part. I have found dubious listings where Fakespot didn't detect anything and gave them a semi- decent rating when it's obvious that the reviews were manipulated just by looking at them.

If you want to understand a product reliability is pretty simple. Just browse the 1 and 2 star reviews. You can find a lot of valuable information about the products in those reviews.

If you still want to use something to evaluate the reviews use Reviewmeta. It's much better and transparent than Fakespot.

<comment><USER33> > According to Fakespot everything in Amazon is fake.

[http://www.chioka.in/class-imbalance-problem/](http://www.chioka.in/class- imbalance-problem/)

<comment><USER34> And probably half or more that's on the Internet is fake too especially if it revolves around making money.

I've told my older parent not to buy a product or use a svc based on Internet reviews.. go with personal recommendations only!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the market has already realized that Amazon retail is beatable. There's been a resurgence in stocks that were once falling like a knife because everyone thought Amazon would destroy them...among them Best Buy, Etsy, Shopify, etc.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hopefully such a signal doesn't turn the market bearish. There's enough economists saying that we're overdue for a correction and I hope for them to be wrong.

<comment><USER36> Why do you hope for them to be wrong?

Edit: Fix typo.

<comment><USER37> People suffer in recessions.

<comment><USER38> On the contrary, I think a recession - and hence a discount in asset prices - is good for people.

<comment><USER37> Good for rich people (those with money to spend on assets). Absolutely not good for most people.

<comment><USER38> Rich (<1%) already own assets, but the rest aren't invested enough. Asset prices right now are unaffordable. A big correction will give the rest a much needed discount. Agreed that there is a big segment in population who can't afford assets either way. But usually recessions impact the middle class the most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I guess they have to get into the people-making business now.

</comment><comment><USER40> I see Amazon now like Aliexpress with a worse UI. Side note - I got an Amazon.ca Visa 4 years ago. Then two years later I got a letter saying in a month or so they (Chase and Amazon) were ending the card service. So I was a student stuck with paying off the card without access to the credit I had factored into my budget while I was in school. I wasn't impressed. Haven't shopped on Amazon since.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm noticing that there's a lack of hot products that I "must have" and would jump onto Amazon to buy. Lately my consumption is largely driven by stuff I have wearing out -- this wasn't the case a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's time for massive M&As.

</comment><comment><USER43> Now begins the monopoly, rent seeking, price hikes.</comment>


Zimbabwe introduces new $50 billion note - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/10/zimbawe.currency/index.html

<comment><USER2> There's a lesson to be learnt here. Printing money = Inflation. I know it seems obvious, but the Federal Reserve has printed about 800 billion dollars so far, and if our government ends up with a 2 trillion dollar deficit in the next few years, we're going to be seeing the same phenomenon.

It wasn't that long ago (1970s) where inflation in US was 10-15%. Our population has short memories, and we seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past (vast government spending relative to revenue).

</comment><comment><USER3> It's amazing how thoroughly has been completely destroyed in the last decade. What I think most first-world readers miss is that Zimbabwe is not one of those (previously) ultra-poor, undeveloped countries -- it's had a frighteningly long fall to get to where it is now.

<comment><USER4> Hyperinflation is caused by external countries refusing to invest in a countries currency, not by internal factors. So the current problem with money they are having is controlled by external entities.

<comment><USER5> Mars has never invested in Earth currency. Therefore, and because of that, the Earth economy must have continuously experienced hyperinflation.

<comment><USER4> The earth economy is closed, and is not dependent on external planets. The Zimbabwe economy, like all African economies, is strongly dependent on imports of manufactured and industrial goods.

If you actually have an argument and you understand the facts of what you want to argue, then please lay out your points. A silly non-relevant statement does not contribute to the discussion in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How can an economy survive with such an inflation? How can you work, knowing that the salary you agreed to at the beginning of the day, is now worth 10 times less

<comment><USER7> I'd imagine a sort of barter system takes the place of the currency. You could also try to rely on foreign currencies.

<comment><USER8> They actively crack down on those using foreign currency, it's actually illegal to use foreign currency for transactions there - although of course everyone does and there is a massive black market for this.

Mugabe also tried to fix the price of common goods - e.g. Bread, Milk, etc.

<comment><USER8> Edit: Hmm - Apparently this has changed and they allow foreign currency trading now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _In August last year, the RBZ slashed ten zeros from the currency. But the zeroes have bounced back with more vigor._

That means in before August 2008 these would have been 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 notes. Yikes.

<comment><USER7> When will they start using scientific notation on the notes? I'd invest a few dollars at whatever exchange rate just to get a hold of some $10^23 notes.

<comment><USER10> That'd be just about a mole of currency. Yikes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The tragedy of Zimbabwe is that a functioning, wealth-creating capitalist system that was evolving towards equal rights for blacks over time was sacrificed to satisfy the ego of a strong man, who proceeded to wipe out every trace of capitalism and rule of law, and replaced it with the law of the jungle. Zimbabwe's whites mostly left, so it is the black population that paid the biggest most terrible price. Naipaul has chronicled this process in his books very well.

As a member of an once "inferior" race, I can state with confidence that we were not inferior, we were just behind in adopting the institutions and cultural patterns of modernity. The whites were teaching us that - by example that we could watch and emulate every day. A gradual process of assimilating those values would have served us well. Kicking the whites out took that opportunity away.

Yes, none of this politically correct. That doesn't make any of it wrong either. Yes, there are white racists. Fuck them - _they_ could not have stopped us from learning. Only _we_ could have, and we did.

<comment><USER12> Are you _sure_ you are not white? Or at least,...antipc?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411138>

And you and I both know who he _really_ is, don't we, longtimer?

[EDIT: Rechecked your facebook page. Yep, still white.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The interesting thing is that there is probably considerable potential for the population of Zimbabwe to earn foreign hard currency by selling bank notes of this kind of denomination (for example, on eBay, if possible) simply because so many Westerners would find it incredibly novel to obtain one, just for the sheer amazement factor.

It's an economic opportunity to take advantage of just how bewildering the situation is.

</comment><comment><USER14> How long until they have a trillion dollar bill like the one Castro stole from Homer?

</comment><comment><USER15> Damn, just when I bought the $25 billion of eBay.

</comment><comment><USER16> You can already see discontinued $100 billion notes for sale on ebay... 10 for $40

</comment><comment><USER17> man, my site is totally worthless now <http://www.millionzimbabwedollarhomepage.com>

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://preview.tinyurl.com/ebay-100B>

There seems to be $100B note. What am I missing?

<comment><USER19> They cut 10 zeros from the currency in august---100B was converted into whatever 100B/10^10 is, and they restarted from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The world badly needs a hard currency that is independent of political control.

<comment><USER21> Keep dreaming..

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What a strange attempt to solve their problems. Maybe there is something wrong with your system if you can't print money fast enough to keep up with inflation.

</comment><comment><USER23> Read it very carefully. This is USA in the future. 800 bilion bail-out - printed, over 1 trillion budget deficit - printed, another 800 billion bail out - printed. Only 5% of all the US dollars ever created is in circulation in the US. Rest of them are deposited in banks of the rest of the world as I.O.U.s... treasuries (us gov debt) that was bought by foreigners. The very moment foreigners realize that Treasuries have negative R.O.I. - as it will become true once treasuries bubble bursts and Fed starts printing to pay them off... well, this is how the whole Communistic Block collapsed in matter of months - hyperinflation due to inability of repaying debts. The exactly same thing will happen with the USA. Nation with no production, no savings and the biggest debt in the history of the man-kind... this country is going bankrupt. Kaput!

</comment><comment><USER24> Zimbabwe (British-relative) national IQ: 66

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_IQ#National_IQ_and_QHC...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_IQ#National_IQ_and_QHC_values)

<comment><USER25> Zimbabwe president: Robert Mugabe

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe>

I'm pretty sure their government has much more to do with the hyperinflation.

<comment><USER26> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man>

Not really a theory in the best repute.</comment></comment></comment>


Obesity System Influence Diagram - <AUTHOR> http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html

<comment><USER2> Intriguing diagram, really poor implementation.

Can't figure out how to switch the group focus, most click and drag attempts drag the image instead of moving it, and the zoom in/zoom out is not implemented in a usable way.

You might want to look at libraries such as jsPlumb, d3js or sigmajs.

Chrome Version 32.0.1700.107

<comment><AUTHOR> It is, admittedly, not my diagram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Intriguing diagram, but where does the data come from?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen diagrams like it - the answer is "hundreds of papers from a wide number of disciplines".</comment></comment>


Testers needed! - <AUTHOR> http://history.sansj.com/forum/read.php?4,4 I need people to test a new app that I have created: 'History!'. History! is a personal web history manager. It allows you to save, bookmark and tag the page that you are currently reading and gives you the ability to locate the page at later stage.
Requirements: Firefox (with JS enabled), Web Server running MySQL and PHP. A Firefox toolbar is created during installation and that is when the fun starts. You can view a demo here: http://www.trk7.com/install/xxx.php?sstring=what+makes+a+sentence
I think it is much more flexible and powerful than other web history managers and the best thing is that all data gets stored in your server (absolute PRIVACY)!
I have tested the app in Firefox (2&3) in Mac and I am pretty sure it will work fine in Win Environment.So please check it out. <comment><AUTHOR> I need people to test a new app that I have created: 'History!'. History! is a personal web history manager. It allows you to save, bookmark and tag the page that you are currently reading and gives you the ability to locate the page at later stage. Requirements: Firefox (with JS enabled), Web Server running MySQL and PHP. A Firefox toolbar is created during installation and that is when the fun starts. You can view a demo here: [http://www.trk7.com/install/xxx.php?sstring=what+makes+a+sen...](http://www.trk7.com/install/xxx.php?sstring=what+makes+a+sentence)

I think it is much more flexible and powerful than other web history managers and the best thing is that all data gets stored in your server (absolute PRIVACY)!

I have tested the app in Firefox (2&3) in Mac and I am pretty sure it will work fine in Win Environment.So please check it out.

</comment><comment><USER2> Any thought on adding screenshots of pages I've recently saved. If often find I can recognize pages quickly that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am thinking about it. I have used websnapr before to get screenshots of webpages but, the quality of the images is not great. Anyone else aware of a solution that is free and better than websnapr?

<comment><AUTHOR> actually, I did find a few interesting solutions and I have implemented it. Check the site now: [http://www.trk7.com/install/xxx.php?sstring=what+makes+a+sen...](http://www.trk7.com/install/xxx.php?sstring=what+makes+a+sentence)

<comment><USER2> Nice. What are you using for screen shots?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.artviper.com/tools.php></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Essential launches $149 headphone dongle - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/13/18092620/essential-phone-magnetic-headphone-jack-adapter <comment><USER2> I really enjoy my Essential. Anyone know where I can find the gold edition?

</comment><comment><USER3> What a consistent disappointment Essential ended up to be.</comment>


Elementary school kids doused as jet dumps fuel before LAX emergency landing - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-14/plane-dumps-fuel-on-students-on-school-playground-en-route-to-lax-officials-say <comment><USER3> Pretty sure that dumping fuel can be quite common when there is a critical malfunction before they return to land. As someone pointed out they would prefer to keep the fuel because it is expensive and they really don't want to dump over populated areas. I would rather have some kids have to take a shower, than have 140+ passengers killed in a possible explosion. Also the Jet Fuel would have been pretty dispersed by the time it reached them vs someone who is fueling an aircraft with it.

The MSDS sheet on Jet Fuel

[http://www.usor.com/files/pdf/4/Jet%20Fuel%20-%20SDS%20941%2...](http://www.usor.com/files/pdf/4/Jet%20Fuel%20-%20SDS%20941%20-%20130709.pdf)

From the article:

>A total of 60 patients were treated, at least 20 of them children. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said more than 70 firefighters and paramedics headed to Park School Elementary, where 20 children and 11 adults were treated for minor injuries. No one was taken to the hospital.

So 20 children and 11 adults treated for minor injuries and not one was hospitalized vs not ejecting the fuel and possibly causing an explosion upon landing for 140+ passengers.

<comment><USER4> Diluted how? As in, dispersed in air, so they got misted rather than drenched?

(If so, "doused" is a poor choice of words for the headline, though par for the course in modern journalism.)

<comment><USER3> Dispersed was the word I was looking for. Nothing was added to the fuel to dilute.

I incorrectly use Diluted probably because I had an old roommate was in water tech always use the phrase jokingly, "The solution to pollution is dilution".

I will edit my post to be correct.

<comment><USER4> Ah, sorry. Hadn't meant to be pedantic. I was just wondering if perhaps there was some sort of dilution process applied to jet fuel, maybe for safety reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An ATC recording of the incident is here:

[https://youtu.be/mIA90evz8gs](https://youtu.be/mIA90evz8gs)

The issue was a compressor stall on one of the engines. Not critical, by the pilot's own admission. ATC offered a hold over the water to dump fuel, which would have been a normal thing to do. Fuel dumping is normally coordinated by ATC. It was declined as unnecessary.

Then, suddenly, they are dumping at low altitude over a city (which is to be avoided if at all possible). Now, I don't know for sure what happened in the final minutes. Dumping fuel is certainly better than crashing, but it is hard to understand how the crew got into that situation given what happened earlier. There are still questions to be answered.

</comment><comment><USER6> I listened to the ATC tapes on LiveATC (and now can be found compiled by VASAviation on YouTube).

When DL98 first declare an emergency, Socal asks the crew if they need to dump fuel and they indicate they do not, but end up doing it anyway, even at low altitudes. Something happened along the way that made them decide to dump fuel and try to get under max landing weight, but when you're single engine, you want to get down on a runway ASAP as you don't know that the problem affecting one engine won't happen to the other.

I am not a 777 driver, but an overweight landing is always an option - <USER2> fact, required when you're single-engine. Checklists for engine out say "land at nearest suitable airport." Holding and dumping/burning fuel is, in my limited knowledge, reserved for instances where there is a fault that prevents forward progress but does not necessitate an emergency landing.

Can't think of any examples off the top of my head right now though.</comment>