Can Dropbox Be Trusted? - <AUTHOR> My co-worker was reviewing Dropbox as an option for our company's file backup, sharing, and syncing and he came across this language in their privacy policy:

    Business Transfers. Dropbox may sell, transfer
    or otherwise share some or all of its assets,
    including your Personal Information, in connection
    with a merger,  acquisition, reorganization or
    sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy.
 https://www.getdropbox.com/terms#privacy
Perhaps this is a question for a lawyer (maybe we have one reading HN...), but doesn't this give Dropbox too much freedom with my data? Would you still use their service with this policy in place? Am I overreacting?? <comment><USER2> The very fact that there is no explanation of how the storage is done in detail ought to make you worry. It certainly looks as if files are identified by their (cryptographic?) checksum across accounts even if those accounts are not sharing anything officially.

To do that, and to distribute that data from a single point means that someone other than you have a key to read those data. You will have to protect your data by encryption yourself before uploading.

Perhaps you should evaluate Tarsnap from <http://www.tarsnap.com/> which is in public beta as of this writing. It provides a neat backup service and has a publically readable/accessible description of what measures that are taken to protect your data from adversaries. I have not tried it myself, but I happen to know that Colin Percival knows what he is doing.

<comment><USER3> _I happen to know that Colin Percival knows what he is doing._

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Upvote because I want to see this discussion. Honestly, it seems to be a simple "If we get acquired we don't need to ask you for permission", but it does lean a little harsh.

I think though that if you're going to be storing say, customer CC info, you don't want to be using a service like dropbox regardless of their policies. I don't think they are the right choice - you should be handling the security of this information yourself, or use clauses like dropbox's yourself to remove liability.

As a business, this would be the more worrying clause though:

 _We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our service, to provide the service on our behalf, to perform Site-related services (including but not limited to data storage, maintenance services, database management, web analytics, payment processing, and improvement of the Site's features) or to assist us in analyzing how our Site and service are used. These third parties have access to your Personal Information only for purposes of performing these tasks on our behalf._

Why? Because lord knows where the heck your information is, and if some admin from a company three steps removed gets his laptop stolen, it could come back to haunt you.

<comment><USER5> In practical terms, I think that bit could be shortened to "Your stuff is on S3."

<comment><USER4> Yeah, but that's an issue in and of itself, from a business POV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> hi all, arash (from dropbox) here. as mentioned elsewhere in the discussion, the terms are referring to contact information, not data.

<comment><USER7> From a purely legal standpoint, "some or all of its _assets_ , including your Personal Information," could be argued to include the user's data under "assets."

That's not to say Dropbox would do that. But it probably would be nice to explicitly say somewhere that you won't sell or give away the physical bits that are uploaded to the service.

<comment><USER6> not exactly ;-)

pasted from terms:

Dropbox does not claim any ownership rights in Your Files. You acknowledge that Dropbox does not have any obligation to monitor the Files or User Posts that are uploaded, posted, submitted, linked to or otherwise transmitted using the Site or Services, for any purpose and, as a result, is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, appropriateness, legality or applicability of the Files or anything said, depicted or written by users in their User Posts, including without limitation, any information obtained by using the Site or Services. Dropbox does not endorse anything contained in the Files or User Posts or any opinion, recommendation or advice expressed therein and you agree to waive, and hereby do waive, any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against Dropbox with respect thereto.

<comment><USER8> _Dropbox does not claim any ownership rights in Your Files_

Do you need to claim ownership of something in order to "share" it with a third party? (strictly legally speaking, of course)

The rest of the paragraph is just covering of _your_ back. This is fine, of course, just not relevant to the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You are overreating.

The second paragraph defines Personal Information to be information that personally identifies you, like your name and contact info.

<comment><USER10> > _You are overreating._

That explains his weight gain. But what about this privacy issue?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wrote up a little blog entry about DropBox's place in the enterprise here:

[http://blog.infowranglers.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/16/38803...](http://blog.infowranglers.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/16/3880399.html)

I'm NOT a security or legal expert, but my concerns would be more about the security of sensitive data, rather than concerns over the possible sale of personal information (it's been a while, but I don't remember Dropbox asking anything too intrusive.)

You cannot specify your own AES key, which might be a worry to some people. The DropBox team suggest sharing encrypted disk images if this is an issue.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any sensitive data you should be encrypting anyway. I use TrueCrypt volumes mounted inside Dropbox.

You never know when that nosy Arash might decide to load up your Quicken file :)

</comment><comment><USER13> What the hell do the paranoids expect? 'In the case of a merger, acquisition, etc, we will delete everything and start over, or ask personally to each of our customers' ?

And as noted, Personal Information is the stuff you give them at registration.

Furthermore, please don't put extremely sensitive data somewhere on the cloud with little to no protection. Common sense.

<comment><USER14> In short, yes. A little less extreme though would be to guarantee privacy and security to all stored files, and should any changes occur to the current policy, users should be notified and given the option to completely wipe all of their data or continue using the service. That to me is common sense. Under no circumstances should an acquisition impact the user's privacy and security.

As for encrypting data before it's uploaded. Sure, I mean if you believe their target demographic is tech-savy enough. Which probably means a small fraction of their current users.

I think security in the cloud has to be a shared a responsibility between users and providers, for all cloud apps. Telling your users that it's their sole responsibility is ridiculous and not very competitive... unless you're releasing an open source offering to sysadmins. Technology has gotten so confusing for the typical end user that of course they're not going to invest the time to understand what cloud security even is, whether or not you believe they should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Personally, I use JungleDisk (which was recently acquired by Rackspace) to encrypt all my data and back it up to Amazon (on my own S3 account, not JungleDisk's). Sure, it costs more than Dropbox or Carbonite or other services but it seems incredibly more safer and controllable to me.

On the other hand, I use Dropbox to synchronize non-sensitive files between my machines. I never put anything on there that I'd be worried about being published unprotected to the world.

</comment><comment><USER16> Backup the data in an encrypted form?

<comment><USER17> But that would largely eliminate most of DropBoxes usefulness. A large part of what makes DropBox attractive is it's integration with the operating system.

<comment><USER18> It is possible to integrate encryption seamlessly with Linux using dm-crypt and OSX is basically BSD (darwin) below the UI so there should be something there as well. As for windows, I heard (somewhere, and with no substantiation) that MS was working on a full disk encryption system. Then again, If you have enough technical resources to setup a crypfs system on a linux box, it should be trivial to setup fileserver on Amazon S3 or some other system so thats not really a good solution.

I think that this highlights a general problem with web-based services. How do you trust them to safeguard your data? Its hard enough when the software is local on your own computer and you have contact with _some_ immediate physical retailer but with the web, who knows?

Oh well... Its the old security vs. convenience problem again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> encfs + Dropbox works quite well. I have my dropbox set to sync ~/.dropbox and I mount an encfs on top of it as ~/Dropbox.

Since encfs is transparent and stores its results as plain old files, Dropbox only has to sync individual updates.

<comment><USER20> very good solution thanks! anyone knows of something similar for Windows ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It looks to me like "Personal Information" refers to just that, your personal information (name, address, phone number, etc.), not the files you store in your Dropbox. (IANAL)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have found when users bring up this sort of thing it is because someone the user wants to share with would prefer to use email and other forms of communication other then your product and are grasping at straws to get the person who is excited about it, not to use it. You can change the terms but it will not do any good, they will look harder for another reason not to use it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure if they do, but it would be cool if dropbox offered an encrypted version of their service for people who are worried.

<comment><USER24> If dropbox were to offer encryption, it would not make things more secure since I'd have to hand them unencrypted bits.

If I were to store bits that need encryption on a service like this I would encrypt them before I hand them off.

<comment><USER23> Well they have a desktop client. They could easily encrypt it there.

The web client is a bit more of a problem, they would just have to promise to encrypt it right away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would not trust any such service, frankly. I'm sure the people there are very nice, but it only takes one bad employee. On the other hand, any secure backup solution is going to involve encryption, even if you're putting DVDs in a safe deposit box.

</comment><comment> bbhoss-synsol I think it's safe to say not to put anything on DropBox that you wouldn't lug around on a flash drive. You probably shouldn't be transporting sensitive information on your flash drive OR DropBox, and if you DO, you better be damn sure its encrypted.

</comment><comment><USER26> damn.. it sure as hell sounds like it.. IP doesn't really apply to the data you're hosting on their hardware does it now?

</comment><comment><USER27> No. Yes. Yes.

Next question!</comment>


Ask HN: Is it just me or does Firefox suck now? - <AUTHOR>

Ever since I upgraded to 3.5 Firefox always crashes and fails to load pages.  Updates didn't help.  WTF Mozilla.  Is it just me? <comment><USER2> I haven't experienced any increased crashing but I don't use FF that often anymore so it's hard to generalize. I mostly used FF because it was faster than IE. Now I use WebKit because it's faster than FF. I don't care about a kitchen sink selection of plugins and themes -- I just want a very fast browser.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to work in tech support, so I have to ask...did you restart your computer? ;)

It is probably some plugin that worked perfectly under 3.0 that is not playing well under 3.5. Try disabling all of your plugins and re-enabling them one by one. For me it was BetterGmail that was crashing FireFox. Disabling it fixed everything.

</comment><comment><USER4> Firefox itself is OK for me, but firebug and flash have made firefox unusable in the last 6 months. At least on linux. It seems to need a lot of memory on windows, though.

<comment><USER5> For me Firebug is crapping out all the time even when it's off -- I regularly see the "This script is stalled" dialog from it.

Firefox is pretty useless to me without firebug -- extensions can't be disabled/enabled without restarting, and it seems impossible for any nontrivial extension to noop itself because of the event handling nonsense. I really don't want to have to always be using multiple profiles, but it might come to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> FF 3.5 is extremely slow on Linux on comparison to Chrome, so I switched there. It's faster on Windows, but that may be because I use it less so the cache is smaller. The lookup times for the awesomebar are too slow.

<comment><USER7> It is faster because you use it less so the cache is smaller ? Think about that.

I have no reason to doubt it is true; I know poeple who claim to have made Firefox run much quicker by disabling the cache or making the cache direstory read only.

One of those people uses a 56k dialup connection that rarely connects as fast as 56k.

How badly do you have to screw up a cache implementation to get it where it is faster to fetch the data over a 56k dialup than look it up on the local harddisk ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have constant problems with Firefox, but they are all related to add-ons. When I turn all of them off, the thing runs smoothly. Of course, the add-ons are why I use Firefox in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's just you

</comment><comment><USER10> Firefox takes ...

...

...

... a very long time to start up. :(

</comment><comment><USER11> Not just you. I see it on my Mac and Windows at work. There are times when it just goes unresponsive for 3-10 seconds, then unfreezes and runs fine. But it's def. a slow bloated POS at this point (and IMO).

</comment><comment><USER12> Firefox 3.5 in its current incarnation is extremely stable for me on both Linux and Windows. Betas were rough, and 3.0 remained pretty crappy, for me, throughout its entire cycle, but mostly that was memory usage complaints.

I _did_ have a few weeks worth of horrible Firefox instability last month, but it turned out to be due to faulty memory in my desktop machine.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have used Mozilla / Firefox for what seems like forever, but 3.5 just is sluggish for some reason. It might just be my installation, but ever since upgrading to 3.5 Firefox is really slow starting up.

Now I've switched to Chrome but I do miss the Flashblock plugin.

</comment><comment><USER14> Firefox 3.5 crashes frequently on both my macbook and my wife's older macbook. It's slow to load, sometimes slow to load some pages and hyperlinks occasionally don't actually work (mostly only on facebook.)

</comment><comment><USER15> On which platform? Firefox can vary _a lot_ on other systems.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have similar experience with Firefox. But, I don't attribute that to upgrade. The crashes used to happen even before.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like speed. I like the Google Toolbar. I look forward to the day when Chrome satisfies both.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not just you. Firefox has the Netscape syndrome: it gets crappier with every release. And that's _without_ any damn addons.

<comment><USER19> Compared to Safari's recent versions, FF's recent versions have typically been more sluggish. I just downloaded Camino and will be testing that out.</comment></comment>


Recurrent Neural Networks Hardware Implementation on FPGA - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.05552v1 <comment><USER2> > We implemented a RNN with 2 layers and 128 hidden units in hardware and it > has been tested using a character level language model. The implementation > is more than 21× faster than the ARM CPU embedded on the Zynq 7020 FPGA.

I'm left curious on the performance gain factor when scaling the network in terms of layers and units. Would the performance gap widen as the RNN grows?

<comment><USER3> > Figure 8: The execution time is projected to decrease with the increase of > number of LSTM cells running in parallel. This can lead to significant > performance improvement.

They do say in the text that "Figure 8 shows the expected speed up, assuming the data throughput is high enough to handle the parallel processing" so take it with a grain of salt. There could and most likely will be (as there always is) other factors that prevent ideal scaling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this unexpected? I feel like we're heading towards more hardware implementations of Machine Learning to work around the current bottlenecks.

<comment><USER5> There are extremely large amounts of hardware based implementations. Any more complicated TV upscaler (Sony 4K TVs certainly) probably has a neural network embedded in it.

Any algorithms working with images need FPGA implementations to be quick enough, and there are a lot of convnets in use there.

There's a chapter on convnets here: [http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/computer- scien...](http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/computer- science/pattern-recognition-and-machine-learning/scaling-machine-learning- parallel-and-distributed-approaches?format=HB)

RNNs are nothing special in particular, at least these with small number of layers and nodes.

HMMs or CRFs are easier to handle for sequences, and would probably work well, and there are FPGAs all over the place of these models.

<comment><USER6> Any links to TV upscaler chips using NN algorithms? I couldn't find any.

Also, my impression was that FPGAs are much slower than GPUs for neural nets. Unless you're talking about really high end chips like Stratix 10 from Altera, which cost over $30k. Power consumption is a different matter though.

<comment><USER5> [https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/blog-news-from- sony/inside-4...](https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/blog-news-from- sony/inside-4k-what-is-x-reality-pro/ba-p/1346224)

They won't tell you it's NNs but it is. Sony distributes a lot of movies, they use their database of movies to train the upscaling models (which is obviously NNs [https://github.com/nagadomi/waifu2x](https://github.com/nagadomi/waifu2x) ) and then put the chip in the TV.

It's something almost equivalent to storing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in your TV in 4K, and then reproducing it when they match it with what's playing on TV.

<comment><USER6> It does not mention anything about neural networks in that link. How do you know? I looked up that Sony chip, and I can't find anything "neural" about it either.

I don't quite understand what you mean by: "It's something almost equivalent to storing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in your TV in 4K, and then reproducing it when they match it with what's playing on TV."

Can you explain? What exactly do they have to store in the TV?

<comment><USER5> Well, Sony Pictures is huge. Their database of movies is enormous. (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is one of the movies distributed by Sony)

Imagine they stored all of the movies they distribute in 4K in your TV. Whenever the movie is displayed they just find it in the database and reproduce the 4K version.

Of course, that is very much infeasible, it requires too large of a storage.

What they do is something like Waifu2x I linked, they train a neural network to learn how to properly upscale movies. They put the "algorithm" on the chip, and its fast enough for real time usage.

<comment><USER6> It seems like you're speculating. Unless you're familiar with the details of their chip, your guess is as good as mine.

<comment><USER5> I don't have to be familiar, you can know state of the art deterministic upscalers and their image quality, and know state of the art statistical upscalers and their image quality.

When you see side-by-side for these upscalers, it's obvious they aren't that good in deterministic upscaling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like an interesting approach. However the 21x speedup seems a little underwhelming considering the speed of the Zynq's programmble logic fabric and how parallizable NNs are. They're quoting a 21x speedup over the ARM processor on the Zynq 7020, which is on par with what powers the RaspberryPi 2. My guess is they didn't pipeline their design enough or appropriately causing one of the datapaths to significantly limit their throughput.

</comment><comment><USER8> Url changed from [http://hgpu.org/?p=14968](http://hgpu.org/?p=14968), which points to this.</comment>


Lovelace and Babbage Legos - <AUTHOR> https://ideas.lego.com/projects/102740

<comment><USER2> I love this - and it's a rPi case too!</comment>


Agenda At Once PIM just became freeware - <AUTHOR> http://www.datalandsoftware.com/blog/2013/03/04/agenda-at-once-pim-just-became-freeware/ <comment><AUTHOR> We have decided that our Agenda At Once PIM software, previously priced at $39.95, will be completely free from now on. No cut down features, no Premium offers, no special upgrades – simply free...</comment>


The New York City Subway Is Beyond Repair - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/the-new-york-city-subway-is-beyond-repair/562472/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Maybe solvable problems... but where would these vehicles be parked? How would positioning work since there's no GPS underground? And how to move vehicles from surface to tunnels?</comment>


1000+ New Functions for Google Sheets with Blockspring - <AUTHOR> https://api.blockspring.com/blog/blockspring-for-google-sheets <comment><USER2> Please curate your functions?

There are so many awesome tools buried in therefor me as a web marketer.

Hopefully people would publish content around how the amazing functions is helping them. Provide use cases...etc.. and you'll get traction.

Sincerely love the product and hope it becomes widely used.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also - post coming soon on how to add functions using PHP, R, Python, Ruby, or Node. Stay tuned!

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this part of your roadmap or a growthhack product to grow userbase?

<comment><USER5> It's meant to make the functions built on Blockspring usable in more places - so that's how it's part of our core value.

(by the way, long time no see - hope you've been well!)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my pet project - Ping Brigade - <AUTHOR>

Ping Brigade (http://www.pingbrigade.com/) is a webapp that lets you measure how fast your web server (and/or your network connection) is from several locations in the world at once. It started out as a side project but after spending several months working on it, it is now live. For the future, I plan on adding more locations around the world, a mobile version and a blog (to talk about various optimization techniques, review hosting providers, etc.)<p>Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much. <comment><USER2> Does the page load test include asset loading and javascript execution? Based on the numbers I just got, I'm guessing not. Google's Page Speed tool measures for these. If your tool did this in the simple interface you have and from around the world, I'd be hooked.

Definitely a great execution though. Clean design, good name, and cute logo.

EDIT: The reason it'd be great if the page load test included these is because a) I could then test for what Google is testing for when figuring my site's speed into search results [1], and b) I could easily test the real-world impact of using a CDN.

[1] [http://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed- as-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed-as-ranking- factor-39708)

<comment><AUTHOR> It does not currently include asset loading, just loading of that URL. Tools like Page Speed and YSlow do this very well, but only from your current location. Combining Ping Brigade with those tools should give you the complete picture.

EDIT: But thank you for the suggestions. Certainly something to think about/add in phase 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The market of connectivity/website monitoring is very saturated at the moment, and it has been in this state for at least a couple of years. I spent several weeks on the market research for a very similar service and here is a snapshot of my bookmarks from that time:

<http://i37.tinypic.com/2n6651g.png>

This is just a subset of existing services, all of these are functional and useful. They target different users and have different pricing levels, but quite a few are actually free and there was two free services with over than 50 sensor points each. Some are simple, some are very (overly) comprehensive. Some are very aggressive marketed (Pingdom), some are low profile, but still sit at the top of respective Google searches.

So, in short :) - this makes sense as a hobby project, but trying to carve out a non-trivial market segment for it is going to be _the_ challenge. The technical and design merit alone is not enough, it will come down to marketing, sales, support and knowing how exactly you want to position the service ("the bigger view"). Make sure you can justify the effort before committing to it. I know I couldn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing this. I will definitely need to do more market research. As you said, right now this is just a hobby project. Hopefully, it will catch on in some niche. If not, at least I learned a lot from creating it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty clean interface. I understood what the site was about in a fraction of second and I tested a couple of website without any misunderstanding or anything in the design. Congrats on that.

+1 Because my girlfriend like those birds on the top of the page.

This might really be useful to system admins.

My suggestion:

\- API (with good documentations!) to test from a specific country

\- Use Notifo

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. That was the goal: make it as clean and easy to use as possible. It seems that others that provide this kind of service have pretty clunky UI's. Glad your girlfriend likes the birds. That was a big consideration (they had to be approved by my wife).

I guess the API is the next thing I should tinker with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks good, though open World tab by default. Didn't notice there were other tabs as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice interface.

On the bottom of the results page, it says "Need a better server? Get one at Ping Control." but the "Ping Control" link appears to be broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should be fixed now. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice! I like the simplicity of it as I've used other services as well like Global Net Watch.

A big deal for us would be having some Asia Pacific locations as that is typically the area with the worst performance for our site and the one we most like to keep a close eye on.

I'd also 2nd the ability to have a nice restful interface that returns some json back to us for some automated testing.

Very nice clean design!

<comment><AUTHOR> I will be adding more locations ASAP. The trouble is often times finding reliable providers when I don't speak the language. That's why I've been focusing on US + Europe for now, but Asia and South America are next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> * maybe when one has filled in the URL, tested the ping, if he checks the "page load" or "web server latency" button, you could load the results right away without letting us do the extra step to click "enter" again. * it would be interesting if you would keep the history per link and graph the performance at the different point in time where people tested the ping.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I struggled with how to have the user choose which test to run. In the end I went with something that would allow the page to work even if JavaScript is disabled. But I will certainly be revisiting this portion of it to minimize the number of clicks it takes.

<comment><USER9> I just ran it with NoScript FF add-on enabled, and I got the following:

Well, this is embarassing...

We have a bug here somewhere. If you think this is a big deal, please let us know.

Turning off NoScript, I got results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice - I suppose one feature would be to implement a RESTFUL api that returns JSON or XML results so it could be used programatically - sys admins could write cron jobs to test their servers etc...

or it could be integrated into a software build process / test framework (continuum, cruise control etc) and sites could be tested automatically upon deployment...

<comment><AUTHOR> That is certainly another idea I considered. On top of that I could use this infrastructure to create a web monitoring service that is subscription-based.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely - people could create a 'named' suite of test/pings via a web interface, then trigger that named test or suite of tests via the API: pingbrigade.com/api/run/?userKey=XXX&suite=foo

...I would look for a business case before investing too much time! :-)

<comment><USER11> Hope this helps.

The service we use (globalnetwatch.com) will log in to our app using credentials we supplied, executes transactions we specify such as loading a specific page or bringing back results from a web service, tests the results(there is numeric data at this spot on the page, etc.) and emails us a daily status. It runs every 15 mins and alerts us immediately if there is an issue. We get to choose how many different locations they test from both within and outside the US.

Pings and page load are just the tip of the iceberg.

That's your competitor.

Best of luck

<comment><USER10> Interesting - Actually, I built Femtoo.com which can be used for a similar purpose! But I have JUST posted this article about my content extraction web service cQuery.com:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1574214>

small world!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Love it! I'd recommend though that instead of using a hash in your URL, you use GET Data. So a URL would look like: [http://pingbrigade.com/?query=google.com&type=1](http://pingbrigade.com/?query=google.com&type=1) . Could be useful in some situations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had it that way originally, but changed it for a couple of reasons: (1) That way you could create circular redirects very easily. My current setup uses POST so you can't directly create a loop. (2) That way these URL's are permanent. You can send them to your hosting provider when complaining about network/server issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be nice to have a score associated with the results, similar to Y-Slow. I don't expect at the early stages that you would provide guidance on how to improve, but showing my score vs. average, or best or something would be beneficial, so I know how badly I need to improve.

</comment><comment><USER14> I got all requests failed on testing page load for <http://beta.crowdeo.com>

Also, I'd like to be able to test server speed by more than ping latency, i.e. actual throughput between various points.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Well, this is embarassing...

The page you were looking for was not found. Please make sure you have the correct URL. If you do that means we screwed up, so let us know._

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. You must have caught me in the middle of a deploy. Should be all set now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Have you seen <http://just-ping.com/> \- not as nice an interface as yours but seems to have rather more locations covered.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I haven't seen it before, that's why I created PB. Thank you for the link. I'll keep an eye on what features they have that I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Small remark: your map of Europe appears to be strechted out along the Y-axis. Is that possible? Or is it just using an unfamiliar projection?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am using whatever Google Charts API produces and at their maximum size (440x220 px). It may be that they use a strange projection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> clickable: <http://www.pingbrigade.com/>

</comment><comment><USER19> very cool idea. I really like the logo :)

</comment><comment><USER8> like the name

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. The original name I was looking for was geometric.com, but a domain squatter has it and I don't want to deal with that on principle.

<comment><USER8> Pingbrigade brings it home for me</comment></comment></comment>


How Rackspace Hosts Rackspace.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.rackspace.com/blog/how-rackspace-hosts-rackspace-com/

<comment><USER2> This doesn't describe anything about their setup. Not software used, not hardware used, not networking setup, not anything.</comment>


Metaprogramming with Modern C++: The Haskell Metaphor - <AUTHOR> http://blog.biicode.com/template-metaprogramming-modern-cpp-haskell-metaphor/ <comment><USER2> > _Thats all! Simple, isn't it? Here's std::decay in the Turbo way:_

      template< class T >
      struct decay {
          using U = tml::eval<std::remove_reference<T>>;

          using type = tml::eval<
    		   tml::conditional<
    				    std::is_array<U>,
    				    tml::eval<std::remove_extent<U>>*,
    				    tml::conditional<
    						     std::is_function<U>,
    						     std::add_pointer<U>,
    						     std::remove_cv<U>
    						    >
    				   >
    			    >;
      };

> _I found it much more readable. What do you think?_

I think:

1\. Programming in XML notation is starting to look good, suddenly.

2.

      (def-compile-time-gizmo decay (x)
        (let ((u (remove-reference x)))
          (cond
            ((is-array u) (remove-extent u))
            ((is-function u) (add-pointer u))
            (t (remove-cv u)))))

3\. Why isn't tml::conditional just called tml::if, if it (evidently) only takes three arguments: expr, then, else?

<comment><USER3> 3: Probably because _if_ is a keyword and can't be used. (And it's based on ''std::conditional'' standardized in C++ 11, but that's begging the question.)

<comment><USER4> Exactly. if is a C++ keyword. I selected tml::conditional following the Standard std::conditional. The boost::mpl library uses mpl::if_, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's still the "obscure, magical, and freaking way to abuse the compiler it was at the beginning." It's just that the syntax for doing it has been improved. Just because term-rewriting systems are Turing complete doesn't mean one should program that way. Someday, someone may have to fix the code.

On the other hand, if you provide a full programming language, loops and all, at compile time, as LISP does, people go overboard with language extensions. LISP and PL/I were probably the last languages to go that far. There was a fad for "extensible languages" about 30 years ago, but it died out - programs were too hard to maintain.

<comment><USER6> Not sure you're caught up... [http://clojure.org/](http://clojure.org/)

It's not the most popular language, but it's well respected for exactly the reasons you say LISP died out.

<comment><USER7> "Lisp doesn't look any deader than usual to me."

— David Thornley, in reply to a question older than most programming languages ([http://lispers.org](http://lispers.org))

<comment><USER6> Haha, nice

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a full-time C++ programmer, and I keep up with the language pretty well, but I absolutely hate template meta-programming. We use it in parts of our codebase at work and I always dread when I have to interact with those parts of the code.

It's horribly ugly and verbose compared to other languages, like Lisp, that basically solve the same problem of computation at compile time. Even this library that supposedly cleans things up is pretty ugly as far as I'm concerned.

It's incredibly slow to compile. Somebody posted "Conway's Game of Life in TMP" the other day, and one of the template parameters was the number of frames to generate at compile time. I changed it from 3 to 10 and kicked off a compilation, and it ran for over 12 hours, used 10+ Gb of RAM, and still hadn't finished when I killed it the next day. I can do the same thing in Lisp, also at compile time, and it'll be a fraction of the code, easier to read, the same syntax as usual Lisp, and execute in negligible time for 10 frames.

And don't get me started on the error messages. Clang is pretty good, but it's still not good enough.

And the worst part of TMP is that due to the other problems with it, it's considered "black magic" by many people and so they don't bother learning it.

Until some of the problems are fixed, I don't think TMP will ever take off and become popular. It's just too hard to work with.

I guess I'm biased by writing a lot of Lisp in my free time lately. Lisp solved the same problem TMP is trying to solve, infinitely better, 50 years ago.

<comment><USER9> > Until some of the problems are fixed, I don't think TMP will ever take off > and become popular. It's just too hard to work with.

Perhaps, although I've seen expression templates a few times in the wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How much does a codebase have to be worth to justify programming like this?

It seems like if there's one or two guys, they'll just use haskell, or o'caml or f#, and skip this complexity.

I'm guessing a company must have 40-50 engineers, with one super critical execution path that must be separated out to support this style. Maybe 10% of the team has to interact with this style code? Maybe $5 mil in engineering labor - a $50 mil/year company?

<comment><USER4> As I said in the post, common day to day C++ has (usually) nothing to do with metaprogramming. But huge generic libraries, like most of the STL implementations, rely heavily on template metaprogramming.

Those libraries usually have their own hardcoded tricks and metafunctions. What I'm trying with Turbo is to provide all that functionality in a portable and easy way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Metaprogramming with _Old_ C++: The Haskell Metaphor: [https://github.com/mooseman/pdutils/blob/master/template_pse...](https://github.com/mooseman/pdutils/blob/master/template_pseudo_haskell.cpp)

<comment><USER4> Haha, that reminds me to a guy who implemented a PROLOG-like language with templates: [https://github.com/abudnik/tcalc](https://github.com/abudnik/tcalc)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Need Help Brainstorming a Solution - <AUTHOR> Need help brainstorming a solution to a little problem I'm having.
I have a google spreadsheet filled with rows of data that I need to copy and paste in some input fields on a website.
Current Manual Flow is:
- Copy Cell A1, Paste in 1st input field on the website - Copy Cell A2, Paste in 2nd input field on the website - etc... - Click save button on website - Click New Page - Copy Cell B1, Paste in 1st input field on the website -etc...
I'm trying to think of ways to automate this process? Any tips or ideas would be a big help and save me A LOT of time! <comment><USER2> there are several projects for browser automation, any should work for you if you can write some JS

<comment><USER3> You could try Selenium IDE, it might require running an older version of FF and you might need to export your sheets data to CSV first.

[https://medium.com/@kcmueller/browser-task-automation- with-f...](https://medium.com/@kcmueller/browser-task-automation-with-firefox- and-csv-files-3a94a49c75b8)

Or you might even be able to just automate the whole process using the IDE and the steps you laid out in your question.</comment></comment>


An evolution of IRC , just released - <AUTHOR> http://circlefy.com/ We just released something we've been working on for a very long-time.  Ex-Google/Slide/Facebook engineers.  Here it is.  An evolution of IRC.  This is just the start. <comment><USER2> When I visited the site, I immediately got greeted with a login/signup modal dialog, without being able to look around and see what it's all about. (No, the little intro on the same dialog is not nearly enough)

That led to me instantly closing the browser tab.

<comment><AUTHOR> duly noted

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> great!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> cool</comment>


You are the DNA of your company. What you are, it will become - <AUTHOR> http://peternixey.com/post/108635883413/you-are-the-dna-of-your-company

<comment><USER2> I really like the point on sales. So many people look down on sales, or think it's some sort of dirty word, but I have a lot of admiration and respect for sales people. They don't seem to get enough kudos in the tech world. But they have really thick skin and their persistence can pay great dividends.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you learn about new technology? - <AUTHOR> Given everything is going virtual, what are the sources that are popular with backend, full stack, micro services enthusiasts?<p>Similarly, what publications/forums/blogs are your favorite source? (hackernews? TC? CSS-tricks? Something else) <comment><USER2> I use HN for discovering new tech or learning about something that I didn't know I needed to know. If it's something I am searching for an answer to, then I use Google to find a source specific to that tech (could be a blog, vendor forum, etc).

</comment><comment><USER3> Not affiliated with these, just like them:

\- [https://devurls.com/](https://devurls.com/)

\- [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

\- [https://tuxurls.com/](https://tuxurls.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Twitter and YouTube</comment>


Model-View Catharsis - <AUTHOR> http://acko.net/blog/model-view-catharsis/ <comment><USER2> I had the impression that much time and thought went into this post but unfortunately I couldn't make it much past the beginning. I think I'm not much interested in mixing reading for pleasure and reading for learning, and when I'm reading for learning I just want to the post to get to the point.

<comment><USER3> I had the same experience. I ended up bookmarking the site, thinking that I could reference it the next time I wanted to formulate an argument about the problems with MVC.

It would help to have a conclusion or abstract somewhere, listing the main points that the article makes, so that I have a way to know where to invest my attention when reading it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to agree that it's a difficult read, and I'm someone who has done a fair share of looking at these different architectures.

But the broad-strokes recommendations seem approximately like these things I would say(which are not exactly the things the author says):

* Some things are best done in an incremental fashion rather than a big "update"

* You often need to copy state in your UI code

* It helps to focus on building explicit synchronization points(which I turn to FSMs to do)

* Modelling abstract cursors on data is a helpful UI idiom

</comment><comment><USER5> I had trouble following due to the cloud of snark and attempted wittiness.

</comment><comment><USER6> The MVC pattern is basically what you end up with a naive implementation of a GUI interface. A more sophisticated solution is the plugin pattern where independent code can "plugin" by for example listening on events. It's kinda like MVC but backwards, instead of a button updating the view, the plugin/view listens for button-clicks. And if a server is involved, the view/plugins should listen for events sent by the server. Where each little plugin/component do it's own thing independently. If you for example have a "new messages" badge that shows _both_ new messages and new chat messages, it should listen for new messages and new chat messages!! versus the spaghetti- strategy of having both the messages model/widget _and_ the chat model/widget update the new-messages widget.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and that's why most of the message passing interfaces struggle with race conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In addition to the tone it was distracting that as I read images would appear _behind the text_.

I'm actually interested in principled criticism of weaknesses of the MVC model (I've been a fan for decades). Anybody have a good link?

<comment><USER9> The criticism is pretty succinct:

1) No one agrees about what the Controller does 2) As a result no one knows what should make up the Model 3) Therefore this leaves the Views in a real bad state

<comment><USER8> Thank you for extracting that!

I don't know about the component state on the web, but from my perspective I think that is backwards. As I said I'm not a web developer, but for me those terms are meaningful this way:

Assume I have a program for designing aircraft jet turbines.* It uses a parametric model that lets you specify shaft length, blade length, combustion chamber camber, etc. It has its own constraint system that doesn't let you put 10 meter blades in a 4 meter diameter housing. Etc. I have a whole little set of operations (these days called a DSL) that allow a programmer to manipulate the model using the vocabulary, metaphor, and mental models of a typical jet turbine designer.

That is the _M_ in MVC.

I also have a library of routines for drawing parts of the turbine on the screen. They themselves are parametric with orientation, zoom, etc. A set of view parts -- the _V_.

Finally I write a little window that displays a turbine with some mouse gestures and the like that allow me to zoom, rotate etc. Maybe point and ask questions.

You might write a different program that does the display on an ipad, calling from my set of Views to fit your interaction model. You won't necessarily need to know much about turbines, frankly, as my model should give you all the affordances you need.

==

After reading your great note, I went and read a bit from the article and it seemed that the author is entirely in the display -- in the "C". Elements like a user name (let's say a part number in this example) aren't so much as model items -- high level abstractions, but simply inputs. To me the model is the program domain model. To be forced to take the same approach with mere UI widgets is cruelty indeed, and perhaps _that 's_ the author's argument?

* obviously nobody would write such a program this way; this is expositional

<comment><USER10> I believe it is not worthwhile to treat MVC as a pattern to emulate: [http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/model_view_controller.html](http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/model_view_controller.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So the writing is really ornate but one thing that stood out to me

> 1px wide gradient edge

wtf is a 1 pixel gradient?

<comment><USER12> 1 pixel gradient is an old games/graphics trick.. Define an array of pixels, but only one "row".. match the length of the array to the dimension desired, then use the graphics primitives in the window to stretch and fill.. (here, a picture is worth a thousand words) think of a To-Be-Defined rectangular area, and a gradient that is mapped to either the x or Y dimension, and "stretched" across to make the rectangular fill.</comment></comment>


Are some diets "mass murder"? - con-templative http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7654

<comment> con-templative > Teicholz begins her examination by pointing out that the Inuit, the Masai, > and the Samburu people of Uganda all originally ate diets that were 60-80% > fat and yet were not obese and did not have hypertension or heart disease.

> The hypothesis that saturated fat is the main dietary cause of > cardiovascular disease is strongly associated with one man, Ancel Benjamin > Keys, a biologist at the University of Minnesota. He was clearly a > remarkable man and a great salesman, described by his colleague Henry > Blackburn (whom I've had the privilege to meet) as "possessing a very quick, > bright intelligence" but also "direct to the point of bluntness, and > critical to the point of skewering."8

> Keys launched his "diet-heart hypothesis" at a meeting in New York in 1952, > when the United States was at the peak of its epidemic of heart disease, > with his study showing a close correlation between deaths from heart disease > and proportion of fat in the diet in men in six countries (Japan, Italy, > England and Wales, Australia, Canada, and the United States).9 Keys studied > few men and did not have a reliable way of measuring diets, and in the case > of the Japanese and Italians he studied them soon after the second world > war, when there were food shortages. Keys could have gathered data from many > more countries and people (women as well as men) and used more careful > methods, but, suggests Teicholz, he found what he wanted to find. A > subsequent study by other researchers of 22 countries found little > correlation between death rates from heart disease and fat consumption, and > these authors suggested that there could be other causes, including tobacco > and sugar consumption.</comment>


What is Google waiting to make official the support of Android apps on ChromeOS? - <AUTHOR> With the web getting all sort of improvements at a very fast pace, and wasm to set the stable version in Q1 2017, are they hesitating on the Android compatibility idea and plan to keep only web apps? <comment><USER2> Yeah what's up with that? I kept hearing all this stuff about "Andromeda OS", and then nothing.

<comment><USER3> Nothing about Andromeda comes from google at this point.

I am inclined to believe that there is indeed a big android related project going on at google. Android Police reported this first and they usually don't make that many articles without a reliable source.

However there can be a huge difference between what this project ends up being and what Android polices writers understood it was.</comment></comment>


The 80-year-old concrete arrows that helped deliver the mail - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/18/5116408/transcontinental-air-mail-arrows-helped-deliver-mail

<comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6453401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6453401)</comment>


How 1 developer handled learning a big competitor doing a similar thing - <AUTHOR> http://www.shindigital.com/blogpost/67

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to admit, when I heard of Remembary I though... huh, that sounds like Momento. Doing a quick search of Remembary vs Momento immediately brought me to this post. Then I read how Andrew Burke, Remembary's developer, handled the same news. It was great to not only see him distinguish what makes his app attractive but also recognize the strengths of the competition (and where it would suit his potential customer's needs more).

Kudos!</comment>


FIU had grand plans for 'signature' bridge. But the design had a key mistake - <AUTHOR> http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article212571434.html <comment><USER2> > But FIU's bridge was designed to mimic the dramatic look of a cable-stayed > bridge, where the deck is suspended from cables fanning out from a tall > mast. In FIGG's design, though, the "cables" — actually metal pipes — were > mostly just for show. The diagonal, v-shaped struts of the truss did the > structural work.

I've always found it useful to hone in on anything that is done purely for aesthetic reasons.

We build a house recently. I really wanted exposed rafters, there was some complexity around insulation, and the architect responded by proposing some "faux" rafters. The idea was so revolting that it prompted more examination, which identified some mistakes. In the end, a simpler, better, cheaper solution was found that did not have faux elements in it.

<comment><USER3> Yes! Good thing you pushed back on the architect.

I have a similar design philosophy that honesty is more aesthetically pleasing than deception.

When designers resort to faux materials and structures, the truth still tends to peek through, resulting in an 'uncanny valley' of forms. For example: * Brickwork veneers bend in the wrong spots * Faux beams are placed in the wrong locations with the wrong joints, announcing that they can't bear a load

There's certainly a place for decorative elements, just not decorative elements pretending to be something else.

I spent several summers framing houses, so I'm looking forward to an opportunity to design my own house - and maybe 3D printing it.

<comment><USER4> The worst example of this are those faux shutters that seem to outnumber real ones. They're rarely wide enough to actually cover the adjacent window!

[https://imgur.com/a/o9Nxx6c](https://imgur.com/a/o9Nxx6c)

EDIT: Added examples of fake garage door handles and hinges. I'm seeing that a lot more and don't understand the point.

<comment><USER5> Wow, I had never seen this but that's impressive, I didn't even think this kind of thing could exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is heartrending to realize that they were given one last chance to step back from the abyss, when cracks appeared, but they pressed on regardless. If something happens that you don't understand, it's time to halt and reevaluate.

It bugs me that FIGG (one of the contractors) appears to be threatening the professional licenses of the engineers who helped the Miami Herald's investigation, by suggesting that doing so was unethical.

<comment><USER7> > It bugs me that FIGG (one of the contractors) appears to be threatening the > professional licenses of the engineers who helped the Miami Herald's > investigation, by suggesting that doing so was unethical.

As a licensed Professional Engineer, you have to be quite careful criticizing other engineers. As long as the engineer signing off met "standard practices", he is covered and saying that he is not could get you in quite hot water.

In addition, while it is certainly possible that the engineer screwed up, it is also not impossible that the concrete may have been substandard, installation instructions may not have been followed, etc.

For example, in the Citibank Tower, the design was incorrect for quartering winds. However, Bethlehem Steel, the steel supplier, suggested cheaper bolted connections which made the problem worse.

[http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2015/12/08/citicorp-centre- to...](http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2015/12/08/citicorp-centre-tower- failure-averted/)

Engineering failures are often a chain. That's why the NTSB has to be allowed to do its work.

<comment><USER8> I'm unaware of any liability that can be picked up through rendering an opinion on a design. I have participated in forensic engineering / expert witness cases in geostructural matters. In fact, the opinion of an engineer as an "expert witness" is often codified in law as retaining no liability. Asking questions and drawing conclusions is not something that presents any risks besides you being possibly proven wrong later. If you don't stamp the design to be constructed, then there is no liability.

I would be very interested in any law or regulation you can find that says otherwise.

I would also add that most of the involvement of engineers during lawsuits is to establish exactly what state of practice is in the local area. It would be hard to do that if all these other engineers didn't have or couldn't give an opinion.

<comment><USER9> I used to be a structural engineer in Canada (EIT, left before getting PENG) and one of the projects I was involved with was analyzing a collapsed building to determine fault.

Being an expert witness is completely different than being an engineer talking to the public. Generally speaking an engineer close to the details of the project is going to know more than you. If you have concerns, you call up the engineer and you have a discussion. If he's dismissive you still have the choice to escalate the matter, but it's usually to someone in the government, not the public at large. Engineers need to be trusted by the public and shooting your mouth off about another engineer degrades public trust.

<comment><USER10> So basically the code of ethics says you don't get caught arguing and doubting each other's work in public because it makes all engineers look bad. To me that sounds like a thin blue line, just not blue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A real cable-stayed pedestrian bridge, one that's both longer and cheaper, is in Cupertino, CA, crossing I-280.[1] That was done without major disruption to I-280 traffic. There were some lane closures and two or three late night closures for a few hours.

FIU built a fake one that was more expensive than a real one.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Burnett_Bicycle- Pedestrian...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Burnett_Bicycle- Pedestrian_Bridge)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Saw this story via an @EdwardTufte tweet:

[https://twitter.com/EdwardTufte/status/1007395311541682176](https://twitter.com/EdwardTufte/status/1007395311541682176)

> _A+ This is beautifully executed technical report by the Miami Herald, an > instant classic of news reporting. Note that this report is a document not a > deck. The FIU admistration loaded the bridge design down with features._

<comment><USER12> Wow, I thought it seriously needed an editor to take an axe to it. I usually like long pieces, but this just seemed repetitive.

<comment><USER13> The way newspaper articles work, not every reader is expected to read the whole thing.

They are structured to put critical information up front, so that a reader can stop whenever they lose interest without missing anything more important than what they already read, but include additional detail below for those who are more deeply interested.

This leads to the same main points being repeated several times, which can be a jarring style for readers who are not used to reading newspapers. Long magazine articles are typically structured quite differently.

<comment><USER14> It's known as the "inverted pyramid" style:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_\(journalism\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Fountainhead Chapter I; Howard Roark to the Dean

\---

"Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.

"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon!"

"So it is."

"I haven't the time to waste on silly questions."

"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. "Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?"

"It's the Parthenon!" said the Dean.

"Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon."

The ruler struck the glass over the picture.

"Look, " said Roark. "The famous flutings on the the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in the wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?"

<comment><USER16> Then again the Parthenon has has been around for nearly 2,500 years (finished in 432 BC), and during that time has been considered by people from all over the world one of the most beautiful buildings ever built.

What building by modern architects will even be around 500 years from now, much less revered as an example of beautiful architecture?

<comment><USER17> I can see La Sagrada Familia not only being around, but being celebrated, for 500 years more. It's still under construction and has been for (almost?) 100 years. Google it, the church is absolutely beautiful.

In fitting with the theme of the GP, not only is it structurally sound (to my knowledge) because of how the pillars are constructed, but it successfully pays homage to Gothic architecture and the oldest inspiration, Nature, while also being new and innovative.

<comment><USER18> I agree, it is beautiful. But Ayn Rand would have hated it. That design is steeped in European and Christian traditions and symbolism. Those things are all anathema to her ideology.

<comment><USER19> But honestly who gives a shit about what Ayn Rand would have thought about it. She was a nut and her ideology should be aggressively dismissed as simplistic and quite frankly stupid.

<comment><USER18> I totally agree. I was pointing out that church isn't really modern architechture as Rand saw it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The FIU bridge was meant to mimic the look of a cable-stayed bridge. But the > 'cables' were actually steel pipes that didn't play a structural role

I spent 13 years, in various capacities, studying architecture and working as an architect.

Bullshit like this reminds me why I don't miss it. Vapid pasted-on "signifiers" that are not merely devoid of sensibility, but aggressively hostile towards it. Engineers fighting to coerce the pastiche into something that won't kill people.

If you're not an architect and you're feeling generous -- like, maybe you're just having your daily dose of Dunning Kruger, and that maybe the architecture profession is like this for a good reason -- don't bother. It's genuinely as idiotic as you think.

</comment><comment><USER21> 1\. Typical Miami. Form over substance. 2\. They wouldn't have built such an elaborate bridge if the Federal government wasn't throwing money at them. Forget the deficit. 3\. It's South Florida. See #1. Follow the money.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article barely touches on the subject, but the bridge was really unnecessary, or necessitated only by the nonsensical urban design surrounding the university. The student housing is not only on the opposite side of a gigantic road from the campus, but it's further separated by a canal and then acre after acre of parking. If any attention had been paid, at all, ever, to the built environment this bridge would not have been needed in the first place.

<comment><USER23> You have to put the acres of parking next to the buildings! Otherwise the drivers would have to walk!!1!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "This structure should function as more than just a path for circulation; it > should be a place to be and a place to be experienced, and the FIU campus > and its students must be proud of it," the document's introduction reads. > "It should be a destination in its own right where community members might > linger, gather, and create an urban social space — a linear park."

This reads a lot like every startup that tries to convince themselves that their run-of-the-mill CRUD app is "changing the world".

<comment><USER25> "Hey guys let's go hang out on the bridge over the highway." It is like a plaza, but a bridge! Ignore the fumes and deafening roar of traffic.

<comment><USER26> A successful example of this is the I-670 cap bridge in Columbus, OH. The bridge is lined with buildings so it's hard to tell you're even on a bridge. It has the advantage of being over a sunken highway, so there's no grade change to deal with. [https://www.google.com/search?q=the+cap+at+union+station&lr=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+cap+at+union+station&lr=&hl=en&prmd=minv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie1aul0NTbAhWszlkKHe1LBj4Q_AUIEigC&biw=1024&bih=653#imgrc=DGkhBEXptBzdmM):

<comment><USER21> Or the Rialto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So many concrete bridges fail for so many reasons, it's kind of crazy that we keep building them. It's _much_ easier to inspect and repair steel than concrete, and it fails more gracefully.

Also, I'm not even an engineer and I can tell you that uneven strut design would give you uneven loading on the span. Christ. Why didn't they just build a damn cable stayed bridge?! If traffic was a concern, they could have built it half cantilever, half guyed. No formwork, strong, still visually appealing, no stupid truss design, and no concrete.

<comment><USER28> It was a cable stayed bridge. The bridge span was just put up. The tower and the cables were to be installed over the next few weeks. They allowed traffic under an incomplete bridge because money.

<comment><USER29> It specifically was NOT a cable-stayed bridge. It was a non-redundant truss bridge with a tower and faux stays that contributed nothing to the structural capabilities of the bridge. The arrangement of the truss structure mimiced the stay angles purely for aesthetics, not for any other reason. The choice to use a single truss structure rather than a more traditional redundant set of trusses was due to the desire for a striking design.

Adding the tower or cables would have done nothing to strengthen the bridge. The engineers in the article suggest that the second shorter section of the bridge to be built afterwards may have alleviated some of the stresses on the north truss beam, but the truss itself was unorthodox, so they cannot say anything for certain.

<comment><USER30> The stays were real. They were needed for hurricanes and large crowds.

The worst case would be a marching parade, on just one side, during a hurricane.

<comment><USER31> No, the article is pretty clear that the stays were fake, and intended solely to dampen vibrations. They provided no structural support whatsoever.

<comment><USER32> If it is "to dampen vibrations" then obviously it isn't "fake". Vibrations are serious business; many bridges have collapsed due to vibrations, and many more (Millennium Bridge for example) have had severe trouble. Humans are particularly prone to causing vibrations because humans react to bridge movement in a way that amplifies the movement.

Technical description of the bridge from the engineering firm:

[https://facilities.fiu.edu/projects/BT_904/MCM_FIGG_Proposal...](https://facilities.fiu.edu/projects/BT_904/MCM_FIGG_Proposal_for_FIU_Pedestrian_Bridge_9-30-2015.pdf)

Page 3: "The stay cable pipes increase stiffness for pedestrian loads."

Page 18: "The stays and pylon provide the required structural design to meet the pedestrian loads for harmonic conditions of natural frequencies"

Page 64: "HORIZONTAL FREQUENCY In the lateral direction, the fundamental frequency of the pedestrian bridge shall be greater than 1.3 hertz. VERTICAL FREQUENCY The fundamental frequency in a vertical mode shall be greater than 3.0 hertz to avoid the first harmonic."

Page 65: "The pylon stiffness was designed to provide significant benefit to the overall stiffness of the structure."

<comment><USER31> You're reading from the proposal, which is not the bridge that was built.

The bridge that they built did not use the stays as structural elements, and any vibration dampening would have been minimal, i.e., a side-effect of stiffening the bridge rather than the reason for including them.

<comment><USER32> Got an as-built engineering document which contradicts the engineering proposal document? An article written by a journalist doesn't count.

Unless you can find such a document: the stays were structural elements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "But they suggested that over-reliance on the computer models, a common pitfall in the profession, may have played into it."

It's very easy to be seduced into assuming a computer model's results are correct. Computer models of critical bits should always be double-checked by a separate independent calculation.

For this bridge, a simple analysis of static forces should have been sufficient for a cross-check, despite the article repeatedly implying this was a difficult/tricky computation. It is not.

<comment><USER34> Static force analysis only works when the materials being modeled are well known. Titanium dioxide concrete is a novel material—and, from the article's text and subsequent research—appears to have a narrow effective range before integrity issues appear.

<comment><USER33> Knowing the strength of materials is pretty darn basic.

<comment><USER35> I would disagree. System failure modes can be quite complex. Yes you may have a good approximation of a material's Ultimate Tensile Strength through lab testing (although it isn't a single number and can be affected by a lot of variables, so it's usually designated as a range). But if your material yielded in a way that didn't account for, it could affect the loading on a different member, and trigger an issue with an entirely different part. Real world systems are more complex than your freshman year Statics assignments

<comment><USER33> Actually, I worked for Boeing on gearbox design. So I am fairly aware of strength of materials and did a lot of such computations. If you're unsure of the strength, you use the minimum guaranteed value. You don't use materials for critical pieces for which you don't have any data. That would be incredible incompetence.

Again, what I am talking about is using statics to determine the minimum loadings to check against the computer models, which should predict higher values or they are wrong.

This is not difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is a really good article. Amazing how a dozen+ different things combined to produce the unfortunate result. Perfect case study in there being no such thing as a singular 'root cause'.

<comment><USER37> I concur on the quality of the article, but I would say it goes further: The Miami Herald is even suing to get public records requests filled in the interest of journalism. They're doing an exceedingly good job at trying to get answers to tough questions.

<comment><USER38> I am ignorant as to this whole story, but out of interest, why is it a bad thing to wait for the NTSB report?

Often it is good to wait for an entire report to nail down the facts before the witch hunt should begin, is there something in this case that means this isn't the best idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> I imagine the Herald doesn't believe that the NTSB (or any authority) necessarily has the canonical and final word on things, and thus the Herald sees itself as providing an independent viewpoint/assessment.

One of the undercurrent themes of this story is that, according to the herald, the construction company and FIU officials are well-connected politically. Possibly related to this is the fact that the Herald is suing the state for records related to the bridge [0]. These records were determined to be public but have so far been withheld from public release.

[0] [http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article212489364.html](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article212489364.html)

<comment><USER38> So the prevailing thought is that the NTSB is delaying the documents to protect FIU officials, and not to prevent undue influence of the public before the release of the report?

It certainly doesn't look good from this quoted paragraph...

"Public records made and received by the Department from February 20 until the bridge collapsed on March 15 obviously were not obtained by the Department during an investigation because there had been no accident, much less an investigation into an accident,'' he wrote in a response to the FDOT motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

"Florida law is clear that if an agency's record is a public record at the time it is made or received, then that document does not lose its character as a public record if the document is later given to an investigative agency in the course of a subsequently initiated investigation."

Still could be to prevent a public outcry before the facts are in, but that does seem mighty fishy...

<comment><USER39> > So the prevailing thought is that the NTSB is delaying the documents to > protect FIU officials, and not to prevent undue influence of the public > before the release of the report?

I'd suggest that it's not an issue of bad faith regarding the NTSB, but rather that the NTSB doesn't (and shouldn't!) care about the political fallout from this, whereas a newspaper very much has an interest in uncovering the political side of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> AvE (a rather vulgar engineer on youtube) did a good review of what he thinks went wrong, right after it collapsed: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioC61QW7SHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioC61QW7SHQ)

Not with all of the facts, yet interesting to see the conjecture and reasoning of trying to figure out what went wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> > At least one said that if so, it constitutes an avoidable mistake on a > bridge that should never have been so complicated.

>"This is not a big project," Beck said. "It's a darn pedestrian bridge."

There is something to be said about not over-complicating designs, whether it be in actual construction or in software.

<comment><USER7> Many people said the same thing about the Eiffel Tower ...

<comment><USER19> Which was built for the world's fair and was supposed to be torn down after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There are some parallels with software. Encryption for example. Don't deviate from standard implementations unless you really know what you're doing. And even then, review it and review it again. Preferably by a separate expert.

<comment><USER42> The parallels do not go very far, unfortunately. When software fails, and kills people, it is rarely investigated. It's development is rarely investigated. When that is done, however, the differences widen even further. There is no degree to which software development can be done incompetently that criminal negligence charges can succeed. We saw this proven within the past decade when some of Toyotas cars engaged in "unintended acceleration." Despite the developers being denied even tools as basic as a bug tracker, and despite following only 4 out of over 90 'required' or 'suggested' coding practices advised by the automotive industry, the courts ruled that because no actual standards exist for software development, the management of the company could not be held criminally liable for the deaths they caused.

This problem will re-appear. When a bridge collapses, if they found out the company building it hired the cheapest engineers right out of school, denied them access to tools or training needed to do their job, kept them removed from decisions about scheduling, ignored any concerns voiced about needing more time for proper development and testing, multiple people (the ones who wear suits) would go to prison and the company would likely be destroyed. If a few executives were put in prison over shoddily made software rushed to market, I imagine we would see changes in how software is developed of monumental proportions. But not until then, apparently. And that day doesn't seem to be coming soon. Perhaps self-driving cars will herald such a wake-up call. I know I'm certainly not trusting one until things change drastically.

<comment><USER43> I think part of the problem with software is that it's effectively invisible to most people. Most of our software would look like Rube Goldberg Machines if we somehow made it physically manifest, and a lot of the problems would then be pretty obvious even to the proverbial untrained eye.

<comment><USER44> > Most of our software would look like Rube Goldberg Machines if we somehow > made it physically manifest

Now this is an interesting idea. I wonder if one write a static analysis tool that output a printable 3D model...

<comment><USER43> Hmm! Maybe print out layer: ASM on the bottom, and above it the C code structures (or whatever language.)

If you included _all_ the software that ran just to service a key press, the OS, drivers, etc...

Thinking about it, I do believe that would be an ugly machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was to be the location of the bridge:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sweetwater,+firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sweetwater,+email@example.com,-80.3745506,171a,35y,111.14h,44.97t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x88d9bf29221788f3:0x89dc17217f9115ee!8m2!3d25.7634334!4d-80.3731086)

You can see some remnants of the construction on street view.

<comment><USER32> That isn't remnants. That is the bridge being built. The lower portion (deck) is there, and formwork is being built to create the middle.

The satellite view is slightly newer, with a near-completed span about ready to be moved into place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think the design of this website also had some mistakes as after a while scrolling became very laggy.

</comment><comment><USER46> Odd that there is no mention of the analysis on AvE YouTube. The support structure used was substantially different from the one planned and it was the post tensioning process that triggered the failure. It is possible that using the planned supports might have allowed the structure to endure the post tensioning procedure.

<comment><USER47> AvE might work in engineering, but I don't think he's a structural PE.

<comment><USER46> What has that got to do with anything? He got input from a range of sources including claimed structural engineers and correctly identified the point of failure during postensioning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Baffling how this is ... wrong. I mean it's technically correct, but it's also not. It's like saying the drunk would not have crashed into that building if he took the turn in a different way. It's true ... but it's hardly the cause of something going wrong. You're just pointing out something that could have been done differently.

They did the obvious thing to design the bridge, given that a hangbridge was requested. They started from a standard hang bridge and then eliminated the parts above the bridge itself, realizing that if you can just pull the cables inward the bridge will support itself like a hang bridge would.

But the installable part did not look like a hangbridge, and so the contractor treated it like a non-hangbridge, that only needs support at the sides.

Then, total idiocy struck. They mismeasured. The support could not actually be placed where it was planned when the bridge was designed. It needed to move ~2m to the left. And they did that, put the bridge over it, and left.

So let's go over that last part again. They had a bridge that hung from a pole (the pole was just cut off at a certain point, and a horizontal tension structure put into it's place. Actually pretty cool. Also: despite the article's claims, that definitely works). Then the contractors removed the structure that supported the pole, placing a different support ... at a different place. So they interrupted the foundation of the bridge, making it discontinuous.

(in their defense, with 99.9% of bridges you can do that without causing a problem, which is probably why this mistake was made)

This is like interrupting a building's foundation, and having everything from the 1st floor up supported by a window. The window has some strength, of course, to hold itself up, to hold the side wall up, and generally to not be too easy to destroy, so this will work ... for a short while.

And the of course the predictable thing happens : the bridge breaks in half, at almost exactly the point where the support SHOULD have been, but wasn't ... (and let's just ignore that there would have been loud cracking for a double- digit amount of seconds before the collapse, which clearly was not judged a good reason for the contractors to stop what they were doing).

Who's at fault ? Well the original mistake is mismeasuring where the support should have been. I would not place blame on the designer, because he was working from faulty data. And yes, there were some different designs that would not have had this problem, but the sponsor explicitly asked for this design. Then there were a LOT of opportunities to detect this mistake, all of which were missed. And then there is the fatal decision, made by the contractors installing the bridge as far as I can tell. Oh we can't place the support here, let's just move it a bit. What could go wrong ? And they did move it. Then the bridge showed obvious signs of stress (cracks), right in front of them. Again, somehow this was missed (despite camera footage showing some worker pointing it out to some guy that looks important). They ignored those signs and just left after cleaning things up.

And then ... tiny little shock overloads the weak component (which is the concrete surrounding that cable/beam thing they show, obviously NOT that cable itself). And boom.

If you analyze the blame, it seems like somebody really wants the contractor's decision to just place the bridge on different supports (which, again, is not a problem with 99.9% of bridges) to be the right call. If you force that decision to be reasonable, then there's little choice but to blame the design for not allowing for that. It seems unlikely in the extreme that the design firm hadn't warned the contractors about this though.

</comment><comment><USER49> Maybe this will put paid to the nonsense people constantly spout about "real engineering". Turns out doing new things is hard.

But also let's be real, you're not going to cross a 10-lane stroad, bridge or no bridge and feel like you're in 'a college town'. It was never gonna happen.

</comment><comment><USER50> > And in order to pull off the aesthetic, the bridge's designers had to make > the diagonal supports beneath them a variety of different shapes and sizes. > That complication may have led the designers to miss a crucial error, > independent engineers who've examined the bridge's plans believe: One of the > supports was not strong enough.

They aren't joking about the "variety of different shapes and sizes" for the diagonal supports. It's really incredibly ugly. In my view any "aesthetics" gained from the fake cables on the bridge are far outweighed by how goofy the whole thing looks when viewed from the side. It's really jarring, and I imagine that it would look rather cobbled together when walking over it.

I also was shocked by the reported "2000 pages of calculations" that 3 different structural engineers signed off on. I have a hard time imagining that none of these experts might have said at some point, "this is a bad bridge that should not be built!" even if mathematically it could have survived magnitude 10 earthquake. Which it clearly couldn't. I'm not an engineer but it ought to be outside the ethics of an engineer's role in approving a bridge design that _appears_ to have redundancy (the cable stays AND the diagonal supports) when the cable stays are merely a foolish aesthetic choice. Doesn't seem much different than selling a car with an airbag icon on the steering wheel when no such airbag exists. It's a false claim to structural integrity.

One final thought- the PURPOSE for this bridge seems ill-conceived in the first place. Why is the campus divided by a highway to begin with?? But that's neither here nor there.

<comment><USER51> > It's a false claim to structural integrity.

That's a weird claim to make. False claim to who? Joe on the street?

<comment><USER23> Joe may be as dumb as you assume, but if he sees a truss bridge with one set of struts he might well wonder how safe that is compared to all the other truss bridges he has seen. If he sees another truss bridge with only one set of struts, but with cable stays as well, he might well think that is a safer bridge than the first. He believed the bridge's implicit claim about cable stays, which was false.

<comment><USER51> Well, it was only yesterday that I learned that having a single set of struts is less stable. I always assumed they were two because they wanted to keep the middle of the bridge clear for the road.

This was my exact point: as a Joe on the street you just have to assume that the engineers got it right. A two set strutted bridge can still fail if the struts are two thin, or not of the right kind of steel/concrete. Do you really evaluate all buildings when you enter them, especially the modern weird and unstable looking ones? Have you ever avoided entering a building just because it has a crazy unstable looking design?

<comment><USER23> Maybe my image of this "Joe" upon whom you would look down was a little more knowledgeable than it should have been... Did you never play with an erector set as a kid?

<comment><USER51> My point is that if I know a bit about a subject, I don't fall into the trap of believing that I can point to "an obvious mistake" which was signed off by multiple professional people working in that area, especially in an area like civil engineering where you have criminal liability for "an obvious mistake".

Sure, I would never cross that bridge if I saw those fake stayed cables damaged after a storm, because again, I am in no position to judge the design of the bridge, but it is obviously damaged and I must assume that it is unsafe. Maybe a structural engineer would immediately spot that those stayed cables are fake and wouldn't worry about cross it. But if the bridge looks intact, I would just assume that the engineers knew what they were doing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CSIS Agent Canada: Front Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.walrusmagazine.ca/articles/2004.09-security-andrew-mitrovica-csis-agent-canada/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an old article from 2004. I was watching The Good Shepherd and after some googling ended up here. It's a good read. A personal story of a Canadian spy.

Hope you all appreciate it.</comment>


Ask PG: Why did I just get a "stop spamming us" message? - <AUTHOR>

I just got a "Stop spamming us, you're wasting your time" message when submitting a genuine link which was the new video from RSA. "the paradox of choice".<p>I've never spammed this site, at least not knowingly. Please help? <comment><USER2> This happens when you submit a link to a spam site. When it happens to innocent people it's usually because some site has been mistakenly classified as a spam site, e.g. by an admin fat-fingering something on an iPhone.

<comment><USER3> It is very easy to fat finger the "flag" link as a user when browsing from a phone.

Any thoughts on a mobile skin to HN that removes flag?

<comment><USER2> One day I'll make a mobile-optimized version.

<comment><USER4> HN already is a mobile-optimized version (except possibly the up/down arrows). No need to waste your time.

EDIT: Well, the community has spoken.

<comment><USER5> You think? On my iPhone, the page width is about twice as wide as would be comfortable to read, so either you read tiny print or zoom and scroll constantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I also got that the other day when submitting something via the bookmarklet. When I opened the "submit" page and copied things into the boxes (copy/paste) then it all worked.

Not sure what is being triggered, but it looks like more than one false positive for "spam" detection.

EDIT: As an experiment I've just tried to submit using the bookmarklet the RSA Animate of the talk and got the message again ... then I tried "by hand". Both times I got the "Stop spamming us" message.

I wonder if it's the direct link to the YouTube video that's the problem ...

Now I've succeeded with a link to a different site.

PG: You have an interesting glitch in your spam detection.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just used the search function to look for HN submissions that contained the same keywords in the title, and noticed there are previous submissions that do. Even though its a different link and different content. I wonder if that's causing the glitch?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Youtube link to Andrew Warner and James Altucher talk. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_4yfn0bG50>

Gave me the same message.

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of the link last week re: 130% effective spam filter.

</comment><comment><USER9> I see lots of successful youtube.com submissions.

According to SearchYC[1], the most recent successful posting of a youtube link was 2 months ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2417032>

According to HNSearch[2] it was 2 days ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651680>

[1] [http://searchyc.com/submissions/youtube.com?only=domain&...](http://searchyc.com/submissions/youtube.com?only=domain&sort=by_date)

[2] [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=you...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=youtube.com&sortby=create_ts+desc)

<comment><USER10> He might borked it lately

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> maybe some bayesian learning algorithm disseminates the url you submitted and calculates a spam possibility based on the tokens (then the token 'youtube' might have a high bias for spam). just a thought though, that I got after reading <http://paulgraham.com/spam.html>

<comment><USER10> Hackers may not eat their own dog food!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It looks like you post an awful lot of stuff from your own site, maybe that triggers something.

<comment><USER6> That seems to have been a long time ago, and the same can't be said of me. I've triggered it now twice by submitting direct links to YouTube.

Not conclusive, but it's a start.

<comment><USER13> I know there is a list of domains that are have been banned maybe youtube has now made the list.

<comment><USER14> Nope, I successfully posted a youtube video yesterday.

(Nobody upmodded it though, which is a shame, cuz it was totally awesome.)

<comment><USER6> Not according to your list of submissions you didn't.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=hugh3>

<comment><USER15> It's there but [dead]. You have to change your preferences to show dead links.

<comment><USER14> Well shoot. I didn't get a "stop spamming" message.

For what it's worth, the video is called "The Kepler Orrery" and it's an animation showing all the multi-planet systems discovered by the Kepler mission so far, side by side, with the same length and time scale. It's pretty awesome.

<comment><USER6> As an experiment (and I wouldn't normally advocate this) try submitting it again, see if you get the message this time.

EDIT: Actually, having gone and found it, don't. It doesn't really contain any seinsible information that I can see - it just appears to be a lot of spinning circles, some music, and no real information about what you're actually looking at. It might be great, but it's impossible for me to see why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I got it once when I tried to post an Apple Press Release when iCloud was announced...

</comment><comment><USER17> I got the same message when linking to a Youtube video.

</comment><comment><USER18> RSA submissions on Thursday afternoons from accounts less than 2 years old are banned.</comment>


Donald Trump accuses Obama of 'wire-tapping' his office before election - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/donald-trump-accuses-obama-of-wire-tapping-his-office-before-election <comment><USER2> I don't usually comment on the political stories here, but...

 _" How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"_

It's just surreal to me that we've descended to the point where our President is communicating in this fashion. Not just the typos. The crazy hyperbole, lack of decorum, and the venue.

I worry what might happen if he uses this same approach with foreign relations. Sounds alarmist, but could the next war be started via Twitter?

Edit: A relatively good summary of the events that led here: [https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/838010340579426304](https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/838010340579426304)

<comment><USER3> It's weird to see so many people utterly obsessed with appearances (which all of the above count as) as if the President's job was to be an actor.

Prediction: Trump's style will not make it more or less likely for him to declare war than if he had the style of a polished actor.

<comment><USER2> Is it that weird that there's an expectation that the US president should think about things before communicating them?

There's a difference between "polished actor" and "careful diplomacy".

You don't think his communication style might have been risky during the Cuban missle crisis, for example?

<comment><USER3> > Is it that weird that there's an expectation

What's weird is that you attribute any importance to appearances, and prefer one type of appearances over another.

You know what they say: judge people by what they do, solely by what they do. Never by what they say. This isn't even caring about what he says, but caring about the way he says it, even worse.

> You don't think his communication style might have been risky during the > Cuban missle crisis, for example?

During that same Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets sent two letters. One that appeared ranting and almost drunkenlike, and one that appeared diplomatic, reasoned and moderate. The first was probably sent by Khrushchev, so he could seem tough, and the other by his advisors, who didn't have as much to prove. Yet the Cuban crisis went fine, because the US expected Khrushchev to behave like that, and weren't surprised by it.

Same with Trump, who's just as predictable as any other politician (I would say more so) if you follow him enough.

You care about appearances (which never matter) when what matters is expectations and consistency.

<comment><USER2> It's not so much that I care about appearances. It's more that I understand that other people, like foreign leaders, might care about something Trump says off the cuff.

Your example of Khrushchev might have worked out differently with blowhards on both sides.

<comment><USER3> > Your example of Khrushchev might have worked out differently with blowhards > on both sides.

Which there were (on the US side, some in the admin wanted to bomb Cuba to shreds), but were overridden. Because leaders have skin in the game in a way advisors don't. It's something to call for total destruction as an advisor, and another thing to be the man in charge, where the decision, responsibility, and blame all lie on you. Human psychology saves the day.

<comment><USER2> Your position is basically that poor diplomacy never has consequences.

<comment><USER3> I'm arguing that this isn't "bad diplomacy", and only is if you judge it by its appearances.

Geopolitics is driven by constraints. Nobody will declare war against Trump because his tie is too long.

<comment><USER2> You're equating the power of speech and communication with a tie being too long. Speech can, and does, incite action, not always the intended action either.

<comment><USER3> > Speech can, and does, incite action

Action is the sole responsibility of the one committing the action. I don't buy the premises of the fascist "speech is violence" crowd, and thank God that world leaders are not as immature as them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> notable in this story is trumps confirmation of the fisa surveillance order against him. I'd suggest someone should explain to trump that his taking the time to confirm stories such as these that he is declassifying their existence and enabling people to leak more information, but on the whole it seems that his incompetence is helping to blunt the impact of his treason, so it's probably a net benefit.

<comment><USER5> If it's declassified now, is it available by FOIA request?

<comment><USER4> I don't assume there is a relationship between the two, given that information in the public sphere still gets denied in the foia process.

Even better than a foia, Ben Sasse is calling for the release of the warrant. A member of the senate judiciary committee is harder to ignore than a foia request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These top comments are blowing my mind! Surreal that we've descended to the point where the president is tweeting? Indeed, I suppose, that the media refuses to publish the truth. How are you not in utter shock, that the president wire-tapped the opposing campaign and pushed a story about Russia they knew was false. This is the biggest political event in my lifetime by a long shot.

<comment><USER2> The comment was more nuanced than "the president is tweeting".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why does he think he's so special? Didn't Bush followed by Obama tap ALL of our communications via The NSA? Are physical wiretaps even a thing anymore at that high a level?

Edit: punctuation.</comment>