Google not paying developers in Europe, support nonexistent - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/checkout-merchant/selling-with-google-checkout/AM5NpAx6wpw

<comment><USER2> A few months ago Finland's banks switched to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and IBAN bank numbers permanently. This meant that old bank account numbers would no longer work. This is obviously a change that has been in the works for years and it's something that every company should have been prepared for.

Well, apparently Google failed to realize this and update their systems. October's payout failed and I received a generic automated e-mail message about it. I realized what the problem was instantly and tried to figure out how to contact Google about it.

Google Checkout doesn't have a direct contact form nor a phone number: instead, their "contacting support" page [1] presents a list of options about "the topic of your question". Only after I chose something vaguely related, filled out a contact form that didn't have a freeform text field and received an automated form reply I could tell them my real issue by replying.

After they fixed it and re-entering my bank account details, I had to _wait until December (the next payout date) to receive the failed payout_.

(I've received this month's payout successfully without any issue.)

[1] <http://support.google.com/checkout/sell/bin/request.py>

<comment><AUTHOR> Many people have tried contacting them through multiple support forms about this march payment issue and they're not managing to get any humans to answer them.

<comment><USER3> Attention has been gotten.

(Notice that the one Google employee who has replied in the thread is being derided for not doing enough quickly enough. It was 9 AM in California when he replied. This is why nobody speaks up until the issue is resolved.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is not that it's 9am in California, the point is that it's the 13th March already, and the first human answer we get, just minutes ago, is a developer of the new 3-man team being assembled to take over that derelict product -that processes millions, by the way. Is this a joke? no, it's just the Google way, it seems. Developers have to give Google 30% of revenue and this is the kind of support they get. Not customer relations, not support, a lone developer of a meager, newly assembled team who used his good sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> jiazou a developer has commented:

Hi all, I'm really sorry to see there are so many problems with the checkout merchant center. Unfortunately the checkout merchant center team is going through a major transition. Many of the past owners of the code base have left, which leaves many of you without proper support :( I'm part of a three person team that's getting transitioned to take ownership of the code base, in fact we have a meeting in 15min to get an overview of the basic architecture and start looking into some of these bugs. I assure you we will work very hard to address your issues as quickly as possible, but please remain patient with us as our team makes this transition.

Thanks and Sincerely,

Jia

<comment><USER5> If accurate, I really hope this guy doesn't get hammered for stepping outside corporate comms protocol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope so too, because it's pretty obvious to me that's what he's doing (stepping out), out of sheer common sense, and I'm grateful for that.

<comment><USER6> At the same time, it is also common sense that you don't need to explain how poorly mismanaged your employer is when communicating with external customers.

With that said, had Google said something earlier, Jia wouldn't have had to say anything and this would be a non-issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's an aside, but I no longer do business with anyone that doesn't offer appropriate contact methods for the products/services they provide. It's now the second thing I check after price and the primary reason I refuse to use Google products but "go large" on Amazon products.

Thinking is: "If I have a problem, can I get help?". If I can find a solution to that question in a few clicks, kaching, you get my CC details and we're good to go, else, x.

Customer service is not a cost center, if done well, it's the best marketing/PR channel you can get and it pays off massively in the longer term.

<comment><USER8> The one place lacking with customer support for Amazon is Amazon FPS. I actually had to completly abandon my integration because the support wasn't there. The only way to get support was via an outsourced forumn and responses would take days if one was ever recieved at all. Response times like that make it way to risky to use for payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _I receive emails from customers that they get Google Licensing Errors and I > get one star reviews for my app due to this. They don't understand that this > is Google's fault, not mine._

This is a danger in the market, and I see it in reviews all the time. Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU).

The app markets really need a way to protect developers from abusive customers. Amazon lets other customers respond to a review, and Newegg lets the maker of the product respond. Maybe the Android Market needs this, too.

<comment><USER10> Google Play definitely needs this. However,

> Every limitation of the system is the fault of the developer of the app, and > the reason the app is slow is because the developer is bad (not because the > customer picked a phone with a 700mhz CPU).

I think it is the responsibility of the developer to ensure their apps work on the devices they are selling to. If a user is able to install the app from Play, it _should work_. Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario, where some apps work and some apps don't. If the app doesn't work on the phone, I would definitely suggest the developer has some of the blame.

Testing apps and ensuring they work on all phones is clearly impossible, but by limiting the availability of your app to high-end phones and detecting hardware in code and acting appropriately is our responsibility as developers in a diverse ecosystem.

<comment><USER9> > _Google Play shouldn't be a wild-west scenario_

Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has to be. I don't have apps on the Google Play market, so I don't know if you can restrict your app to only be visible or purchased by phones known to run it, but there are some apps that slower phones just can't run.

Take Grand Theft Auto III for example (or any other high-end game). You can't expect it to run on an HTC Aria with a 600Mhz processor. Should we stop making these high end apps, or should we expect that there would be some kind of control system to help prevent people from making uninformed decisions?

<comment><USER10> > Unfortunately, this is what Android is, so this is what the marketplace has > to be.

I don't think so, really. Android is the wild west because it's open source and unrestricted. But the Market is Google's own, proprietary and closed system. They have total control over it. App developers can restrict on a device-by-device basis, but it's a pain and I don't really expect anyone to do that (there are maybe 1,000 devices or so out there). However, you can also restrict based on phone feature set like screen size, hardware capability, etc.

I think we should hold both Google and the developers to a high standard when it comes to marketplace apps.

> Should we stop making these high end apps

Of course not. Developers should stop selling them to people who they _know_ can't run them.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately most of us aren't able to buy the million devices out there to test with. More annoyingly we usually only find out about a device not working when someone writes a 1 star review such as "dont work HTC <xyz> cm7".

I've had people email me and get nasty because my app didn't work on their Touchpad with ICS. Or even better when people write low reviews from Tegra 2 devices such as "Textures missing" but they are using a kernel which reduces allocated video RAM from 128mb to 64mb.

I love Android from a user point of view but I hate it as a developer.

<comment><USER12> If you are lucky they will write that review. More likely they will just say "does not even run, the biggest disgrace since wwii".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Google's lack of support can be really scary. I've had situations in at least three different areas where something went wrong with their automated tools and I lost access to a service[1], and every time it was completely impossible to get a person to look at the problem. I still use their stuff for small projects because a lot of the tools are hard to replace for free. But that icicle feeling when you realize that something you're relying on is broken, you can't easily switch away and people want to know what's wrong and the answer is there's nothing you can do to fix it ... it's stuck with me.

[1] Google Group disappeared entirely for a couple of days; AdSense upgrade failed partway through; attempt to switch primary and secondary domains on Google Apps resulted in a month of downtime ...

</comment><comment><USER14> From the Payment FAQ quoted in one of the comments:

 _Note that in the event of a technical issue, your payout may be delayed and is expected to be initiated by the 15th of the month._

Maybe wait until after the 15th to start worrying about it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some people need the money because it's their only source of income or because they need the cash flow for their business, or whatever. Tell them to start worrying 15 days later. About the payments, on Google's side they show up as having been initiated on the 2nd and Google has been deaf and mute about the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Outside of the Android market, Google Checkout generally seems dead. I created an account months ago to integrate with E-Junkie. Despite numerous requests for support the account has never been blessed with an "integration" tab, as indicated in their documentation, so the relevant information cannot be passed into E-J.

I'm guessing they're letting it die and are working on something else.

<comment><USER16> Google Checkout is indeed dead, they want you to use Google Wallet now.

<comment><AUTHOR> AFAIK, they're not different products, they just rebranded checkout. I guess it's still checkout for the Android market because they haven't migrated that yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Forget fragmentation, lower app spend per user, etc complaints about Google play and android this is the big one.

This is the only issue that has seriously given me pause about selling apps on Google Play. If something goes wrong you're stuck in forums, unhelpful issue submission forms, and you can be left out in the cold for weeks.

The lack of support for end user market issues compounds the problem. There's no easy help from google so customers contact the app developers who can't do anything to help but direct them back to the Google support labyrinth.

</comment><comment><USER18> It blows my mind that a company like google would be oblivious to such a glaring problem ... I really can't process it. Does that mean nobody monitors this kind of thing at all over there?

</comment><comment><USER19> On a related note, AppEngine has horrible, horrible, support for paying users. I learned the hard way not to use products without phone support.

<comment><USER20> I've been successful in getting to talk to an actual _human_ in no other way than through the #appengine channel on freenode. Quite a few of the devs on the appengine team hang there, might be worth a shot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> With all the automation Google tries to implement, couldn't they set up each service with a support email address that has its incoming mail analyzed, held for a limited time, and then expunged? Then all they'd have to do is get someone to look at the mailboxes when unusual patterns show up.

<comment><USER22> Dangerous to try to engineer your way out of customer support. How about this instead: they should just hire support staff like everyone else who cares about customers.</comment></comment>


Complex mathematical problem solved by bees (Travelling Salesman) - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-complex-mathematical-problem-bees.html

<comment><USER2> And again:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840785>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1835452>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1834170>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833774>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831271>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830232>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829211> <\- This one has comments</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to acquire cheap computing power for uni projects? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in a pickle with my MSc Computer Science project as I've been a little more ambitious than I perhaps should've been and am looking to examine reporting of semi-structured data from ECM systems (notably SharePoint) using Oracle and possibly Cassandra (compare and contrast a traditional RDBMS extended for Xml against a object store built for semi-structured data).
The ECM system is going to require several virtual servers to implement, and a few more will be allocated to both Oracle and Cassandra. I'm looking for a cost-effective way of running multiple (in the order of 6) virtual servers concurrently.
The university department does not appear to have spare capacity available for my use (it's a lot of hardware dedicated to a single student) and I've examined cloud based solutions such as Amazon AWS, Azure, etc but the cost of running a mix of Windows and Linux servers for 4 to 6 months on the cloud is extremely prohibitive.
I'm now of the opinion that it's best to build a system at home, but I don't really want to have multiple cheap workstations heating up the front room. I could build my own system, but paying full retail price on parts makes it more expensive than buying an off-the-shelf workstation so I'm now looking at workstations that could take 12GB to 16GB of RAM. Yet none of the workstations I've found come out cheap enough to be ramen affordable... they're bordering on lobster. Systems like the Lenovo D20, Sun Ultra 27 and the Apple Mac Pro look appropriate but costly when kitted out with enough RAM and disk to do the job.
So my questions are:
If you needed to run 6 x 2GB RAM servers for 6 months on the cheap, how would you approach it?
If I end up going down the workstation route are there established ways for post-grad students to get hardware for their projects at silly-low prices? (I've failed to find any obvious ways to obtain more than a very small student discount as the corp websites unfortunately don't appear to have a "Are you a post-grad student looking for a huge discount?" link).
For info, I'm based in London, UK... so prices I'm looking at are all GBP which pushes the cost up a bit. <comment><USER2> Like you have, I would have looked at using the cloud as it is only for 6 months. But even if you got one Extra Mem machine at 17.1GB RAM you would still be paying >£1400 for the 6 months use.

I am sure that Sun used have something for graduate projects where you could apply and run on their servers for a set amount of time, but I can't see where it might be under the Oracle Regime. Sun also used to give you a server on sale or return 90(?) day trial at one point.

I'm tending to agree with you, but I would build several computers myself (ebuyer.com or novatech.com for example), and then break them down/sell them on after the 6 months use.

Failing that you could always do what the US government do, buy a shed load of PS3 and use them like a grid/blade server cluster. Then sell them on when you are done (cite: [http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/military- purchases-2...](http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/military- purchases-2200-ps3s/))

hth</comment>


What happened to the app Yo? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone use it anymore? Do they have any money left? Haven't heard anything <comment><USER2> Yo</comment>


"The Delivery Wars": Robots vs. Drones vs. People - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/disruptions-at-your-door-in-minutes-delivered-by-robot/ "The Delivery Wars," are coming, where mini robots, jet-powered drones & the pizza delivery guy, are all racing to your frontdoor. <comment><USER2> The biggest question for me is if it will be cheaper to have same day or same hour delivery by drone than just walking or driving to the store and buying it. I use Amazon now because for almost every single item, Amazon is the cheapest place to buy it and I'm willing to wait a day or two to save 10-20% than if I bought it somewhere locally. If getting a drone to fly it out to me costs an extra 10-20% on the item, that basically negates the value of using Amazon to me.

Articles like this also beg the question, why doesn't Wal-Mart do delivery right now? If pizza can do it, why doesn't Wal-Mart have delivery guy at each location that fulfills local orders from Wal-Mart.com? Either 1) They've never even though of that (not likely) or 2) they evaluated that option and figured out it wasn't economical. I doubt having a drone swarm is going to be cheaper than paying some teenager minimum wage to drive around in his car delivering stuff (at least anytime soon).

<comment><USER3> Can you operate a drone cheaper than 56.5c a mile? If so, it's a better deal.

The point to point nature of drones make in city delivery incredibly attractive

I can't see many years being required to beat that.

<comment><USER4> That mileage cost doesn't take into account human labor.

<comment><USER3> And pizza places don't really take that mileage cost into account always either. It's often flat per delivery, etc

But it's a very good floor. Higher may still be valuable, but lower than that almost certainly is</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Neanderthal Predation Created Modern Humans - <AUTHOR> http://themandus.org/ <comment><USER2> The nicest thing I can say is that it may inspire some neat scifi stories. The author has some very odd theories about junk DNA ...

Anyway for those who'd like more background on Mr. Vendramini: [http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/origin-of-a-big- idea/...](http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/origin-of-a-big- idea/2006/01/02/1136050390209.html?page=fullpage)

edit: though to be fair, he does have a good point about the anthropomorphising assumptions behind all those "artistic reconstructions" of what Neanderthals might have looked like.

<comment><USER3> I don't know much about the subject, but I read through the first half of his paper ( <http://themandus.org/abstract.html> ) and it seems reasonably well argued, fair in assessing the strength of the evidence supporting his hypotheses, and overall very scholarly. I don't think his ideas can be dismissed out of hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The page on "Them" goes heavily into the importance of big, slitted eyes and how our wariness of such indicates the effect of _millenia_ of Neanderthal predation.

As opposed to indicating the effect of _millions_ of years of predation by a variety of large felines, many of which hunted at night.

<comment><USER4> Ah, apparently we've got some people with investment in this "theory" around.

EDIT: And yes, you don't normally comment about moderation. But someone voting people down for being skeptical about a bit of half-baked, book-selling, amateur speculation is worth noting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A major problem with this idea is that Neanderthals were limited to Europe and the Middle East. That makes them a very unlikely candidate for a predator to reshape the evolutionary psyche of all humanity.

</comment><comment><USER5> Those damn neanderthals look scary as hell. I'm telling you, I felt an primeval gut reaction looking at those pictures.

Maybe he's on to something.

<comment><USER6> They're definitely on to something with the eyes. I don't scare easily, but any vaguely hominid-shaped creature with big eyes gives me a visceral feeling of fright. The vertical slit has an affect, too. I think most people have this same reaction.

Another example of this which I don't think they cite in the article would be modern alien abduction mythology. Most of the renderings and conceptual drawings of them portray beings with enormous black eyes (also slanted in the same fashion as the rendered neanderthals in parent article).

Having said this, there are also many modern animals that, when shown snarling in the same manner as they portray these neanderthals, would be equally terrifying, I think.

<comment><USER5> _there are also many modern animals that, when shown snarling in the same manner as they portray these neanderthals, would be equally terrifying, I think._

In person, yes. But in a picture? That's unusual for me.

I thought the snarl was overdone. Just the big eyes and vaguely human (yet alien) form was enough

I intuitively like the idea that another intelligent tool-wielding species put pressure on humans to evolve. I have no idea of the likelihood of the claim, but it would explain the sudden changes in our species in the last 100K years or so.</comment></comment></comment>


Wikipedia deletes entry on PBWiki, the biggest hosted competitor with 550,000 wikis - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBWiki

<comment><USER2> Misleading title. "Wikipedia" didn't do anything; an Articles-for-Deletion (AfD) vote did. In the vote, which has a full change history, _nobody_ spoke up for PeanutButter Wiki, nor were any of the sources mentioned in the comments here present in the original article. This was a totally normal, in- process deletion.

Should the closing admin have glanced at Google News? Probably. Note that one of the AfD votes here makes indirect references to external sources, implying that they only peripherally cover PBWiki as "just another wiki farm". Maybe that's fair, maybe not, but you can see why in a "debate" with no dissenters, this just got closed quickly.

The fix for this is trivial. Take the original content of the PBWiki Wikipedia article --- it's still around --- and paste it back into the article. Add the external sources to the end (don't even worry about style, someone else will fix it). Done. An article with genuine sourcing in Newsweek, Forbes, and the New York Times isn't going to be deleted.

God I'm such a dork for knowing this stuff.

<comment><USER3> I'm starting to see Wikipedians as cops with big mustaches. Mostly harmless, generally the good guys, but often symbolically overstepping their bounds.

I acknowledge the rigorous formalized system, but even a speedy response does not justify the offense.

It appears there is bias here. Instead of instructing us on how to participate, the members of the community should address it.

<comment><USER2> I'm not a member of the community. I am, however, telling you how the community works. Let me be as clear as I can, from experience: _the community does not care what you think about it_. It's a Greenland-sized snowball full of human frailties and weaknesses and effort, picking up every piece of information and drama it rolls over, and getting out in front of it to try to steer it is a great way to lose an otherwise enjoyable weekend.

<comment><USER3> I'm no stranger. (To the point that I disassociate!) I couldn't agree more on the futility of trying to bend Wikipedia to your will.

But I reject the "play along, or else, I don't care" methodology. Democracies are often wrong. We have to hold the community as a whole accountable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wikispaces (a PBWiki competitor) had our Wikipedia entry deleted in August 2006. At the time we were non-notable and had a medium- to low-quality entry written by others. During our deletion process, we argued that it was perfectly reasonable that Wikipedia delete our article, but it seemed quite unreasonable to single us out of a dozen other non-notable wiki farms (not to mention hundreds of other non-notable websites) that were not being considered for deletion. The response from the AfD commentors was in essence, "fine, go ahead and propose deletion for the wiki farms you think don't belong". We of course had no interest in doing that.

I was upset for some time that our article was deleted, but I'm not anymore. Wikipedia's standards don't work for small companies. In August 2006 when our article was deleted, we had less than 100,000 users and 50,000 wikis. Today we have 1.4M users, 595,000 wikis, and a healthy and growing business. A Wikipedia entry might be nice to have, but it doesn't have anything to do with how we serve our customers and build our business.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe it just wasn't notable? I've never even heard of PBWiki.

<comment><USER6> It's fair that you might not have heard of PBwiki, but a Wikipedia admin should have at least given a cursory glance at what's out there, including in the last 30 days alone mentions in Newsweek, Forbes, the New York Times, LinuxInsider, WebWorkerDaily, Mashable, and Wired News.

[http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=pbwiki...](http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=pbwiki&btnG=Search+News)

<comment><USER5> Maybe.

But Wikipedia is not the "list of all businesses in the world." It's not even the "list of all businesses that got mentioned by $X" where $X in Newsweek, Forbes,...

What has the company done that is special? Did it innovate in some special way? Was it involved in some notable affair? Is it the market leader in some domain?

If it's just another wiki farm that happens to have a PR department worth its money then it doesn't necessarily have to be listed in Wikipedia.

Note that I'm not saying that PBWiki shouldn't be listed (I don't know them, after all), but that I'm saying that hits on Google News don't imply that it _must_ be listed.

Deletions occur all the time. If you think an article got unfairly deleted, resurrect it and put in better citations.

On top of that, PBWiki is not even a competitor to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the wiki. MediaWiki is the software powering Wikipedia. PBwiki's software may compete with MediaWiki. PBwiki's hosting service competes with neither MediaWiki nor Wikipedia --- neither "product" is in the hosting business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's odd that Wikipedians would delete the article, instead of just changing it to say, "PBWiki: a collaborative website for sandwich lovers."

</comment><comment><USER8> That headline is a bit sensationalist. PBWiki isn't really a competitor to Wikipedia. Or Wikia, even.

</comment><comment><USER9> Last known position:

23:37, September 15, 2008 Punkmorten (Talk | contribs) deleted "PBWiki"  (R1: Redirect to a deleted, nonexistent, or invalid target)

I can't find the original PBWiki page but it's more likely that it wasn't up to snuff instead of a blatant conflict of interest delete.

<comment><USER9> for what it's worth here's a wiki page comparing various wiki software and most of the other companies have pages.

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

the magic of wikipedia is of course that david weekly can get an intern to put back the page.

<comment><USER6> But David Weekly is honorable and tries to minimize self-interested editing and surreptitious sock-puppeting. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Data Science, Go, and Distributed Processing - <AUTHOR> https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2017/02/09/go-data-science-with-daniel-whitenack/ <comment><USER2> Unsure how to feel about this. The content of the podcast seems ok (from scanning through the transcription). :)

However, it's sponsored by Dice. They're the scum who added malware to SourceForge. :(</comment>


The surprising persistence of RSA keys in SSH - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/SSHRSAKeysPersistence <comment><USER2> For the longest time, to the best of my knowledge, instructions provided by GitHub and GitLab, probably the two most popular software with easy to access instructions on generating a SSH keys defaulted to displaying the RSA key generation instructions first instead of an Ed25519 key.

The good news is that GitLab uses Ed25519 keys as the recommended default [0]. GitHub still recommends RSA keys by default [1].

[0]: [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ssh/README.html#generating-a- new-...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ssh/README.html#generating-a-new-ssh-key- pair)

[1]: [https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to- github/g...](https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to- github/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent#generating-a- new-ssh-key)

<comment><USER3> I'm still not sure why I should use Ed25519? Is it just cryptographically "tougher"?

<comment><USER4> RSA getting weaker

ECDSA suspected backdoored by NSA

EdDSA/Ed25519 like ECDSA but community made

RSA32768 might be okay but weird

<comment><USER5> ECDSA isn't thought to be backdoored so much as designed on purpose to be very difficult to get right / very easy to get catastrophically wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think a big reason for the persistence of RSA keys is that they are easier to understand than eliptical curve.

Basically, every first year computer science student who has taken discrete math can write a (horribly broken, ineffecient) implementation of RSA encryption and decryption and have a pretty good intuitive understanding of what is going on.

In fact, I did that just for fun as a first year CS student.

With elliptical curves, I have read through the multiple websites and explanations and over several years and still feel I do not have an intuitive grasp of what is really going on.

<comment><USER7> In my second year, I had to do this on paper, showing every step. The prime sizes were about 10 digits as to keep things within a few sheets of paper.

It seems my memory of it was traumatizing, one of the few assignments I had where I remember where I sat in the library computing this assignment on paper. Without electronic assistance.

<comment><USER8> At least you took the sound advice of always using a library to do cryptography.

<comment><USER9> lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm still waiting for AWS EC2 to allow non-RSA keys. I've got other keys for everything else but an RSA for EC2.

<comment><USER11> What service are you referring to? My EC2 instances running CoreOS Container Linux (moving to Fedora CoreOS as we speak...) have an ed25519 host key only and users can ssh in using their ed25519 key pair. Yeah, we don't create them using AWS web UI, but using terraform / ignition.

<comment><USER10> So when I use the EC2 web dashboard and try to add my SSH key, it gives me an error unless it's an RSA key. Obviously once I'm logged into a given sever over SSH, I can change my key to be whatever is supported by the underlying VM OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Neither the pgpcard (which I got from g10code while they were still selling them) nor my 100 or so Yubikeys purchased over the last 5 years support ed25519.

<comment><USER13> As far as I understand, none of the hw token vendors support ed25519, because none of the secure element vendors do.

Your best bet is AFAIK ECDSA with NIST parameters.

<comment><USER14> Yubikey is supporting ed25519 as of firmware 5.2.3 ([https://www.yubico.com/blog/whats-new-in-yubikey- firmware-5-...](https://www.yubico.com/blog/whats-new-in-yubikey- firmware-5-2-3/))

<comment><USER15> I'll try to upgrade, thanks

<comment><USER16> You can't upgrade the Yubikeys. You have to buy a new one.

[https://support.yubico.com/support/solutions/articles/150000...](https://support.yubico.com/support/solutions/articles/15000006434-upgrading- yubikey-firmware)

<comment><USER17> Ugh that's really frustrating. If it's for security, why can't they just blank the key like they do when the master key is used?

<comment><USER14> Ahh, I should have made that more clear in my comment. Definitely frustrating, as those dang keys aren't cheap!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why would it be surprising?

4k and especially 8kbit RSA provide greater assumed security, and the cpu/communication performance of 4/8kbit RSA is perfectly adequate for SSH. They also provide greater compatibility.

Why would I _downgrade_ my cryptographic security to use a different cryptosystem with performance characteristics which aren't very relevant for interactive logins and get reduced compatibility at the same time?

I'd be much more interested in an ed448 or a ed25519+SPHINCS+ hybrid for SSH authentication -- at least they wouldn't be unambiguously less secure than what I'm currently using per our best current understanding.

Same deal for GPG/PGP: they added ed25519 which has less security than the keys most people were already using (4kbit RSA)... when the performance advantages are essentially irrelevant for the application. The non-performance related advantages seem small relative to to the compatibility and security posture.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's startling how much software "validates" SSH keys by seeing if it starts with "ssh-rsa"

</comment><comment><USER20> Unless there's a good reason for not using RSA, this is a non-issue

<comment><USER21> There is a good reason, its just buried in complex crypto math and I won't be the one to explain it for you. If you are still using RSA, you should have upgraded to 4096 bit RSA by now. If not, you should be regenerating and changing your keys and not using one 5 or 10 year old 2048-bit RSA key because "2048 should be enough for anyone" and not thinking "I reused this key all over the place and im lazy and i'm sentimental and don't like change". People's key practices are just as bad as their password practices. His personal blog post was not meant to be a comprehensive lesson. But you can do what you want.

If this is the first time you're hearing about RSA starting to be phased out, and the new Ed25519, look into it. Or click this if you're lazy. [https://medium.com/risan/upgrade-your-ssh-key-to- ed25519-c6e...](https://medium.com/risan/upgrade-your-ssh-key-to- ed25519-c6e8d60d3c54)

Also of note, is Ed25519 does not harden itself with additional "bits" in the normal RSA sense, it relies on "rounds" of KDF to apply more brute-force protection to the passphrase (you did set a passphrase on your key right?). I would suggest using the -a option with 1000 or more rounds. If you pick 50,000 rounds you might be waiting 5 minutes to log in though.

Also of note, ECDSA (the other one) has had curve trust concerns due to NIST possibly being subverted by the NSA. You can read for days on this, but bottom line is we've all agreed to move on. [https://security.stackexchange.com/a/227771](https://security.stackexchange.com/a/227771) / [https://safecurves.cr.yp.to/](https://safecurves.cr.yp.to/)

<comment><USER22> > Also of note, is Ed25519 does not harden itself with additional "bits" in > the normal RSA sense, it relies on "rounds" of KDF to apply more brute-force > protection to the passphrase

That doesn't make sense. Key stretching your pass phrase, and the number of bits your key pair is, is totally separate. The reason people dont talk about number of bits in Ed25519, is that the security margins are higher and many of the more efficient algos for cryptoanalyzing this stuff dont work on elliptic curves, so you dont have to be constantly changing the key strength to keep up with better computers, its just always 256 bits.

<comment><USER23> Except Ed25519 only has 128 bits of security, not 256

<comment><USER22> I was under the impression the key size was 256 bits but the security level was 128 bits.

But IANA cryptographer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> FWIW the .ssh/authorized_keys command= restriction for sftp doesn't prevent arbitrary command execution if your system is configured with procfs.

[https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Oct/35](https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Oct/35)

<comment><USER25> > OpenSSH 6.7 contains a mitigation,

> OpenSSH 6.7 was released on 2014-10-06.

I am not sure why this matters? If you have not updated your system for 8 years, I am sure you have worse problems than restricted account privilege escalation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> ssh-keygen defaults to RSA

<comment><USER27> I'm surprised that this isn't a bigger deal. Most people won't specify a type and use whatever the default is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> As the author mentions, defaults can play a significant role. In particular, it would probably help for _ssh-keygen_ to default to _ed25519_.

<comment><USER29> ... and break tons of usages where the software does not support newer schemes?

Switching defaults is always a complex trade-off.</comment></comment>


"Ender's Game" movie faces a boycott - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/07/orson-scott-card-boycott/

<comment><USER2> I liked Ender's Game when I first read it.

Then I thought about it.

Ignore anything else the author has done: in this particular story, he poses a conflict between survival and ethical behavior, and illustrates it repeatedly... by having characters choose survival over ethics. He makes them heroes for it.

Well. That's a brave stance. Except... that every time a character is given that decision, it is also clear, whether or not the author intended it, that there was a third path that could have solved the survival problem ethically. Maybe multiple paths.

It's not clear to me that Card actually thought about that, though, which reduces the story to what it actually is: a tale of organized child abuse, hero worship and genocide, with a "hero" who doesn't understand what he's doing but gets a magical redemption that he does nothing to deserve.

(Although the last clause is probably intentional.)

<comment><USER3> Did you ever read the sequels? Society only judges Ender favorably in the short term.

<comment><USER4> After giving in and reading Ender's Game for the first time, I didn't like it. I thought that Card was using children as main characters as an excuse to avoid character development (just having your child character learn something is a way to fake it, the character remains one dimensional while learning something concrete about the world.)

I told people this and they told me to read Ender's Shadow instead. Same complaint, the characters are shallow, no matter how vivid on the surface.

So then I decided to pick up a Card book outside that series, and read The Memory of Earth. _Stunningly_ bad. Seriously hack work. A few years later I looked it up, turns out all he did was plagiarize The Book of Mormon and add a nominally sci-fi theme. What the hell?

Every time I complain about Card I am told that I just need to read more Card. No, not anymore.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't advocating anything. I was just saying that the grandparent was odd presented as a critique of the book, when the author spends the next three books examining those issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like a terrible thing to do to the hundreds of potentially nice people that worked hard on this movie.

People will boycott this because of peer pressure, and to follow the crowd. People don't boycott the countless movies based on Roald Dahl books, even though it's very common knowledge that he held strong anti-semitic views.

Yes, I think his views are terrible, but that's not going to stop me enjoying his work. His literary output has nothing to do with his views. Enders Game is a fantastic book and I have high hopes for this movie; not just that it'll be a good port to the big screen, but that it'll help the careers of a number of young actors.

<comment><USER6> When I first read the title, I thought they wanted me to boycott the movie because it wouldn't honour the book. Turns out it's because Orson Scott Card is an influential asshole who doesn't like gay people? I'm not sorry, and this is just petty poop-flinging. Hollywood as a whole is full of assholes and I don't see what makes this one special.

<comment><USER7> Some fraction of your ticket price will likely fund the oppression of others.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't it always?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I cannot recall the last time I refused to see any movie because of the off screen views of anyone involved? To be honest, I am more inclined to watch movies when others start screaming boycott.

However some groups are more prone to take offense than others because they have found it an effective means to quiet opposition to their point of view, regardless if they are right or wrong. I would prefer that instead of attempting to bully others into your point of view you just shut up. As in, be reasonable or go home

<comment><USER10> Well you see. If anyone screams boycott, I am inclined to investigate. And then my findings are used to decide, what I am going to do.

And after investigating, I have to say, that I would not watch the movie.

The same for me is, if someone staring/directing was a know member of say scientology. As someone promoting an organization, that clearly goes against every value I honor should not earn money from me, that would then help said organization.

So I would not want my money to help someone that intolerant.

If people I know would go there, I would ask them, if they knew, that with going, they support someone that intolerant, someone being that derogative to gays.

But this would then be their decision to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Without weighting in on OSC's views (as those are well covered elsewhere), I thought I'd point out something regarding the salaries and pay of those who worked on the movie, the support of which keeps coming up.

For anyone working on the film, stagehand, technician, engineer, whathave you, those people are already paid. They collect a salary throughout the years they're working on the film. They don't go unpaid until the movie releases, and hope for the best.

So for all of those men and women "in the trenches", they're a sunk cost, and won't feel the financial effects of how well the movie does or not. This is why some production houses end up posting losses on films. Even in those industries, the effects on those people are negligible. Movies are a journeyman industry, and quality work on a film is independent of viewer's end perceptions of it. By the time the movie is ready for release, those professionals have already moved on to other projects.

In fact, those who will feel the effects most keenly are not those at the bottom, who are already paid, but those at the top who's income is coming from the sales now that the film is completed. For OSC, who is most assuredly receiving royalties, this could be in the form of a much reduced paycheck. For the backers of this project, it could be a much smaller profit margin than anticipated, or even a loss.

<comment><USER12> A lot of film studios pay crew bonuses for films that succeed at the box office. So a boycott in this case might actually take money out of the pockets of the rank & file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if the people signing this would also boycott anything run or owned by Middle Eastern royalty where laws that Card promotes both exist and are enforced.

<comment><USER14> I'm someone who has spent a lot of my life trying, often failing, to "be good". More and more, it seems like an impossible goal:

On the one side you can retreat to the woods and live off of roots and berries trying not to do any direct harm. But then, depending on your privilege, you leave on the table so many opportunities to steer the ship of society in a less harmful direction.

Or, at the other end of the spectrum you can yield all reaponsibility for your direct actions, instead throwing yourself into the wheeling and dealing of systems of harm, trying to invest what privilege you have to gain leverage so that you can make a bigger difference, focusing only on some theoretical calculus of your global influence, measuring yourself by your imagined net global effect.

Or, more likely, you pick something in between. In the end, we all make a personal decision about what we are willing to sacrifice.

I often use oil, even though I know it's harmful, because I think my boycott of it would cost the world more than it would gain. I could be wrong, but that's my best guess based on my (flawed) understanding of my self and my world.

And I may boycott Ender's Game and I do not think that's hypocritical. It's just an acknowledgement that there are limits to our power and we must choose our battles.

<comment><USER15> My approach has been that if it is easy to do, I had darn well better do it.

To illustrate - since I was a teenager I realized that the war on drugs was manifestly wrong. I chose not to participate in any aspect of the war on drugs as best I could. When I was fresh out of college, most forms of employment required a drug test. So I did it, reluctantly, but I felt I could stand on my principles as a pauper or compromise and live a reasonable life.

But once I had FU money in the bank, I felt that it was my obligation to refuse all future drug testing because the cost to me is now practically nil. Since I can pick and choose the jobs I take, it is my moral obligation to never compromise again.

A corollary to this approach is that anyone who shares my ideals and chooses to give up the comfort of an easy life for those ideals deserves an enormous amount of respect because whatever character flaws they may have, they are "walking the talk" more than I was willing to.

<comment><USER16> The real problem with drug tests though is that those in a good position can refuse them, but those in a less advantageous position don't get so much choice.

<comment><USER15> I guess it wasn't exactly clear from the way I phrased it, but I'm not just refusing the tests, I'm refusing to contribute my labor to the betterment of companies that impose them on their employees.

If I were to encounter an employer willing to make an exception to their policy for me, I would have to consider the greater implications. I might accept such a job as long as I remained free to tell anyone and everyone that an exception had been made so as to undermine the policy going forwards. Maybe. Hasn't happened yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really loved the book, and I would really love to see the movie adaption, especially since OSC waited so long to personally pick a director he though would portray it well.

It's interesting because I remember in a later book in the series (Xenocide?), there were many off-planet colonies, and on those homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuals were seen as "weird". I don't recall any aggressive stance against gays in the entire series. Maybe I missed something?

I think as long as the book series doesn't mirror the authors perspective, it shouldn't play that big of a role.

<comment><USER18> "I remember in a later book in the series (Xenocide?), there were many off- planet colonies, and on those homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuals were seen as "weird"."

I don't have a copy of Xenocide at the moment to check but are sure you're not thinking of 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman?

<comment><USER19> Sounds more like Haldeman to me as well (alas I don't have either book on hand at the moment).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure I entirely sign off on this complete lack of separation between art and artist. I understand that context is important, but does the artist really need to be a good person for his or her work to make you think, or feel an emotion, or be entertained?

I don't think it's entirely fair to assume an inherent bias or hidden agenda in the work based solely off beliefs the creator is believed to hold. What if Card felt this way, but just kept those feelings to himself? I understand that people don't want to support or empower those like Card, so I'm personally conflicted now as to whether I will see this film.

As an interesting personal side note, I went to high school in Massachusetts in the early 2000s, when the state was at the forefront of progress for same- sex marriage, and Ender's Game was required reader for every English class during the summer before sophomore year. I suspect it still is, and it's probably required at other schools. We spent weeks discussing the book, and it still comes up in conversation every now and then, since we all had to read it, and this is the first I've heard about Card's homophobic beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER21> What do you do when you don't like someone's use of freedom of speech? Try recruiting a mob to bully them.

<comment><USER22> The Adria Richards strategy.

<comment><USER23> Give it a rest already. So much ado about such a small event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm of two minds about this.

On the one hand, I don't like OSC's personal views about gays.

On the other hand, it's _Ender 's Game_. As a _movie_!

<comment><USER7> Pirate it. Best of both worlds!

<comment><USER25> Yes, do something illegal with it. That puts you on the HIGH MORAL ground. /s

<comment><USER3> Illegality is not immorality. While in this case, I don't think piriting the movie is an effective means of civil disobedience, there are certainly _many_ instances of people retaining (and possibly gaining) the high moral ground during illegal activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have talked to pop stars who say their handlers "don't let them" say anything political at all, for fear of exactly this sort of thing. It actually lowers the level of political discourse to punish people for expressing their views.

And anyway, come on.

Ender's game is one of the greatest science fiction books of all time. Lots of creative people hold and express unpopular views. Often those views change, over the course of their lives. What matters is whether their work moves you, inspires you, makes you think of new things.

You should judge an author (painter, musician) on her work, not on what she says outside of her work.

<comment><USER27> >It actually lowers the level of political discourse to punish people for expressing their views.

it's not punishing people for expressing their views, it's punishing people for their views. Allowing evolution deniers the stage to talk lowers the level of political discourse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes I wish I could get over my inner 'realpolitik' and actually boycott some stuff that would deserve it, although that would spare few artists or even companies.

For artists, one could go with the 'Wagnerian razor', i.e. does the artist make money by your individual contribution? Which would be the case if Card gets a box office share. Although even that is morally questionable, as you're part of the support and thus fund future projects, enriching the author that way.

I sadly file all that under "things that would make me a better human", like regular exercise or visiting the dentist twice a year. Although this one wouldn't be hard, as never was a big fan of Ender's Game, being a bit too old for the Mary Sue factor and not liking the morals of the _book_. I still play Monkey Island every few years, though...

</comment><comment><USER29> There's a lot of discussion of this going on.

For instance, here's an ethical guide to consuming content created by awful people: [http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/02/21/1619481/an- ethica...](http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/02/21/1619481/an-ethical- guide-to-consuming-content-created-by-awful-people-like-orson-scott- card/?mobile=nc)

<comment><USER30> I like the idea of moral offsetting; making a donation to an equal rights organisation to counter the money you spend on the movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So conflicted. I love Ender's Game yet I hate its bigoted author.

:(

<comment><USER8> You now know how gay hatitng Neil Patrick Harris fans must feel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I called for a boycott the last time a post about Enders Game was up, the guy is a total ass without the decency to admit he's being an ass. Even I do that.

<comment><USER25> To admit something, you have to believe in some way that it is true. He probably does not and so he doesn't own up to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Tolerance doesn't mean forking over 10 bucks to see his movie Is it really > his movie though? Arent authors always screwed by hollywood in such > enterprises ?

<comment><USER34> Unknown-ish authors are -- like Winston Groom, when he agreed to have Forrest Gump made into a movie, and got screwed by "Hollywood accounting" because he'd accepted a percentage of the profits.

Well known ones have enough negotiating power to demand a cut of the gross receipts and merchandising.

\--

 _Edit_ : A little more on the Winston Groom aside from Wikipedia:

 _Winston Groom 's price for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump included a share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received nothing. That being so, he has refused to sell the screenplay rights to the novel's sequel, stating that he "cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure"._

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I haven't been to a movie theater in years. I think I will go this time just to tell the religious assholes "go fuck yourself".

Sorry for the language.

<comment> mkr-hn How will going to see the movie tell them that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just like Chik-fil-A boycott? Oh wait they've seen record profits lately. Perhaps it's because the silent majority of people are sick of gay culture? Fortunately I live in Russia where we've recently and unanimously passed several bills defending traditional marriage.[1] I would much rather my child read an anti-gay author than a gay one, and Ender's Game is a classic that I will surely pass on after I have a real marriage. A real marriage is consummated, which is defined by intercourse, which is defined by penis in vagina, which same-sex couples cannot do. The point of marriage is to have kids and build a strong family. But homosexuals would rather change the definition of a word to win the argument (moving the goal posts). In America, marriage will die off since it will become a meaningless government contract.

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russias- duma-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russias-duma-waves- through-antigay-law--by-436-votes-to-0-8654582.html)

<comment><USER37> That rant is so tired, so inconsistent, so laced with hate-speech, its become wearisome to respond to its ilk. Let me just say, lots of older couples, infertile couples, 'normal' couples get married never intending to have children, even in your own religion, that that fundamental argument is silly.

Why do you keep making it? You come off sounding desperate, defensive, selfish. You make sex sound mechanical, impersonal. I cannot imagine what kind of marriage you are describing, but it is not a marriage of joy and commitment.

<comment><USER38> No need to feed the troll.

<comment><USER37> Sorry.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Toward ethical, transparent and fair AI/ML: a critical reading list - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rockita/criticalML/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Few things I realized learning AI/ML in school and being around people who claimed to care about "social good" and "ethics":

1) As long as engineers chase after money and prestige first, there will be no ethical AI/ML. We live in a society which values money and status over everything else, especially moral values (it's quite trendy these days to reject traditional moral values, in fact). If that doesn't change, the incentives to create unethical, untransparent and unfair AI/ML don't change either.

2) The trendiness of ethical / fair AI/ML is the only thing it has going for it, and if companies can coopt it while actually using AI/ML for unethical goals, they will do so happily (for instance, if they were to sponsor ethical AI conferences or papers while still using AI to spy on people and draw up lists of possible terrorists without hard evidence, ala Palantir).

3) There is no desire to have a hardline, this is right and that is wrong code of ethics like doctors do with their Hippocratic oath and a large part of this is the entanglement that a lot of AI/ML research has with the military. It's not possible to talk about ethics and ignore the fact that lots of this AI/ML research is going towards killing over 1 million innocent civilians in Iraq. And yet, nearly all the labs which do this research receive US military funding. When this is the case, you have to leave loopholes for people to reason their way into justifying things which are, to most people's base instincts, morally wrong. And that leaves a kind of ethics where everything is ultimately permissible provided you think about it hard enough, in other words no ethics at all.</comment>


Samsung posts Galaxy S III source code, modders start their engines - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/31/samsung-posts-galaxy-s-iii-source-code/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm just waiting for a audited and secured version with more encription options. Big brother, I'm looking at you.</comment>


Deelay.me, delay proxy for HTTP resources - <AUTHOR> http://deelay.me/

<comment><USER2> Is it possible to add a random delay? (For example a delay between 500ms and 1000ms.) This could be useful to test race conditions.</comment>


MMS for Google Voice on AT&T - <AUTHOR>

I'm surprised none of the news sites have mentioned that as of today at least anyone messaging phones to my AT&T iPhone now notify me in Google Voice iPhone app, and instantly send the image to my email account. Before it was only in trial for Sprint. <comment><AUTHOR> When someone sends me a MMS it sends a message saying, "<Subject: New Message>". In my email I get the subject line "Subject John Smith (SMS)" (where John Smith is the person's name). In the body, "SMS from John Smith [(000) 000-0000]" and of course the picture. The picture appeared to be low resolution, but maybe because it was sent from an Android or maybe google shrinks the file.</comment>


Norm Brodsky: When Negotiating, Always Listen Before You Speak - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/norm-brodsky-when-negotiating-listen-before-you-speak.html

<comment><USER2> Good advice on a very important subject.</comment>


Joshua's blog: put a proxy in front - <AUTHOR> http://joshua.schachter.org/2008/01/proxy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Its an old post but still a good reminder</comment>


Native App Over HTTP - <AUTHOR> http://jasonette.com/?ref=hackernews <comment><USER2> This is really neat. I've seen similar projects. Adding this project to my "look at the internals" list.</comment>


How to be interesting (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/how_to_be_inter.html <comment><USER2> Personally, I think the desire to 'appear' interesting vein and is futile. All of these 'tips' are just novelties. Even if you dedicate your entire life to appearing interesting, you'll just end up with party tricks, not real substance.

I quickly learned in my profession that there are two types of people: 1) those who create the perception that they matter, and 2) those that actually matter.

This list is designed to create a perception. How about just doing something you love, do it with passion, achieve success, and go from there?

<comment><USER3> "I think the desire to 'appear' interesting vein and is futile."

If you are suggesting a difference between "appearing" and "actually" being interesting, I think you miss what interesting means. Interestingness is not some abstract or physical quantity. It's a perception.

If someone perceives you as interesting you _are_ interesting. To them, at least. Someone who sits alone brooding over what they consider interesting topics is _not_ interesting -- except to people who are interested in brooding loners.

Your distinction between appearing to matter and mattering sounds like the difference between getting a job or project done or not. Producing results is orthogonal. Might as well get the job done and be interesting.

I've always produced, but I've only recently learned to be interesting. Being interesting and making connections is great. Life is much better when people like taking an interest in you.

Anyway, I wrote a series on communication skills exercises that help people communicate and make connections -- <http://joshuaspodek.com/communication- skills-exercises-6>. They work great.

<comment><USER4> You are right that the word "interesting" is a perception but I think what the parent post was suggesting was that: there is the definite possibility that on doing what the author of the article suggests you appear 'interesting' for some people, but to others you appear as somebody inauthentically 'trying to appear interesting'.

I agree with the parent post. Although I'd consider this kind of person relatively interesting, I'd mentally put them on a lower level for doing 'interesting things' with a lack of passion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do you really want to connect with someone? Or do you just want to "try" to connect with someone?

You might not like this - there are no tricks, really. It's about putting yourself out there..

Guys talking about football is just a proxy for talking about feelings. Talk about how you feel about something, facts are boring...

Emotions are what make people interesting. Even the most logical people are, at the core, irrational beings.

The core of our brain that makes decisions has no capacity to understand language.

I'm only human. The most interesting people to me are the people who are sincerely interested in me. Usually, that is reciprocal. Conversation isn't a Q&A; it's not a give and take. It's a sharing of your lives. You're not going to hit if off with everyone. But if you use inane social lubricants like 'Nice weather, huh?' you are practically guaranteeing a Tivo'd rote, robotic conversation

The more you "put yourself out there", the better your intentions, the better your connections (see below)

> It takes relationships to make relationships. And, in general, to make > relationships, you have to allow vulnerability. Vulnerability is the > difference between a conversation that starts, "How about this weather we're > having?" and a conversation that starts, "Oh my God, let me tell you about > how I just fell in a puddle in front of a group of nuns."

The former is so boring that it makes listeners want to crawl under a table; the latter creates a spark and a list of follow-up questions. These are two extreme examples, but generally, the more of yourself you put out there, the more others will have to connect with.

Excerpt from a Nerve article on 'am I doomed?'

[http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss- informatio...](http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss- information-209)

</comment><comment><USER6> I ran across this recent good advice:

> "Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a > genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly > present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant > state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it > against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in > a while there will be a hit, and people will say: <i>'How did he do it? He > must be a genius!'</i>"

"Ten Lessons I wish I had been Taught", Gian-Carlo Rota [http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~cahn/life/gian-carlo- rota-10-le...](http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~cahn/life/gian-carlo- rota-10-lessons.html#feynmann)

</comment><comment><USER7> The article doesn't actually draw any connection between business success and being "interesting". This is just taken for granted by the author, but not supported.

The article's advice isn't so much about how to be "interesting", as it is about how to "repeatedly put yourself out there in a public way".

Being able to fail publicly is a useful business skill, mind you. There was an interview on HN a while back, can't find it know, where a super-rich fellow explains that willingness to fail publicly was the key factor in him outperforming more skilled competitors. But this is distinct from being interesting.

<comment><USER8> Maybe it doesn't draw that connection because not everything in this world is about business success? You're probably right that the author believes that "being interesting" is a marketable quality yet doesn't really explain why that would be, but I really like this piece much more as a guide to personal development. You know, to help us be a nice and fun and interesting human beings.

<comment><USER7> The author immediately frames the exercise as part of business training. That's why I drew the connection between "interestingness" to business success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Come up with 10 ideas per week for a month. Next month come up with 20 ideas per week. The following month come up with 30. Continue until it becomes impractical.

As a wise professor once told me, 'creativity is a skill and you improve it by practicing'.

<comment><USER10> A friend did something similar. For every programming puzzle he solved, he would try to find 5 alternative solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's good to be interested kind of across the spectrum, both in abstract ideas and very concrete stuff. Some people never take the bird's eye view, but it can be a very powerful source of inspiration; some people stay there all the time, which isn't very fun.

My random idea is to keep two books on your nightstand, one being something like for example an introduction to Hegel's phenomenology of spirit, and the other being something like a biography, novel, or history book.

I've always found that thinking is most fun when you get these little sparks between the abstract and the concrete. "Oh, the way this saxophonist is tracing out different lines but always returning to the zero state of the modal backing chord makes me think of Deleuze & Guattari — I wonder if you can think about the 'body without organs' of a jazz tune?" (This is also a good way of being a bit pretentious about all sorts of stuff...)

</comment><comment><USER12> Don't miss the backstory:

"And it soon becomes apparent that this issue goes a lot broader. Their course is designed to churn out mini-art directors, mini-account people, mini- planners for a world that increasingly just wants creative generalists."

[http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/building_c...](http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/building_creati.html)

I was an art student at UO at the time, briefly participating in the journalism department's advertising club that brought Russell Davies to visit. So far, generalism is working out.

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps the title should be "How to be more interested" because that is what the tips are for. And in general, more interested people are more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think if you don't believe yourself to be interesting you've got deeper problems to address before you start following this article.

If you truly believe that you are a boring person that nobody wants to talk to, you probably have a self esteem problem. Low self esteem is something people are naturally attune to. Talk like a loser ,and people will assume you are a loser. (the converse is not necessarily better however...)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think something different can be taken from the article -- how to be inspired.

</comment><comment><USER16> Okay, let's suppose one manages to be "interesting". How does one translate that to a fatter bank account?

I liked the article but I'm wondering if anyone knows of resources (or has opinions) that address the next step.

<comment><USER17> A fatter bank account its not 'a next step' from "interesting". Its almost entirely separate....

Making money from real creativity is usually pretty hard - those that are creative tend to break the barriers whilst others make the money....

<comment><USER16> Thanks for replying.

It's the next step I would personally like to take. I've been told repeatedly that I'm "interesting". I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with that (other than get into hot water). I feel I've made some progress in the right direction but I am still working out pieces of it in my head and looking for resources to help me put the final pieces in places.

<comment><AUTHOR> Being interesting lets you show off your other good qualities. Like being reliable or able to build interesting things. If you build something small that people use and like, by being interesting I feel you could land funding to build something bigger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think a couple pieces are missing from this advice:

1) Don't open your mouth unless you have something to say.

2) Don't repeat yourself.

3) Don't talk down to people.

It's impossible to be interesting if you are boring people.

</comment><comment><USER19> I find people most interesting when their jobs involve observing the state of the world and then drawing big conclusions.. Bankers etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> This advice is great if one wishes to become a dilettante.

</comment><comment><USER21> I largely agree with this, but reading it made me realize that I'd rather be interested than interesting. I love soaking up interesting developments in tech and the world at large, I love reading and stimulating my brain. But I don't really care if I stimulate anyone else's. I suppose that is selfish.

</comment><comment><USER22> fuck everything about this article

<comment><USER10> That catchphrase is stupid. This isn't reddit.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: The law of unintended consequences and SOPA - <AUTHOR>

I think everyone here on HN agrees that SOPA is pretty extreme and mucks around with the foundation of the Internet.
With that in  mind, if it passes how could it it fundamentally change how the Internet works for the better?
For example, Napster, being centralized had a single point of failure vulnerable to legal shenanigans. When that single point of failure was attacked by lawyers, people invented systems like Limeware and Kazaa. When those were attacked people invented BitTorrent.
With DNS, a single point of failure vulnerable to lawyers and lawmakers, under attack, it's reasonable to expect that there will be unintended consequences that will make the system more robust.
What technological solutions are feasible and likely to be adopted? <comment><USER2> How far does SOPA extend?

Think of it this way: does the great firewall of China apply to US citizens? No, of course not. So whilst SOPA may be annoying at best to people in the US, the rest of the world will remain unaffected, and so there will always be a workaround.</comment>


Declassified photos from Tinian Island as the B-29 "Enola Gay" was being loaded - <AUTHOR> https://archive.today/94EKG <comment><USER2> It always amazes me how seemingly careless they were with these nuclear devices back then. To know that such a devestating bomb was handled by a sultry, shirtless youngster, in a shed on a small island in the Pacific...

It reminds me of the Slotin Incident ([http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten- by-the-nuclear-dragon/](http://www.damninteresting.com/bitten-by-the-nuclear- dragon/)) where dr. Louis Slotin accidently slipped the screwdriver he used to separate two plutonium/uranium hemispheres:

"Immediately, all eight scientists in the room felt a wave of heat accompanied by a blue glow as the plutonium sphere vomited an invisible burst of gamma and neutron radiation into the room. As the lab's Geiger counter clicked hysterically, Louis used his bare hand to push the upper plutonium hemisphere off and onto the floor, which terminated the supercritical reaction moments after it began."

Big oopsie.

However gruesome the goal of these bombs, the rate of advancement in such a short timespan is nothing short of amazing. From the very first successful test (Trinity) to bombing Hiroshima: just 21 days. They were great days for science, but a shame to mankind that it had to come this far.

<comment><USER3> It is not clear that dropping the bomb was necessary to end the war. Was it even necessary to develop it?

Eisenhower said "it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

At the time Truman said Japan had been "repaid many fold" for Pearl Harbor. In these new images there is a bit of graffiti on the bomb allegedly written by a Rear Admiral: "a second kiss for Hirohito". It seems to me like the mood in the US camp was "let's hit them hard, teach them a lesson." rather than a more considered or balanced calculation.

Edit: in the documentary "The Fog of War" on McNamara, there is discussion of Curtis LeMay's decision to firebomb Tokyo. In that case there was apparently a degree of cool-headed calculation. [http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html](http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html)

Some discussion of the nuclear bomb decision here: [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/it-wasnt-necessary-to- hit-...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/it-wasnt-necessary-to-hit-them- with-that-awful-thing-why-dropping-the-a-bombs-was-wrong/article/2534018) (I have no idea what the politics of that paper are, caveat lector)

<comment><USER4> "The use of the atomic bomb would have to be done with visual targeting, not by use of radar. [...] The targets should be 'large urban areas of not less than 3 miles in diameter existing in the larger populated areas… between the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Nagasaki… [and] should have high strategic value.' A list of possible targets that met this criteria was given [...] Of these, Hiroshima was noted as 'the largest untouched target not on the 21st Bomber Command priority list.' Tokyo, on the other hand, was 'now practically all bombed and burned out and is practically rubble with only the palace grounds left standing.' It was further noted that they had to take into account that the policy of the 20th Air Force was now 'systematically bombing out' cities 'with the prime purpose in mind of not leaving one stone lying on the other,' and that they would not likely reserve targets just for the Manhattan Project."

"Stimson left the meeting thinking Truman completely understood the matter, and the final target order — with Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki (the latter added only then) — was sent out.

But what did Truman take away from this meeting? We can look at Truman's own diary entry from July 25th:

" This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful. "

This passage reflects an incredible misconception. Truman appears, here, to believe that Hiroshima was 'a purely military' target, and that 'soldiers and sailors' would be killed, 'not women and children.' But of course every city on that list was inhabited primarily by civilians. And by the calculus of war being waged, every city on that list had a military connection — they produced weapons for the military."

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto- misconceptio...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto- misconception/)

<comment><USER5> He was clearly writing this for posterity.

Japan was beaten. They had already offered a complete surrender, conditional only on keeping the emperor, which was rejected by the U.S. Their utter defeat and the hopeless state of their armed forces was well-known by the allies, since their communication encryption had been cracked months earlier.

The real issue was likely that the Soviet Union, positioned to become a formidable power in the post-war theater, had promised to enter the war against Japan on August 6. The Americans needed to make sure that Japan had been defeated by that point and that the U.S. would occupy Japan, not Soviet Russia. Hence the rush to drop the bombs before that.

Also, there was no uncertainty about the lack of military significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the contemporary reports state this clearly, they even warn about the presence of American POWs in the area (which was ignored and they were incinerated along with the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians).

<comment><USER6> > They had already offered a complete surrender, conditional only on keeping > the emperor, which was rejected by the U.S.

Are you saying the Japanese offered to surrender, with the only condition being maintaining the emperor, prior to the bombing of Hiroshima? My understanding is that was the terms accepted after the atomic bombings and the declaration of war by the USSR.

<comment><USER5> Yes. According to documents from Roosevelt's office, the Japanese had previously offered surrender on roughly the same terms that the U.S. ultimately accepted after the bombings:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390436)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There were amazing (and deadly) alternatives to a-bomb. Most interesting was Bat bomb:

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

<comment><USER2> That's hilarious! Imagine sitting in the mess hall, overhearing two men discussing their day: "I'm working on a cunning plan. It involves bombs, strapped to bats. What are you working on?" "Oh, just a nuclear fission device. When it goes supercritical it's.. oh well, never mind. Tell me more about the bats!"

<comment><USER8> ... and then reporting them for flagrant breaches of security, as well as being quarantined yourself for knowing too much.

Whee, wartime is fun!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found out a few weeks ago they made a bunch of those bombs, minus the nuclear elements, for training. They even dropped some on Japanese targets and found they were fairly effective just from the explosive content.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bomb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bomb)

<comment><USER10> They cost between 13k and 26k a piece in 2014 USD. That is truly amazing.

EDIT:

Even more amazing when you consider that they weighed about 10k pounds.

<comment><USER11> It's amazing/depressing how cheap bombs are when they don't have to be smart.

<comment><USER12> Actually, it's amazing how much they charge for bombs that are smart.

<comment><USER13> Actually, most smart bombs (JDAMs) are just old, dumb bombs with a new "tail kit" containing a GPS and guidance electronics.

<comment><USER10> A tail kit that costs almost 10 times as much as the bomb.

<comment><USER14> Hey, this is Hackernews, not Reddit. You can't just completely make shit up here.

<comment><USER10> A mark 84 bomb, one of the largest conventional munitions in frequent use, costs about 3k a piece. The mark 84's smaller cousins are cheaper. JDAM kits costs about 27k a piece. How am I making things up?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here is a mirror for the site: [https://archive.today/94EKG](https://archive.today/94EKG)

<comment><USER16> Thanks. We changed the url from [http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm](http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm) because the latter is down.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel a bit bad for being the cause of their site suspension. Thanks for changing the URL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those that have not read it, the Richard Rhodes book is one of the finest pieces of science/engineering writing I have read:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard- Rhodes/dp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard- Rhodes/dp/1471111237)

<comment><USER18> I'm in the midst of it. Quite long but the background stuff is one of the best overviews of 20th century physics you can read anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cache that has most of the images:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20140930151228/http://www.alterna...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140930151228/http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm)

(Original site exceeded its traffic quota and was suspended)

</comment><comment><USER20> It strikes fear into me that these folks are loading a device that is design to kill thousands of lives, the madness in this thing call war.

<comment><USER21> Actually, the purpose of the bomb was to save many thousands more lives than it ended. An invasion of Japan would've cost an enormous number of lives. It would've also had a catastrophic effect on the civilian population, because they were being told that the American troops were there to enslave them. It has even been said that the propaganda being told to the Japanese civilians included the idea that the troops would kill and cannibalize their families. I'm not sure whether that latter part is true, but what is true is that the civilians were extremely incentivized to be as hostile as possible to any American invasion army, even to the extent of whole families committing suicide out of fear of being enslaved or tortured, as on Okinawa.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa)

 _Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population._

Human affairs are sometimes terrible, but they often take the least terrible path out of all terrible paths. This is evidenced by the fact that the cuban missile crisis didn't result in an all-out nuclear war, and also that these bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Americans invading Japan, which would have been far more devastating.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall)

 _Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high. Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties._

I upvoted you because I agree that everyone should be terrified at the prospect of war, because war only happens when people aren't terrified of it.

<comment><USER22> While there are many people who subscribe to your view, there are an equal number who believe that Japan would have surrendered within months/weeks with no ground invasion.

The allies had complete air and naval superiority and Russia had joined the the Japanese war theatre.

If you have read the ethics of atomic bombings in any detail you are already aware of the details, so I would refrain from linking to wikipedia. To push your POV that the bombing was entirely necessary and entirely morally right is immoral.

[Edit]

As requested below: here are the detail about the military unneccesity of the atomic bombings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Militarily_unnecessary)

There are other debates around this, but this discusses only if Japan would have speedily surrendered without the Atomic bombing.

<comment><USER21> I'm not aware of the ethical details, so feel free to correct me. It's my understanding that invasion was imminent at the time of the bombings, so America's choice was either to send bombs or soldiers. If that was truly their choice, it seems hard to argue that the bomb was the less ethical.

It's fine to say that Japan would have surrendered without invasion, but such a strong assertion needs to be backed by equally strong evidence.

EDIT: An excerpt from your link:

 _This conclusion assumed conventional fire bombing would have continued, with ever-increasing numbers of B-29s, and a greater level of destruction to Japan 's cities and population._

It seems hard to argue that literally firebombing an entire civilization into stoneage living conditions was more ethical than forcing a quick political decision to surrender and stop the madness. Can you imagine trying to live without basic necessities? Even if nobody was dropping bombs on you directly, you, your family, and everyone around you would be the definition of misery for the duration of the firebombing. The firebombing didn't simply destroy military targets. It also decimated infrastructure that we take for granted, such as the ability to deliver drinkable water, or to seek medical treatment at hospitals. How many were to die a miserable death due to the firebombing before Hiroshima and Nagasaki could objectively be called the more ethical decision?

Also, the above analysis assumes both sides had perfect information. But information during wartime is asymmetric. It's entirely possible that America had no knowledge of the Japanese political framework at the time the decision to drop the bombs was made. If the Japanese were broadcasting their intention to surrender before the bombs were dropped, that would be different, but it doesn't seem like that was the case.

Would you mind helping me understand why firebombing was more ethical than the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

<comment><USER5> > It's fine to say that Japan would have surrendered without invasion, but > such a strong assertion needs to be backed by equally strong evidence.

This was shown by post-war inquiries. Japan had already offered a complete surrender, contingent only on preserving the emperor. They had been trying to surrender since April, according to documents leaked by the president's Chief of Staff, on roughly the same terms that the Americans ultimately accepted.

The rush to drop the bombs was that the Soviet Union had promised to join the war against Japan on August 10, giving the Western allies only a few days to make sure that they would be the ones occupying Japan, not the Soviets.

A cynic might also suspect a bit of enthusiasm among U.S. military to field test the power of their new weapon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> archived => [https://archive.today/94EKG](https://archive.today/94EKG)

</comment><comment><USER24> There are a number of errors in the photo captions, so for the record:

1\. The "Little Boy" device, cylindrical in shape, was a U-235 gun-type device that was so simple in its design that it was dropped -- on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 -- without having been tested first. The U-235 was extraordinarily expensive to produce, taking up a large percentage of the Manhattan Project budget and several years. Two independent programs using different methods were designed to produce sufficient U-235, which needs to be separated from the much more abundant and non-fissioning U-238 isotope. The expense of extracting U-235 is the reason that only one such bomb was used, and only a few were ever built.

2\. The "Fat Man" bomb design used an isotope of plutonium (Pu-239) that was bred in fission reactors in Hanford, WA and Oak Ridge, TN over a relatively short time and at much lower cost. This bomb was tested at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, in advance of its use on Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) because its implosion design was much more complex than the uranium bomb.

3\. All modern fission weapons, and the trigger devices in fusion weapons, are design descendants of the Pu-239 "Fat Man" device that was dropped on nagasaki.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if any of the guys in the photos realised to what extent they were (helping) rewriting history that day...

<comment><USER26> Given the secrecy surrounding the bombs, it is highly likely that not one of them had any idea what it was they were assembling/loading into the plane. All they likely knew was that it was "some kind of new, secret, bomb". It is questionable whether the "high ranking officials" referenced in the plane alignment photo caption even had much knowledge of just what this "new, secret, bomb" really was.

<comment><USER27> At least one of them [1] knew exactly what it was, I would guess that the others were working for him and had a pretty good idea too.

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

<comment><USER28> I think most of them had an idea about atomic bombs back then, and what they were doing could end the war. Robert Heinlien was investigated by the FBI in the late 30's due to a description of atomic bombs in a story he'd written. So the idea was out there so to speack.

What they were ignorant of, I'm pretty sure, was the actual magnitude of the destruction caused by the devices. My father was about 10 yrs old at the time, he was deeply effected by news reels at the time. The tragedy was horrific.

<comment><USER29> The atomic bombs were not more devastating to Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were conventional bomb campaigns to other similar cities in Japan toward the end of World War II. The damage from atomic bombs did not stand out as extraordinary to the Japanese leadership at the time. What forced Japan to surrender was Russia's declaration of war. [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_di...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii)

" ... But if you graph the number of people killed in all 68 cities bombed in the summer of 1945, you find that Hiroshima was second in terms of civilian deaths. If you chart the number of square miles destroyed, you find that Hiroshima was fourth. If you chart the percentage of the city destroyed, Hiroshima was 17th. Hiroshima was clearly within the parameters of the conventional attacks carried out that summer. ..."

<comment><USER30> > Hiroshima was clearly within the parameters of the conventional attacks > carried out that summer.

That's like saying we'd treat a shooting incident where 500 people died the same as 500 individual murders.

<comment><USER31> Its more like saying that a single bomb that kills 500 is on par with an attack by an army in which 500 are shot dead.

I agree with that idea. Apart from the fact that they were single-plane attacks, there was little that set the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings apart from what happened to almost every city in Japan. Yes, radiation sickness is awful, but so are napalm burns on half your skin.

One thing that I wonder about whenever this subject comes up is whether it would have been cheaper to deploy use conventional bombs against those targets. It would have been fairly easy to send a thousand bombers with conventional payloads (or just 200 that made 5 sorties each)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> D'oh. Anyone know of a mirror of this? Site is down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Courtesy of @symetricasaurus elsehwere in this thread: [https://archive.today/94EKG](https://archive.today/94EKG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For anyone truly interested in Little Boy and Fat Man, do yourself a favor and pick up Atom Bombs by John Coster-Mullen.

It's self-published, and he's a great fellow; he'll email you and offer to sign your copy, as well as answer any questions you've got.

[http://www.amazon.com/Atom-Bombs-Secret-Inside- Little/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/Atom-Bombs-Secret-Inside- Little/dp/B0006S2AJ0)

This next year is the 70th anniversary of the Trinity test, which is open to the public once a year: [http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx](http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx)

Edit: He's also the guy who deduced the most probable internal configuration of Little Boy, and built an inert 1:1 scale model which was presented to and signed by the living members of the 509th Bomb Wing.

</comment><comment><USER34> Really intereresting photos.

It is a bit unfortunate that many of the captions and the sequence of photos are inaccurate. There are many misses regarding which bomb was which and on which plane it was loaded and on which city it was felled.

So, look at the pictures and ignore the captions and then read up on Wikipedia to understand the bigger picture.

</comment><comment><USER35> Cached version - though some pictures are still missing: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aKemgW6...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aKemgW6roesJ:www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ch)

</comment><comment><USER36> Looks like HN has blown the sites quota out of the water... though as it redirects to [http://www.alternatewars.com/cgi- sys/suspendedpage.cgi](http://www.alternatewars.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi) you've gotta wonder what the cgi is written in.

<comment><USER37> Remember that for Shellshock, it _doesn 't matter_ what language the CGI is written in, depending on how your server is configured to pass on environment variables... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wikipedia has Fat Man over Nagasaki and Little boy over Hiroshima. This archive has it the other way. Which is correct?

</comment><comment><USER39> Wondering why the staff are not wearing any protective clothing while handling nuclear devices ?

<comment><USER40> I find it weird that most of them aren't wearing shirts at all.

<comment><USER41> Most of the local people on Tinian and the other northern Mariana islands historically haven't worn shirts, male or female, although standards of dress on those islands have of course westernized somewhat since Western colonization. The climate there is very suitable for going shirtless at many times of the year.

<comment><USER40> Nice and reasonable explanation, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Implosion Sphere for Fat Man nearly assembled and about to be placed inside it's casing.

"Its casing". Why do people have such a problem with it's and its?

<comment><USER43> Because English is like Javascript - it's weird and is riddled with vestigial design errors, but since it's everywhere, we're all forced to use it.

<comment><USER44> Part of why English is everywhere is because it is extremely flexible, malleable and very lax about its own rules. Otherwise we'd all be speaking French.

I prefer to see English like I see Python. Younger, easier, more flexible and more self-aware than the languages it draws its roots from, and fun enough that it has a lot of influence on every other language.

<comment><USER45> Python? More flexible?

English is more like Ruby than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I see shirts were out of fashion back then.</comment>


More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2 <comment><USER2> Shame this didn't make it to the front page after all the other, less accurate results garnered tons of uninformed discussion and speculation.

Truly sad to see that it doesn't work, at least in this fashion, but hopefully it means we can focus on more promising therapies.</comment>


Aus Gov to pass laws forcing tech companies help police access encrypted msgs - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-04/encryption-whatsapp-signal-messages-explained/10580208 <comment><USER2> This is atrocious. There are numerous articles suggesting that China could be influencing some of these policies.

[https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-29/chinas-been- interf...](https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-29/chinas-been-interfering- in-australian-politics-for-past-decade/9810236?pfmredir=sm)

</comment><comment><USER3> This just lowered my opinion of Australian government to corrupted trash

<comment><USER4> You were previously uninformed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This shows how clueless politicians are when it comes to technology.

PGP and similar are widely available since the 90's.

Mailvelope and many other OpenPGP tools exist.

This idea is as clueless as Abbotts plan to kill the NBN fibre-to-the-home infrastructure.

Except he succeeded :-/

</comment><comment><USER6> I guess it is supposed to go something like this:

1\. Aus government attempts to use this law to compel Whatsapp to provide decryption or technical assistance for same

2\. Whatsapp tells them to go away

3\. Whatsapp is banned in Australia

</comment><comment><USER5> First Dog explains it well in cartoon style. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/05/why- we...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/05/why-we-are- governed-by-idiots-and-you-should-be-worried)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there any judicial oversight or is it just a warrantless free-for-all?</comment>