"Diff for HN": Update and highlight changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrspeaker.net/2011/04/11/hackernews-bookmarklet/

<comment><USER2> Want to package this up into a Chrome extension (maybe as a userscript)? Then people could run it without clicking on a bookmarklet.

<comment><USER3> Also replying to this even though I commented below (definitely relevant).

I made it into a Chrome Extension: [https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/abjhkncpebiaepcp...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/abjhkncpebiaepcpeopknaghepekbnpm)

<comment> brown9-2 _Updates every couple of minutes - but if you move to another tab (and leave HN open) no updates will happen until you get back._

Just curious: is this out of some Chrome extension limitation or to cut down on unnecessary refreshes?

<comment><USER3> This is part of the original script, out of my control.

All the extension actually does is load the original script when you visit HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is great. Love the animated Y, too.

Two suggestions, maybe to add as options:

\- open both comments and articles in new tabs automatically, since the assumption is power users keep the home page open anyway.

\- Display the new comment and vote count as a difference? Seems more intuitive to me.

<comment><USER5> I use this little bookmarklet to open all links in new tabs

        javascript:d=document.links; for(i in d) d[i].setAttribute("target","_blank")

Very useful when reading HN on an iPad

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I took the liberty of turning this into a userscript. Since I was running into trouble accessing global variables from the injected scripts, I forked Mr. Speaker's project and changed the relevant bits in the code.

Edit: Changed all my links to point to mrspeaker's master except the loader. Any changes he makes should get reflected automatically.

Link: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/100977>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome.

So awesome in fact, that I really wanted this as a browser extension. I quickly packaged it for Chrome, and have published it on the Extension Gallery for all you hackers. Get it while it's fresh: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/abjhkncpebiaepcpeo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/abjhkncpebiaepcpeopknaghepekbnpm)

Enjoy :)

P.S. The (very minimal) source is on GitHub, too: <https://github.com/obeattie/HackemUp-extension>

</comment><comment><USER7> Fantastic tool. I salute you and want to yell at you at the same time for making me stay here longer then I do already(haha). Great work friend.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think turning this into a userscript will play into the whole 'keep HN open all the time' better since you can just open HN, pin the tab and let the userscript work its charm.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is pretty neat, it has proven its usefulness already.

+1 for a Chrome extension though, I don't know if I am going to remember to keep clicking the bookmarklet.

</comment><comment><USER9> Could you have this automatically load all links in new tabs?

</comment><comment><USER10> How does the 'drag bookmarklet to tab' thing work in Chrome? Where's the bookmarklet installed? (not among the bookmarks it seems) How can it be uninstalled?

<comment><USER11> Press Ctrl-Shift-B to show to bookmarks bar first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In case anyone else is in this situation, I would get the spinning Y from time to time but never would see anything highlighted. It took me a few minutes of thinking about it to realize that I'd need to turn off my AutoPatchWork extension (similar to AutoPagerize) so that the content was in the expected form. It works now! Too bad I can't live without AutoPatchWork.

</comment><comment><USER13> "A calm river of nerditry"

<comment><USER14> I really resent this. I don't know about you guys but I don't think of myself as a 'geek' or a 'nerd'. Having a high level of domain specific knowledge doesn't mean you need a label, it just means that you are good at what you do. I am a creator, I don't feel the need to define myself in terms of my tools (and how well I know them).

When I first ran across HN I was refreshed by how little of these terms I saw.

<comment><USER14> Wow, anyone care to reply rather than just downvoting?

<comment><USER15> I didn't downvote, but I understand why people did. Both the parent comment and your reply add more or less nothing to the discussion. The problem isn't your comment, the problem is the parent comment, but if you feed the trolls, well, you know what happens :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is the best thing ever :)

Amazing functionality packed into a single bookmarklet. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you need a tool like this, I would recommend turning on the anti- procrastination HN filter.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great explanation on how it works. I was wondering the other day whether there was a way to tell when a tab gets the focus to autoupdate content. Now I know I can use window.focus and window.blur.

</comment><comment><USER19> Rats! I use HackerNews UX and HackemUp won't work with it. Decisions...decisions...

</comment><comment><USER20> I only I could Shift+A HN, Twitter and Quora, I would beat procrastination!</comment>


Try out new features in Google Toolbar Labs - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/try-out-new-features-in-google-toolbar.html <comment><USER2> I'm sorry but I don't use IE (only to test my shit) and I don't need a browser toolbar. If I had a nickel for every browser toolbar on top of toolbar on top of toolbar I had to remove from friends/family/clients computers ... I'd be rich.

Now that my ranting is over, it seems the idea that you're somewhat geo- anonymous while browsing the web is slowly going away. This is good because it make local based services viable, but bad because it's somewhat intrusive and some people just don't want to be 'found'.</comment>


Show HN: WhatStats - A chat analytics service for WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> http://whatstats.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> We've just launched into public beta, please give it a try and let me know how it goes. Bugs are being ironed out as we discover them!</comment>


Covid Shield - <AUTHOR> https://www.covidshield.app/ <comment><USER2> Neat but too many issues with false positives, false negatives, third party consent, critical mass adoption, etc. See [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-1...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html) which has a good write up. Also [https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/inaccurate-and- insecure...](https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/inaccurate-and-insecure-why- contact-tracing-apps-could-be-a-disaster/)</comment>


Show HN: Esperanto – Convert ES6 modules to AMD, CommonJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.rich-harris.co.uk/esperanto/

<comment><USER2> One of the reasons this is so relatively simple is that it doesn't appear to handle cycles like es6-module-transpiler does.

See the test case here:

[https://github.com/thomasboyt/es6-cycles- comparison](https://github.com/thomasboyt/es6-cycles-comparison)

The es6-module-transpiler output functions correctly, while the Esperanto output does not. This means that while Esperanto can translate the syntax of ES6 modules for you, it doesn't currently match semantics like es6-module- transpiler does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, thanks for the test case - I believe I can add support for cycles with the current approach (though I'd put it behind an option, since get default() excludes older browsers), will work on it.

This was a weekend project, using the examples from [http://jsmodules.io/](http://jsmodules.io/) as a starting point. Not finished yet :-)

<comment><USER2> No problem, just wanted to point out one of the reasons for the transpiler's relative verbosity :)

There's lots of other good test cases here that should be adaptable: [https://github.com/esnext/es6-module- transpiler/tree/master/...](https://github.com/esnext/es6-module- transpiler/tree/master/test/examples)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very useful, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been using the repo below with ember which has been really powerful. There are grunt, gulp and broccoli plugins, too. It'd built into ember-cli where we are spoiled by the best js MVC tooling system I've ever used. Use ESNext syntax with Sublime Text and you are good to go!

[https://github.com/esnext/es6-module- transpiler](https://github.com/esnext/es6-module-transpiler)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very grateful to the authors of es6-module-transpiler - we've been using it in production for some time. But I ended up writing Esperanto anyway because the recent versions of es6-module-transpiler don't do one-to-one input-output mapping; instead it tries to resolve your entire dependency graph. We found that meant you can't use it with e.g. AMD modules in a separate vendor/ folder.

I've written some more about why to use Esperanto instead of the alternatives here: [https://github.com/Rich-Harris/esperanto#why-not-use- existin...](https://github.com/Rich-Harris/esperanto#why-not-use-existing- module-transpilers)

Esperanto will have plugins for those build tools soon! Oh, and I second your recommendation for the Sublime JavaScriptNext package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice work. Just going through the example conversions is helpful in understanding some of the syntax differences.

I'm a bit confused by the Named imports example though. What is the signifance of the __imports_0 variable in both the AMD and CommonJS conversions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. In the Named imports example, the `import { later } from 'asap'` line means 'load the contents of 'asap.js', and make its 'later' export available to this module as 'later'. In 2014 terms, that means 'assume that asap.js exports an object with a 'later' property, and map that to the 'later' variable' \- so '__imports_0' just refers to the object that asap.js exports.

I plan to make this a bit friendlier in a future version of Esperanto: [https://github.com/Rich-Harris/esperanto/issues/3](https://github.com/Rich- Harris/esperanto/issues/3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Neat. Maintain things in a single format, port to other formats as needed. I've used UMD before but that's a lot of ugly boilerplate - something external is a much cleaner solution.</comment>


Covid-19 Humble Bundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/conquer-covid19-bundle <comment><USER2> Hollow Knight alone is worth the bundle. One of the most beautiful Metroidvanias in existence. Also one of the hardest.

</comment><comment><USER3> 100% goes to charity, that's a noble move</comment>


Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: VC Performance by Quartile and Vintage Year - <AUTHOR> http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/03/13/vc_performance.html <comment><USER2> This graph contains pretty dramatic news: the lowest quarter of VCs used to make small positive returns up till 1997, and since then they've consistently lost more and more money. It looks like a lot of dumb money arrived in 1997.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know the article says to ignore the trends after 2003 (too soon to tell period), but the downard slope of both quartiles is still interesting and I wonder why it's there. Lot of web 2.0 investments tanking perhaps?

<comment><USER2> The downward slope is almost certainly due to the increase in money being put into VC funds. Without a corresponding increase in the number of promising startups, the returns have to fall.

The graph is a visual illustration of the standard VC complaint: too much money chasing too few deals.

<comment><USER3> However, a 2003 vintage fund probably has had very few (if any) exits. I would like to understand what exactly the y-axis of this graph models, and how it accounts for performance. Is performance based on the value actually returned to investors (in which case, 2003 and newer funds would be expected to have little or zero return), or the current valuations?

There's very little I dislike more than graphs with unlabeled (or ambiguous) axes.

<comment><USER4> far33d, I think you're right about the y-axis.

Here's a relevant page from Cambridge Associates (the source for this data): https://www.cambridgeassociates.com/Indexes/

I couldn't find the exact stuff Kedrosky graphed but most of their stats are for net end-to-end return to LPs, which would be value actually returned to investors.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Practical guide to use StimulusJS in a Ruby on Rails project - <AUTHOR> https://blog.capsens.eu/stimulusjs-on-rails-101-f22a0818dff8 <comment><USER2> I've been using StimulusJS on most projects since June and continue to be impressed by how much cleaner I can make things. It really does just "sprinkle in" to add a bit of extra and necessary functionality while otherwise getting out of the way.

Love it.

<comment><USER3> Yepp, cleaner code that's what I also experience and the connection between the html to the js via the data attributes.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Relica – Cross-platform local, remote, and multi-cloud file backups - <AUTHOR> https://relicabackup.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! I started working on this after my old cloud backup service (CrashPlan) announced they were discontinuing their Home product. My cofounder Cory and I built this to meet our own needs, and also for our families to use, most of whom are non-technical. We're working really hard to make Relica the best backup solution for a broad range of consumers, from everyday users to more technical professionals with specific needs. Besides ourselves, my mother and my brother are among Relica's first users.

We're really excited to share the beginning of our product! I'm personally a bit terrified, too. :) We have a lot of great features planned, besides the ones we've already implemented. (Coming soon: back up to your own cloud destinations such as your own S3 account or SFTP destinations.)

Feel free to sign up, give it a spin, share your referral link with others to get discounts, and let us know what you think!

<comment><USER2> Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud destinations" is complete? This is all I want in a backup service. Install on all my devices (this must include mobile devices too), send everything I care about to as many destinations as I provide, all of which I manage myself.

As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting things out. If I can just have it in my own S3 bucket, I can do absolutely anything I like with my files. Count me as very interested if this is where you're going.

Also, trust and security are going to be huge. How do I know you're not going to leak and / or abuse the depth of access you get by owning my backups?

<comment><USER3> Great questions!

> Can I sign up somewhere to get notified when "back up to your own cloud > destinations" is complete?

If you edit your backup, you can create a custom hook ([https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup- hooks](https://relicabackup.com/docs/backup-hooks)). We plan to implement email notifications when such events occur as well.

> As great as cloud backup solutions are, the weak point is always getting > things out.

We're implementing "Bring your own cloud" now, so you can provide your own S3-compatible, SFTP, Azure, or Google storage (more to come). This feature is almost done.

> Also, trust and security are going to be huge.

Backups are encrypted on the client, and the key is kept on your local device (don't lose it!). We can't access your data, and even your file selection is encrypted.

<comment><USER4> This looks like a great service—nice work!

Question: if the encryption key is kept on the device, how can I access data from another device?

<comment><AUTHOR> The actual key is stored at the destination inside the repository, encrypted by a password that you have to enter (doesn't matter the device). So don't lose the password. Technically there are a few keys in play: [https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/100_references.html#...](https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/100_references.html#keys- encryption-and-mac)

Anyway, if you know your encryption password, you can perform a restore from any device with access to the destination.

<comment><USER4> Cool, that makes more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notable competitor: Arq ([https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)). Part of the reason I prefer Arq is that there's no monthly fees on the tool itself. I own my backup data wherever I choose to send it to (S3, Google Cloud, etc).

<comment><USER6> As an Arq user I don't trust it anymore after it suddenly ceased to show my old backups in the GUI.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to know more about this too (I'm the lead developer on Arq). Please email email@example.com with details if you don't want to post here. Thank you!

<comment><USER6> I have already mailed you. There was no fix unfortunately.

<comment><USER7> OK. I found your email from Sep 2017, using Arq 4 and Amazon Cloud Drive. There was a problem with Arq deleting more old backup records than you expected, but without more information about what had happened in the previous year I couldn't figure out why it wasn't doing what you expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The sales page claims that data can be restored using [https://github.com/restic/restic](https://github.com/restic/restic).

It seems like a pretty safe bet then, that this is a web interface on top of restic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we've been making contributions to restic for some time because we have been very happy with restic's stability, capabilities, and cross-platform support. In fact, the initial plan was to "just" create a web UI for restic, but then we decided to bring it full circle and make it a consumer product so that our families and friends could migrate off their backup service which was being discontinued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm really interested in this. I liked and used CrashPlan for some time but have had a sub-par backup setup since they shuttered their home-user business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great - we look forward to serving you! Feel free to get in touch if you have any feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting project which I will be following. Linux user here who had to roll my own after CrashPlan. I went with Duplicati and Backblaze because the combo was cheap and had a web/linux client. Could I recommend allowing Backblaze for storage since its cheaper then S3? It looks like restic already supports B2.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, coming soon! Relica already supports this capability (it is undocumented) -- we are just finishing it up in the UI. It's our #1 request so far.

And although we may not start out with so many, Relica will be able to support about a dozen different backend storage types before the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice job.

I'm a little skeptical though -- I think the devil is in the details. It's a lot of work to make a highly reliable backup program. As a Windows user, here's a list of questions I'd ask:

1\. Does Relica work with OneDrive on-demand files? [1]

2\. Does Relica work with WSL files? [2]

Supporting all these corner cases on Windows, Mac, and Linux will be a TON of work.

[1]: [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about- onedriv...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/learn-about-onedrive- files-on-demand-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e)

[2]: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file- sys...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system- support/)

<comment><USER7> What's your expectation with OneDrive on-demand files?

<comment><USER11> For any files, my expectation of a backup program is that Restore(Backup(FS)) == FS, where FS is the state of my file system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Amazing that you're doing this! I've been looking for something new for a while.

How well does this work for developers? I had to stop using Dropbox because NPM/Yarn seems to do too many symlinks for Dropbox to understand and it never stopped syncing.

I then tried to switch to Google Drive backup but THEIR BACKUP + SYNC APP KILLS MY MACHINE because it's a huge memory hog. I have to kill it/restart ever since going there so now I'm looking to get off of this Google Monster.

I'd be excited to try your service but would love an answer to the above! Also, how does restore work? Your FAQ/docs are pretty light on screenshots of the actual software.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments! As you can see why, we don't recommend using file sync software for backups. Relica can handle symlinks just fine: it preserves them, not follows them.

Restore works well also, it just runs in the background. Pretty simple right now, but we're actively participating in contributing to restic to make restores more interactive in the sense of progress reporting. We are not focusing on screenshots right now so we can revamp the UI, and we have some good ideas for restores, so you'll see it changing here in the next few months.

Anyway, we'd love for you to give it a try! Feel free to email us with any other feedback.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for your reply!

Let's say my entire computer is lost or stolen. What's the best way to restore? Can I restore my entire disk image? Or does Relica just backup individual files, meaning I'd have to repopuplate my environment, then use Relica to bring back files? Does Relica use one directory like Dropbox by default or does it backup my whole machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good questions. I should add some of these to our FAQ.

Relica does file backup, not disk imaging -- for various reasons. So you'll install Relica and restore the files either on your new computer, or just log into the website (without needing to install Relica) and download a restore file --- that web restore feature is coming soon; we just got it working in dev last week. :)

You can back up all the files your user has access to with Relica. You can actually run it as root (on Linux) but we need to write a how-to for that, since it unfortunately requires disabling automatic upgrades for now. We'll work on making it more flexible for these use cases once we've got the basics more covered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand what the base price is supposed to cover... Why would I pay you $60/year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?

<comment><USER6> _"Why would I pay you $60 /year to back up my files to thumb drives and friends' computers?"_

Isn't that kinda obvious? What you pay for is the ability for the developers to continue refining the application and keep adding useful features. Sounds reasonable to me at least.

<comment><USER14> But it also leaves you susceptible to potential pivots in the business plan if the developers decide that base fee isn't enough or isn't generating enough income. The benefit to an ownership model in this case, particularly with "bring your own cloud" is that at least you have some immunity if the developers _stop_ refining the application.

This is more than just a hypothetical. One of the mentioned reasons for this application was the shutdown of CrashPlan for home users. Using a similar monthly fee plan doesn't show any more resilience than the service they are trying to replace. What's the likelihood that the same market realities that pushed CrashPlan to shut down such services don't also impact them?

More personally anecdotally, I bought a "bring your own cloud" multi-cloud backup tool many years ago. I still use it, even through several terrible pivots, because the core software has been stable/consistent/well-enough maintained at the time. They were bought by a cloud provider and dropped "bring your own cloud" and "multi-cloud" from their main focused products. They spun back out and are trying to be business-focused SaaS-only similar to CrashPlan's recent pivot. Neither of those pivots have been to my advantage, but again, for now, the original desktop application I bought all those years ago still works great. Had I opted for one of the more monthly paid SaaS products in either of those pivots, I would have been much worse off with each pivot.

Unfortunately, there's also no way that I can recommend people buy a product like mine because they no longer sell it in that manner (and haven't in years), and it's incredibly tough to avoid the SaaS business model in the backup space, but backup is one of the areas where such business models and safety from pivots is extremely important and the SaaS model seems almost to guarantee that pivots will happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> We hear ya. We were bit the very example you mentioned, so to prevent that with our service:

1) We are currently adding a "bring your own cloud" feature to Relica -- in fact, it's already done, just undocumented while we finish up the UI for it.

2) Relica uses restic for the actual archival operations, so your restores can be performed with an independent, reliable, well-maintained, MIT-licensed open source tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> rclone does this for free already, is lighter and works with more cloud providers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, but rclone does not do what Relica does. :) And soon Relica will do at least some of what rclone does, and to nearly as many cloud providers.

<comment><USER16> You should just have mentioned that this tool is built on top of rclone. It's not a bad thing to give credit.

<comment><USER17> It's built on top of restic, not rclone.

<comment><USER3> rclone and Restic are both used in Relica. They're both amazing projects and we've been working with their communities to improve them!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> hey matt, really love caddy server and this new service you created but one question, since you are using an open source backup tool which is restic, would you be willing to open source the web ui for the restic community? so others can self host or even be able to use restic alot easier? i love using restic but i think having an open source web ui would be nice to have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, glad you like Caddy.

I know of a couple efforts, either talked about or under way, to make an open source web UI for restic. One is a PR to add a sort of API to restic: [https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963](https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/1963) \-- and another is here: [https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic- gui.git](https://gitlab.simbookee.com/andi/restic-gui.git)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great job! Any plans on doing a Docker version? What about integration with some brand of NAS (e.g. Synology?)

<comment><AUTHOR> No plans for containers at this time, sorry -- would you mind elaborating what you have in mind or how that would work?

As for NAS integration, that'd be really cool -- I don't really know what is involved to make that happen but it's something we're going to look into!

<comment><USER20> Well, docker containers is how you would get on Synology. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> May I ask who is it that has made this? Looking through the website and twitter but unable to find any humans attached to the project. I do appreciate how it says a human will read a response to any of their automated emails.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm Cory. I worked with Matt (who introduced himself above) to make Relica. I can confirm that two humans are attached to this project.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why some usernames in Hacker News are green? - <AUTHOR>

I can't find a pattern, please help me understand. <comment><USER2> Because they're newly created accounts.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I created a throwaway account to ask a question on HN (through submit button).

I am able to access it only through my throwaway account but I don't see it in regular HN feed or in Ask HN tab. Any idea of the reasons? New accounts have to wait for sometime before Submitting stuff?

<comment><USER4> No, there is no waiting period that I know of. Perhaps it just got "buried"? HN sees a LOT of traffic. If it isn't upvoted or replied to fairly quickly, it often falls way off the front page quickly.</comment></comment></comment>


HearSay: Anonymous and Confidential P2P File Sharing - leroux-cifer https://gist.github.com/Bren2010/5332107

<comment><AUTHOR> Welp, too bad they may have made themselves liable for inducement just by the first sentence of the introductory text:

"one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties." (MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster Ltd)

vs

"The HearSay P2P File Sharer; a response to The Copyright Alert System, as well as several other internet regulation attempts. "

If you don't think this is enough, you haven't seen recent rulings on inducement.

</comment><comment><USER2> As this software is in response to the "The Copyright Alert System" used by the largest ISPs in the USA, I would like to know what the impact of this program has been so far. I haven't seen many reports online of users getting notifications. Does anyone have any insight into how this program is effecting average users? Is it scaring some people away from torrenting?

<comment><USER3> Remember: the ISPs are only the messengers; the IP holders are the only ones sending messages.

I remember reading on 4chan (possibly fake, but still interesting) where a guy was called up by his ISP who said that someone on his network downloaded some movie (actually probably didn't). The guy asks the ISP employee for his name and "kindly tells him to fuck off" using his words. He also threatened to leave AT&T so the employee was forced to entice him with a better deal.

Long story short, the guy liked the alert system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The difficulty of attacking policy problems with coffee script are two-fold:

First, when you create a TOR like system to disguise senders and receivers through blind intermediaries the system is 1/n efficient where n is the number of intermediaries. This kinda sucks when we're talking large media flies.

Second, it really just takes a bit of legal argument to label any participants as 'making available' infringing files.

Really the best solution is mega upload's nonsense where you can _theoretically_ argue you're a common carrier just storing encrypted blobs. However, a Hearsay like tool could be useful for storing references to said megauploaded files - though a TOR site might work better.

<comment><USER5> Distribution of references still facilitates takedown requests.

Still, this begs the question: how do I challenge a takedown request if MEGA has never seen / can never see the original? What if the takedown request is in error?

On the other hand, if there are protections against that, people could just use something like this:

Protocol for "Deniability" while using SERVICE

Step 0: encrypt some payload, generate x other blobs of random data of roughly equal size (say x = 9)

Step 1: upload the 10 blobs to SERVICE

Step 2: instruct others to download these blobs

Step 3: wait a week, then remove these blobs from SERVICE

Step 4: instruct others to decrypt the blob with hash X using key Y

Note: Deniability is only assured if the monitor, EVE, is unlikely to download and store every random blob offered, "just in case" it may later turn out to be offending. If there are lots of uploaders using this strategy, with downloaders that tend to only be interested in the tastes of one provider, while EVE is interested in EVERY provider, then it scales unfavorably for EVE, and EVE could set herself up for a certain type of denial of service attack.

Of course, EVE could always go after key distribution, but keys are tiny, therefore easier to mirror, so that strikes me as harder.

Disclaimer: This is all just from information theoretic interest. Don't steal movies, don't do drugs.

<comment><USER6> You can invent all the protocols you want, but the more difficult and obscure the protocol is, the less usability and availability it will achieve, then less users, less traction, and less anonymity.

So the question isn't solely theoretical. The protocol has to be simple enough to gain a sizable user base as its safety net, but also sophisticated enough to withstand certain level of attack. That sweet spot is hard to hit.

<comment><USER5> > but the more difficult and obscure the protocol is

It only looks difficult and obscure because I (stupidly) wrote it as a protocol.

I could/should have just said that users could shuffle what they have on a given service faster than takedown requests come in. They might do this naturally, as a consequence of overzealous takedowns against encrypted blobs on MEGA.

More to your point, Usenet and XDCC have maintained vibrant communities, despite being difficult to use, but on an even more popular level, Bittorrent has incredible popularity and surprising staying power. Sophistication of an underlying protocol isn't really strongly connected to ultimate ease of use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This could be very interesting, but like most P2P and File sharing protocols you can make them and secure as you like, but the weakest link in any encryption is people. All it takes is for someone from the RIAA, MPAA, etc to infiltrate said private network and easily be able to catch people out sharing copyrighted material easily.

It's good to see people thinking of ways around a very serious impending problem if something like CISPA passes shortly.

<comment><USER8> The weakest link in this system is only the actual sharing of torrent files.

We didn't focus on candy security only (hard on the outside, soft on the inside). Even if you are trusted, and inside a cluster, you're still limited to _active_ attacks only--that is, refusing to relay messages you don't like (but not editing them!). You still have no idea (hopefully/usually) who has requested a file, who has offered the file, and you usually won't even know what the file was unless you've already obtained a copy of the torrent file.

<comment><USER9> Does this reverse modulo?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic proof of concept. The big question is, whether or not these kind of distributed networks survive depends entirely on whether the legal argument that any given user of the network can be implicated in enabling software piracy holds any water. If it doesn't, then eventually decentralized, encrypted, and routed networks will deal the final blow to copyright censorship.

<comment><USER11> I don't get it. What's fantastic about it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How feasible would it be to get this working in the browser using WebRTC?</comment>


Netflix never used its $1 million algorithm due to engineering costs - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/netflix-never-used-its-1-million-algorithm-due-to-engineering-costs.ars <comment><USER2> That doesn't quite sound like what the content of the article says - it's more, "We used the two algorithms from the first Progress Prize that gave us most of the benefit, and the 107 blended algorithms required to get the next 1.7% improvement weren't worth it. Oh, and here's how we had to reengineer them." (Numbers from memory, not to scale.)

The title makes it sound like the prize ended up being pointless. The article says otherwise.

<comment><USER3> Netflix's blog post mentions they used two algorithms from one of the Progress Prize ($50,000) winners.

The article goes on to say "...you might be wondering what happened with the final Grand Prize ensemble that won the $1M two years later...We evaluated some of the new methods offline but the additional accuracy gains that we measured did not seem to justify the engineering effort needed to bring them into a production environment."

The title is completely accurate.

<comment><USER4> > The title is completely accurate.

Accurate, but a half truth. The prize was for a 10% improvement, but before that solution was produced they had already improved by 8.4%. The headline makes it sound like the improvement from zero to 10% was not worth the engineering cost, but really it was the improvement from 8.4% to 10% which cost too much.

<comment><USER5> This is why you should award prizes for the top K performers, as opposed to the first one to cross a benchmark.

<comment><USER6> And when the teams merge into K groups and then stop trying? Netflix paid for performance, and got performance.

<comment><USER5> In the Netflix prize, did all teams merge into one group and stop trying? Nor would we expect so with K groups, especially with exponentially decreasing prize amounts. If this is even slightly a risk, you can compensate by making the maximum number of prizes awarded a function of the number of participating teams. For example, you can award 10 prizes if there are >100 teams, and if not award floor(num_teams/10) prizes, with the prize pool redistributed among the top 10%.

It was pure luck that the threshold for the million-dollar prize was crossed. If it had been arbitrarily set at 11% (as opposed to 10%), then there's a good chance the million dollar prize would have never been paid out.

The advantage of paying out K top prizes is that other teams that don't win outright may have developed additional useful models or insights (or used more computationally efficient algorithms), and you may access to these in this manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As Eliezer said - they implemented the two most important algorithms from the contest, which advanced the state of the art in recommendation systems & gave the majority of the benefits, and didn't implement the long tail of algorithms that each only gave a very slight marginal benefit & would have been costly to re-train and maintain.

This is one of the advantages of running shorter competitions: normally it takes 1-3 months to approximately hit the asymptotic level of performance on a dataset given the inherent noise in it and the state of the art in machine learning. The shorter competitions are focused on finding the low-hanging fruit that generate large improvements (such as SVD & RBM's in Netflix's case) and exploring the space of possible model structures, as opposed to optimally ensembling across a large number of models to eek out the last 0.01% of performance.

Exploring the space of useful features & possible models enables you to trade off computational efficiency & maintainability vs. model performance in production as well. The $1 million dollars Netflix put to the prize leveraged >> $1 million in human effort to explore the possible models, from which they found and applied the two best suited for their production implementation.

(disclaimer - I work with Kaggle)

</comment><comment><USER7> Even if they didn't take advantage of the algorithm, I bet the $1 million paid for itself due to the all the press and hoopla surrounding the prize.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. A $1M investment by a company like Netflix to stay in our faces for - how long - '06 to 09 (and beyond!), was well worth it to them in terms of branding and new subscribers.

<comment><USER6> And bought multiple millions of dollars worth of engineering labor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Original discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3810058>

<comment><USER10> When do you know you lurk to much on hacker news? When you think: "Hey the original Netflix blog post was just last week on the front page. Why is it reported again!?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Netflix Watch Instantly is about the here and now, and Netflix is priming to respond to that time frame."

Did this come out of the press release? :)

</comment><comment><USER12> As part of the prize payment, does NetFlix exclusively own the implementation that won the prize? Have they patented it? Just asking since there are few details of the grand prize winner algorithm referenced in the article, and it seems it could be of great economic benefit, if not to use it, but to also prevent others from using it as well, while also owning the proprietary second, third, fourth, etc rating systems. Could be a good way to block competitors from getting a leg up if you end up owning the technology within each contest entry, and even are able to block the winners from selling it to someone else.

<comment><USER13> No - Netflix has a non-exclusive license to the algorithm and source code from the winner: Belkor Pragmatic Chaos (AT&T et al.). They can't sublicense and don't own the patents related to the winning algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> TL;DR: they get better data now from the streaming system, because they can tell exactly how much of each video people watch.

So it's another example of what the data mining people always say: getting more data is a quicker way to better results than improving your algorithm.</comment>


Continuing to be pleasantly surprised (Joey Hess sponsorship) - <AUTHOR> https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/continuing_to_be_pleasantly_surprised/

<comment><AUTHOR> Mr Hess can 'get by' on 30h per _month_ of sponsorship.</comment>


He Always Had a Dark Side - <AUTHOR> https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side <comment><USER2> Original author of the story here... Just to add that 1. yes, the reporting on Le Roux's childhood is more tentative based on a family source (well backed up by docs and images sent to me). But the fact that the same Le Roux created E4M which formed the basis of TrueCrypt is something I think I've established definitively, company and site registration trails show it very firmly (and PLR himself admits it in court, but that comes in a later part of my story). And 2. for the _very_ interested, TC is actually just a small part of Le Roux's story, of which we've released three of seven parts (weekly on Thursdays). I know, TL;DR, it's a lot.

<comment><USER3> Setup a Patreon. I'll throw in $20 per article for long-form journalism like this. Youtubers who make long-ish videos (i.e., EE's who tear down industrial gear narrating analysis[1]) have recently taken to this model and it's absolutely fantastic. My money goes to support the continued generation of new content, cutting out the middleman. "Pay because it's good" is the best content monetization model yet.

[1] Ben from Applied Science [[https://www.youtube.com/user/bkraz333](https://www.youtube.com/user/bkraz333)] Mikeselectricstuff [[https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff](https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff)] and AvE are all incredible. Some of the underappreciated but really educational channels are(Sharhair from the Signal Path[[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKxRARSpahF1Mt-2vbPug-g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKxRARSpahF1Mt-2vbPug-g)] and Paul from Mr Carlsons Lab [[https://www.youtube.com/user/MrCarlsonsLab](https://www.youtube.com/user/MrCarlsonsLab)], along with HAM'er W2AEW [[https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew](https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew)]. These guys don't even have Patreons - they just do it to because they want to disseminate knowledge.

<comment><USER4> Are you me? I subscribe to Applied Science, AvE, Signal Path, and W2AEW. I'll have to check out Mikeselectricstuff and Mr Carlson's Lab. EEVblog is missing from the list, but arguably that one goes without saying :-)

<comment><USER5> Another addition to the above excellent list is "bigclivedotcom". Lots of teardowns of cheap Chinese electronics with an eye towards what exactly makes them dangerous. [https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom/videos)

<comment><USER6> Clive is the best. Sometimes the cheap eBay gadgets get a little repetitive, but he does mix in a lot of different stuff. I really enjoy his videos on printing circuit boards and making his little 'nixie' lamps. He's just fun to listen to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> Lulu told me that when Le Roux was 15 or 16, in the late 1980s, the local police raided the family home and arrested Paul for selling pornography online._

This seems a bit odd to me, having lived in South Africa at that time. There's almost no way a guy at home would have had that kind of access in Apartheid South Africa to the internet back then. There was access, but it was through big companies or academia and on a very controlled level.

Here's a quick rundown of internet access in South Africa during that time period from Wikipedia. From experience, it is accurate.

 _> The first South African IP address was granted to Rhodes University in 1988.[1] On 12 November 1991, the first IP connection was made between Rhodes' computing centre and the home of Randy Bush in Portland, Oregon.[2] By November 1991, South African universities were connected through UNINET to the Internet. Commercial Internet access for businesses and private use began in June 1992[3] with the registration of the first .co.za subdomain._

You might bring up stuff like BBS, but that was not around in South Africa until after 1990 also. You could technically have imported hardware and connected to a BBS in USA, but the costs involved and control of the only Telecoms operator allowed in Apartheid South Africa (Telkom) would have been unaffordable. Especially for Krugersdorp. I doubt you'd get some kind of USA led local police raid for pornography in _Apartheid South Africa_ either. The whole thing would need some serious evidence.

<comment><USER8> >> late 1980s [... ]arrested Paul for selling pornography online

> This seems a bit odd to me

Understatement of the week. As you say, it wouldn't have been on the Internet. I know nothing about the South African BBS scene of the time but it would have been very small. And _selling_ pornography online? How would you even have gone about that? That would have been cash transactions down in the corner. For downloading porn at 1200 bits per second.

<comment><USER9> I didn't take that as actually transferring the porn online, but as using the BBS to facilitate sales of physical copies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So he dropped TrueCrypt and told everybody it was insecure when he was picked up by the feds, fearing that they would try and force him to open a security hole? Wow.

<comment><USER11> The article is unclear as for whether he was still involved with TrueCrypt by the time they got him though. It sounds like he had quite a lot going on to even care for TrueCrypt at that point.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but he can't assume that his captors are rational. They might very well blackbag him to some undisclosed dungeon and work him over until he convinces them that he _doesn 't_ have commit access. (Which duration might exceed his remaining lifespan, in such conditions.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> By "arms dealer" do they mean "kind of sketchy online pharmacy entrepreneur"? Because I didn't see anything about weapons in this article.

Perhaps that's still to come in part 2, but as of right now the title is extremely linkbaity.

EDIT: title has been unlinkbaitified (previously "Truecrypt was written by a international arms dealer")

EDIT2: title has been reverted to the linkbaity version (previously changed to the original title "He Always Had a Dark Side")

<comment><USER10> His name seems to be quite well known at this point, lots of stories about him cooperating with US feds in 2014-2015.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/in-real-life- ra...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/in-real-life-rambo-ends- up-as-a-soldier-of-misfortune-behind-bars.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/nyregion/us-reveals- crimin...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/nyregion/us-reveals-criminal- bosss-role-in-capturing-a-mercenary.html)

<comment><USER14> He's pretty much a Bond villain from those articles, like the UN claiming he funded militias in Somalia to harvest hallucinogenic plants and shipping arms to Liberia.

Probably would've made the same amount of money charging for TC premium support instead of building a pancontinental empire of mercenaries and arms trafficking.

<comment><USER15> I think you underestimate how much can be made from arms trafficking!

<comment><USER16> Clearly the US makes a massive amount of cash selling weapons; yes, US is not an "arms dealer" \- but likely comparable.

<comment><USER17> > US is not an "arms dealer"

> the US makes a massive amount of cash selling weapons

DOES NOT COMPUTE

<comment><USER16> It is semantics, illegal arms trafficking is a subset of the global market for arms.

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

<comment><USER17> nxzero said nothing about legality.

<comment><USER16> Given he's called a "criminal kingpin" and compared to Viktor Bout, the merchant of death, pretty safe to assume he wasn't selling weapons legally.

<comment><USER17> I quoted you talking about the U.S.!

<comment><USER16> Then, I don't understand what you're comment means. Happy to respond again if you'd clarify want you intended.

<comment><USER18> 'Arms dealer': one who sells arms. The point he is making is that, regardless of what is considered legitimate, both this individual and the U.S. government are, by definition, arms dealers.

Or at least that the U.S. is an arms dealer.

<comment><USER19> No. 'Arms dealer' refers to illegal arms dealers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_trafficking#Notable_arms_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_trafficking#Notable_arms_dealers)

<comment><USER16> Agree, US is not a "dealer" they're an "exporter" \-- and no one selling weapons for a government would ever offically refer to themselves as an arms dealer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >>"He was particularly protective of Le Roux's birth mother, making me promise not to reveal her name. "Sad and interesting story," he said. "His real mom's mom is married to a U.S. Senator." When I asked him who the Senator was, he said, "That I can't say, mate. That'll get me shot.""

This is probably a bigger story.

<comment><USER21> US Senators generally are not powerful enough to have people shot.

<comment><USER22> You are assuming the violence would be carried out using senatorial powers. Senators are generally very wealthy people, and it doesn't take that much money to hire someone to kill another person[1].

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing#Statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing#Statistics) [2]

2: I have to say I was fairly hesitant to search for that data. It's not the kind of thing you want showing up in your search history...

<comment><USER23> > The study [by the Australian Institute of Criminology] also found that the > average payment for a "hit" was $15,000

That's a surprisingly low amount. I'd've guessed $100k+ or more.

<comment><USER24> That is average. Since no one will investigate the death of a some low level guy with criminal history (just gang warfare for redistributing the market) I guess you could find them on the low end. And that leave some bigger sums for the high profile targets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Shortly after TrueCrypt version 1.0 was released in February 2004, the TrueCrypt Team reported receiving emails from Wilfried Hafner, manager of SecurStar, claiming that Paul Le Roux had stolen the source code of E4M from SecurStar as an employee. According to the TrueCrypt Team, the emails stated that Le Roux illegally distributed E4M, and authored an illegal license permitting anyone to base derivative work on E4M and distribute it freely, which Hefner alleges Le Roux did not have any right to do, claiming that all versions of E4M always belonged only to SecurStar. For a time, this led the TrueCrypt Team to stop developing and distributing TrueCrypt" \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M)

</comment><comment><USER26> What a fantastic piece of journalism, I'm totally hooked. Love these long-form pieces when they have something really and truly meaty to work with. Very grateful for the chance to read it, thank you for posting it over here.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looking at the article again I realize the headline here may be incorrect. It is not proven that Le Roux wrote TrueCrypt, but he definitely built the foundation for it.

> Hafner and his SecurStar colleagues suspected that Le Roux was part of the > TrueCrypt collective but couldn't prove it. Indeed, even today the question > of who launched the software remains unanswered. "The origin of TrueCrypt > has always been very mysterious," says Matthew Green, a computer-science > professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute and an expert > on TrueCrypt who led a security audit of the software in 2014. "It was > written by anonymous folks; it could have been Paul Le Roux writing under an > assumed name, or it could have been someone completely different."

Interesting read, regardless.

</comment><comment><USER27> On a slightly related question, what are you guys using instead of Truecrypt for virtual encripted disks?

I use a bit of confidential data for research, and keep the identifiers on a TC container, but since it is no longer maintained I wonder when will it stop working and if VeraCrypt/CipherShed are good or not. I don't access the data that often, so speed is not that big of a deal, but the ability to cover my back is always good (e.g. say "I used XYZ which was deemed as the best free alternative at the time")

<comment><USER28> VeraCrypt is being very actively developed, including fixing a number of bugs that were found in TrueCrypt. Watch my interview with the main developer here, including some analysis of the code showing that perhaps different people worked on it over different time periods:

[https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/340](https://twit.tv/shows/floss- weekly/episodes/340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can we please have a little less narrative and a little more information sources?

Has anyone confirmed any affirmation in the article?

<comment><USER30> This is what I'm wondering. Is this simply going to turn into another Satosh hunt?

<comment><USER31> Paul LeRoux is probably Satoshi. Consider: his latest known posting is from Mar 2014. [http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open- source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186), two months before Truecrypt shut down.

(/sarcasm)

<comment><USER31> I did a bit of more research, and found [http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1997/02/msg01715.html](http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1997/02/msg01715.html) citing Le Roux on digital cash.

(It's not him, by the way, found an active twitter account for that person. Just having some fun creating a conspiracy theory.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Of course by some legal interpretations, distributing Truecrypt on the Internet would satisfy the very definition of international arms dealer.

<comment><USER33> Indeed. Google ITAR. I remember 90s web page protests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> First McAfee [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/john-mcafee- belize_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/john-mcafee- belize_n_2158292.html). Now Le Roux. What is up with the security software guys? Are they destined to be evil geniuses?

<comment><USER35> the curse of government looking over your shoulder constantly, the mental wear of being harassed.If you're unhinged it's easier to paint you the villain, especially if you do end up doing some questionable things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, that was quite the read. If all is true then hats off to the reporter. That was some seriously impressive reporting.

<comment><USER36> It reads like a good script for Hollywood blockbuster!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > On a website for the party, Cincinnatus posted an "after-action report." > "I'm making a note here," he summarized, "huge success."

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction!

</comment><comment><USER38> >He was, in other words, a troll: the kind of person you might find on Reddit

I think it's funny that reddit is the go-to example of an internet shithole, instead of something like 4chan.

<comment><USER39> It's probably just that more people have heard of reddit and can easier relate to rather than 4chan. Although it's probably unfair - I am using reddit for a few years and they have tons of amazing communities and le reddit army (swatters, Boston bombers, etc) are amazingly easy to miss unless you're looking for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What publication is this affiliated with (or: who is paying for this)? "The Atavist" seems like a platform for self-published journalism?

The writing style is weird; this looks more like someone's smash job. Why does www.atavist.com go to a sales page? And where's the nutgraf?

<comment><USER41> It's part of their magazine - [https://magazine.atavist.com](https://magazine.atavist.com) \- based on their web app [https://atavist.com/](https://atavist.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The narrative is quite, eh.. tentative. Nevertheless a entertaining read, start at the beginning here: [https://mastermind.atavist.com/an-arrogant-way- of-killing](https://mastermind.atavist.com/an-arrogant-way-of-killing)

</comment><comment><USER43> "Arch Villain or Arch Agent?"

[http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/paul-calder-le-roux- arch-v...](http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/paul-calder-le-roux-arch-villain- or-arch-agent/)

<comment><USER24> In the cloak and dagger world the difference is not that clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> tl;dr: the article describes the origin of one of the 'masterminds' of the truecrypt collective (the group that programmed truecrypt). It describes how his upbringing led to his viewpoints on privacy, hints at a conspiracy to eliminate public cryptography and talks about something called a 'cryptoparty', which I'm still scratching my head about. The article also hints he may have been involved in the illegal drug and arms business.

Entertaining but not meaty with the evidence.

<comment><USER45> Back in my youth, I recall a "crytoparty" being a meatspace event in which people handed out and signed each others keys in order to create a web of verified trust.

<comment><USER46> Yes. It was a thing people did for a while to attempt to bootstrap PGP/GPG's web of trust, as you say, but also as a PR sort of thing. Crypto was even more black-arts then than now, and with some of the demonization due to the war with the Clinton administration over ITAR, you heard some of the same stuff you hear now about having something to hide, enabling terrorism, etc. (At the time, the "Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse" \- drug dealers, pornographers, terrorists and kidnappers - were the boogie men; it seems kidnapping is less scary these days, so that one gets left out.) Showing how it worked was good PR, as far as it went; I saw a lot of people get that little kid with a decoder ring look.

It was mostly a cypherpunks thing, but I understand others sympathetic to the idea picked it up. There were quite a few in the Bay Area, ca. 1993-97-ish. Perhaps later.

I recall one entertaining party where proof of identity via government issued paper was forbidden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> If Le Roux was arrested in 2012, what was the mechanism of the May 2014 discontinuation of TrueCrypt?

In other words, who actually did that?

<comment><USER48> That could have been automatically triggered by some kind of dead man's switch.

<comment><USER49> The announcment contained information that you couldn't really set up in a dead man's switch payload years earlier

> This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt.

>

> The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated > support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support > for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also > available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should > migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk > images supported on your platform.

[http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/](http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER48> Well, the end of support for Windows XP in 2014 was announced in 2008. Windows Vista and 7 were available, and the Windows 8 launch was at hand before the date of his arrest. But the text omits to mention Windows 8.1 which was announced by Microsoft in 2013, after the arrest but well before the Truecrypt announcement was published in 2014.

This could be because Windows 8.1 was only considered a relatively minor upgrade to Windows 8 by the author, or because it's existence was unknown at the time when the text was written.

This remains open to speculation, but it does not refute the possibility of a dead man's switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Original author please provide a Bitcoin address for donations. Myself and other BTC enthusiasts would like to donate.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is a good warning to anyone wanting to develop crypto tech anonymously. Eventually if the tech is popular it will be profitable for a well meaning journalist to investigate and reveal your identify and publish childhood photos of you.

</comment><comment><USER52> Can I just pay for access to all 7 articles now? Having to wait another month for the last 4 makes me sad.

<comment><USER53> me too :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just wanted to say that it was not necessary to block out the last part on the birth certificate where it says A true copy of records kept at XXXXX. It's easy enough to find out where the records are. They can be found at Makombe building in Harare somewhere in the archives. Three copies of a birth certificate are made. One is kept at the local registry office, the other is stored at Mokombe Harare and the third is issued to the holder. If your story is true you can easily bribe someone at Makombe building to show you a the base copy.

In this case it even seems there are two copies to be found in Harare because there is a stamp that says Causeway Building which means the birth was most likely registered in Harare during the hyperinflation period hence the odd $200 dollar fee instead of the stamps that were used in the very old days. The birth also does not have a red streak line which means although it is typed instead of hand written it is not computerized.

It is even possible there is an even earlier copy of the record BDH/1421/72 means the original birth was recorded way back in the Original Rhodesian days somewhere in Bulayo (BDH).

</comment><comment><USER55> Folks might be interested that the new episode has been posted: [http://atav.st/1UWp09h](http://atav.st/1UWp09h)

It follows the arrival of a mysterious arms shipment, and Paul Le Roux's shift toward violence, with a cameo from an animal trainer who worked with the whale in Free Willy, and also, Le Roux's private militia in Somalia.

</comment><comment><USER56> Janet C. Phelan also wrote about him June 2015:

[http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/paul-calder-le-roux- arch-v...](http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/12/paul-calder-le-roux-arch-villain- or-arch-agent/)

</comment><comment><USER57> "Hafner told me that in the middle of the development work for DriveCrypt, he discovered that Le Roux was still working on E4M and had incorporated some of his work for SecurStar into his personal project. Hafner was furious. Because E4M was an open-source product, the source code that Hafner had personally funded, he claimed, could now be used by anyone to develop an encryption product of their own."

I've seen this a few times now (employer doesn't want employee to take knowledge out).

</comment><comment><USER55> The author talks about the reporting on the ProPublica podcast: [https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/keeping-tabs-on- the-...](https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/keeping-tabs-on-the-hacking- hero-who-became-a-criminal-kingpin)

</comment><comment><USER58> Please make movie with Gerard Depardieu

<comment><USER59> Cast a nutter to play a nuttier nut. Perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Cryptography: not even once.

\-- The US government

</comment><comment><USER61> So Paul Le Roux's birth mother -- the one who's the wife of an unnamed U.S. Senator -- was she previously the wife of another Senator from a different state and political party?

</comment><comment><USER62> holy shit.

<comment><USER63> more like holy fuck. This is so huge. It's huger than huge. This will surely rock the crypto scene for years to come.

<comment><USER13> It's interesting for sure, but what's so earth-shattering about it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Fantastic read, but... looping a video by reloading it off the server everytime it's finished? You should be giving bandwidth to the poor!

<comment><USER65> I thought this was happening to me on another site, but it turned out I had developer tools on (disabling cache). Might be what you're seeing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I suspect had this article had this title from the beginning it would've been down voted.

Why was it changed from 'TrueCrypt'

</comment><comment><USER67> i did not like truecrypt very much just because we could not choose the encryption encapsulation in any order we could choose (like something to remember like password) like in ANY order blowfish-blowfish-sherpent-aes ...... etc in any length or combination. there were just hardcoded defaults to choose

</comment><comment><USER68> > I can't say how I'd figured out the connection between his anonymous email > and the person I'd emailed previously. I can't say what service we used to > communicate, nor where Lulu lives, nor what he does.

Curious, then, that the author chooses to gender them. If the author used 'they' or rewrote sentences to be gender-neutral, it'd be one less bit of entropy.

<comment><USER17> Not really.

As much as it pains social justice warriors today, in English, the words 'he', 'his', and 'him' have a gender neutral usage.

And in any case, saying that a computer science security researcher is male is way less than a bit of entropy.

<comment><USER68> > As much as it pains social justice warriors today, in English, the words > 'he', 'his', and 'him' have a gender neutral usage.

'He' is sometimes used in this fashion, but it is an uncommon use, and it's arguable that in some contexts the author actually means a man and has not considered the possibility of a woman. Certainly in this case, why would you assume that it is used in a gender-neutral sense?

> And in any case, saying that a computer science security researcher is male > is way less than a bit of entropy.

Fair point.

<comment><USER69> It's just not true that it's an uncommon use, see [1] and [2]. So even with the profession left unspecified (which I believe it is, might have missed it) the entropy is less than 1 bit.

[1]: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-they-be-accepted-as-a- singul...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-they-be-accepted-as-a-singular- pronoun-1428686651)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Pronouns)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> It seems to be cut off after "The only way out was to spill his secrets."?

<comment><USER71> >for the _very_ interested, TC is actually just a small part of Le Roux's story, of which we've released three of seven parts (weekly on Thursdays)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11382503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11382503)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Interesting article.

<comment><USER73> On the off chance your account is real, what percentage of truth would you assign to the article?

<comment><USER74> the account is only 2 hours old so I doubt it is real.

<comment><USER38> Also considering he's probably in jail, I doubt he has internet access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> So, the senator(s) were Heinz and Kerry?

</comment><comment><USER75> What a fascinating tale.

</comment><comment><USER76> Awesome story

</comment><comment><USER77> Could someone post a one or two paragraph TL;DR for people in here who don't have the time right now to read the entire piece? You can reasonably assume we do already a) know what tcrypt is, and b) know about the discontinuation annoucement almost two years ago. May the upvotes then be with you.

<comment><USER38> Really the only "big" information presented is that Paul Le Roux, a man arrested recently by the DEA, is very very likely the same person who was the early leader of TrueCrypt. It discuses his background a lot - he was an extremely intelligent child and teenager, who started shady business practices as early as 16 when he was arrested for selling porn. He was rather poor and led a shaky life in his early twenties, and had a fairly strong anti- authoritarian belief, which is what led to his interest and development of TrueCrypt (and its predecessor projects that laid the foundation for TC).

He eventually started his pharmaceutical business and made hundreds of millions of dollars. According to sources, he became gradually "darker" as he got more money, including allegations he had people killed. And then recently he was arrested by the DEA.

The article got most of its information by a supposed relative - the reporter is convinced it's legitimate because of how much they know about Paul and their access to documents a non-family member is unlikely to have.

The other interesting new information is that his biological mother (edit: grandmother) is the wife of a US senator, but there's nothing to really collaborate that other than the word of the anonymous soruce.

There is no new information about the discontinuation of TC in this article. The article says that Paul disappeared from the crypto community (at least, under his own name) at about the time he started his pharma company (2004), but implied that he had worked on TC for the decade leading up to 2004. The anonymous source also said he "switched" to the pill selling, perhaps suggesting he left the TC project around that time in 2004.

If I had to guess, whoever was funding the TC developers stopped funding them. And the developers decided to move on with their lives, having worked on it for 15+ years, and possibly largely only doing so because they got paid. The "TrueCrypt is not secure" message was probably to imply that a lack of updates wasn't because they were confident they weren't needed, but rather because it was no longer maintained.

<comment><USER78> s/collaborate/corroborate/

<comment><USER38> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Not to be pedantic, but you wrote "cutting out the middleman." Doesn't patreon take a small cut? Aren't they a middleman? (Though undoubtedly one taking a much smaller share than previous ones.)

<comment><USER80> Visa would also be a middleman. Or even the post office if you only accepted mailed cash.

<comment><USER81> There's also gratipay, which doesn't take a cut. Still the credit card's cut, but gratipay offers bitcoin payments, which, if they implement it right, would eliminate the middleman (unless you count miners as middlemen) when the financee cashes out using bitcoin. If they implemented it wrong, then coinbase is the middleman.

<comment><USER82> > gratipay offers bitcoin payments, which, if they implement it right, would > eliminate the middleman [...] when the financee cashes out using bitcoin

And tell me, how does one cut out the middleman when they convert their Bitcoin earnings to US dollars or whatever currency they prefer?

<comment><USER83> Jesus Christ why don't you people just start mowing the guy's lawn for Christ's sake

<comment><USER84> That can be taken more than one way

<comment><USER85> The second way wouldn't be done for Christ's sake...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> The submitted title was "Truecrypt was written by a international arms dealer named Paul LeRoux". That broke the HN guidelines by cherry-picking a single detail from the article, and it's also misleading enough that we're getting emails complaining about it. Rather than litigate what the article does or doesn't show, we've simply reverted the title.

It seems particularly bad to make the title say something that the article doesn't actually claim.

<comment><USER87> The old title was wrong, the new one is devoid of any meaning. I guess the TrueCrypt connection is what got most of us interested in the piece, so something along the lines of "Truecrypt predecessor was started by international drug dealer Paul LeRoux" might have been helpful.

<comment><USER86> The article is still near the top of HN, and no one who looks at the thread will have much trouble figuring out what it's about.

If the community agreed amongst itself, obviously we'd follow suit, but it doesn't, and people are going to complain no matter what we do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Thank you. It's amazing how some authors use thousands of words to deliver such little information.

<comment><USER89> > It's amazing how some authors use thousands of words to deliver such little > information.

Well how else are you going to make it look like you really worked hard on something if you just give people exactly what they want right up front? /s

Seriously this article is bloated as HELL.

Edit: did anyone who downvoted me to hell even read the article? It's about 5% information, 95% useless bloat to fill the page. I mean damn...

<comment><USER90> I haven't downvoted you, but there's always someone bitching about long-form journalism. It's a non-fiction STORY. Stories aren't technical documents or status reports - they set up atmosphere, build a character, and engage the reader.

Notice also that the title of the linked article is not "Paul LeRoux made Truecrypt" \- it's not centered around that. It simply has that info in it, and as such is an interest to HN.

<comment><USER89> > there's always someone bitching about long-form journalism. It's a non- > fiction STORY.

I'm fine for long-form journalism if it actually adds them. Reading through this just felt like the author tried to shove filler into it. I just didn't find it compelling or anything.

Give me a good story and I'm fine. Give me something it feels like you wrote explicitly because you get paid by the word and I'm not going to enjoy it as much.

Thanks for replying though. Maybe everyone else just feels differently about this story than me but it's frustrating to get downvoted without a reply saying why.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brazil World Cup workers 'face slave-like conditions' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24292174 <comment><USER2> No one wants to claim a link between this and references to slavery in The Bible?</comment>


Moving to silicon valley at 30? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone moved when they were a bit older? How did you find it?
I'm from Australia and have always wanted to work in silicon valley, I have a few companies willing to sponsor me.
But I'm a bit concerned I'm too old now, and given that I don't know anyone in silicon valley I'd have to start my social life up again. I'm single with no dependants if that matters. <comment><USER2> Australia isn't going anywhere, what's the harm of just giving it a shot for a year and finding out for yourself?

If the social aspect is one you're concerned about, maybe factor that into your job search, since people at work are who you will interact with most (both in general, but especially when you don't know anyone else). Specifically make sure you can socialize with the team, and maybe bias yourself towards slightly larger companies since there are more people there in general to socialize with.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're too late, the future is moving away from silicon valley rapidly. You'll thank me in 10 years for showing you this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8JmNnNT_Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8JmNnNT_Cg)

If you look back on this and acknowledge I changed your life you can donate me a btc: 1Agbh1RJEgLCNWSeRzXGd4YCJFNeAyGD47

</comment><comment><USER4> Highly depends on the company.

Some are 100% 20s bros, others are all over with more families etc.

You should ask people working there.</comment>


Polo pony cloning is set revolutionise the sport at Argentina's Palermo Open - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/polo-pony-cloning-is-set-revolutionise-the-sport-at-argentinas-palermo-open-a6715646.html <comment><AUTHOR> The part of this article that surprised me was the subtitle:

      "Star player Adolfo Cambiaso will be taking at least four
      clones onto the field of the Palermo Open and possibly more."

I hadn't realized that the technology for cloning horses was sufficiently mature that this wasn't a theoretical issue, but one that is already in play.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is "My Bathroom Mirror is Smarter Than Yours" being posted so much? - <AUTHOR> This has been posted so many times-possibly dozens. Why? How?<p>Is someone trying to game this Medium story for some reason? If so, why does HN keep allowing it to appear over and over?<p>(14 times at last count, with tweaky URL settings to deliberately bypass HN's dupe posting filter.) <comment><USER2> Medium seems to have some URL cruft at the end of it that is unique for different users, and it doesn't seem like HN knows how to dedupe that.

<comment><USER3> Duplication is usual problem with Medium stories.

In this case the story is interesting enough to submit and gain a few points, but not enough to get to the front page, so it's not easy to link to the previous main discussion and try to keep all the comments there.

A similar problem has the "Banned by Tesla (I)" and "Banned by Tesla (II)" stories. I think one of them was more lucky, but I'm not paying too much attention because I think it's a pointless discussion.

I remember a few previous case, were one submission was very successful (front page and many points+comments) and it was unintentionally resubmitted many many many times: "The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment", "The Sad State of Web Development", "Paul Graham Is Still Asking to Be Eaten"

<comment><USER2> Medium seems a common enough share source these days that it might be worth HN looking into filtering out the junk at the end of the URL for deduplication checking.

<comment><USER4> It's on our list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't be jelly

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure he has invested some very serious cash into something he should not be spending that much time looking at, and now he wants a return on investment by building a readership; cue the submission bots/friends/family to spread the word.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I had that many friends; this is nuts.</comment></comment>


Offshore Wind Farms Make Wakes - <AUTHOR> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=89063 <comment><USER2> Any reason why offshore wind farms don't have underwater turbines to harvest waves/currents?

<comment><USER3> Possibly because strong tides and reliable strong winds don't happen in the same location.</comment></comment>


Demo Day Is Coming: Ranking the 500 Startups Spring 2013 Batch - <AUTHOR> http://mattermark.com/ranking-the-500-startups-spring-2013-batch/ <comment><USER2> I'm one of the batch founders (Binpress). I know most of the companies on the list intimately, and most of the data is completely inaccurate (some is even ridiculous - 2 companies have 0 employees according to this chart).

I hope no one, and especially investors - take this site seriously. We're doing well, but some of the other companies are counting on the upcoming demo day for a last push to their fund raising efforts. Mattermark would serve themselves and their users better by doing some actual diligence on the companies before publishing this data, instead of just aggregating old crunch- base data and Alexa rankings.

<comment><USER3> I see as an iterative process. Right now the most readily available data are things like Alexa rankings, twitter followers, etc. which are an imperfect proxy for how well a company is doing. As Mattermark gets traction, I am sure that they will add additional, more reliable sources and that companies will have an incentive to keep their information up to date

<comment><USER4> I see that Mattermark charges $499/month for its "professional" plan. If you're suggesting that the data it's using is imperfect, I'm curious as to why you believe anyone would have an incentive to pay this amount _before_ Mattermark has the ability to acquire better data?

For what it's worth, there are already a ton of other sources of data for private companies (Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, FactSet, infoUSA, CB Insights, PrivCo, etc.).

<comment><USER3> None of the companies you mention target startups, that's the niche Mattermark is going after. Re: paying and imperfect data, I would turn the argument around: the fact that people are willing to pay money for imperfect data, proves that there is demand for this.

<comment><USER4> CB Insights and PrivCo absolutely have data on startups, and just because a company is a "startup" doesn't mean that it won't have any visibility in some of the other sources I listed.

As for imperfect data, billions are spent every year on all kinds of weight loss supplements of questionable value. That doesn't mean that there's necessarily going to be demand for _your_ weight loss supplement.

Here, I see little more than an amalgamation of free data from sources like CrunchBase, AngelList, Twitter and LinkedIn along with a proprietary momentum scoring system that is designed to track a startup's growth but for which no efficacy/validation data is presented. I don't see any reference to the specific metrics that are inputs to the scoring system, but the mention of "traffic graphs, app store ranking, inbound links, social media stats" suggests that the aforementioned free data is what is being used.

Of course, "growth" in the abstract is an ambiguous concept and, I would argue, a poor one to try to measure for private companies:

1\. _What_ is growing matters. A B2C startup may have a lot more traffic and social media activity than a B2B startup, even though a B2B startup in a lucrative market could be growing its revenue at an exponentially higher rate. This is why angels and venture capitalists will _always_ have to hit the phones and the streets: you can't find the B2B startup that inked $500,000 in deals with Fortune 500 companies in its first six months of existence if you're just looking at Alexa stats or Twitter followers. This information simply isn't being released publicly. If you want an advantage, you have to seek out non-public information. It's why some hedge funds, for instance, go to great lengths to physically monitor in real time the supply chain movements of companies they have or are considering positions in.

2\. Very young companies can more easily grow at a faster rate than more mature companies. Going from 0 to 1,000 visitors in the period of a week is generally easier than going from, say, 20,000 to 30,000 in a month, but the former is arguably likely to be a lot less meaningful than the latter for most businesses.

3\. How big you need to grow to have a sustainable, highly-profitable business varies substantially from company to company and market to market. In other words, it's all but impossible to distill "growth" down into a single number that allows for an apples to apples comparison of companies in different spaces and at different stages of development.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you want to see from a Search Engine? - <AUTHOR>

People always say that "Search Sucks" so:<p>what do you want to see from a search engine?
What do you think Google is lacking? What will make you switch from Google? <comment><USER2> In all honesty, I don't think there is an issue with search, Google is a fantastic search engine, which almost every time I search provides me with the results I was looking for, regardless of if I want to find a picture of Spiderman looking angry, look up the php mail function or I forgot the link to one of the adwords campaigns I'm running.

Sure, they collect my personal information, but is that really such an issue? As an analytics certified person, I can say "so what?" It tells me where you searched from, what you searched for, etc, but the information isn't interlinked, it's presented in a random format, the only chance of anyone reliably tying that to you would be if you were they only person to _ever_ search for that term.

I don't think that Google is really lacking anything, if anything it has too much. I go there to use the big, central search box, that's it, I'll quite happily switch the day I find a better search engine, by which I mean, one which provides me with more relevant results.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't say search sucks. I use Google every day. To answer your question, what I want from a search engine is finding the most reliable source of information on the topic I am searching for. I don't want spammy trash to display higher in search results than thoughtful writing based on careful research.

</comment><comment><USER4> Those who say, "Search Sucks", are bloggers who need you to read something they wrote. You're not likely to get one to show up here to tell you what's up. It's because they're just using that headline for what it is - bait that will top HN and drive traffic. They will make a few good points and let the readers have it out in the comments.

The truth is that Google and lots of other search engines can search the web pretty well. I can't actually think of a good example where I couldn't find what I was looking for (and isn't that the point?). Maybe occasionally you'll fail to find something really specific, but I think it reasonable to assume that if Google can't find it, it probably isn't there. Or it just isn't good enough to be linked to from elsewhere. And sites like that probably aren't worth a solution.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like what Amazon is doing with book reviews these days. They trawl all the reviews for common statements and present those statements above the reviews. "44 people said something similar." It's nice. I would like search engines to be smarter in terms of summarising lots of data sources like this.

</comment><comment><USER6> no personalization, no ads, better shortcuts (calc, etc), finds what i need, indexes more pages.

</comment><comment><USER7> I want my personal website's links on the first page for any query.</comment>


How to get the most of out of your new Kindle e-Reader - <AUTHOR> https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/how-to-get-the-most-of-out-of-your-new-kindle-e-reader <comment><USER2> I recommend jailbreaking, if you have a supported model. You can get access to a full linux box, which can be surprisingly useful. I can now play zork and nethack while pretending I'm studious.</comment>


Amazon leads $575m investment round in Deliveroo - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/1e385cf6-7861-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab <comment><USER2> Makes sense for Amazon to purchase Deliveroo at some point. Now that they have planes in the air, owning that last mile to people's doors closes the full journey.</comment>


Twitter, As We Knew It, Is Dead: The 7 New Dependable Ways to Use Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://howtogetfocused.com/chapters/twitter-is-dead/

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty narrow view of Twitter. He doesn't use the word "search" once. If you are not using Twitter search on specific key terms then you are not using Twitter effectively.

He doesn't mention hashtags. A great example is back channel discussion for an event, meetup, or conference. For example, you should be following the #leanstartup hashtag.

He doesn't mention breaking news. I heard about the Chinese earthquake, Iran revolution, and Michael Jackson's death on Twitter.

RescueTime says I spent 2 hours in Tweetie last week. I easily derive value out of that time. (A chunk of that time was following the #Canucks hashtag while watching hockey.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, yea -- I'm not sure the value with Twitter isn't extremely exaggerated, though. It's a news source middle-man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe it's petty, but some of the phrases annoy me:

 _Twitter 2.0_

 _...what industry researchers call, 'The Network Effect'_ (that phrase in this usage is 50+ years old and commonplace, not some sort of discovery by "industry researchers")

 _...a place for brands, links and affiliates_ (if that were true, there would be no reason to use Twitter at all)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, looking back, I agree... I cringe at Twitter 2.0, but I feel for people that aren't familiar with technology, it will get the point across.

The Network Effect, you're probably right there. I'll update that. Thanks.

On #3, lol... exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not entirely sure why twitter is useful for any purpose other than the three 'new' ones outlined. If you're someone who isn't representing a business or a celebrity twittering, the fact is, no-one cares about any opinion you have which can be expressed in 140 characters.

</comment><comment><USER5> Did this guy toss in the subheading "The Magic Bullet Secret To Getting 17 million followers in 3 hours!" in order to pull in some search engine traffic on that phrase?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahahaha, I never thought about that, but if it gets me traffic, I'm in trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not too sure Twitter has really transformed. Social media 'experts' can use Twitter however they want, I simply like to know what my friends are up to without having to always call/text them.

</comment><comment><USER7> You should really look into making your site less of a text decoration and weight mess. If you have 7 somethings, make those headlines the next biggest/strongest to the headline. Anything else must be less bold.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's weight mess mean?

I admit, I'm definitely not a designer, and I'm looking for feedback.

I'll update the header look/feel.

-s

<comment><USER7> I am not sure how to say it, I meant variance of boldness. Non-native speaker here. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I never really liked twitter. Anything twitter does I can get from Buzz or Facebook.

Personally, I think the future is consolidation of services.</comment>


The Hunger Affecting Billions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/the-hidden-hunger-affecting-billions/ <comment><USER2> The fallacy is thinking that you need GMOs to address malnutrition and it just isn't so.

There's so many whole grain foods and whole plant foods that have more than enough nutrients. And, I don't just mean a couple. There's dozens even hundreds of super high nutrient dense natural foods out there. heck, even the weeds that grow in your sidewalk are literally packed with extremely high nutrient density: for example: Purslane. Purslane contains well over 200% of your DRI of Iron in just 200 calories. I could list hundreds more, and i've ranked them according to each nutrient here: [https://kale.world/c](https://kale.world/c). Just set the bar to Iron and you'll see what i mean. And it's not just Iron, it's pretty much every nutrient you could possibly need.

Even your standard Potatoes are really high in Iron (as long as you don't strip them of their skin which is the first thing everybody does). It's no wonder people end up with iron deficiency when you strip the skin off potatoes and fruits and eat processed rice (which once again strips off all the nutrients).

And for grains, there's so many things to choose from: Teff, Whole wheat, wild rice, oat flour, oats, cornmeal, farro, brown rice. You could literally pick almost any grain that hasn't been processed to death, and you'd find that it's pretty nutrient dense. It's the processing (and unsustainable agriculture practices) which reduces the nutrient density so much. the processing and the adding of sugar and oil which contains no nutrients.

Nature provides us which foods that are naturally high in minerals and vitamins without the constant need for humans to muck with it. I think we should focus less on trying to change things we don't understand and spend more time and effort actually just growing the foods sustainably in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Two billion people do not get enough micronutrients in their diets, which can lead to severe health conditions."

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like it's malnutrition rather than hunger as understood by most people ... and the proposed solution is basically GMOs... which unfortunately gets a bad rap.</comment>


NoSQL Databases: A Survey and Decision Guidance - <AUTHOR> https://medium.baqend.com/nosql-databases-a-survey-and-decision-guidance-ea7823a822d#.9kc76l26h <comment><USER2> Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12289975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12289975)</comment>


Chrome Extension that detects currencies on a page and converts them - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/conveuro/hchlbehbbfdiogoeigibfgjpcmhogaop <comment><AUTHOR> It can detect currency codes like EUR, USD, GBP, as well as symbols - $, €, £ and keywords "indian rupee", "australian dollar", "chinese yuan".

Just select some text like "$49.99" and you instantly get the equivalent in any currency you've chosen.</comment>