Ask HN: Has the UI changed? - <AUTHOR>

I have just noticed that the colors of the numbers for posts now alternate between red and green. And the header graphic background color is now ox blood red. Is it site wide or is it just me? <comment><USER2> Happy holidays!

</comment><comment><USER3> The darker red is a lot more pleasing to the eye, at least IMO. It has a nice contrast with the orange 'Y' logo.

However, the 'Hacker News new | threads ...' text _really_ needs to be white for this new background, black doesn't have enough contrast. As a bonus, white text here will jive with the white Y better.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a special holiday gift for you from pg!

Seriously, I clicked on an internal link and freaked out a bit. I could not remember whether the previous page was similarly colored (and I just did not notice), or whether the change just happened.

</comment><comment><USER5> My title bar hasn't changed color because I've set my own. It does change color for submissions.

I like the alternating colors on the numbers on the news and newest pages, etc.

<comment><USER6> you get to see the new header when you add a comment, or use the bookmarklet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Technically, the colors don't define the UI, so, no, the UI has not changed ;).

<comment><USER7> Really? I always thought color was part of the UI.

ie. Poor color choice can really hamper USE-ability;)

<comment><USER6> I tend to believe they don't, though I understand your position and it's perfectly debatable.

<comment><USER8> I know it's a bit of a dead horse now but one could say that the _User Experience_ has changed because the colors have changed, but the _User Interface_ has not changed.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. I think colors don't define interface, rather, shapes and layouts do. However, I totally concur with that colors are part of the experience.

<comment><USER9> Nonsense. Of course color is a part of the UI.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Doug Cutting joins Cloudera - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lucene.com/2009/08/10/joining-cloudera/

<comment><USER2> Looks like Yahoo is getting out of search.

Congratulations to both Cloudera and Doug.</comment>


Show HN: I built my wedding website using Polymer - <AUTHOR> https://maggieandcaleb.com/ <comment><USER2> Congratulations! We are all coming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perfect! I'll add more stuff to the registry

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good choice in marrying the girl, but just dating Polymer. I wouldn't wed myself to Polymer, considering how fickle Google is.

Nice job on the site and best wishes to you and your bride.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I used Polymer on a production site a year ago. The amount of Google components I had to fork and edit to make them work correctly in all the browsers I had to support was maddening. I think many of the issues I ran into have been addressed but it just soured me on the whole thing (especially since I was never able to get vulcanize to work properly on our mildly complex projext; it had major issues).

Site looks great regardless. That's one of the great things about Polymer.

<comment><USER5> I might recommend you check out React Standalone if you're interested in Web Components but want to use something familiar (if you're familiar with React that is!). I'm using it right now so I can build an SDK that works both "natively" in a React environment and in vanilla JS + Angular, etc.

<comment><USER4> That looks pretty interesting. I've done web components manually which were a little awkward but for someone using React this looks compelling. I haven't dived into it much but I'll look into it when I do. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool and thanks for sharing. Not as a criticism to you specifically, but a worry I have about technology like Polymer in general: I opened your site and was staring at an empty grey screen for a good 5 seconds.

Maybe your server is busy because of all the HN attention, but I am worried about the future of the web when these kinds of things are becoming normal and acceptable.

<comment><USER7> I encounter the same issue with every single website written using a modern frontend framework: Angular, React, whatever...

They're considered to be faster but they look so sluggish at loading, I wonder why this is considered acceptable when it's clearly not.

Is it a fundamental issue with this kind of frameworks, or is it due to a bad usage by developers?

<comment><USER8> Bad frameworks _and /or_ bad usage. Ie, a lot of frameworks don't have good/any serverside support. React does, fwiw.

From my perspective, a _good_ React site is rendered on the server in most scenarios. Meaning the first page you get is pure html and 100% complete. The JS will load and link everything up, but it's nothing that you'll know. If you click a link before the js loads, it should point to a real url and give you full html again. When the js does finally load, json can be used to load new pages, modifying the content with react, etc.

This is also nice because web crawlers (all of them) get simple html, and if a user has JS turned off, they still a lot of your content, perhaps missing some of your UX.

I've implemented a couple content heavy sites like this and it's a nice UX. Performs just as you expect in most scenarios. The only complaint i think that could be valid, is that there is, indeed, a fair amount of JS, which on mobile devices is definitely worse off than if it were just static content.

This is my benchmark for frontend frameworks for the future. Can i compile it, efficiently, on the server before giving it to the user?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for the congratulations! Thanks also for the 21 and counting RSVPs, some of them are pretty hilarious. I'm looking forward to seeing President Obama, Alec Baldwin, and Mike Hunt at the wedding!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Open source at: [https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer- wedding](https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer-wedding)

</comment><comment><USER9> Polymer is greatly undervalued. I takes a bit of time to get into it but once you understand all the quirks, it's smooth sailing. I really like the simplicity of it.

React is good too, but you need the right framework on top of it (or else it can be a bit tricky to setup properly).

<comment><USER10> I can recommend Polymer.dart, static typing + webcomponent encapsulation + polymer elements gives really good framework for webapps. It's still not in 1.0 but it's quite stable now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think you can bring the time to initial interactive experience way down by using Polymer CLI. Looking at wedding-app.html it looks like it's loading a lot of elements which aren't on screen yet.

Take a look at the app-drawer-template example and note the line that lazy loads element definitions when pages change: [https://github.com/Polymer/app- drawer-template/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/Polymer/app-drawer- template/blob/master/src/my-app.html#L130-L134)

If you use the CLI you can create a polymer.json file that lets you fragment up your site: [https://github.com/Polymer/app-drawer- template/blob/master/p...](https://github.com/Polymer/app-drawer- template/blob/master/polymer.json) This way you'll create separate vulcanized bundles and you can lazy load them right when the user clicks on the section, hopefully improving that first load experience.

Ignore the haters on HN. Congrats on the wedding!!!

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats on the wedding, but this site just shows me that I was right not to invest in polymer. On android chrome, 5 second pageload, which seems to be taking place after the download, followed by laggy animation? Yuck.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I prefer Mithril, or at least React. Or heck, even the horrific, broken, awful mess that is angular 1 is better than this, for crying out loud!

I know that Polymer may make things easier as a designer, but newsflash: the end user doesn't give a damn. They want a fast, responsive, stylish site. And Polymer just isn't there.

</comment><comment><USER13> you spelled her last name wrong. also accommodations

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha you are right, I'll have to fix that when I get home. Or maybe I'll tell Maggie to submit a pull request

<comment><AUTHOR> Pull Request merged- thanks! Unfortunately it wasn't before Maggie's Mom caught wind of my misspelling: [https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer- wedding/pull/1](https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer-wedding/pull/1)

<comment><USER14> Haha. I wish HN was more frivolous at times, so we could use threads like this one for some good laughs on how your mother-in-law has already got you squared out. Congrats btw!

I did my wedding website using wix because she wanted to build it (I did the sysadmin parts of it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My grandparents live in Wilmington. Open bar? See you at the reception!

</comment><comment><USER16> Something about the way the borders around the photos shrink while scrolling bugs me. I guess it feels a little akin to how the paintings change in the Disney land/world Haunted Mansions. It's not horrible, but I'm not sure what your intention with the effect was supposed to be.

That said, Congratulations, on the wedding and the website.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great work! I am not sure you should make this public though, especially the date and place. All the best.

<comment><USER18> I believe many couples still publish wedding announcements in the newspaper with these same details. Announcing on Hacker News doesn't seem any riskier than putting it in the local paper.

<comment><USER19> There are hundreds of public wedding details on theknot.com as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Congrats!

So what do you think?

About using Polymer I mean. :)

Would love to get some insight as to how the experience was learning and building something in Polymer. I haven't heard much of Polymer lately.

<comment><AUTHOR> Web Components: I think that web components are absolutely the best way to program a web application. Keeping the CSS, HTML, and JavaScript within the boundaries of a component works wonders for organization. It was such a relief coming from the Angular 1 world I usually work in.

Polymer: The polymer elements that Google provides are good. The polymer-cli is fantastic, it just works and I didn't have to configure gulp/grunt/browserify/webpack at all. The project needs no node modules, all dependencies come from bower! Non-google custom elements out there lack robust browser support and I find that I don't trust them out of the box.

Ecosystem: support for web components has come a ways in the past couple years but still has a ways to go. Chrome natively supports web components but every other non-blink browser uses polyfills, which slows things down. Firefox and WebKit are implementing part of the web components spec, so hopefully it'll get better soon.

It's an exciting technology that is very pleasant to code in. Learning the ropes and building the entire site took 20 hours, most of that was dealing with nitpicky browser support issues with scrolling and animation effects. I hope it continues to gains traction and I would definitely use it again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks great. Do we all get cake?

<comment><AUTHOR> We were thinking cupcakes!

<comment><USER21> Even better!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm building something in Polymer. I'm a little worried though. It doesn't appear that cross browser comparability is considered a show-stopper by the Polymer team. Things work great in Chrome but they just don't have the same fit and finish in other browsers. In mobile safari things jiggle, redraw, jump around, and sometimes ignore touch input.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's brave of you to open the comments without a password. Post some of the better ones here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Best Attendees: "Obama", "Donald Trump (guest is Hillary Clinton)", "Ghandi", "Clint Eastwood"

Best Other Party Members: "Aunt Mimi and her 12 cats"

Best Song: "Never Gonna Give You Up", "Hot cross buns", "Team America World Police", "Happy Birthday"

Best Message: Lots of congratulations and nice words, "Please provide a jacuzzi for my table"

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is it really supposed to have everything on the front page left-aligned in very wide white boxes? Because that's what I get on Safari. [http://imgur.com/AnsXVoY](http://imgur.com/AnsXVoY)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, that's odd. Didn't test Safari on Desktop, thanks for pointing it out. Maybe a problem with the way I'm using the iron-grid component for grid layout.

<comment><USER25> Same issue with Mobile Safari on an iPad mini. Congrats. Wilmington in late Nov should be nice. I'm reminded of a book I read a few years back - [https://www.amazon.com/Off-Season-Discovering-America- Winter...](https://www.amazon.com/Off-Season-Discovering-America-Winters- Shore/dp/1400049733)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great job! I created my own website with Bootstrap and a couple of hours, but it does not look half as good as yours.

One idea I had was to create a template wedding website service. There are a few out there, but I think the idea can be done better.

<comment><USER27> Want to know what happens when your server goes down? 600 angry bridezillas. No thanks

<comment><USER28> Static sites hosted on s3? Low risk of an outage, could be worth the risk

<comment><USER27> Hey more risk is more profit ;) I would just be afraid of that market, hah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hey— the wedding is less than 2 hours away from my house! That's...interesting.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, 45min from me in Myrtle Beach, SC - small world!

<comment><USER29> You know, I didn't realize Myrtle Beach was so close to Wilmington, as someone who's never been. (I'm in Raleigh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Nice! Is the parallax on the Our Story page part of Polymer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is! Here's the component: [https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer- wedding/blob/master/sr...](https://github.com/caleblloyd/polymer- wedding/blob/master/src/wedding-story-item.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Congrats. Love Polymer (when I get to use it). Looks good.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's adorable, and also pretty cool. Congrats! :)

</comment><comment><USER34> should capture RSVPs via [https://www.invitespring.com](https://www.invitespring.com)

</comment><comment><USER35> OP, your site does not show anything without JavaScript. Is there some feature that needs JS on the page or why is it so?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes unfortunately JavaScript is required. Instead of using <noscript> I opted for paper invitations in the mail as a fallback.

<comment><USER35> That does not answer my question. Is there a feature that absolutely needs JS on the page? If so, what is it?

<comment><USER36> I think you're missing the point. Of course there's nothing this site can't do without JS. It's a side project to learn a new framework.

<comment><USER35> I might be. I just do not understand why one should use more complex and less accessible web technologies if it does not lead to new functionality. When I learn a new framework, it usually is so I can do things that I could not do without.

<comment><USER37> "To learn" and "for fun" are perfectly sufficient explanations, even if you don't understand them.

<comment><USER38> But his point is that the site isn't doing anything that couldn't be achieved without js.

This would be like if a mechanic said he was going to replace your wheels with wooden ones he made himself because he wants to learn how to be a carpenter.

<comment><USER39> No, it would be like if a mechanic replaced the wheels on his own car with wooden ones to try it out. Nothing wrong with that.

He's not forcing you to drive the car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Congratulations! Kudos on getting the website up.

I RSVP'd, but can you guess under who?

</comment><comment><USER41> Congrats on both the wedding and a rather slick announcement page. Very nice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>


Why My Team Doesn't Use Swift and Can't Anytime Soon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.instabug.com/2017/04/no-swift-instabug/ <comment><USER2> I thought it was interesting that they mention they're hiring right at the beginning of describing why they can't use a language many developers are excited about. "Come work here! You will absolutely not use Swift anytime soon though." Of course the explanation makes sense, it's a tough spot to be in.

<comment><USER3> I understand it might sound weird to be telling people we're hiring and at the same time telling them that we can't use Swift, but we do use Swift for all new UI and unit tests we write, since those don't affect the framework. Plus, Swift aside, working on software that runs inside other developers' software has so many challenges that I'm sure are still going to be interesting regardless of the language you use.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who are some programmers (in)famous for their quirky coding style? - <AUTHOR> I recently stumbled across a some code written in extremely dense C, using a good bit of cpp to define common patterns down to single-character tokens. Apparently, the programmer is famous for this sort of style, but unfortunately I completely forgot his name.
Anyway, this got me intrigued in code that is written in principled, albeit, non-conventional styles.
I'm sure HN has stumbled across some absolute gems in its vast experience, so please share! <comment><USER2> Quirky or bad? Elon Musk: [https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-write-any-code- at-X-or-Z...](https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-write-any-code-at-X-or-Zip2) (not a very good source but I remember it was mentioned in Elon's bio by Ashlee Vance that his code was functional but had to be fully rewritten)

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw that kind of macro-based syntax a long time ago in some ancient Unix code (Version 7 from Bell Labs) - I think it may have been in Bourne's shell ("sh"). It had macros like:

        #define BEGIN {
        #define END }
        ...

The author really seemed to prefer Pascal-like syntax to C.

A quirky programming style that was fairly popular at Microsoft at some point was "Hungarian Notation", invented by Charles Simonyi:

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you thinking of Arthur Whitney?

His work was discussed on HN a few months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19481505](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19481505)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh my goodness. Yes. Thank you! This is the exact post I had in mind.</comment></comment>


Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/mass-extinction-ehrlich-061915.html <comment><USER2> The hard data will be more objectively assessed if coming from someone other than Paul Ehrlich:

In the 1970's the world will undergo famines – hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death" and "[our children] will inherit a totally different world, a world in which the standards, politics, and economics of the 1960's are dead."

<comment><USER3> He was wrong, but about 21,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger related causes.

That's 7.6m per year, about 115m in the 21st century.

Nearly one in five children under the age of five dies from diarrhea related illnesses. And that's easilly and cheaply treated (50 US cents of oral rehydration salts).

<comment><USER4> What does any of that have to do with the fact that he was wrong? That's the point: he was completely and absurdly wrong. "Chicken Little" doesn't begin to describe it.

Yes, people suffer from hunger. That's been a problem for all of human history. Hopefully someday it will be "solved," but that's not likely to happen as long as some people are evil and want to control other people. If we can't stop shooting each other and beheading each other and blowing up each other, what makes us think we can stop each other from starving?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the same Paul Ehrlich known for his dire, alarmist predictions about overpopulation in the late 60s that mostly did not come to pass [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception) . His history doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong in this case but it's worth being aware of when evaluating his claims.

</comment><comment><USER4> > people are precipitating "a global spasm of biodiversity loss."

Nevermind that, according to them, mass extinctions happened already five times, and humans had nothing to do with those. But now, when it supposedly happens for a sixth time, it's our fault.

> To history's steady drumbeat, a human population growing in numbers, per > capita consumption and economic inequity has altered or destroyed natural > habitats. The long list of impacts includes: Land clearing for farming, > logging and settlement

All these evil humans, farming and logging and settling, destroying all the other species. If only the humans would go away, then the other species could live in peace.

Notice:

> a human population growing in numbers, per capita consumption and economic > inequity

Could the anti-human, pro-population control, pro-communism spin be any more transparent?

I guess they're safe, since they're the intellectuals pulling the strings. After all, if the "population" of "researchers" were controlled, who would be around to tell everyone else how to survive? It's everyone else, consuming and inequitizing, that is causing the problems and needs to be reduced and reequitized and controlled.

Edit: Of course HN is predominantly left-leaning, so here come the downvotes. Not big surprise. It's not necessary to promote the right side of the spectrum to get in trouble, just criticize the left side.

<comment><USER6> _> mass extinctions happened already five times, and humans had nothing to do with those. But now, when it supposedly happens for a sixth time, it's our fault._

Mass extinctions happen for different reasons. What you're saying is tantamount to: "well, it was a cataclysmic volcano ice age that got us last time, so this asteroid could not _possibly_ be dangerous."

 _> All these evil humans, farming and logging and settling, destroying all the other species. If only the humans would go away, then the other species could live in peace._

It's not about evil. We're transforming the planet, yes, and it's important to be mindful about it, but nobody except a very small fringe is advocating human extinction to rescue species. Instead, what we're realistically doing is gathering data on _how_ we're impacting biodiversity, and how we can minimize that impact in the future. This is going to be a gradual process, but we've been moving in that direction for a long time and will likely continue to do so.

 _> Of course HN is predominantly left-leaning, so here come the downvotes_

I don't think that's true or fair, HN is a mix really. The problem is that your statements about extinction are objectively wrong. Being scientifically literate is not a left wing trait (however, I do make this assertion as a foreign outsider looking in, so I could be wrong).

<comment><USER4> > I don't think that's true or fair, HN is a mix really. The problem is that > your statements about extinction are objectively wrong. Being scientifically > literate is not necessarily a left wing trait (however, I do make this > assertion as a foreign outsider looking in, so I could be wrong).

Sure it's a mix, but it seems predominantly left to me. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to prove it either way.

How are my statements about extinction objectively wrong?

> Mass extinctions happen for different reasons. What you're saying is > tantamount to: "well, it was a cataclysmic volcano ice age that got us last > time, so this asteroid could not possibly be dangerous."

No, you're (probably unintentionally) misrepresenting my point. It would be closer to, "We have no idea whether that asteroid is going to come anywhere near us, and even if it were, it's highly unlikely we could do anything to stop it. However, devoting enough resources to mount a significant attempt to stop it would definitely harm people. So we shouldn't start doing that until it's much clearer that 1) it's going to hit us, and 2) we could stop it."

> It's not about evil. We're transforming the planet, yes, and it's important > to be mindful about it, but nobody except a very small fringe is advocating > human extinction to rescue species. Instead, what we're realistically doing > is gathering data on how we're impacting biodiversity, and how we can > minimize that impact in the future. This is going to be a gradual process, > but we've been moving in that direction for a long time and will likely > continue to do so.

I disagree--evil is involved, at small and large scales. At smaller scales, people are unwilling to admit certain possibilities, because doing so would harm their careers--they are not seeking the truth, but sticking with lies, which is evil. On a larger scale, certain people want to control other people for their own gain, both in power and fortune. That is also evil.

And AGW/climate-change is a powerful vehicle to effect policy change for those in power to preserve and increase their power. CC was promoted as such a policy vehicle back in the 70s, and it's still being used for it today. Very little of the "science" is about actual facts--most of it is about politics.

This undermines the search for the truth. But people who don't recognize this accept the "data" at face value. Then they advocate trying to stop climate change. But doing that would line the pockets of certain powerful, wealthy people and corporations. And it would keep certain parties and nations in positions of weakness. This is why it is ultimately about evil. If all that was being done was "gathering data," that would be fine.

<comment><USER6> _> Sure it's a mix, but it seems predominantly left to me. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to prove it either way._

Personally, I think opinions that match ideologies you're really opposed to probably leave a bigger impression than the ones you agree with. It's easy to come to the conclusion that you're in the minority when you're really not. I believe there are a lot of social conservatives on HN, but the same people are not necessarily technologically or scientifically conservative. This doesn't fall cleanly into left and right by US standards, but I think it's a reasonable model of HN majority predisposition.

 _> No, you're (probably unintentionally) misrepresenting my point._

I thought I was taking it as literally as possible, and after reading the response I still believe I understood the core intent correctly. When you said " _But now, when it supposedly happens for a sixth time, it 's our fault._", I got the impression that you're asserting the only reason why we correlate extinctions with human activity is because we _want_ to blame humans.

However, what's actually going on is more a collection of thousands of observations about these events, made on a case by case basis. For example, these are observations about human settlements impacting wildlife. In another area, they might be data about the results of us restructuring local flora and fauna. Or they might be analytical results pointing to correlations between human-induced contamination of water bodies and changes in the biome that characteristically follow it. It's literally a mass of thousands of data points.

 _> I disagree--evil is involved, at small and large scales. [...] they are not seeking the truth, but sticking with lies, which is evil._

You did originally use the word evil in an entirely different context, which I was responding to.

 _> And AGW/climate-change is a powerful vehicle to effect policy change for those in power to preserve and increase their power._

A lot of groups are proclaiming that the opposing organizations have money and power on their side. The environmental protection movement makes the same assertion, only about letting industry and agriculture go unchecked.

But let's move away from political formulas now. The reality of the fact is that it actually matters very little whether and how often the Anthropocene is publicly declared. We're going to continue on the path we're already on. There will be some continued wide-scale destruction, and a lot of it will not be happening in western countries. But we'll also ramp up initiatives to try and lessen our environmental impact, both to preserve biodiversity for its own sake, but also to improve our own quality of life.

You say that you believe any such efforts will harm people, but to be honest I find that line of reasoning difficult to follow, especially considering the fact that we're mortally dependent on the integrity of our biosphere and that the measures we're putting in place are generally very modest.

None of this will change because some scientists make sensationalistic claims in the media. The article we're talking about is a total yawner, to be honest. Most scientific people already know we're witnessing a huge extinction event, no matter how we actually label it. Talking about that label is the least interesting thing we can do with the observations we made.

<comment><USER4> > Personally, I think opinions that match ideologies you're really opposed to > probably leave a bigger impression than the ones you agree with. It's easy > to come to the conclusion that you're in the minority when you're really > not.

That's a good point.

> I believe there are a lot of social conservatives on HN, but the same people > are not necessarily technologically or scientifically conservative. This > doesn't fall cleanly into left and right by US standards, but I think it's a > reasonable model of HN majority predisposition.

I'm not sure what you mean by socially conservative vs. scientifically and technologically.

> Well, I thought I was taking it as literally as possible. When you said "But > now, when it supposedly happens for a sixth time, it's our fault.", I got > the impression that you're asserting the only reason why we correlate > extinctions with human activity is because we want to blame humans.

I think there are some people who definitely do _want_ to blame humans, for different reasons. At the conspiratorial end of the spectrum, there's population control purposes (cf. blumkvist's comments about increasing automation). At the more personal end of the spectrum, there are things like those whose careers are already invested into declaring that humans are at fault.

So when you say "we," I think you're glossing over a significant issue, that of different groups with different motivations.

> However, what's actually going on is more a collection of thousands of > observations about these events, made on a case by case basis. For example, > these are observations about human settlements impacting wildlife. In > another area, they might be data about the results of us restructuring local > flora and fauna. Or they might be analytical results pointing to > correlations between human-induced contamination of water bodies and changes > in the biome that characteristically follow it. It's literally a mass of > thousands of data points.

Sure, no doubt some of these researchers have compiled massive amounts of data. But even if you take their historical data at face value, it does not necessarily follow that these small-scale human impacts on the environment will cause _mass_ extinctions. The gulf between the two is enormous.

> A lot of groups are proclaiming that the opposing organizations have money > and power on their side. The environmental protection movement makes the > same assertion, only about letting industry and agriculture go unchecked.

Certainly, there are huge amounts of money being spent lobbying on both sides of the issue. It's not as if one side or the other is altruistic. In fact, I think that's the point that needs to be emphasized, perhaps above all else: these are less scientific issues than social and political ones. Science is being used as a vehicle to push certain agendas. It's fine to consider the science and the potential ramifications, but we absolutely must continue examining the people and agendas that are pushing certain conclusions. If we don't, we will have the wool pulled over our eyes, and possibly lead off a cliff.

> You say that you believe any such efforts will harm people, but to be honest > I find that line of reasoning difficult to follow, especially considering > the fact that we're mortally dependent on the integrity of our biosphere and > that the measures we're putting in place are generally very modest.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying we should go around killing and burning and polluting and destroying willy-nilly. I think we should be good stewards of the planet and all of its resources, both living and non-living.

But I don't think we should put "biodiversity" above human life. The policies that are often proposed would result in real harm to real people right now. And the people pushing them either don't value human life, or they value their own (and their own wealth/power) above everyone else's. And that's dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's unnerving to see statistics clearly pointing out to a mass extinction event. Because fossil evidence points out that animals larger than a cat have gone first I get this immediate "oh shit" creepy feeling.

However, humans are quite omnivorous and have a really widely spread population...

[http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other- exti...](http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other-extinct- creatures/mass-extinctions/surviving-mass-extinction/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> People, cows, horses, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats.

Corn, wheat, rice.

What else do you need?

I've been out driving across Europe for the past year. What strikes you about Europe is that almost every square meter of it is man controlled. The most wildlife they have are a few deer and wild boar. Even squirrels are rare.

<comment><USER9> Besides bio-diversity being 'nice' it is also a source of stability. The fewer species there are and the more of those few species we have the more susceptible those few species are to pathogens that wipe out those species. Monocultures are a risk.

Of course there are some counter-balancing effects as well, such as that if you really only have those few species plenty of diseases will lose their reservoir hosts.

Eco-systems are fragile, any attempt so far to create a stand-alone biosphere that I know about has failed.

I also miss the oceans in your little table and I think those + all the oxygen generating plants and trees are really rather important for life on Earth. And those plants rely on insects for their pollination. And those insects in turn are kept in check by all the predators on insects which are missing from your list as well. And so on...

<comment><USER4> > Eco-systems are fragile, any attempt so far to create a stand-alone > biosphere that I know about has failed.

From another perspective, the earth's ecosystems are robust. Life on this planet has yet to become extinct, despite the universe's "trying" several times. When one species declines, another takes its place. One ecosystem declines, another increases.

Isn't this just the Lion King, the Circle of Life and all that?

<comment><USER9> Life will continue, that's for sure. Even a nuclear wipe-out will very likely not erase all traces of life from Earth.

Keep in mind that humans are also just a single species and with global air travel and enormous numbers we're setting ourselves up for a pandemic. Nature loves large numbers of well connected individuals in close proximity.

And the way we're using anti-biotics could come back to bite us.

<comment><USER8> I too am highly disturbed by the loss of ecosystems. I'm just describing the reality of what the planet is becoming & will probably continue to become. Very sad, but quite possibly true.

In reality, we could all probably continue to live on a planet that has just 20 or so species left.

Everything else, we'll have to describe to children with stories.

<comment><USER9> [http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas- Adams/dp/03453...](http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas- Adams/dp/0345371984)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Check for web application security issues. - <AUTHOR> https://www.webscanservice.com

<comment><USER2> I can see you're not really selling to an informed audience (and that's fine!) but I _really_ think you want to sacrifice some of the Google-like simplicity of your front page to explain what, exactly, you're testing on target sites.

Some reasons to at least give broad strokes about how you're testing:

(i) Testing for some kinds of web flaws is inherently intrusive; for instance, it's very hard to reliably test for stored XSS without potentially disrupting an application for users.

(ii) Aggressive spidering _will_ create performance issues for some clients, and "oh well you should have known better" isn't going to stanch the PR bleeding when you take someone's site down.

(iii) If you're doing authz testing, you will eventually find a site where a post-auth crawl will delete huge swaths of database entries because someone implemented "delete" as a vanilla GET link.

(iv) (To me, the most important) Lots of uninformed clients will run something like this and feel confident they've checked the "security" part of their deployment checklist; without knowing exactly what you're testing for (and ideally being up front about the things you don't test for), you can give clients a really dangerous false confidence.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this. I think many users won't be willing to go through with the verification step unless they have some clue about what this site actually does.

After all, you're targeting users who, even if they aren't incredibly informed, at least have enough technical savvy to be running a site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Please create a "webscan.html" file with the content "scanme"

I advice you to make the contents of this file unique for each website, otherwise:

\- i can check 1000s of sites for the existence of webscan.html

\- enter the sites that have such a file

\- see the vulnerabilities of sites I don't own.

<comment><USER5> I think you mean the file name, not the contents.

<comment><USER6> Actually, filename wouldn't work because some sites just return 200 instead of a 404, against the standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't work. I add the webscan.html file then scan again and get an empty response every time. URL is <https://www.webscanservice.com/index.php/startscan> as well I don't know if that's correct or not.

<comment><USER8> Same here.

<comment><USER7> Not sure why it's front page and getting upvoted when it doesn't do anything at all. Seems like a good idea though if it works, curious to see what sort of things it checks for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Happy to see more people who care about security. We run a seemingly similar service, although I can't seem to get this one working. I'd definitely check out other ways of verifying the domain though, since this leaves all your customers open to the Google Hacking of searching for webscan.html for sites a hacker can toss through your system.

<http://www.tinfoilsecurity.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm attempting to scan a site that is accessed via https but it seems to default to http.

</comment><comment><USER10> it just opens a blank page...(<https://www.webscanservice.com/index.php/startscan>)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry if your scan might take a while, the machine just can't handle this amount of traffic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nothing! Just a blank page.

</comment><comment><USER12> Where's the button to stop a scan?

</comment><comment><USER13> You should update "Log" tab with "Scan Queued ETA: X" and/or "Scan Started". How long should it take to start scanning?

</comment><comment><USER14> FYI: Seems to work now.

<comment><USER6> Have you actually gotten any results? I just get a nav bar with nothing in any of the tabs.

<comment><USER14> Yes. Just wait some minutes. I guess the server is under heavy load.

Got some false positives though. For example "PHP Admin Application" and "PHP Debug Application" for files <root>/admin.php and <root>/debug.php which both do not exist actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Noticed the site is super slow, if you need help hosting this just let me know.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wasn't able to try yet because of the required file but it looks cool so far. So far I'd suggest letting people know they need to add the webcam file first. Or if that's already there make it more prominent as its not really obvious. I'm checking it out on my iPad, maybe the desktop version makes that point clearer.</comment>


Know Your Rights: H.264, patent licensing, and you - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/know-your-rights-h-264-patent-licensing-and-you/ <comment><USER2> Genuine question: how can they charge you for sending a file over the web?

Even if you accept patents, and software patents, since when did a patent on an encoder or decoder (or equivalently a compiler or runtime) then give you the ability to restrict what is done with the product created by that patented process?

Is this just some business model left over from the shiny disc era that no-one has bothered to question, or are a bunch of other folk going to start charging you to put things on the web.

I thought the GIF thing was about production of GIFs, but maybe they made the same claim?

(I'm also genuinely appalled that the only case he considers worth talking about is "will they charge me to watch cat videos on Youtube?", his advice if you want to do something "commercial" (whatever the hell that means)? "talk to a lawyer".)

<comment><USER3> I think that this is a very important point. The only reason you need to license something is if the law prevents you from acting without a licence.

However, if you are processing the video in any way, or shipping software that does, then you will need a patent licence, won't you? In this case, the license terms could impose appropriate terms (eg. "we will license the patent to you in return for $x for every file you send over the web").

Licensing an encoder might also come with extra terms in the EULA (eg. "if you give us $x we will let you use our h.264 encoding software but you must also agree to pay MPEG-LA $y under these extra terms").

So essentially the whole system can be enforced purely via contract law, non- withstanding the dubiousness of the validity of some EULAs.

This suggests to me that a Rapidshare-type site would not need a licence even though people can use it to send h.264 video over the web. However a Youtube- type site would, because they are doing h.264 processing themselves - and a licence could come attached with additional terms.

<comment><USER2> Ah, so this explains why even Final Cut _Pro_ doesn't let you use the produced file commercially. It's not the web streaming you're paying for, you're actually paying (again) for the encoding. Even in the rapidshare case they know that you've not already paid to encode it commercially, and nor has the uploader, because they don't offer that licence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "but releasing the source to something doesn't erase any potential patent > liability"

This line sounds fuzzy for me, then how does MPEG-LA can assert that H.264 is protected against a patent ambush by a third party that is not part of the consortium? Just because the standard is open and there's a large patent pool that belongs to the members of the consortium does not mean that a patent troll can't have a patent that covers some part of the codec.

That said I think that H.264 won the fight. I think however that video codecs, and associated patents, will grow in irrelevance at the same time video becomes more popular.

<comment><USER5> I think the protection here is in your group of friends. If you get sued for infringing on a patent because you're using Theora, you're pretty much on your own (maybe the EFF will help). If you get sued for infringing on a patent because of h.264, then (among others) Apple, Microsoft, Google, Kodak, Adobe, and dozens of other corporations (with much larger pockets than you) are also on the hook. The last thing they want is a precedent set saying using h.264 is illegal because you couldn't afford a good lawyer.

MPEG-LA takes responsibility for the patent infringement, so they get sued instead of you, and then they (with the backing of the other large companies who've contributed and licensed from MPEG-LA) fight the lawsuit, using the best lawyers money can buy. If nothing else, they'll make it so expensive to fight that any would-be patent troll will think very long and very hard about throwing their gloves into that ring.

<comment><USER6> Sigh, once again:

<http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx>

Q: Are all AVC essential patents included?

A: No assurance is or can be made that the License includes every essential patent. The purpose of the License is to offer a convenient licensing alternative to everyone on the same terms and to include as much essential intellectual property as possible for their convenience. Participation in the License is voluntary on the part of essential patent holders, however.

Short version: There is no guarantee there will be no troll. No, they won't fight for you, it is your problem.

<comment><USER2> This very article claims that AT&T have patent claims on H.264 that aren't covered by MPEG-LA. You have to sort it out seperately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article mentions other standards that are managed in a way similar to H.264 such as bluetooth, USB, Wifi, etc... As far as I can recall, there hasn't been much consternation about whether or not to support any of these in Linux. Can anyone enlighten me as to why there is such a line in the sand with respect to H.264 from the perspective of the open source community and not these other standards? Are the terms of the H.264 a departure from what these other groups have done?

<comment><USER2> It's possibly just not true.

I tried Googling for USB royalty fees. There's some info about paying to get vendor IDs and use the logo, but I also found several saying that USB 2.0 was specifically created to be royalty free, including e.g. this quote:

" _Frustrated by Apples royalty fees on firewire devices, in April 2000, seven industry-leading companies, consisting of Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, and Philips published the specifications for USB2.0._ "

All the main Google results for "Bluetooth royalty" actually found things saying _royalty-free_ , including this about Wireless USB:

" _The final abandoning of WiMedia may have come down to licensing battles. Foley said in the interview that the SIG asked WiMedia stakeholders to make their technology available on the same royalty-free basis as Bluetooth, so that it could be certified and licensed in the same way as the older standard. "Some WiMedia members weren't amenable to that," said Foley, wanting to hold on to their existing royalties, even in a market of "zero units", as he put it._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "... using H.264 to distribute free internet video to end users doesn't cost a thing, and won't cost anything until at least 2015. After that, it's up in the air, and that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it -- there's a chance the MPEG-LA could start charging a royalty for free video in five years."

Oh, perfect. Let's get everyone accustomed to using this, and then start charging.</comment>


The silent victims of the US embargo against Iran - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(18)30751-4/fulltext <comment><USER2> I was born in Myanmar and grew up there for more than two decades. The impact of economic sanctions are felt not by the ruling class (the military generals), but by the average citizen. Looking back, I firmly believe that sanctions simply deteriorates the human capital and resource (and thus the potential to spur any progressive change) rather than creating any sort of difficulty for the military.

Because of the sanctions, there's always constant emigration and drained my country of a lot of intelligent and hard working people. We are still suffering from that and the current democratically elected government can't easily find competent people to help rebuild the country...

<comment><USER3> Gutting the lower classes is how you punish the ruling class. Ruling class A wants to make ruling class B hurt so they hurt the people from whom ruling class B derives its wealth. Sucks but it's how things work.

<comment><USER4> That only works if ruling class B actually cares. The traditional line of thinking is to spur revolt but the power imbalance is now a lot stronger than, e.g. 1789 France.

<comment><USER3> The upper classes don't need to be deposed via revolt. Diminishing their wealth and influence to the point where they can no longer do whatever it was that pissed you off in the first place is good enough. For example, if nobody was buying Saudi oil they wouldn't have the money to spend fighting a war in Yemen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important to remember that US actions have consequences like this. No matter how poorly you think the Iranian government is behaving, our actions toward their country have led to hundreds of thousands of dead Iranians over the years. There is good reason for countries to doubt "US assistance," and further intrusion will likely cause tremendous suffering for their citizens.

<comment><USER6> "our actions toward their country have led to hundreds of thousands of dead Iranians over the years."

This false and inflammatory, moreover, 'sanctions' are totally unrelated to 'assistance'.

Today, Iran can de-facto trade with most of the world either directly or through intermediaries. The purpose of any embargo is to weaken a state economically, not withhold specific medicines, obviously.

<comment><USER7> > Today, Iran can de-facto trade with most of the world either directly or > through intermediaries. The purpose of any embargo is to weaken a state > economically, not withhold specific medicines, obviously

This is not true. Even opening a foreign bank account (necessary for trade) is impossible for Iranians companies, making trade extremely difficult for all companies.

European banks are legally permitted to trade with Iranian companies, but the threat of fines from the U.S bars all of them from doing so.

> The purpose of any embargo is to weaken a state economically, not withhold > specific medicines, obviously.

In reality, one of the immediate effects of sanctions is scarcity of medicine.

Source: I lived there through the Obama-era sanctions.

<comment><USER8> This perspective would make an excellent NYT piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea of these constraints on trade is to push ordinary people to the point where they rise up and overthrow the regime. This is the same reason for so- called strategic bombing where you bomb civilians in the hope of the same aim. Neither has ever been demonstrated to be effective.

(as a side point the use of the term "sanction" in this way became annoyingly weird in the 1990s -- it's actually sanctioning a _restriction_ on trade).

<comment><USER10> The only reason you can get away with this sort of thing is because Americans have never had to experience these sorts of policies or any of the other things that they do to other people. If they had they would change their minds.

At the end all these policies are to steal resources, and have nothing to do with human rights.

That being said Iran's government needs to be pushed into the sea.

<comment><USER11> Well you could see the hipocrisiy it in the cuba-missile crisis. All of europe was expected live under direct missile thread- and the same was to be expected for the russians (missiles in turkey) - but as soon as the very same standards apply to gods chosen country, it was considered worth starting world war 3 to stop that.

So much for equality, so much for freedom.

<comment><USER12> I've wondered for a long time whether the US (and Europe) would get into so many conflicts if their own civilians were put at risk as well. The US was fighting a war in the Middle East, but back home it was business as usual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really inexcusable to have sanctions on essential lifesaving drugs.

<comment><USER11> Well, its actually exuseable, due to chemistry. Given enough energy, almost everything can be made dualuse.

Add to that the effect of government bureaucracy trying to make there decisions future proof and voila.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the same circumstances, Iran sent 200 tons of medicine to Iraq. The Islamic Republic lied. Medicine and food are not under US sanctions. This is the oppression of the Islamic Republic's mafia to the Iranian people.

[https://www.isna.ir/news/97071810369/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%A...](https://www.isna.ir/news/97071810369/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%AF%DB%8C%D8%B1%DB%8C-%DB%B2%DB%B0%DB%B0-%D8%AA%D9%86-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%88-%D9%88-%D8%AA%D8%AC%D9%87%DB%8C%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%81%DB%8C-%D9%BE%D8%B2%D8%B4%DA%A9%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82)

<comment><USER15> There is difference between trading medicine and just "sending" it.

I think this comment explains the issue well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19481707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19481707)

<comment><USER14> The Iranian government can communicate anywhere ... sell something or buy something. I live in Iran, and I see that the Islamic Republic's mafia instead of buying medicines and food supplies its capital to suppress people in Iran and promote violence and assassination elsewhere in the world. They kill the Syrian people, and tell the people of Iran that I am defending you.

They can buy medicines for their people instead of buying weapons. Surely buying medicine is more convenient. But the Islamic Republic's mafia is just thinking of itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Suppose Iran passed a law invalidating all patents of drugs it cannot buy on the market at market prices. Possibly appointing an agency to sort out which ones they are exactly and publish lists. Any drug featured in such lists would be thereby clear for anyone to manufacture in Iran.

What would the consequences be?

<comment><USER17> India blatantly does this already. They've cancelled valid patents when it suits them. To add insult to injury they also sell huge amounts back to America, it's their biggest pharma export market.

Ive seen estimates around tens of billions of lost revenue from US biotech companies every year.

<comment><USER18> > They've cancelled valid patents when it suits them.

You mean when it has the potential to save millions of lives vs pay less in pharma CEO bonuses?

> Ive seen estimates around tens of billions of lost revenue from US biotech > companies every year.

Cry me a river.

<comment><USER17> It's actually incredibly harmful to Indians, the healthcare costs gained aren't much, medicines are licensed for a fraction of what consumers pay in the West.

Yet because of their incredibly weak IP protections many drug companies are reluctant to sell there. Hundreds of medicines simply aren't available despite being released a decade earlier and Indians in need have to pay European prices for access to modern pharmaceuticals. It's entirely destroyed any chance for local r&d too.

It's not a net benefit.

I'm all for sticking it to the Man and especially criticising big pharma but suggest reconsidering your viewpoint here.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/09/09/indian...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/09/09/indian- patients-suffer-from-indias-weak-pharmaceutical-patents)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article seems to be lacking some context:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state- sponsored_terro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state- sponsored_terrorism)

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

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but how the hell does that justify allowing children with cancer to suffer and die?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is so frustrating that the EU doesn't have the capacity or the courage to stand up against these unjustified and illegal sanctions. We really are powerless in the face of the whims of a capricious fool and his warmongering friends.

<comment><USER21> That's also... largely not true?

Europe was the only party that ever had /any/ power. The US did not have much of an economic relationship with Iran to begin with. Therefore, their sanctions were mostly symbolic. It was EU sanctions that eventually forced Iran to the negotiating table and made the nuclear deal possible. As the article shows, the US has the power to be _cruel_. But the price being paid is humanitarian, not economic.

Accordingly, in succeeds only in killing children, not creating pressure. This is best shown by Iran's decision to stay in the JCPOA. The US is being ignored, because it is comparably irrelevant in purely economic terms.

The EU has also passed legislation prohibiting EU companies from implement US sanctions and indemnifying them against US fines: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-45085205](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45085205). And there's an EU venture to replace US institutions in Iran-bound financial transactions: [https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2019...](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2019/02/04/iran-council-adopts-conclusions/)

<comment><USER22> I understand US sanctions ban any company doing business with the US to also do business with Iran. Companies doing business with the US is pretty much 100% of large companies in the world. So US sanctions did affect all commerce with Iran, not just US commerce with Iran.

<comment><USER21> Yes. Read my comment again. Following that US attempt to change longstanding international law is, in turn, illegal in the EU. Companies are indemnified against damages, and the EU will presumably try to claw these back if it ever comes so far.

Does something in all this need to give? Yes, definitely. Presumably, the US will shy away from trying to enforce. If not, US courts are actually somewhat likely to uphold long-standing precedents in international law, because the only other possible outcome is a completely unworkable quagmire going forward where no company could simultaneously operate in the EU and the US.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately, things are not as you describe them. All the major EU companies have ceased their trading with Iran, as risks are too high and of course it's impossible to punish somebody for _not_ trading with a foreign country.

The only meaningful thing for the EU to do would be to retaliate by sanctioning US companies and freezing US assets to compensate for the effect of the US sanctions. Which would mean full scale economic war and sanctions on the US, something the EU of course cannot afford.

<comment><USER23> The meaningful thing that needs to be done is that Iran needs to solve their government problem.

If I recall, the US had to do something like that back in 1776, and Germany had to have some assistance in it back in 1939-41.

Growing pains.

<comment><USER24> Iran had a somewhat democratic government until the US overthrew it and replaced it with a monarch in the 50s. Iran subsequently had another revolution with a total purge of foreign influence in 1979. Subsequently a huge number of Iranians were killed in the Iran-Iraq war, where the US supported Iraq.

Modernization can happen, but only if it's not visibly pro US.

<comment><USER25> The US didn't overthrow the Mossadegh gov't in a coup. It did back the opposition during a very turbulent time in Iranian history (massive protests against the Mossadegh gov't), but to say the gov't would have survived in the absence of US involvement is a major overstatement.

<comment><USER26> > The US didn't overthrow the Mossadegh gov't in a coup.

On the contrary:

 _In August 2013, sixty years afterward, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government"._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état)

<comment><USER25> Exactly. The CIA aligned itself with already existing groups within Iran to lend assistance in the coup. People act like without the CIA Iran would be some functioning democracy. Iran was a huge mess of competing factions at the time. The Mossadegh gov't would have fallen regardless. The CIA just decided to help out.

Very similar to what happened with Vietnam and the Diem regimen.

<comment><USER26> > The CIA aligned itself with already existing groups within Iran to lend > assistance in the coup.

No, it (and the British who actually started trying to pull off a coup first) paid people and deployed propaganda from multiple different angles, and including false flag operations, to energize _multiple_ , mutually antagonistic factions in order to destabilize the Mossadegh regime; a lot of the anti-Mossadegh opposition was organized crime groups paid by the CIA to put up a front as political opposition. They didn't care about the politics; they did care about the money.

Heck, even the Shah—the monarch who superficially seized total power in the coup—was opposed until the CIA threatened to depose him as well if he didn't go along.

<comment><USER25> Not sure your comment contradicts anything I wrote.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A year of tech industry hype in a single graph - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5995577/a-year-of-tech-industry-hype-in-a-single-graph

<comment><AUTHOR> I love how the Internet of Things is just about ready to plunge into the "Trough of Disillusionment"</comment>


RFC 7720: DNS Root Name Service Protocol and Deployment Requirements - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7720 <comment><USER2> Wow, probably the most significant change from RFC2870 is that root servers must support DNSSEC.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, don't miss:

[https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rssac-001-root-s...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rssac-001-root- service-expectations-04dec15-en.pdf)</comment>


David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war - <AUTHOR> http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2017/06/david-gerard-versus-cryptocurrency-a-peak-into-an-emerging-wiki-war/ <comment><USER2> Seeing that this is a continuation in a saga of the author and their issues with Wikipedia, and that many of the comments then take a step back to look at the overall goals and discuss the war rather than the battle, it is likely important to look at the previous submission from this website and the conversation that took place.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14483080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14483080)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wikipedia articles are often dominated by fans of the subject. When people have financial interest in driving up the value of their favorite coins it gets worse. It's probably good to have some balance. The author talking about "war" and "battle of information" does not exactly give a sense of objectivity either.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've skimmed through Bitcoin article on RationalWiki and phrases like

"The use case of the currency is purchasing illicit goods (e.g., drugs and stolen data on darknet marketsWikipedia's W.svg) and darknet scams (e.g., murder-for-hire)[10][11] and extortion (e.g., "ransomware", for which it is the currency of choice[12]).[13]"

make me doubtful.

<comment><USER5> RationalWiki looks pretty much like a troll enterprise disguised as an encyclopedia.

<comment><USER6> Poe's law at work. It is quite a genuine extremist wiki, only a bit of troll.

<comment><USER7> Skepticism is extremist now? Is that because it is not practiced enough or because expressing it hurts people's feelings?

<comment><USER8> Just pick your side and get polarized into fruitless, shrill conflict like the rest of the world.

<comment><USER7> This is a misrepresentation, but I still enjoy that you created an account to disparage behaviour that you're exhibiting yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my experience, when the targets of criticisms based on facts, history, and rational argument claim that facts, history, and rational argument are unfair, and attack the person rather than the arguments ... the criticisms are probably pretty well-founded.

David Gerard seems to be doing something right, and hitting his mark.

</comment><comment><USER10> The author, or perhaps the author's affiliates, are doing battle with RationalWiki over the right to have PSI research and other nonsense treated as factual on Wikipedia. [http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2015/11/how- rational-wiki...](http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2015/11/how-rational- wiki-abuses-its-google-page-rank-for-personal-attacks-slander-and-harassment/) Or at least they claim they are. RationalWiki's page seems to suggest that they are not the ones editing Wikipedia to reflect the skeptical viewpoint in this case. This was linked from the article here posted, which is the only reason I know about it. But anyway, it does not do much to inspire confidence.

<comment><USER11> > PSI research and other nonsense

What is PSI here? The disambiguation page on Wikipedia doesn't suggest a fitting expansation AFAICS.

<comment><USER12> In context, PSI likely means [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psionics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psionics)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The first sentence asserts that Brendan Eich is the author of Java, which is false.

<comment><USER14> And then I stopped reading.

<comment><USER15> So you judge a non-technical article written by a non-technical person on the fact that he doesn't know that two programming language with a very similar name are not the same language?

<comment><USER11> It shows that the author is not willing to invest a few minutes to fact-check this particular assertion that they're putting in the article. After something like this, one cannot stop wondering how many more assertions in this article are false.

<comment><USER16> But you should be assuming that all articles you read are full of errors.

You spotted this error because you know the difference between Java and Javascript. But what about the stuff that you don't know? How do you spot those errors?

<comment><USER11> Easy: I can't. This effect is known as Gell-Mann Amnesia effect: [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the- ge...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann- amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fake rationality warriors on Wikipedia is a real thing. I have briefly made the mistake of participating in various nutrition articles before, and run into them. They seem to make extensive use of sources that don't support their claims, especially paywalled ones, with impressive sounding titles, that end up being glossy magazines with opinion pieces. There's a certain irony seeing science and rationalism defended in non-scientific and non-rational ways, and we should make more of an effort to call it out.

<comment><USER18> You should read RationalWiki, various pomo terms and theories are written about as if there were anything behind them. The degeneration of the atheist community is making me seriously consider the unpleasant idea that religion serves the vital purpose of filling the "obviously irrational belief over which we bond" whole in our hearts, and we've abandoned it to our perdition.

<comment><USER19> >various pomo terms and theories are written about as if there were anything behind them.

What do you mean? Because I don't think there's anything _wrong_ with post- modern theory; it's a topic that's actively discussed in philosophy. I think it's unwise to dismiss something just because it's post-modern, it it given credence to post-modernism.

Perhaps there is something behind Derrida.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The site seems to be having problems at the moment. Here's a Google cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PB6s-- E...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PB6s-- EKFz4J:wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2017/06/david-gerard-versus-cryptocurrency- a-peak-into-an-emerging-wiki-war/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Here is a text-only cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PB6s-- E...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PB6s-- EKFz4J:wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2017/06/david-gerard-versus-cryptocurrency- a-peak-into-an-emerging-wiki-war/&num=1&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER21> Wikipediawehaveaproblem is a harassment site. Rome Viharo got banned from Wikipedia in 2013 and for the past 4 years has been stalking, threatening, doxing, blackmailing and spreading misinformation about those Wikipedia editors he holds responsible for his ban. He never moves on and has an ongoing grudge against those wiki editors. Viharo claims to be the victim of harassment, but if you read his website all he does is attack and smear Wikipedia editors.

<comment><USER21> Viharo has been described as pedoish and a stalker because he's doxed and stalked Wikipedia editors who are far younger than him, including teenagers. He's 50 years old, but his website stalks editors in their teens. Viharo has whole sections on his website following these editors, recording everything about them, even their taste in computer games. Its creepy. He should just move on and stop stalking wikipedians he holds responsible for his ban. Why take Wikipedia so seriously?

<comment><USER21> There's at least 5 sock-puppets of Rome Viharo banned on his Rationalwiki page talk ([http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rome_Viharo](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rome_Viharo)). These accounts were blocked for doxing, personal attacks, (fake) legal threats and impersonation. Concerning the latter check one of the accounts/IPs below where he said he was a "neutral" university/research institute doing an analysis into cyberbullying. Of course no such study exists. So he was even pretending to be others to post; this is deception like his Wikipedia sockpuppetry.

[http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&...](http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3ARomeViharo) [http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&...](http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3AWikipediaWEhaveAproblem) [http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&...](http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3ALaird)

[http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&...](http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3A126.96.36.199) [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/216.230.2...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/126.96.36.199) [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/158.58.17...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/18.104.22.168) [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:FullyInformed](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:FullyInformed)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> um, wat.

From my view, this is persistent crank Rome Viharo complaining that someone from RationalWiki (me) is _mean_ yet again.

He seems to have launched the Ethereum bit off this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6dkc8w/why_do_we_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6dkc8w/why_do_we_keep_letting_david_gerard_who_obviously/) in which Ethereum advocates are upset that a non-fan edits the article on Ethereum and actually applies the Wikipedia content rules.

but hey, AMA!

<comment><USER22> His website name is because he was banned from Wikipedia in 2013 for persistent sockpuppeting. Here's his RW article: [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rome_Viharo](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rome_Viharo)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't banned from Wikipedia for sock puppeting, you're stating misinformation from RationalWiki.

<comment><USER22> The RationalWiki article turns out to include checkable cites.

<comment><AUTHOR> then check them, transparently, with me in this discussion.

because they are references sited out of context in an intentional misinformation campaign to attack my reputation and status.

you're not being forthcoming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like its down.

<comment><USER24> I read a few paragraphs while it was up. It's just a poorly written hatchet job.

<comment><USER25> I don't have an opinion re Rome Viharo vs David Gerard.

But I do agree that Wikipedia is a clusterfuck. It seems OK as a source for basic factual stuff. But otherwise, I have no time for it.

<comment><USER21> How a forum admin described Rome Viharo before banning him: "Following all this are descriptions of his trolling adventures, which are, as one might expect, kind to forums which fell for his shit, and nasty to those which saw him for the troll he is and banned him." [https://archive.is/w924h](https://archive.is/w924h)

He never takes responsibility for his internet disruption/trolling. If you merely quote his Wikipedia & forum bans, he claims he is being "harassed". His issue with his Rationalwiki article is it logs his toxic internet history under his real name. Before people knew his real name, he had no problem admitting he is a troll. He even bragged about it. He didn't though want people to know what mischief he gets up to online; that's his issue with the RW article.

Rome Viharo in his own words back in 2011 (that is prior to his real name was connected to his trolling): [http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s...](http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=9ae48ef7ed3f572ec527d02d0a548dec&p=7338655#post7338655)

"haha i was just using a sockpuppet... In case you all have not noticed, I like playing tricks - but I am very open and transparent about that."

Admits above to being a trickster (troll) & sockpupeteer, but if you quote that now his real name is connected to these accounts he denies both.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ENCOM Boardroom - <AUTHOR> http://www.robscanlon.com/encom-boardroom/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting a link to a project of mine :) Too bad it didn't gain any traction here.</comment>


Modelling suicide and unemployment: longitudinal analysis covering 63 countries - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2814%2900118-7/abstract

<comment><USER2> While I haven't looked into it I expect that suicides increased during the subprime meltdown, also that many turned to a life of crime with some committing murder.

Yet none of the bankers have gone to prison.

I was once a suicide hotline counselor. People have many reasons to commit suicide. In every case that I know about it is something that can be overcome if one can find a way to survive. A man once jumped off the golden gate bridge. As he fell, he realized that in reality he had no problems. Well, one problem.

He had just jumped.

However he was one of the very few to survive.

<comment><USER3> I don't know about suicide, but many people theorized at the time that crime would rise during the Great Recession in the US. However, counter-intuitively, crime continued its decades-long decline. Why this happened is the subject of debate.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Did it at least slow down in decline, or was there no noticeable difference during the Great Recession?

<comment><USER3> I don't know. But you can look at the graph here: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/upshot/perceptions- havent-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/upshot/perceptions-havent- caught-up-to-decline-in-crime.html?abt=0002&abg=0)

One possible interpretation is that the crime rate looked like it was starting to increase again immediately before the financial meltdown but then started to decline with the recession.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


LABjs : Loading And Blocking JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://labjs.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm intrigued... I'll post a more in depth comment after a brief reading and source code inspection.

I took particular interest in your article on "Why DOM-ready still sucks" due my heavy usage of jQuery on all of my sites. To skip the gory details for everybody, there is a JS script hack linked from the blog post to solve the issue and allow jQuery and LABjs to play nice:

[http://groups.google.com/group/jquery- dev/msg/f039573c689cef...](http://groups.google.com/group/jquery- dev/msg/f039573c689cef3c)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want more information, here's some blog posts I did to explain LABjs: [http://blog.getify.com/2009/11/labjs-new-hotness-for- script-...](http://blog.getify.com/2009/11/labjs-new-hotness-for-script- loading/)

There's also posts on the site about LABjs in relation to: * speeding up DOM- ready * coupling inline script execution * concat'ing versus parallel downloads

</comment><comment><USER3> @jqueryin -- yes, that hack in that jquery-dev thread is now included in LABjs. So all we need is the updated jQuery 1.4 to come out, and we'll be all good. :)

And really, the point should be made that if you don't use jquery's $(document).ready(...) then there's no problem at all, you can load jquery with LABjs with no issues.</comment>


$249 Gets You a 400MP Scanning Camera for Macro Photography and Panorama Images - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1490222859/ladybug-a-3d-scanning-microscope-for-small-and-huge-things <comment><USER2> Very great and simple idea. In my opinion it is an innovation that deserve interest in the range of the one for the Reprap, just at a smaller scale.

I think that the Blu-ray hack was a nice way to 'prototype' but that it would be more efficient to focus on 3d printer parts to have a mvp.

Anyway let's hope that the Kickstarter will be a success!

<comment><USER3> So innovative you can buy it off the shelf, from China, $90 free shipping, for the last ~3 years, including engraving laser. Idea is even older [http://davidegironi.blogspot.com/2014/07/38mm-x-38mm- laser-e...](http://davidegironi.blogspot.com/2014/07/38mm-x-38mm-laser- engraver-build-using.html)

<comment><USER4> I have actually considered doing it by modifying one of the planar XY types, but if you're going to get the limited range of the blu-ray, might as well use one of those ones I already have. I ran into hundreds a while ago, funny story about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested in the software and an attachment to my 3D printer, but don't have the space for such a rarely used item.

<comment><USER4> The LadyBug Classic is 6x6x6 inches, assuming I don't get a lot of orders... in which case you'll be basically getting another 3D printer...

I did make a $1 pledge that gets you the software by itself, but the truth is it's all available for free anyway! Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I usually hate or ignore crowdfunding/kickstarter projects.

But this. looks awesome, best of lucks!

<comment><USER4> Thank you! I appreciate it. Spread the word!</comment></comment>


The Value of Education in a Recession - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/the-value-of-education-in-a-recession/ <comment><USER2> I'm going to create a new credential called a "gyuhjk".

Then, I'm going to take over the government and require gyuhjks to enter certain professions. I'm also going to massively fund and regulate the granting of gyuhjks. In addition to this, I will make sure virtually everyone who grows up in my territory will be conditioned to value gyuhjks, no matter how much or how little they really matter. But it will still generally be very expensive to get a gyuhjk, of course, in terms of both time and money.

After I do all of this, when holding a gyuhjk is shown to correlate with higher earnings, I'm going to use that as evidence when I tell people they really, really, really need a gyuhjk. And I might even be right sometimes, though not because gyuhjks were ever really as inherently important as I always claim.

</comment><comment><USER3> As usual, this confuses the direction of causation, because the people with higher education came from richer families in the first place.

Here are some links about the issue. The overall picture in the past decade has been that high-ability, low-income students are at a clear disadvantage in the college admission process compared to low-ability, high-income students. (The links below are in approximate chronological order of publication, from oldest to newest.) Is anything changing recently about this?

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_mz007.htm)

<http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf>

<http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf>

<http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf>

[http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg- affacti...](http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg- affaction.pdf)

<http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html>

[http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid- leveragi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging/4)

<http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012>

<http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240>

[http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap....](http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap.pdf)

<http://www.reason.com/news/show/123910.html>

[http://www.ihep.org/publications/publications- detail.cfm?id=...](http://www.ihep.org/publications/publications- detail.cfm?id=117)

[http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/11...](http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/11/10/colleges_reach_out_to_poorer_students?mode=PF)

[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkBGMsvJKR...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkBGMsvJKRKaL67qxkOCaDByDJFAD94R70G02)</comment>


Turrican Returns to Modern Consoles - <AUTHOR> https://www.strictlylimitedgames.com/turrican/ <comment><USER2> This looks really cool. Will they have a mode to emulate an amber screen? I ask because I got to know turrican and other games like Port of Call, Rick Dangerous and Wings on my friend's Amiga 500 for which he only had an amber screen...</comment>


"None of these have the potential to be a self-sustaining business" - <AUTHOR> http://web.archive.org/web/20050813233842/tech.rufy.com/entry/80 <comment><USER2> You know, even if a business of mine completely failed, I would never, ever let godaddy park its spam there:

<http://webcollaborator.com/>

Oh, well. He should have used an anonymous account like the rest of us jerks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny that Reddit catches most of the flack. If "rufy" is around, I'd love to hear his take on the now undeniable success of Reddit (apparently not the biggest success story from that program, but the one we all know about).

<comment><USER4> Are you referring to Loopt?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The lesson here is complexity != commercial viability.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's times like these when I want to build a website that tracks predictions and promises. Everything from some engineer ranting to a politicians campaign promises. Rank the top promises made in one place, then rank the top promises proved right / wrong due to events or some time limit imposed. Not a business idea so much as a fun website to run.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if a site like this would encourage people to structure their predictions with qualifiers and clauses in such a way as to give them the maximum chance of being proven "correct". Also, I wonder if this site would encourage people to make their 'prediction' be more about explaining their beliefs about the present rather than guessing at data/outcomes that will occur in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, his basecamp clone was rejected... sour grapes?

</comment><comment><USER9> The article gets a lot funnier after you finish reading it and realize it's from 2005. :-)

(And yes, I know it says so at the top)

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't really disagree with him though, Reddit really is a Digg clone minus the UI.

<comment><USER11> They're actually quite different. Different layout (reddit's is denser); different initial focus (Digg was initially about technology, reddit general news); very different frontpage ranking algorithm (why Digg has problems with censorship and reddit doesn't); and different comment threads (until Digg copied reddit yesterday).

The reason they're so different is that they have different origins. Digg started as Slashdot with voting instead of editors, and reddit started as Del.icio.us with voting instead of saving.

<comment><USER12> What I think is funny is that digg recently redesigned their comments (the most distinguished feature of reddit) to try to immitate reddit's, but missed the most critical aspect -- the ordering.

Digg still orders comments chronologically and that _sucks_. I'd equate this with google not paying attention to ordering of results! Creating a threaded comment system _without_ the ordering is so mind numbingly easy and digg decided to take the easy path without paying attention to the details that count.

I was tempted to post this where the creators of digg can see it, but I don't really want them to realize their error:)</comment></comment></comment>


Low-income students can soon get federal aid to attend coding schools - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/low-income-students-will-soon-be-able-to-get-federal-aid-to-attend-coding-bootcamps/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me of those University of Phoenix MBAs a few years ago.

I don't know what it'll take to fix higher education in the US, but opening up public funding options to for profit companies that already have issues on placement and average salary statistics[0] doesn't look like it's the right approach.

0 - [http://www.businessinsider.com/coding-bootcamps-have-no- stan...](http://www.businessinsider.com/coding-bootcamps-have-no-standard- measurements-for-job-placement-rates-2015-10)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is not a good idea.

I've been part of the hiring committees at a handful of companies and there is a big difference between coding schools and real degrees.

That being said, I've yet to interview a candidate who attending a coding school who truly understands software development at any acceptable level to be hired. Maybe for basic web design and very limited front end work these people will find jobs but I fear they will be severely disappointed when trying to make a career.

<comment><USER4> I've recently taught myself programming and am now working as an apprentice at a local web firm. Can you point to some specific concepts you think I might have missed?

<comment><USER3> So, there is a difference between a boot camper and someone who is self taught. I started out as self-taught, and have since then taken courses/advanced studies to further my own knowledge.

The path you're on is very similar to the one I took. Been an apprentice or Jr developer is a smart, smart path to take.

Concepts that I've seen missed in recent code interviews: \- I know "Node", but what is the V8 engine? I've seen this a lot as Node has gotten more and more popular. It's critical, at least in my opinion, to understand at the bare minimum how Node works under the hood. Writing a few web apps with a basic set of Node APIs is great, but do you actually understand what is going on? \- AngularJS. Have you looked at the source code? Do you understand how directives work? Can you explain how the digest loop works? Can you explain the use cases for two-way binding? Why wouldn't you need two-way binding? \- VanillaJS - Can you write out some basic ways to manipulate the DOM without the use of jQuery or another framework? Do you understand how event listeners and event propagation works?

Those are just some of things that come to my mind right away.

There's also a point to be made that it is easier to trust that someone who spent 4 years in coursework is committed to the career versus someone who took 3-5 months doing a boot camp.

<comment><USER5> You might like What Do I Need to Know to Ace a JavaScript Interview?[1] I have been learning JavaScript on my own for about 1 year now. I put together that list of links as I reviewed for a coding job. I had bookmarked a lot of things I thought were important or I kept returning to. They didn't offer me a job coding JavaScript. At the end of 2 hour interview they said they would hire me if I took a month or two to learn Go. (If you are in South Florida, Delivery Dudes is hiring Go coders BTW) I love JavaScript and several months later I'm still not getting paid. I regret not taking that job now, but I want to finish what I started.

I can't imagine being useful to anyone with a 3-5 months boot camp.

[1] [https://github.com/adam-s/js-interview- review](https://github.com/adam-s/js-interview-review)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why does the government think software development jobs can be done by the equivalent of people who have gone to a trade school for one semester? I don't see the government pushing finance career or lawyer boot camps. I wonder how the DOE even made the decision of which boot camps to partner with.

<comment><USER7> Cool, can you point me to some lawyer bootcamps, this whole time I thought that was a heavily regulated industry that required degrees and a bar exam to be qualified. Really stoked to let my wife know she didn't need to take those CPA exams to practice too.

<comment><USER6> My understanding is you can actually take the bar exam in several states without having attended law school. Regulations can always be changed, I don't see groups or the government pushing to liberalize training requirements and allow boot camps to train someone to take these tests.

<comment><USER8> It varies state by state but yes, in some states you can take the BAR exam without attending law school. In California, for example, you have to apprentice for a practicing lawyer for four years and have five years experience practicing (18 hrs per week) before you can take the test

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Where are the grants to train financial traders, corporate lawyers, C-suite "captains of industry", politicians, etc? Or simply doctors, engineers, etc?

Those groups don't want to be inundated with new recruits, depressing their salaries, not to mention standards, you say?

I see.

<comment><USER10> Lawyers, doctors and engineers all have strong unions (even if they don't call themselves one).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As "coding" becomes increasingly mainstream, tools and automation grow in sophistication, Moore's Law dwindles, and problems become exhausted and are not replaced (e.g., move the entire economy onto the web) - I worry that this profession is overhyped. These kids might be late to the race.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, even late to the party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is a step in the right direction to address the issue of computer science education and/or coding classes only being accessible to kids from privileged backgrounds. Ultimately, if this is successful (and I know I'm wishing too much at this point), it can lead to greater diversity in the tech workforce or even in academia.

<comment><USER13> Why in the fuck is diversity a "thing"?

Algorithimic and behavioral diversity maybe. But this bullshit kumbaya bullshit where team composition has to reflect a skin color ratio that's suitable for an ad exec's eye is fucking worthless.

I've been "lower income". I've been fucking homeless. You're training technical monkey to do technical jobs. No problem with that but don't fucking be "greater diversity blah blah blah".

<comment><USER12> I think there are merits to diversity but of course there are also merits to a fully meritocratic system. But I think the ideal situation would be having a fully meritocratic system that has this "diversity" attribute. I feel as though that is a step up from a fully meritocratic system that has virtually no diversity.

Also, perhaps having diversity would allow for the development of new types of products and services in the tech industry that the "privileged" have no interest in. At least that's what people who call for diversity claim.

<comment><USER10> I also agree that there are merits to diversity, it's just that the negatives of forced diversity outweigh the positives.

<comment><USER12> Yea I can see that. It does make me question every government policy or "handout" that aims to promote diversity, but I'm wondering whether this government policy of providing financial aid to low income students is one that is "forcing" diversity. Could someone clarify for me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here come the grifters! The U.S really needs a counterpart to the U.K's Ofsted agency to do summary executions of substandard education providers.

<comment><USER15> It's hard to ignore that after all that's come out against for-profit private schools in the US really exploiting these sort of aid programs. Then they have a third-party rating agency coming in and that's supposed to make us all feel better. Will saturating this market make it any better? Are we already at capacity for meaningful classes into potentially meaningful jobs? It's too hard to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oh great more developer puppy mills, except this time secured by the federal government!

What a great handout.

<comment><USER17> Worried about your job, angersock?

<comment><USER18> I don't think any professional developer is worried about losing their job to a bootcamper who hasn't had at least two years of OJT.

<comment><USER10> I am actually. I've seen many jobs go to cheaper on-shored labour with no regard for quality or technical ability. I've seen many millions of dollars pissed away and removed from the investment pool.

That money could have been spent on competent people and the investors may have even come out with something to show for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Prepare for the rapid inflation of coding school tuitions.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone actually hiring people solely on them having completed a coding bootcamp?

<comment><USER18> Yes, the coding bootcamps hire them as instructors so they can keep their marketing claims about job placement true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just what low income students are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER21> So more discrimination. Yes!</comment>