Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flailing Kickstarter games - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/24/5933151/notorious-airbnb-squatter-may-be-the-dev-behind-two-flailing <comment><USER2> In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet; it's not clear what recourse people caught in never before seen corner cases have.

We (e.g. HN folks) are quick to applaud people with new ideas that are shaking things up (e.g. Airbnb, Uber, etc.) I suspect this is the sort of scenario detractors (e.g. Seattle City Council re: Uber) are worried about.

Terrible situation, clearly. Still, important to see some of these scenarios actually play out. And it raises all the right questions: what should Airbnb do going forward? what should legal protections be going forward? should someone have seen this coming? and should they be held liable for it?

(edit: typo)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure these are "never before seen corner cases". This kind of stuff is pretty much Landlording 101, and it's standard practice for someone engaged in renting a property to know about eviction laws. This person wasn't even engaging in what you might call the new, casual-sharing-of-personal- possessions style of rental, where someone rents their own personal apartment out occasionally while they're on vacation. She was just doing the old-school landlord thing: she bought an investment property she did not live in, and was renting it full-time for profit. That is a line of business in which you can buy and read books, customized to your state, telling you exactly the basics you should know about!

<comment><USER4> But Airbnb, as a service, should at least filter/advise for knowingly stupid things like renting out for such an extended period.

<comment><USER5> If they're going to that effort, then why can't they filter for knowingly illegal things, like short-term rentals in cities in which this practice is illegal?

I don't see them doing either one anytime soon, since it presents a major PR/deniability problem.

<comment><USER4> They're pretty much knowingly illegal as a business model, but that doesn't mean they can't protect their own users from simple abuses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What we must have is a network that enables a peer-to-peer trust rating for individuals. Sort of like Yelp, but for people.

No doubt such a system would be a huge privacy problem for people as people would say that negative reviews reveal their private facts, or that those reviews are defamation.

However, if the network is decentralized, then it might be possible to keep it running even in the face of opposition from state actors.

If we have a peer-to-peer rating/reputation network in place, it would allow people to bypass the elitist inside networks (old boys clubs) to raise capital from investors based on mass positive reputation.

Rascals and scammers like these failed Kickstarter bros would be shut down after a single scam ... they would not be able to rent or scam another person after a single scam.

Implementing a centralized reputation system would be a good first step.

I understand why Yelp and other established companies don't want to be in this business. Its a liability/privacy nightmare.

Imagine the first time some innocent girl in high school is unjustly called a slut, and is defamed by her own school as part of some bullying clique.

I believe the network can ameliorate if not outright prevent such clique abuse by enabling users to rate reviewers based on the reviews they have given. If you abuse people with your reviews and ratings, it can damage your own ratings.

<comment><USER7> Recent revelations show government agencies could manipulate online polls.

It would be trivially easy for them to poison this database.

> Rascals and scammers like these failed Kickstarter bros would be shut down > after a single scam ... they would not be able to rent or scam another > person after a single scam.

Well, you don't know they're a scammer until they've been to court and proved guilty or does no-one care about innocent until proven guilty anymore? And what's to stop them getting a new identity?

> Imagine the first time some innocent girl in high school is unjustly called > a slut, and is defamed by her own school as part of some bullying clique.

That is a fucking awful example. You say "some innocent girl is unjustly called a slut" \- this implies that if the girl was not innocent that it may be acceptable to call her a slut (as an insult). Then you say "[...] as part of some bullying clique" which implies that the problem is with the false accusation of sluttiness, and not with the fact that some bullying clique exists.

> I believe the network can ameliorate if not outright prevent such clique > abuse by enabling users to rate reviewers based on the reviews they have > given. If you abuse people with your reviews and ratings, it can damage your > own ratings.

The clique just vote-rings and they cancel out bad votes. Or they buy votes off MTurk.

<comment><USER6> I don't have any problem with women or men having sex. I don't think the term slut is ever appropriate.

Bullying is always bad.

Hope I didn't piss you off too much. I just wrote that example quickly, without much thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My god, Airbnb is such a huge liability time-bomb.

All it's going to take is some tenant slipping on a wet bathroom floor or some other nonsense.

I hope they've squirreled away a huge legal defense fund from their last fundraising round.

 _edit_

searched and found these, tip of the iceburg

[http://www.sfbg.com/2014/04/29/lawsuits-target-airbnb- rental...](http://www.sfbg.com/2014/04/29/lawsuits-target-airbnb-rentals)

[http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/airbnb- legal...](http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/airbnb-legal- trouble-sharing-economy)

[http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/18/airbnb_might_have_j...](http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/18/airbnb_might_have_just_won_a_huge_landmark_case.php)

[http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/10/stabilized_tribeca_...](http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/06/10/stabilized_tribeca_tenant_may_lose_home_after_airbnb_scandal.php)

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3027798/the-secret-to-airbnbs- fre...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3027798/the-secret-to-airbnbs-freakishly- rapid-orgy-response-scenario-planning)

</comment><comment><USER9> There's legal and then there's moral. These scumbags lack basic human tact. I wouldn't ever think of doing something like this to somebody even if I were in the legal side of the law. I hope they get what's coming to them in spades.

Airbnb should do everything in their power to help out this poor owner or it will set a dangerous precedent for future hosts.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure that it is legal to stay in an apartment after you lease or rental ends. It is just also illegal for the owner to force you out without going through a really complicated and lengthy process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm pretty interested in the output of this lawsuit. But i think that Air Bnb, as it's kinda their business, would have spot such a big loophole in the law if staying 30d in a rental indeed gave people rights over the house-owner, no? I guess the guy is just trying to stay for free until the case is closed and cops are putting him out.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a bit of a tangent, but what would there be to stop the woman who owns the condo to start signing 28 day leases with hundreds of other people? Imagine if dozens of good citizens showed up to the apartment at once, with a key, any time they wanted. They could just hang out and of course they also had a lease and a legal right to be there, so the original two couldn't do much, could they? That would make it much less attractive to those squatters.

Could it really be that easy?

<comment><USER3> That would be illegal in any jurisdiction I know of. I'm renting my current apartment; obviously my landlord cannot rent it out to someone else while I still live here. Now you might say: but what if you're living there illegally? Well, I'm not, say I! Now we have a civil disagreement over property and a contract, which is a matter for the courts to decide. If the landlord alleges I no longer have a right to use of this property, despite possessing it in fact (e.g. because I am weeks or months late with my rent, or the rental has otherwise been legally terminated), they can get an order that I be evicted, which the police would enforce. There will be some kind of process, where I would have a chance to reply, for example by giving evidence that actually I paid my rent on July 1, and the landlord is mistaken in his allegations. If I lose and am evicted, then _after_ that, the landlord can re-rent the apartment. But before that, they cannot.

<comment><USER12> "That would be illegal in any jurisdiction I know of. I'm renting my current apartment; obviously my landlord cannot rent it out to someone else while I still live here."

Right, you probably have a lease. If you had a squatter's lease--or a de facto lease--couldn't she just allow more squatters?

I don't think what you say has direct bearing on this situation because you both entered into a specific agreement. There is most likely the precedent of you paying the landlord money, which shows you both agreed to a set of conditions.

Since these guys are squatters, they probably default to a default "lease" as defined by law. So the fact whether they are there illegally as held by the landlord doesn't even enter into it.

<comment><USER3> It's not really squatting in this case, which is where someone takes up residence in a property they have _never_ had a contractual right to, like building a log cabin on your farmland, and then living in it for years. That's a different set of laws.

This is rather a person who _had_ a legitimate lease, but has violated or exceeded it. Here they clearly had a legal right to lease the apartment for the first 44 days: this lease was agreed to via AirBnB. And the renters paid the first 30 days of it. Now they refuse to pay for the remaining 14 days of the original agreement, and also refuse to vacate after 44 days. That falls squarely into eviction law: if someone previously had a legitimate lease but now the landlord alleges that they don't (because of nonpayment, exceeding agreed conditions, etc.), they can be evicted. How, exactly, depends on the country & state/province.

<comment><USER12> While it is less like squatting which I should have realized and I'm glad you that pointed out, I wasn't addressing that as much as I should have been. There was an arrangement for X amount of days, which they have overstayed, so I am wondering where California law falls there. Because now they are in a default lease, one exists on the lawbooks. It's enough of a differentiation to possibly give her a little bit more leverage. I wonder what the loopholes are that she could utilize to make life un-enjoyable for them.

<comment><USER13> Read the excerpts from California law that I posted in some other comments. IANAL, but the code is pretty specific to point out that the protections against harassment apply to "any lease or other tenancy or estate at will, however created, of property used by a tenant as his residence". As a landlord, I also have been told that judges have a tendency to dismiss eviction suits where there is substantiated evidence of harassment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The most interesting part of the article, for me, is that they moved the nexus of their corporation from two tax free states to California. I doubt they realize the tax and legal implications of being residents rather than just visiting CA on holiday.

</comment><comment><USER15> Am I the only one who thought about the McPoyle Brothers upon seeing the picture?

</comment><comment><USER16> Could the homeowner not simply have her power shut off to hasten the removal of these pests? If they're game developers, they'd be dependent on electricity.

<comment><USER17> There is a sms exchange here [0] where he does in fact say he does require electricity, and if they cut it off, he will press charges for blackmail and damages.

Unfortunately it seems it will only be resolved with a lengthy eviction process.

It is also interesting that there problems within the first few days.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-cant-get- squatter...](http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-cant-get-squatter-to- leave-2014-7)

<comment><USER18> I wonder if a whole-house version of a lamp timer would be useful in this situation? Suppose there were a device that turned off power on a schedule, and which could only be reset from inside the apartment. Power would turn off automatically 12 hours after the lease terminates to "save power in an unoccupied unit."

That way, the owner isn't turning off power to constructively evict, but the power is off all the same.

<comment><USER19> "Pacific Heights", 1990 starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine & Michael Keaton. SF based movie showing Michael Keaton abusing renters rights and even having the home owner arrested after turning off his electricity. Fantastic film, these guys (definitely scumbags) unfortunately might be in the legal right. Very unfortunate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hadn't heard of Confederate Express but their demo looks like a game I would totally play. Shame it's a scam.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think along with the eviction route I would start trying to get them arrested for the kick starter scam.

</comment><comment><USER22> kickstarter is scammer heaven

<comment><USER23> Not only that, they don't give a fuck because they get a cut no matter what and have carefully disclaimed all liability. For example, remember how they made a big deal about changing their rules on hardware projects to protect backers after several scams made the news in a big way?[1] They've now quietly removed all those restrictions to make it easier to list scams, er, projects[2]. After all more projects equals more dosh for them!

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on- kickstart...](https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter) [2] [http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2014/06/04/kickstarter- ren...](http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2014/06/04/kickstarter-renders/1)

<comment><USER24> IMHO Most backers are "religious" , in the sense it's spare money for them and they get some satisfaction in backing an idea,i really believe only a tiny minority of the backers really want a concrete product in the end ,otherwise I cant believe how some ridiculous projects could be backed 10xtimes the initial money asked. For businesses,backing something can be good PR too,a lot of business do it ,no matter what the outcome is.

People like me that are too paranoid or skeptical to give free money would never back anything to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I guess Airbnb got hacked, eh.

<comment><USER26> It's called disrupting the disruptor.

<comment><USER27> Moving fast and breaking the social contract.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whatever happened to physically grabbing someone and violently throwing them out of your house?

<comment><USER29> See the previous coverage for the long version, but the tl;dr is that renters that rent for more than 30 days are protected as tenants by California law, including (normally proper) long drawn-out eviction proceedings.

<comment><USER28> Does that not mean you could live in the house too with a nice guard dog?

<comment><USER30> They probably could sue you for tenant harassment.

<comment><USER19> Please see: Pacific Heights (1990)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If I was the owner, I'd be looking at all the possible ways I could to make their stay less comfortable - music at all hours of the night, faulty hot water system, power outages. Not very ethical, but what these guys are doing isn't ethical either.

<comment><USER13> That is clearly illegal under California law. In addition to exposing the landlord to civil damages, it's also a pretty clear way to get your eviction suit thrown out.

As I posted in another comment, see [http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~asucrla/Harassment%20by%20Your%...](http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~asucrla/Harassment%20by%20Your%20Landlord) for the details of the law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> [http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/23/travel/airbnb- squatters/](http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/23/travel/airbnb-squatters/)

a cnn story too,an interesting one.

So the guys ran 2 scams on kickstarter and is now scamming an airbnb host... well not really ,since he is just using the law against his host.

> Eviction procedures in California can be lengthy and complicated, often > taking three to six months to evict a tenant.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-cant-get- squatter...](http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-host-cant-get-squatter-to- leave-2014-7#ixzz38R6v3hoU)

> On day one, after the guest checked in, he called her and complained about > two odd things, Tschogl says. He didn't like the tap water (complained it > was cloudy) and he didn't like the gated entry to the condo complex. He > asked for a full refund, according to Tschogl. She had a bad gut feeling > about him, she says, so she agreed to a refund.

This guy is really ...

EDITED:controversial expression.

<comment><USER7> > I would be the owner i would not ,care.I would break the door and a few > windows.and camp in front of the condo/house,while waiting for the guy to > leave.

It's probably really important that owners don't do this - renters (even terrible renters) have some legal protections and intimidation is a quick way to increase the legal costs and possibly end up in jail.

EDIT: Wait, did you put "nut case" in after I posted? I missed it before. Please would you consider using different insults? The person you're insulting doesn't care less about being called a nut-case, but by using such language you are subtly adding to the stigma faced by people with mental health problems. It's already harder for those people to get jobs or to rent homes, and one of the reasons is that people fear "unpredictable behaviour", and that fear is to some extent caused when we use terms to describe poor mental health to people who are displaying poor behaviour. This is a gentle request and you're free to ignore it.

<comment><USER32> The owner is doing exactly the right thing here: turn the media loose & Airbnb will hopefully cover her losses.

The scammer - Maksym Pashanin - is essentially trading what was left of his reputation for just a few thousand bucks. Heroin's a hell of a drug.

Edit: added scammer's name in case he uses some bullshit right to be forgotten on other articles.

<comment><USER7> I thought the US inherited all that "innocent until proven guilty" stuff from England.

<comment><USER32> We did, it applies to courts not public opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Laptops for programming (that aren't Apple laptops)? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a laptop with:
1. 1080p screen 2. 5+ hours of battery life 3. A keyboard that's nice to type on
I don't care if it's made of wood and painted with rainbows and superheroes, but for the life of me I just cannot find a straightforward laptop for programming. I don't care about gaming, I don't care about hard disk size beyond about 120GB. It just has to be "fast enough" with a nice long battery, good screen, and a keyboard that doesn't make me hate typing.
Why must it be so hard to find a site that lets me filter on resolution instead of screen size? Why do all the reviews I find online talk about the "finish" of the laptop, or the way it looks? Why can't I find any reviews from professionals?
Btw, there's a project for you: detailed collection of data about different products, similar to [0]PcPartPicker, but for things like laptops, or cars, or whatever. <comment><USER2> Some of the newer Asus Zenbooks have the three criteria you're looking for, but they're very flaky on consistency and reliability (different trackpad hardware on the same laptop at random, screens dying randomly).

I actually have no huge OS preference, but I use a MacBook because it's literally the only thing on the market right now that fulfills those three criteria (I also have a fourth: <5 lbs) and reliably performs for longer than a year.

Lenovo's keeping up to some extent (I loved the X220 and X230, but the X240 is no longer competitive. Like others here have mentioned, the T440s is pretty nice, but the trackpad is clunky), but HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and everyone else seem to have completely forgotten about the business laptop market. What happened, laptop manufacturers?

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on your opinion of the x240 (x220/x230 fan here, never used am x240)

<comment><USER2> In short, I think the X240 improves incrementally on its predecessors, but the rest of the market has moved fast enough that it's behind the curve now.

Slightly longer:

For $1000 today, I can get a Macbook Air with:

\- An SSD

\- _Twice_ the battery life (yeah, the X240 has nice removable batteries, but that kind of defeats the point of an ultraportable)

\- A higher res screen that's only half an inch bigger

\- A far nicer trackpad

\- A nicer graphics chipset

I'd be giving up:

\- Alloy roll cage and spill protection

\- Powerbridge (hot-swappable batteries)

\- A touch screen/digitizer (an Intuos2 ($40 from ebay) fills that gap nicely for me)

I don't think the X240 is a bad laptop, but, right now, the costs far outweigh the benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now, laptops are used usually when moving or in different places.

One important part here is that it must be able to adapt quickly and easily to the different environment, meaning, network connections, external screens (retroprojectors), etc.

Honestly, the only kind of laptop/system that can do that, are MacOSX Apple laptops. I'm afraid I must say that even with Linux you will often have difficulties to connect to the random WIFI setups you'll find, or to manage the external monitors, etc (and I won't even mention MS-Windows, what a joke).

Oh, and there's also the battery life, 8+ or 10+ hours...

I mean, my main workstation is a Linux box, but as laptop, I use a MacBookAir, because when you're on battery you don't want to lose half an hour of battery time connecting to the network (or losing half the times the hibernation state).

As for keyboard, well, it's laptop keyboard anyways. When working at home, just hook a DasKeyboard or a Filco Otaku on the USB port.

Given your need in pixels, you'd want a MacBook Pro Retina. [http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/](http://www.apple.com/macbook- pro/specs-retina/)

I've worked recently for a year with a Dell laptop with various linux distributions on it (mainly at first ubuntu, but later I switched to debian) and it was quite decent (very nice screen and processor), however it still had those little problem with hibernation, external screens from time to time, switching wifi setups was horrible, and battery time (not mentionning the heat). (On the other hand, I must say that ubuntu works well on a little netbook computer I have around, but of course, I don't ask as much of it as of a development computer (come to think of it, it still had quite a difficult time with a GSM dongle)).

No, really, if you want to be productive with your laptop, use a Mac one.

<comment><USER5> I used to code with a macbook pro for about a year and recently switched to the asus zenbook ux301. I definitely prefer it over the macbook.

I was very disappointed with the multi-monitor support on Mac. Some apps takeover both monitors while others don't, and maximizing/docking windows left/right was just tedious. Windows nails multi-monitor support, even remembering the display configuration based on which external monitor is plugged in.

Not having Linux is annoying because cygwin is pretty terrible, but I just SSH into a remote linux server or local vm.

<comment><USER6> Two questions:

1\. Have you tried full screen in 10.9? Seems to have improved things a bit, though it's definitely a work in progress.

2\. Which SSH client do you use? I'm considering getting a Surface 3 Pro, but the lack of a proper terminal like Terminal.app or Gnome Terminal makes me skittish. PuTTY is...okay. (The alternative would be to get a 13" rMBP to replace the one I'm returning to my soon-former employer this week.)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want a really good terminal on Windows, I recommend installing Cygwin. It's terminal is extremely full featured, as well as giving you a *nix way of interacting with your Windows install. I couldn't live without it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd say a Thinkpad T or W series are quite safe bets. With the 9 cell battery you'll get quite a bit more than 5 hours of battery and the keyboards are a dream.

Honestly if it isn't a Macbook then it is a Thinkpad. I myself have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 but that is only used for coding part time, I have a big heavy "workstation replacement" laptop with a keyboard/mouse/monitor as my main coding machine(and gaming)

<comment><USER8> Agree on ThinkPad, but attention the models from this year on (model names finishing with 40) don't have physical trackpoint/-pad buttons anymore, the keyboard layout is less accessible, the models with touchscreen reflect so much you get headaches after 30 minutes. I sent back a T440 and bought a used T430. I am too worried about my next model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Go to Amazon.com and search for laptop 1080 or laptop 1080p or your preferred resolution

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/177-6303522-8868339...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/177-6303522-8868339?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=laptop%201080)

The Lenovo T440 is a good choice because you can have up to 12GB of RAM and its two batteries last "up to 17 hours" (the second battery is swappable). Screen resolution is 1600 x 900.

The standard processor is a 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, which isn't very fast (but is ultra-low voltage). You can upgrade the spec to an i7-4600U.

There's a review at [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo- ThinkPad-T440-20B...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo- ThinkPad-T440-20B6005YGE-Notebook.114855.0.html)

I don't like the new Lenovo ThinkPad keyboards as much as the old IBM ones, but views differ.

HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 is also worth a look.

<comment><USER10> Don't buy a 1080p if you can afford not to. These will be obsolete in a year or two as the whole industry moves over to UHD.

<comment><USER11> Everything will be obsolete in a year or two. You just have to decide what piece of obsolete equipment will do the job you need done. And don't complain.

<comment><USER10> But this is the year where we truly start moving to UHD en masse, you can get a UHD laptop already for around $800. Software is eventually going to be optimized for 2X pixel densities, and your 1080p screen will be worthless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Except a 1080p screen at 15 inches is so far ahead of what I currently have that I really don't care. A 1080p screen isn't worthless to me.

<comment><USER10> I've got 1600 x 900 and the pixels stick out like sore thumbs.

<comment><USER9> Are you short-sighted or is that a very big screen?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's this: [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd). 13" 1080p screen, 128 GB SSD, 4th gen i5, very thin, comes with Ubuntu. $1200

I did all my laptop research in May of this year. Ended up with a Dell M3800. It's the base model with 1080p screen. I added an mSATA SSD. The XPS 15 is the same thing but the GPU is flashed with the Radeon drivers vs. the Quadro. I needed Windows/Quadro for best compatibility with CAD software.

"Retina" screens don't make much difference in my productivity imo.

</comment><comment><USER13> I use an ASUS UX301LA-DH71T. It's a 2560x1440 13.3" ultrabook with a Haswell i7 and can run up to 8 hours on battery. It's thin, light, small enough to be portable, and super-capable for development (8GB RAM, dual-SSD RAID, i7 CPU and the integrated GPU is faster than the discrete Radeon in my last laptop). I typically have it docked to a second screen, but use its keyboard for programming. I have no complaints. It even comes with a one-year _accidental damage_ warranty from the manufacturer, which I've never heard of a manufacturer offering before.

[http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX301LA-DH71T-Quad-HD- Display-...](http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX301LA-DH71T-Quad-HD-Display- Touchscreen/dp/B00EPGHEQS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404783458&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+ux301)

If I cared less about having a decent GPU, I'd have also considered the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus (3200x1800 13" screen). I haven't looked at what's come out since the beginning of the year, but these two were the only non- Apple machines that met all my needs.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprized nobody has provided a link to Dell's XPS 13 "Developer edition" laptop.

[http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- lapt...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop)

I bought one after using an Asus UX31E for two years and the Dell laptop is better in almost every aspect. To wit:

* 1080p IPS screen

* 5+ hours of battery

* An amazing keyboard (imho better than Macbook keyboards, which are by many considered among the best laptop keyboards)

* Weight is only 1.36 kg

* Comes with Linux (Ubuntu) pre-installed

The only thing I preferred with my Zenbook was its trackpad, which was smooth and metallic, since my sweaty fingers have a tendency to stick on the XPS trackpad. On the other hand, I _hated_ the Zenbook keyboard, and would choose a good keyboard over a good trackpad any day.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there a reason you don't want an apple laptop? If it's because you dot want to use osx then simply put windows on it. MacBook actually make really good windows machines. And for the price since your not looking for a massive hdd the new MacBook airs are incredible.

<comment><USER7> Respectfully disagree. I read people claim this a lot online and it only makes me wonder: Have you actually tried it?

I tried to install Windows 8 onto a 2013 MBP and to describe the experience as painful would be a massive understatement. I had to manually format the partitions, manually mount drivers into the installer, and bypass Bootcamp's boot process as it would BSOD the Windows installer.

Even once I got Windows 8 to install (and that took over a week, since once you fix one issue there ere are four more waiting for you) the OS ran like a dog and had less than 50% of OS X's battery life (much less than a Thinkpad T440).

OS X is great, it really is. Windows is great. Running Windows on a Macbook is horrifying.

Oh did I mention that both Apple AND Microsoft wash their hands with it when it comes to support? Apple's response: "Contact Microsoft," Microsoft's response: "Contact the laptop's OEM." So anyone who thinks Apple supports Bootcamp, LOL, hell no. To quote one Apple support tech: "Why would you want to run Windows on a Macbook?" and "You should use Parallel Desktops instead, Bootcamp isn't as good."

<comment><USER16> "I tried to install Windows 8" Well theres your problem, and I mean that half jokingly, and half serious. I've ran windows xp and 7 on a mac via bootcamp and it was a great experience, literally the opposite of yours. I had similar requirements as the OP and for me a macbook pro was the best possible option.

<comment><USER7> According to Apple's Bootcamp page they supported Windows 8 at that time. It was a supported OS. There just wasn't much support available when you actually spoke to someone at Apple in general when it came to Bootcasmp, they just blamed the Windows installer and sent you to Microsoft (who then sent you back to Apple).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you've got a big box store around check out the lenovo yoga 2. Hidpi screen, ok keyboard, good battery and relativity cheap. The convertible screen comes in handy as well. I thought it would be a gimmick but I ended up using it pretty often.

<comment><USER18> I dropped by a local Microsoft store to see machines. They had a Yoga 2 and it looked pretty slick. One thing I liked was the matte screen.

A down side for me with newer, lightweight devices is that often there is no practical way to open them up to change anything.

I have a Thinkpad W500 (WUXGA, yay!) that has hinge issues, so I'm looking for a replacement. The W500 (and I assume other versions of the larger Thinkpads) makes it easy to slide in and out different hard drives, and upgrading memory is easy.

I'd like that in a new machine but it seems to be a feature of workhorse machines that fall short on battery life (as does the W500).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been really happy with my HP ProBook 4530s. As the name hints at: you'll notice a bit of MacBook Pro mimicry; but not in the price. Been using it for a few years and would definitely recommend it still.

<comment><USER19> In fact, the keyboard is so close to the MacBook Pro's that you can almost use a silicone keyboard cover that is meant for MacBook Pro. I think only one key doesn't match.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love my t440s. With 6-cell battery I can survive for almost 20 hours of continuous work on single charge if I don't load it too much.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just got one of these today and keyboard is great, screen 1080p, very nice. Running Linux Mint 17 + Mate: Lenovo Thinkpad W540, 20BG0011US.

</comment><comment><USER22> Any business laptop should do, take a look at Thinkpad, Dell Latitude and HP models. The Lenovo T440s has a good 14 inch 1080p IPS panel.

</comment><comment><USER21> Also, battery life seems very long (showing approx. 5 hours left after an hour of use, but I haven't tried it that long yet...)

</comment><comment><USER23> I have an X1 carbon (runs Fedora). I was a mac convert and it's hands down the best machine I've ever owned.

</comment><comment><USER24> ThinkPad T440s. Insane battery life, 1080p model exists Trackpad is a POS but that can be fixed easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean when you say the trackpad can be "fixed easily". Do you mean just use a mouse, or is there some other way to improve it?

<comment><USER25> Yeah I would like to know as well. This is why I won't buy another thinkpad after T430 if they don't restore the top buttons for the trackpoint.

Right now I have a T420 (which has the famous overheating issue) and a W530 and I'm quite happy. However this may change in the next couple of years.

As far as Mac goes, I use a Macbook at work and I absolutely hate it. Mostly as I have my nice Linux environments setup and cannot understand why Apple can't conform to the standard CTRL SUPER ALT keyboard. Though this is just my opinion.

<comment><USER18> _This is why I won 't buy another thinkpad after T430 if they don't restore the top buttons for the trackpoint._

I get the feeling that ship has sailed; Lenovo seems to want to make second- best Dell or Apple machines instead of first-rate Thinkpad machines.

I've a few Thinkpad standalone keyboards (all without the trackpad) and I just assume that with whatever my next laptop is I'll end up using one of those external keyboards.

I've even sketched out ideas on how I might modify one so that it can be plopped on top of an existing laptop keyboard without hitting anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If price isn't an issue I'd definitely look into the Razer Blade 14" It's every bit as good as a MacBook Pro in build quality and has really high end specs (since it's a gaming laptop) is also touch screen and a windows machine</comment>


Wireless iPad Syncing Is Awesome — Too Bad It Will Likely Be Rejected - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/26/wireless-sync-ipod/

<comment><USER2> I think what I love best about my Palm Pre is that I never have to plug it in to anything, ever. There's a great podcast app that I use twice a day on average, similar to the one Apple infamously rejected, that lets me download them over wifi via RSS, or stream them over EVDO if it pops up when I'm already out and about. Zumodrive's new app means I can stream my entire music library. The Touchstone means I don't even have to plug it in to charge.

I think Apple will figure this out and add it to the device themselves eventually. Cords suck.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure you're aware - but you don't need to plug the iPhone/Touch in to update Podcasts - those are available over the air.

<comment> nick-dap iPhone's iTunes will refuse to download a longer podcast over the air; only works on wifi. On my Palm Pixi, I can download/steam anything I want over EVDO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what the developers expect to get out of this. Do they think that it hasn't occurred to Apple's engineers that this might be convenient? I think, as with copy/paste and background apps, the issue has been how to implement something like this and not harm the user experience.

I suspect the big thing preventing wireless sync until now has been the lack of 802.11n on the iPhone. Syncing 4 gigs of movies out to your phone on 802.11g has got to be painful (and a realy battery drain).

<comment><USER5> I, too, would guess that they want some sort of complete solution. It's still somewhat surprising that we haven't seen any Wifi syncing for such a long time. Wireless sync has been a rumored "next" feature ever since Apple brought out their first iPod.

And there is some stuff they could sync, even if they don't want to move gigs through the air. Stuff like new playlists, play counts, calendars, notes, addresses. Heck, even the occasional new music track or podcast up to a certain file size limit. They wouldn't even need to clutter the interface, showing a little "Connect to your Mac for full sync" status message would be enough.

<comment><USER6> Sync as implemented by iTunes right now is a really simple concept. If you start talking about partial syncs, you significantly up the complexity. And for what? Avoiding plugging your iPod/iPhone/iPad in to sync while charging.

The real elephant in the room is the need for a PC master to sync from when using an iPad.

<comment><USER5> Apple might also want to go the cloudy road (which would pretty much solve sync, though probably not real soon when it comes to music and videos which just take up to much space). The only problem with that is that Apple sucks at doing that. Buy Dropbox already! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let me walk a mile in Apple's shoes: If they approve this app consisting of what appear to be a couple of cups connected by networking string, what happens if 10,000 people buy it and some future iPhone or iTunes revision breaks the app.

Does everybody blame themselves for buying the app? Or do they complain about the iPhone?

<comment><USER8> In two short sentences you've managed insult the developer for doing some good work and making something people want,and insult users by suggesting that can't understand what an app is.

Negging seems to be big in the iPhone developer community.

<comment><USER7> Look, I wrote a Rails plugin that rewrites your code, placing it in a new location, and hooks the class loader so it finds the new files instead of the old ones. I'm very proud of my work.

But.

It's a hack. That makes it useful for me and my projects, but it isn't a _product_. It has too many dependencies on things that weren't intended to be hooked the way I hook them. It broke when Ruby 1.9 was released. It broke when Rails 3 was released. Hacks are always fragile, it's their nature.

The description I read talked about an app on the desktop side that pretends to be an iPhone so it can sync with iTunes. That is absolutely, positively a hack, and one that got Palm into hot water with Apple's lawyers. It sounds like it's very fragile and could easily break accidentally with an iTunes update.

Now really, honestly, this is Hacker News. I mean no disrespect to anyone when I characterize their work as being a hack. But the point of my commentis that I can't see Apple wanting a hack on their platform.

Now as to users: HN readers are not a representative sample of iPhone users. Apple goes way out of its way to make simple things that just work. Their market for iPhone is the group of people that don't want to consult a huge list of what works and what breaks when they release an update.

Apple especially don't want to dig themselves into the hole Microsoft created by working so hard on backwards compatibility for Windows. Apps like this are a backwards compatibility nightmare. Right now Apple can do anything they want with the iPhone to iTunes synchronization API by updating both apps simultaneously. Approving this app would end that flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The one thing I wonder about is disconnecting during the sync. A couple of times I have disconnected iPod Nanos during sync and had to restore them. It wasn't much more than a nuisance, admittedly, but on a slower sync with more data transfer (say 20 or 30 GB of video), the likelihood of disconnects being a problem may become significant.

<comment><USER10> Devices running OS X handle this completely differently (with a client-client communication mode) and can gracefully handle disconnects. Older iPods used disk mode for syncing where filesystem corruption can be problematic if you unexpectedly disconnect.

<comment><USER11> And they probably had to make it work without problem for the iPhone, since a phone call can pop up at any time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Active discussion of this with the developer posting on reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bvzzt/hey_reddit_i_ma...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bvzzt/hey_reddit_i_made_an_app_that_lets_you_wirelessly/)

<comment><USER13> > You know, Apple shouldn't be thinking about approving this, they should be > thinking about buying it and making it a default.

Pretty much sums it up for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a tangential question - if this app was rejected, what is to stop the developer from setting up a website with the source to download, and maybe a paypal donation link (were he so inclined)? Do you have the pay the apple $99 developer fee to even install an app you developed on your iPhone? Or can you do it as long as you have the dev tools installed? I know this isn't an option for everyone, but is it possible?

<comment><USER15> If the developer posts an unsigned app, then it should be possible for someone who paid the $99 dev fee to sign the app and install it on their personal phone.

I don't know if it is possible to do without paying the fee though...

<comment><USER16> It's not. The $99 gets you a code signing certificate which let's you install apps on the device. Jailbreaking circumvents this, and allows your device run any app.</comment></comment></comment>


Global Accessibility Awareness Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. As a visually impaired web user, I appreciate this.</comment>


Twitter's First Designer, Vítor Lourenço, Leaves The Company After Five Years - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/26/twitters-first-designer-vitor-lourenco-leaves-the-company-after-five-years/

<comment><USER2> Looks like TC is running out of things to write about. About a day late too..</comment>


The Elon Musk Fiction: How Myths Paralyze Progress - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@exiledconsensus/the-elon-musk-fiction-how-myths-paralyze-progress-1c3256d12f1d <comment> village-idiot As someone involved in the car space professionally and personally; most people that I know wish Tesla well, but think that Musk is a crazy person who's going to absolutely wreck his own company.

</comment><comment><USER2> This article is just a piss take of a guy who has achieved a lot and made enormous contributions to society and has done some self destructive things in the process. Too much pressure does that to anyone. Love him or hate him, he is a less charismatic Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER3> Is it really a 'piss take' of Elon Musk or the people who idolize him?

The fact that Elon Musk may have influence in our world is even more of a reason to exercise some critical thinking when it comes to his ideas.

The article does not veer off into discussion about Musk's personal choices that some would label destructive. It is certainly a critical article, but it does not seem fair to classify this article as a pisstake.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Surface Book or 2016 Macbook Pro for an Android Development / Gaming? - <AUTHOR> I'm pretty much torn. I playing games like Civ, Total War, AoE, etc..., but I also do Android development (Phone, Wear, TV, all that good stuff) What do y'all think? <comment><USER2> I'm planning on making the move from a macbook to a surfacebook in the near future (I am also an android dev). The main selling point to me is the ability is the tablet / pen functionality while still being my main computing device. I had an iPad pro for awhile, but the OS is still very limited and I ended up just using it as a 1400 pad of paper :\ (returned it after 2 weeks or so). The surface book to me is a perfect combination device for productivity. Windows 10 is not that bad either, I've completely switched back to it on my home desktop (coming from hackintosh) and I'm even considering it on my workstation at work (coming from linux).

WSL (Windows subsystem for linux) isn't quite there yet, but if microsoft stays committed to it I think in another year or two it'll be on par with OSX when it comes to being linux-like.

10 years ago me would never believe I just made these statements and endorsements about windows :P Microsoft has seriously upped their game and I see them being the lead innovator for the next couple years (just look at how awesome the surface studio is).</comment>


Run SQL on JSON files without any data loads - <AUTHOR> http://citusdata.com/blog/65-run-sql-on-json-files-without-any-data-loads <comment><USER2> A few years ago I was toying with JSON databases without loading, and came up with an idea to _cache_ the parse tree of the documents after the first query, so that subsequent queries would run much faster. I called the technique _semi-indexing_ and wrote a paper [1] on that; on my synthetic tests the speedups were significant (even 10x), but I never got the chance to test it on real workloads.

I wonder if would be useful to integrate the semi-index code [2] in this json_fdw; thanks for sharing the code, I'll try to see how feasible this is.

[1] <http://www.di.unipi.it/~ottavian/files/semi_index_cikm.pdf>

[2] <https://github.com/ot/semi_index>

<comment><USER3> This paper is fascinating. I have an extremely fast JSON parser for Java that I've been working on, on and off [1], and I'd love to optionally augment it with semi-indexes for cases where end-users are using a subset of a file.

[1] <https://github.com/mmastrac/nanojson>

<comment><USER2> Very interesting! Implementing a semi-index is very easy if you have implementations of Elias-Fano and balanced parentheses data structures.

For Java I recommend Sux4j [1] that has a very good implementation of Elias- Fano, but I think that balanced parentheses are very primitive. I was told by the author that a better data structure, based on Range-Min-Max trees, should be added soon.

[1] <http://sux.dsi.unimi.it/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember when it caught my eye as Postgres95 and I've always preferred it, even in the face of the huge surge for MySQL which left PostgreSQL looking like an also-ran for quite while.

The reality is it is one of the most amazing open source projects I know - enough to rival Linux itself for me.

These little snippets of PostgreSQL features and facilities which keep being posted give just a tiny hint of the truly enterprise grade features and facilities it has - I just wish I still had as much time to keep on top of it as I once did but I still keep it as my go-to database for project development. I've even dropped it in to replace full blown Oracle systems for serious cost savings.

The developers should be receiving far more kudos than they do.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't make a habit of spamming discussion threads but... my product QueryTree (<http://querytreeapp.com>) will load JSON files even if they have lists at the root, you can use the Append tool to bring multiple files together, and you can then use Filter, Sort, Join and Group without ever having to define a schema.

Admittedly, it's aimed at novice users so if you're comfortable with SQL it may feel limiting.

<comment><USER6> It's not spamming if it's relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am mystified as to when this tool would be useful (can anybody else think of a practical use case?).

You can run SQL queries on individual JSON files... but you have to have PostgreSQL installed already.

And you can't run it against multiple JSON files, only one, with a single JSON object at the root.

<comment><USER8> (Ozgun at Citus Data)

You're right that you need to have Postgres installed. For running SQL over multiple JSON files, we wanted to keep the blog post short and noted several different ways to go over multiple files in our GitHub Readme.

1\. You can create a partitioned PostgreSQL table, and declare one child table per JSON file. You can also declare constraints on the child table to filter out irrelevant files to the query.

2\. You can create a distributed foreign table on CitusDB, even if you'd like to run on one node. In this case, we'll collect statistics automatically for you, and filter out irrelevant files.

3\. If neither of these fit, you could change the source code to scan over one directory instead of a file. We didn't go down this path to be compatible with file_fdw's semantics.

<comment><USER9> Okay, so if I understand correctly, the benefit here is that I can run some kinds of SQL queries on a large collection of heterogenous JSON documents. Is that right? You're still speaking Postgres-internals-geek, not I-want-to-get- something-done geek.

That is:

\- you can take heterogenous JSON documents, and then make them appear to the Postgres world as separate tables. (Which they have to be, because they're not uniform)

\- you can then take some kinds of SQL queries and distribute them among these tables, as if they were one big SQL table. If some pseudo-tables have missing or extra columns, no problem.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the comment. Yes, that's exactly the benefit.

You could in fact have heterogeneous JSON documents within one file, and json_fdw could still handle them. If a field you declared in the table schema doesn't appear in a JSON document, json_fdw would just consider that field to be Null.

The issue is, json_fdw is built such that one table can only associated with one JSON file, and users typically have many JSON files lying around. For example, you'd have one JSON file for each hour's worth of website error logs.

If that's the case, you could create a distributed table. That way, you could run the query one distributed table and have the query run on all your JSON files instead of just one.

That said, it's probably best to associate one type of JSON logs (say your website error logs) with one distributed table. That way, your queries go over your website error logs or your mobile application logs, but not both at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> With the upcoming release of Pg 9.3, I've been reading a lot more posts and articles about the FDW (foreign data wrapper) capabilities. I had not considered all the things FDW can do, but I'm getting more and more excited the further I get into it.

For instance, at $work we have a bunch of tables which are archives of raw click data. They are taking up quite a bit of space on disk, which we'd like to reclaim. Keeping the raw data around is good, since I want to create a summary table and you can't recreate raw data from summaries. The idea was to export the table data as CSV, and then when I had the time to for messing around with summaries I'd reload the data. With FDW I can leave the data as CSV and read it just like it was in a proper DB table. Win!

Or even better, again at $work we use Mysql. But I hate it because SQL strict mode isn't enabled and mysql does really stupid things with my data in "normal" mode. I can't safely turn on strict at this point because I don't have the time for testing everything. I also really like Pg and would love to switch. But again, I don't have the time to do it. What I've been thinking about is using the FDW capabilities (in particular the upcoming writable FDW in 9.3) as a way to safely and slowly migrate DB platforms. It's only an idea in my head right now, but it's an intriguing one.

</comment><comment><USER11> I kind of think the more common use case is accessing JSON data _without_ defining a schema. In fact I wouldn't mind loading the data so long as it doesn't persist for too long. If only there was a schemaless database that allowed you to set a time to live on the JSON objects you load into it... that would be humongous.

</comment><comment><USER12> How is this "without any data loads"? You have to map each file to a database table and then execute SQL against that database. Isn't that exactly what "loading into a database" means?

<comment><USER13> Loading into database usually means transforming the data such that the data is stored as database's internal format. For example, using "LOAD DATA ..." in MySQL or "COPY ... FROM ..." in PostgreSQL.

Here, you aren't storing the data in the database. You don't have to take any additional action to sync the file and db when you add rows to the file, so it's not loaded into the database.

<comment><USER14> Another benefit of this approach is that it allows you to save storage space by eliminating the need to create a copy of the JSON data in the DB's own internal format.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> actually, I might use this thread to ask a noob question - I've been trying to fiddle around with some data that is relatively schemaless (i.e. I have a list of medical research subjects, and each of them have varying numbers of prior medical conditions, medication allergies, and list of current and past medicines).

Naturally, I thought JSON was better than relational DB's for this, but I wasn't sure how best to store this data. The relation data that I do have is stashed in .csv files that I'm transitioning over to sqlite, so I was wondering if there was a sqlite-esque DB for JSON - I was assuming something like Couch or Redis. But am I missing something, and that JSON itself IS the database?

<comment><USER13> I think if your data is append-only, this should work good enough. You implement your data appending logic, and you use json_fdw for querying your data. But this requires starting PostgreSQL service, I'm not sure if this is acceptable in your application or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You can also use Ojota (a flat file database with ORM - <https://bitbucket.org/msa_team/ojota/overview>) for something like this.

</comment><comment><USER17> You can use YQL to do this — even join with other data sources.

<http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Apache Pig and Hive are other systems that can do this, minus the one file limitation.

<comment><USER13> json_fdw to Citus DB or any other PostgreSQL based distributed database, is like json serde to Hive.

So, I think you should probably compare the json_fdw to json serde, and Citus DB to Hive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd rather see the code they used to crawl Amazon reviews...

<comment><USER13> Is this useful? [http://www.esuli.it/software/amazon-reviews-downloader- and-p...](http://www.esuli.it/software/amazon-reviews-downloader-and-parser/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Commenting to save thread -- looks great!

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting</comment>


App Engine pricing changes revisited. - <AUTHOR> http://www.korokithakis.net/posts/app-engine-pricing-changes-revisited/

<comment><USER2> What I have found is that App Engine app eats up lots of CPU billing time waiting for network and disk IO. My app does fair amount of Youtube data crawling, but itself is not CPU intensive. Somehow the billing time is depriving very fast. I suspect the network IO waiting time is computed under the CPU time. Hopefully the new multi-thread & per-instance support would be fairer for IO-bound apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> The new instances won't count CPU at all for API calls, you'll just have an API call allotment per day to use.</comment></comment>


New Spectre 1.1 and Spectre 1.2 CPU Flaws Disclosed - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-spectre-11-and-spectre-12-cpu-flaws-disclosed/ <comment><USER2> Can anyone give me an Explain Like an Undergrad on Spectre ?

<comment><USER3> Reading material:

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

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side- channel_attack](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-channel_attack) (especially the cache side channel)

TL;DR: CPUs are designed to "safely" execute next instructions before having received the results of conditional checks that might have take the code path in another branch (of the "if" statement).

The safety here is achieved by not "committing" any effect of that code to "real" state (aka architectural state).

The reason I put safety in scary quotes is that it turns out that while the CPU does manage to fully undo any writes to memory and other data buffers, the actions it has taken so leave a measurable trace.

It's called a "side channel", because it's not the primary I/O channel, but a different, unintended way for data to be conveyed from the CPU to ether another device or to another program running later on the same CPU.

Cache side channel work by leveraging the measurably quicker time it takes to read memory regions related to regions recently read.

Thus when a program reads something in memory, you can later take a good guess which locations of memory it read (not every single byte, but with the granularity of a "cache line" which is e.g. 64 bytes)

The next trick is to find a spot in a program that contains code that reads some data and uses it to compute an index in another table. If you're lucky and you find some code that for some input value computes a location in a table, you will be able to guess that value by looking at which cache line is hot.

There is a lot more to say about this, in particular about the ways you can find code that does what you want in the victim program (especially about ways you can basically reorganize code in ways never intended by the authors; read more about Return Oriented Programming)

<comment><USER4> To grossly oversimplify, it's an electronic version of the trope: "dust the keypad for fingerprints, and enter the last-used code".

[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/11/128244/touchscreens...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/11/128244/touchscreens- open-to-smudge-attacks)

[https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/36030/touch- scr...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/36030/touch-screen- password-guessing-by-fingerprint-trace)

<comment><USER3> yes, that covers the side-channel part of the picture.

the interesting aspect that spectre attacks bring to light, is that you can cause memory accesses which are explicitly forbidden because the code performs e.g. bounds checks.

speculative execution "bypasses" the checks, because that's the whole point of speculative execution: speed up the execution under the assumption that one (or the other) case is taken. If the CPU guesses that it's more likely that the bounds check will be successful, it will perform better when the input is well formed, but it let potentially malicious inputs to cause side effects detectable with side-channels leak sensitive information that the bounds check design to avoid in the first place!

As you can see, there is no easy way out here. This is a fundamental feature that makes modern CPU fast. Making sure that code can continue executing only when the results of the check is known, will affect performance of the happy path because the CPU will sit idle waiting instead of doing useful work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is the FUD aspect of the security industry shockingly getting attention , yet again. bizarre.</comment>


The End of an Era for EasyDNS - <AUTHOR> https://easydns.com/blog/2019/05/23/the-end-of-an-era-for-easydns/ <comment><USER3> If more companies (tech as well as others) made decisions like this, we'd all be better off.

This should be a textbook case of good management and taught all over the place.

<comment><USER4> We floated this idea at our company and people were against it. A lot of people seem to like the predictability of coming to the same place every day and hanging out with the same people every day ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Instead, we now allow working from home whenever anyone wants to - some people do it frequently, some don't. So maybe asking the question is good, but I'm not sure everyone would like it if such a move were mandated.

<comment><USER5> I greatly prefer working in an office over working from home, personally. If I were job-hunting, a company being remote-only would count as a tick in the minus column for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr: EasyDNS is going full remote only and doesn't have an office any more.

<comment><USER7> > A couple days later the landlord came back, standing firm on 5-year > extension, plus an across the board rental increase of about 8%, plus a > baked-in annual increase of 6%, plus an additional levy for a new HVAC > system on the roof.

Yikes. Sounds like great timing too.

<comment><USER8> This was the most interesting data point to me, and was an interesting counterpoint to easyDNS's realization that they were essentially a remote- employee only company. It also made me realize that "the cloud" isn't just a place where software goes, but where _organizations_ can now go. (This is probably glaringly obvious to many others, but I'd never really thought of the cloud this way.)

<comment><USER9> Virtual organizations [1]

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This happened to my company in SF.. we got kicked out because of eminent domain for the new Transbay Terminal ...

We never ended up going back to offices after that.

</comment><comment><USER11> > plus a baked-in annual increase of 6%

Raising the rent annually on a multi-year lease. That is one lasting way that an investor can make money in a low or zero-interest rate (ZIR) economic environment.

<comment><USER12> Except, as several landlords are learning right now, there's no money without a tenant, and not every tenant fits in every place, and not every empty space gets a tenant who's willing to pay the rent being asked. And in residential places: a good tenant that pays less might be more lucrative than a bad tenant that "pays more"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Mark and easyDNS are such a breath of fresh air in the registrar business. If you're not a customer already, you owe it to yourself to become one.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you're not on Mark's newsletter, Weekly Axis Of Easy, you owe it to yourself to subscribe. It's funny, to the point, covers most of the really important tech news with a focus on infrastructure and privacy and is pretty much a commercial-free zone. Microsoft Certified and NSA coneheads might not like it much (but hey Edward S. was an NSA conehead for a long time so there's some smart and good people even there).

Home office: I like it for myself but many of our staff would hate it. I also like to have in person meetings at least a couple of times/week with major collaborators where we can site together and look at a screen together and have eye contact and read more subtle signals.

</comment><comment><USER15> >In other words, we have to do business the old fashioned way — at a profit.

It's a little sad how refreshing that is to hear.

</comment><comment><USER16> >>> The next recession will be global and it is going to be brutal.

not scared at all ...

but he does have a point ...

</comment><comment><USER17> Hm. It didn't occur to me until I saw the mailing address posted, but how do fully remote companies handle incoming mail?

<comment><USER18> UPS Store or a Fedex equivalent. Looks like their address is a FedEx location.

<comment><USER17> Who receives & handles all the mail though? FedEx does?

<comment><USER19> Yup. And as a bonus, they'll throw out all the junk mail. Also, if you travel a lot, or often relocate overseas, for a very reasonable rate they'll bulk mail you everything on whatever frequency you would like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find it ironic that this is an article about someone who works remotely is surprised that everyone else works remotely.

<comment><USER21> I don't think the author is working remotely, he talks about reclaiming 2 hours of his day currently spent commuting.

<comment><USER22> I don't know, he kept saying he talks daily with someone who lives an hour away, and was constantly assuming that person was in the office.

<comment><USER23> I just assume that he meant something like "text-chatted over Slack" when he wrote that. It is a perennial surprise to me that many developers will send an electronic message of some sort even to people that they literally sit next to.

<comment><USER24> I do that. The point isn't to avoid speaking, it's to avoid interrupting them.

<comment><USER5> This. I send chat messages to the engineers right next to me except when something's really urgent. It's bad to interrupt another engineer's flow unnecessarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm more interested in the comment about the next financial crisis. When is it due?

<comment><USER26> According to Zerohedge, since about 2014

<comment><USER27> And their accuracy remains.. let's say "unchallenged".

<comment><USER12> It's easy being "accurate" when everybody else is a "liberal snowflake"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't stop listening to the advantages of remote work. But it also has its problem, how everything... Why is nobody talking about it?

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder how their customers reacted to this, especially as a b2b company.

<comment><USER30> I'd wager few customer companies care. They're a leader in DNS features, which if this is something you care about as a company (customer) then you're probably up on the high-tech trends. A lot of those same companies are also embracing remote work in some way/shape/form. Also customers appreciate when their vendors DON'T go out of business - saving money on rent helps keep things going.

For many tech jobs, a remote workforce is a benefit. Technical Operations staff distributed? Great, it means someone is more likely to be awake and monitoring things - heck of a lot faster response time then the ol "It's 3am and the pager just went off, I'm groggy, where's my laptop, what's going on?".

<comment><USER29> Totally get the logic, just wondering if customers would feel weird if a company they worked with didn't have an "office".

<comment><USER31> The only case I can think of that matters is support/sales calls. If their phone staff does not have dedicated office space at home, it's a bit hard to organise. You can have at least small dividers in the office so that the background noise you hear over the phone is other calls, mostly quiet. I think it would be a different experience if I was handling incoming calls - <USER2> with a dedicated office room, I'd get anything like a bus passing by, lawnmowers, cats screaming to go out, rain on metal roof, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> man the headline made me nervous - thought this was going to be another "we're shutting down" post!

<comment><USER33> I had a similar but even worse thought: I assumed they were selling out to GoDaddy.

<comment><USER34> Pretty sure if they were ever going to sell it would likely be to tucows

<comment><USER35> Mark would _never_ sell to GoDaddy!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs Skips Macworld Because of His Health - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5123345/steve-jobs-skips-macworld-because-of-his-health <comment><USER2> W...T...Fuck?!? I'm sorry, but the way that I read SJ's letter was "Don't have to prepare...cool. Oh, BTW, minor health issues, thanks for prying assholes"

Apparently Gizmodo's reading was "Oh, god! Too sick, must spend holidays with family recuperating...not...dead...yet!"

...just a guess, but I wouldn't hold my breath for Gizmodo's live-blog of the next Apple event...</comment>


Announcing The TechCrunch50 Conference: September 8-10, San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/02/announcing-the-techcrunch50-conference-september-8-10-san-francisco/ <comment><USER2> Conferences to show off new startups are a good thing, but it seems like a bad plan to make the startups launch _at_ the conference. Unless the date happens to be exactly when the startup would have launched anyway, this constraint is going to force them to launch either too early, or too late.

Launching late is very dangerous. Someone else is probably doing what you're doing, and if you launch even a couple weeks later your company could for the rest of its life be described as an X-like site, where X is your competitor's name.

Launching too early is even more dangerous. The right time to launch is as soon as you have something (a) useful and (b) not totally broken. Which means that launching early = launching something useless or broken.

<comment><USER3> Also, I read somewhere that launching at a conference means that you're one of dozens of launches over a short period of time, and you have to compete even harder for coverage from press/bloggers. Whereas, if you launch on a non- descript day, you may be the only interesting thing happening all day, and get a copious amount of coveage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has anyone been to last years? If so, what was it like?

<comment><USER5> I was in the Demo Pit -- was good since I'm from Canada, and got to tour the bay area. I wouldn't recommend the Demo Pit -- people spend most of the day in the conference and either head home or make a quick pass through the pit. You will mostly be speaking with service providers. For the price, I wouldn't recommend the conference either (for entrepreneurs, there are much better ways to use the $). If you do end up in the Demo Pit, I would strongly recommend getting a slot on the first day.

Last year, we were the only Demo Pit company to use the student rate ;) This year, the student rate is $149 to attend the conference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> yikes $2000 to attend - better be a vc or at least have some vc cash to burn, but they are offering $195 tickets to student, time to go sign up for a few community college classes.

</comment><comment><USER7> charging a lot less i.e. $500 per a ticket would still keep those you don't want out. Also if your charging $2k/ticket any idea why you can only give $50k to the winner?

<comment><USER8> Profit maximization.

<comment><USER9> There's a very thin line between profit maximization and greed.</comment></comment></comment>


Get started making music - <AUTHOR> https://learningmusic.ableton.com/index.html <comment><USER2> Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628)</comment>


Tetris Reimagined For A TouchScreen (drag pieces with your fingers) - <AUTHOR> http://www.puzzleschool.com/puzzles/architect

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always been a huge fan of Tetris and for a while now I've thought the core concept would work great on a touch screen where you could literally grab the pieces and position them appropriately.

I looked around but there weren't any attempts to make a game where you could grab a block and fit it in to the puzzle. There have been versions where you can use the touch-screen like an old GameBoy, with the controls just areas on the screen. There's even a version by EA where you click an area where it is supposed to go: [http://www.ea.com/tetris- iphone/images/877085a5002f3310VgnVC...](http://www.ea.com/tetris- iphone/images/877085a5002f3310VgnVCM1000001065140aRCRD) (at least I think that's how it works). But again, I couldn't find anything where you could actually grab a piece with your finger and position it in the puzzle.

The big problem, though, is that the whole increasing speed aspect of the game gets screwed up as soon as you start grabbing pieces with your finger (the piece stops falling so the speed that it is falling at matters very little).

So I decided to embrace this constraint and create a falling blocks game that doesn't require the block to fall faster in order to be challenging.

Some of the changes I made:

1) You can grab and move any piece at any time (except if they are partially off the screen). 2) You can place pieces under other pieces. 3) You can pause the game and completely reorder all of the pieces. 4) You have to fill in the bottom row completely in order to build your structure in to the sky. 5) There are a number of challenging pieces that you have to incorporate in to your structure.

With the changes, the game becomes more about the puzzle-like aspect of organizing the pieces as they are presented and less about the speed at which they are presented.

I'm guessing some Tetris fans will find some of these changes annoying or even offensive. It's just one person's attempt to make the classic "falling blocks" game work on a touch screen. I'm sure there are other ways you could approach it.

The game is available on IOS and Android for a buck. There's also a brief video at the link that shows that game in action. Sorry about charging for it, but I'm hoping to recoup some of the expenses that went in to making it and ideally help to fund my next puzzle game.

If you do end up trying it out I'd love to hear feedback if people have it. It takes a little practice to get good at grabbing and rotating pieces. I recommend making a "peace sign" with your fingers and using your index finger to grab and move pieces while swiping with your middle finder to rotate. Once you get that down, though, it's a lot of fun. Also it's a little easier on a larger screen, so if you have an iPad you may want to try it out on that to start.

</comment><comment><USER2> Reminds me a bit of Topple by ngmoco

<http://topple.ngmoco.com> <http://topple2.ngmoco.com>

Although yours has more of a puzzle feel to it.</comment>


Five reasons why a recession is a good time to start a company - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/20/five-reasons-why-recession-good-time-start-company

<comment><USER2> Was that meant to be funny? All but one of the points essentially say it's good to start a company in a recession because it's really really hard, and if you somehow manage to survive, you'll end up tougher, leaner, and meaner. Here's a tip, guys: start your company at a time and place where there are no constraints and even the biggest idiot can be successful.

<comment><USER3> Well, back in the days of the dot-com craze the biggest idiots were indeed successful. For a while, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So... starting a company during a recession is a good thing because it will force you to adopt best practices? What about just adopting best practices during a boom? Wouldn't that be MORE advantageous?

Seriously, how is adopting an advantageous behavior an advantage if its sole purpose is to offset a disadvantage? It isn't. If you're not frugal, your not going to be able to start your company in a boom, much less a recession.

<comment><USER5> It's one thing to focus on best practices, it's another thing to have best practices forced on you.

<comment><USER6> Practice your best, and you won't be bested by your practices. - The Sphinx

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that some of the better startup ideas would actually do better during a recession than otherwise. If your product or service reduces a business cost or opens up an untapped (monetary, social, or other) revenue source, people and businesses will be more likely to use your product/subscribe to your service during a time when business is slow. The two things you need as a startup are attention and early adopters. If business slows, both businesses and people have more downtime (which is just more attention in the attention pool that you can vie for) and are more receptive to novel solutions to their tight budget. (Your startup is novel, right?)

In short, businesses that increase market efficiency in novel ways seem, to me, more likely to succeed during a recession. This is so obvious that I'm surprised the article didn't mention it.

</comment><comment><USER8> None of those are unique to a recession: you should be frugal, you should look at your ideas again, etc. Top reason to start a company during a recession: your competitors will go bust.

<comment><USER9> I don't think she's saying that all of her 5 points are unique to recessions per say, but rather she's saying they're more apparent and important during a recession. While her interesting points to me -- being frugal and taking a closer look at your idea -- apply to startups during the state of any economy, they're further highlighted during a recession. The only real point that applies to recessions alone is #4, which is quite significant and important to keep in the back of your mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Best reason: Because if you start in a recession, you have better odds of being acquired with a rediculous valuation during a boom cycle.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good things come out of recessions, but a high valuation is rarely one of them. Anyone want to guess what Flickr's valuation would be today?

[http://siteanalytics.compete.com/bebo.com+flickr.com/?metric...](http://siteanalytics.compete.com/bebo.com+flickr.com/?metric=uv)

<comment><USER12> A lot of startup people aren't interested in valuations -- least of all valuations made during a recession.

<comment><USER12> To the guy(s) who downvoted me: are you really interested in (IPO) valuation? Are your sell-off plans so finely detailed that you have to sell during a recession?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Starting a company in a recession is also a good idea because your industry is less likely to be filled with professional BSers and "wave riders" and your natural talents can shine through a lot better with the lack of competition.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good time to start a company, what about the rest of the economic front? If a startup is being frugal, does that invariably mean the people who use services are going to be frugal?

<comment><USER5> Constraints are good. Building a foundation in an environment full of constraints will make for a stronger foundation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for all the comments - I wrote a follow-up to this article and posted it on my blog. [http://www.16thletter.com/2008/03/21/more-on-starting-a- comp...](http://www.16thletter.com/2008/03/21/more-on-starting-a-company-in- an-economic-downturn/)

</comment><comment><USER16> One reason why a recession is a good time to start a company: Because the well-funded riff-raff drops out sooner.

</comment><comment><USER17> This one got a double serving of Kool Aid.

</comment><comment><USER12> A lot of people do start companies during 'downtimes'. Off the top of my head: sixapart started when both Ben and Mena got laid off. Flickr was pretty much the same story IIRC.

Also could get one more attention -- maybe -- because the media won't necessarily expect anyone to be doing anything positive. Recessions are one big moan, and the 'yipee!' of a startup will stand in stark contrast. IMHG (in my humble guesstimation).

<comment><USER3> Wasn't Oracle funded during a recession too?</comment></comment>


Why We Removed Our Phone Number From Our Website - <AUTHOR> http://wistia.com/blog/scaling-support-why-we-removed-our-phone-number-from-our-website

<comment><USER2> No number is better than a fake number. Even though having a phone number on your website makes it a little more credible but if its non-existing then its useless.

</comment><comment><USER3> It does not matter how you spin it - you reduced customer support to save costs.

That's fine but its annoying pretending otherwise. Maybe offer different support packages, a paid channel where someone actually calls and spends time. Rackspace is an interesting model in this area - you pay for support, through higher costs or literally.

But if its hard shooting, downloading, editing, uploading and linking to video, well, it _is_ hard. Tell folks that.

What ever you do however, don't believe the $4m support call.</comment>


Am I Unique? - <AUTHOR> https://amiunique.org/fp <comment><USER2> Hello author. Really interested in checking your page but, 504! So here is what you can do:

Copy all your static assets to another server[1]. You can use a cheap digitalocean server or any vps really. Have them served using nginx.

This will relieve your main server from all those extra connections and it can focus on your application.

And use some caching mechanism. Memcache drivers are available for many languages.

Good luck

[1]:[https://idiallo.com/blog/handling-1-million-web- request](https://idiallo.com/blog/handling-1-million-web-request)

<comment><USER3> That is very vague / strange tips you give out.

The response header shows, that nginx is used already.

There is no need to put static assets to some cheap vps if you have already a server. Depending on the bootleneck, it might be much better to upgrade ram or optimise the code or finetune some database cache or whatever happens at the BE.

But without knowing details, it doesn't make much sense to move assets or use memcache. Often enough, people do shitty sqls or are not even aware that there is something like a query cache (which you can also use lightweight without adding memcache to your stack).

When you look at there about page and also make a lookup on there ip, you will see that it is hosted by them from there own network [https://www.inria.fr/](https://www.inria.fr/). So this project was probably build by some researchers, which some agenda on how well that service should actually run and a budget. They probably got a VM from there IT Department (or are part of it) and are in theory capable of fixing there issues but the working student is on a new project and no one really cares about it (the domain was registered 2014).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use this regularly, the problem I have is that it doesn't give you any suggestions to be 'less unique' \- things like suggesting a similar User Agent to yours, but one that is much more common, or even something as simple as linking to things like Canvas Defender for Firefox, which adds random noise to hidden canvas invocations so that your canvas render isn't identifiable.

<comment><USER5> > Canvas Defender

My understanding is that these don't actually help. Even their own blog suggests that there is a lot of limitations[0]. And they even talk about how TOR just returns 0. But if everyone did that (say FF did that overnight), then wouldn't that help solve the problem?

Or does there need to be a way to force these things to be pixel perfect (data perfect for the other fingerprinting things like battery, mic, etc)?

[0] [https://multilogin.com/blog/](https://multilogin.com/blog/)

<comment><USER6> Thank you for this - I'd often assumed Canvas Defender was no good but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I would encourage anyone with even a passing interest to read this truly illuminating post because there is some fascinating stuff that even as a web developer I did not know:

[https://multilogin.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about- can...](https://multilogin.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-canvas- fingerprinting/)

<comment><USER5> It is really fascinating how all this works. And I'm really happy that multilogin writes these blog posts. I think it brings up questions of how necessary is this information and is it worth the cost (loss of privacy). I'm not a web developer so I'm not sure how useful these metrics are. Or is it just limitations? How much of an impact would implementing pixel perfect renders be (as in page load time)? I'd love to know what people that work in these areas think. Pros and cons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those wondering what this site does; it takes a 'fingerprint' of your browser using unconventional methods to generate a unique identifier.

Typically fingerprinting is used by advertisers for tracking in order to retarget you.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bet I'm not unique in getting a 504 error.

<comment><USER9> You just won that bet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It doesn't seem to render my results unless I whitelist JS in NoScript. Not very fair to force JS before saying if I'm unique IMHO.

<comment><USER4> Basically everything meaningful used for fingerprinting requires JS. If you don't have JS running, that's a signal, but a really weak one. About all they have after that is your useragent and IP address.

Too bad most of the web isn't written to be without JS (or that we don't have stronger protections against fingerprinting, so it wouldn't matter....)

<comment><USER11> > Basically everything meaningful used for fingerprinting requires JS. If you > don't have JS running, that's a signal, but a really weak one.

It eliminates probably 99% of the population. Throw in some css fingerprinting and you could probably be identified uniquely.

<comment><USER4> I know, it's a really crappy situation all around. I went and spent a few hours trying to see how to prevent fingerprinting and the answer is you basically can't. That sucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> its down. But what does it have over [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/) ?

<comment><USER13> I seem to recall that Am I Unique has a FAQ on that very question, but I can't recall the answer.

However, does Panopticlick actually do canvas fingerprinting?

<comment><USER14> One of Panopticlick's browser characteristics is Hash of canvas fingerprint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's dead.

According to the wayback machine, this is what it looks like when it's up: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190217053927/https://amiunique...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190217053927/https://amiunique.org/)

No functionality to tell you if you're unique or not though, unfortunately.

Github page here: [https://github.com/DIVERSIFY- project/amiunique](https://github.com/DIVERSIFY-project/amiunique)

<comment><USER16> Looks like the page got slashdotted, it loaded halfway for me five minutes ago and is completely down now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Are there any databases that can link fingerprints to identities? Could there be companies legally using them?

<comment><USER18> I mean, most governments have fingerprint databases that are linked to identities. Some governments hire contractors to take care of that.

<comment><USER6> I'd be very interested on reading more about this if you have anything you could point me towards

<comment><USER19> This is a joke: the parent commenter is talking about fingerprints on your hands, not browser fingerprinting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You're absolutely unique like everybody else - Unknown</comment>


Live blogging just got more flexible, fun – and profitable - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sourcefabric.org/en/news/blog/3580/Live-Blogging-Just-Got-More-Flexible-Fun-%E2%80%94-and-Profitable.htm <comment><USER2> Live blogs offer a unique second-screen format for interacting with viewers and readers.</comment>


Ask HN – Is there an open source feature gating manager? - <AUTHOR>

My searching has been fruitless. Is there an open source project for feature gating ala Facebook's Gatekeeper? https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building-and-testing-at-facebook/10151004157328920 <comment><USER2> To be honest a lot of this is depending on your application-type.

In my case I run a website, and it has a proxy as the public-facing front-end. Requests are distributed "evenly" to one of four back-ends. If I make a new feature and I want to test it I just deploy it to one app-server, which means that roughly 25% of visitors see it.

Instead I could deploy to all servers, and handle it at the application level instead. For example show the new hotness to requesters if a random number between 1-10 is <2, or similar.</comment>


Why is some web pages don't load in web views? - <AUTHOR> Twitter, for instance, never loads from within my HN app. See https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg for an example of what I mean.<p>I'm curious what specifically on the site is preventing it from rendering. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg)</comment>


The Last Lean Startup Book Bundle - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2011/09/last-lean-startup-bundle-48-hours-to.html

<comment><USER2> I got the email, read through that, visited the page, read through that... Only to find it applies to U.S. customers only. That's 5mins of my life you've wasted for no upside to either of us :(

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a pretty amazing amount of stuff for buying a few books – also an interesting lesson in aligning partners and motivating people to buy _now._</comment>


Stack Exchange Artificial Intelligence site in public beta - <AUTHOR> http://ai.stackexchange.com/ <comment><USER2> I worry about breaking Stack Overflow into pieces - I think it functions extremely well as the be-all and end-all for copy-paste code bandaging. But AI is a perfect place to draw a dividing line and create a question and answer culture uniquely appropriate to AI. As Stack Exchange continues to look for ways to expand the brand by fragmenting their own universe I can only hope they'll choose as wisely as they did this time.</comment>


Canadian islanders angry over US mail searches - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49901455 <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, Canadian incumbent telecoms pretty much refuse to peer locally outside their little club.

The result is that a lot of local IP traffic round-trips through the USA.

E.g. half of the Toronto Voip.ms servers have a route that take go from Toronto to WashingtonDC to NYC to Montreal and then back to Toronto.

Fuck you Rogers.

<comment><USER3> Gee, I wonder why it is set up that way.

<comment><USER2> Our regulators consider incumbents' strength to be more important than national security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a pragmatic and cost effective basis, this is a terrible policy the US is following here. This is a tiny rural island with a few people living there which just happens to need mail routed through the US very briefly even mail from Canada to Canada. There is no history of mail abuse or criminal operations taking advantage of this system. So while the US may technically claim the right to search every letter under this unique situation, it's a massive waste of time, money and US taxpayer resources to to this, money that should instead be spent on legitimate issues where there is a real threat. In short, these searches subvert US security by diverting resources away from where they are needed.

Probably some petty tyrant on a power trip started this whole debacle. Whoever that is needs to be stomped on by their supervisory agency for wasting resources in the personal pursuit of puerile ego trips.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would be angry as well, but ultimately this is Canada Post's shortfall and not the fault of US border patrol agents who are just doing their jobs.

However thoroughly they choose to perform their jobs in their country should be of no concern to Canadian Citizens.

The only reason that mail is driven through the USA is due to cost, presumably.

We fly mail up north.

We should probably fly mail to that island as well if it's a matter of national sovereignty.

It's insanity that Canada Post has been allowing packages potentially containing Cannabis to travel through the US border en route to Canadian Citizens with their name and address right on the package.

I foresee a class action between the residents of the island and Canada Post brewing if it is not already in the works.

<comment><USER2> > We fly mail up north.

Does USPS go around Canadian airspace? Do they avoid trucking through Canada to go to Alaska or Point Roberts WA?

<comment><USER5> Sorry... by we I meant we Canadians fly postal mail to other Canadian residents who live way far up in Northern Canada. Mainly because there are hardly any roads connecting communities up as far north as I was talking.

As for USPS driving mail through Canada... we probably don't care as much about securing that "threat" and choose not to spend resources on that.

Whereas the Americans do, and that's entirely within their right as a sovereign nation.

They're allowed to waste resources and piss off and police their neighbors to the north if we allow them to do by placing our packages directly into their hands.

We could retaliate and do the same thing, but it's not really in our best interests to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Campobello residents cross into the US regularly for everything from filling > up their car with petrol - Campobello has no bank, gas station, or hospital > - to driving an hour through Maine to New Brunswick for access to government > and medical services.

To be blunt... it sounds like an outdated artifact of history that this is even Canadian territory. If it's not able to effectively operate as a Canadian town in a Canadian province, why not just make it part of Maine? (Or, don't complain that you are crossing borders to obtain basic services).

(And yes, I feel the same way about US exclaves in Canada)

<comment><USER7> Good point. Give Alaska to Canada.

<comment><USER6> Nobody in Alaska drives to Canada for services, because the part of Canada bordering Alaska is almost uninhabited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Point Roberts in Washington is in the same boat, but on the American side. The Canadian government would be well within their rights to reciprocate.

<comment><USER2> ... Except that most of the mail going in/out of Point Roberts is probably Canadians shipping their stuff in and out of there because Canada Post is expensive, or US retailers ignore Canada.</comment></comment>