Aspirin could dramatically cut cancer risk, according to biggest study yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/06/aspirin-could-dramtically-cut-cancer-risk-say-scientists-biggest-study-yet <comment><USER2> This is one of the reasons why I want presence of governmental entities in drug research. There is very little incentive for a private drug companies to show that an el-cheapo generic drug that has had centuries of use (in some form or the other) behind it, can counter some serious diseases. Yes new use can be patented, but its really impractical to enforce. Sort of like those allergy drugs and sleeping aids, same exact composition but placed in different aisles with different names and grossly different prices. As much as I love the market, sometimes it is either insufficient, or works way too slow for a human lifetime.

[Digression: We either need a quantum increase in life-span, or a market force catalyst that will speed up market dynamics few orders of magnitude, so that the consequence of a market intervention affects the same guy who made that intervention]

Back to aspirin, its really somewhat of a wonder-drug without a hype, if you can stomach it that is.

<comment><USER3> > There is very little incentive for a private drug companies to show...

Yes, but let's consider why:

1- Government regulation (patents) creates an artificial concept of property that prevents humanity at large from benefiting from scientific advances that could be much cheaper. The reasoning for patents is that they are a required incentive from companies to go through expensive tests. But guess what...

2- It's government regulation that makes the tests so expensive.

So the government tries to solve a problem, then creates a new problem, then tries to solve the new problem, then....

Every step seems reasonable and in the interest of the consumer, but the end result is still that a majority of people do not have access the the level of health care that is scientifically and technically possible, and not even close. But at least they are protected from a number of things. Maybe.

We demand a high level of scientific rigor to accept a medication, but we don't demand the same high level of scientific rigor to accept government meddling. We just take it at face value that the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs and this premise is never tested at large.

<comment><USER4> "We demand a high level of scientific rigor to accept a medication, but we don't demand the same high level of scientific rigor to accept government meddling" that seems like fairly rational behavior right given one could be life threatening and one is a low level irritant that we feel like we can address at the next ballot box if we feel so strongly?

<comment><USER5> _...and one is a low level irritant that we feel like we can address at the next ballot box if we feel so strongly?_

But this is no longer true, for two reasons.

First, Congress has abdicated much of its power to regulatory agencies, which are where the actual regulations' details are determined. These bodies are not elected, so we can't vote them out. While it's true, in principle, that we could use the ballot to get Congress to claw back its power, or at least to influence the details, this would (a) take a really long time, and (b) is far too broad a brush to paint with. Being able to cast one vote every 2 years for my Representative, and one every six years for my Senator, is many orders of magnitude too gross a control to be able to influence specific regulations across the whole realm of governmental interest (suppose I hate the way the FDA is handling one thing, but love the way that the DOT is doing something else, etc.; how am I to influence all those factors with just two rare votes?)

Second, we're no longer able to determine with certainty what our government is doing, in order to exercise control over it as necessary. For example, just yesterday afternoon there was a story [1] on HN covering the government's efforts to actually rewrite the records of a court proceeding, so that we wouldn't know what had actually transpired in the court. And surely I don't need to go into detail about Snowden, FISA courts, National Security Letters, etc.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/unsealed-us-sought- per...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/unsealed-us-sought-permission- change-historical-record-public-court-proceeding)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aspirin's reduction of cancer risk has been on relatively solid epidemiological footing for a long time, it's simply not a big enough protective effect to balance the risk of bleeds etc:

[http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsasco...](http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsasco.htm)

Now, if you were to consider all cancers plus cardiovascular benefit, and target folks who are more likely to benefit and/or less likely to have adverse events, it might be useful. Trying to sort some of this out with genomic data was the subject of my MSc, but I couldn't make it work.

<comment><USER7> I worked in biomedical research for a while and few things seem to trigger controversies like Aspirin does. Many MDs believe it's evil and don't condone its use for pretty much anything, but on the other end of the spectrum some medical professionals seem to self-medicate with it religiously.

Personally, I've been taking it for many years, for many reasons. I am genetically predisposed to colorectal cancer and serious cardiovascular problems - both led to the death of many relatives and my father has been battling both for a long time now.

Since my adolescence I've also been a migraine sufferer, which is where I originally "discovered" Aspirin, because it helps lessen the impact like no other substance and over the years I found that regular preventive usage reduces the frequency of bad episodes to below 1/y, which is simply awesome. It's probably important to mention that I got the stomach for it, too, which is something that precludes many people from taking it on a regular basis.

With my anecdotal history in mind and weighing my person risk factors against the known complications (I dread ever being in a serious accident where blood loss becomes an issue), I have elected to take it every day.

Pharmacists are horrified, by the way. "Don't take it for longer than 3 days!" "Wouldn't you prefer Ibu instead? You should."

<comment><USER8> Aspirin's action (activation etc) is well defined at chemical level. Of course, we probably don't know the entire pharmacokinetic/pharcodynamc action of the drug. But if the patient is not on other drugs that could interact with aspirin (e.g. anticoagulants, β2-blockers, antihypertensives, etc.) why not take half if not one aspirin per day?

Depends on the organism, some tolerate aspirin some ibuprofen, some nimesulid, some only paracetamol.

But Aspirin gas proven itself over the years extremely successfully as an anti-pyretic, analgesic, anticoagulant. That's not common among drugs.

<comment><USER7> I'll try to speak on behalf of the MDs opposed to the general population using Aspirin at all. I think the main reason is that it's easier to take risks for yourself where you'd be hesitant to exposing someone else to the same risk. And they do have a point.

People with bio/medical knowledge are probably able to recognize signs such as stomach problems and act accordingly, but they can't really expect patients to. Aspirin messes up coagulation beyond belief. While that is a boon to some people, issuing a blanket blessing of the substance means _people will die_ in emergency rooms and on operating tables, people who could have been saved if they weren't on ASS. For most MDs, weighing that statistical certainty against a comparatively fuzzy list of preventive benefits which may or may not be favorable for some patients is not a hard decision to make. Hence the verdict: "don't use it, even though I myself do use it".

Again, accepting this for yourself can be an informed decision, but it's not one you want to make on behalf of the general population.

In my case, it's similar. I judge my risk factors in a way that Aspirin is more likely to prolong my healthy life, but I know there is increased risk of complications in other areas. I have no doubt that 90% of all GPs when asked would categorize my taking 250mg per day as abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes - there is lots and lots of research that suggests that inflammation is the cause of a whole host of "western" diseases.

Sugar and fructose cause heart disease (not fat) by irritating the lining of the heart over and over and over again. Wheat causes inflammation because most people are allergic to it in some way. Constant insulin response that we have with all the sugar hidden (and not so hidden) in everything we eat causes swelling and fat storage. Even the fruits we have now have been bred to be much much sweeter than 60 years ago.

Lets not even start on how fibre seems to protect against some of the terrible effects of fructose on the body (rapid conversion to fat - the body can't tolerate fructose in the blood) and how removing the fibre in the form of fruit juice or high fructose corn syrup is a disaster for your body.

Probably taking aspirin is unnecessary if you were to avoid the main things which irritate and cause an immune response in your body. I can bet you that turmeric tea from the root is going to be as good as aspirin at protecting you from these diseases but the best plan is to avoid sugar, wheat and high GI carbohydrates.

<comment><USER10> I am curious what studies have linked sugar and fructose to heart disease over fat + cholesterol.

<comment><USER9> 1\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20888548](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20888548)

2\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16391215](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16391215)

3\. [http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=202339](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=202339)

4\. [http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=377969](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=377969)

5\. [http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8539](http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8539)

6\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340654](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340654)

7 [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23021013](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23021013)

8\. [http://www.jissn.com/content/1/1/45](http://www.jissn.com/content/1/1/45)

9\. [http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/25](http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/25)

10\. [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/.../01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/.../01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract)

11\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995)

12\. [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/67/5/828.short](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/67/5/828.short)

13\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735439)

14\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12535503](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12535503)

15\. [http://www.metabolismjournal.com/.../S0026-0495.../abstract](http://www.metabolismjournal.com/.../S0026-0495.../abstract)

16\. [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00394-012-0418-1](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00394-012-0418-1)

17\. [http://www.nature.com/.../jou.../v64/n6/abs/ejcn201045a.html](http://www.nature.com/.../jou.../v64/n6/abs/ejcn201045a.html)

18\. [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/1/34](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/1/34)

19\. [http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/9](http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/9)

20\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11838888](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11838888)

21\. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565999](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565999)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, the conclusions of these articles seems to be that there is not conclusive evidence that high fat diets are linked to heart disease.

<comment><USER9> Well if we're honest you can cherry pick your research can't you and how you interpret the results. Can you in return point to me a study that shows increasing carbohydrate and reducing fat decreases heart disease? I'd suggest in modern research such findings don't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aspirin has anti-inflammatory properties. Could it be that some cancers are a consequence of a long-term, low-grade inflammation (possibly, a consequence of infection with some kind of unknown virus)?

Is low-grade inflammation detectable by blood tests?

<comment><USER12> I know next to nothing about medicine, but at least some cancers (can?) derive from human papillomavirus[0] infections.

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

<comment><USER13> That's probably because papillomavirus inactivates two tumour suppressing proteins in order to allow the host cell to proliferate. Nothing to do with inflammation per se.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The full article is freely available [1],and reading the abstract will be more informative and more accurate than the Guardian article for most HN readers, I believe. Science journalism has a long ways to go before it can reliably communicate science results.

[1] [http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/an...](http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/annonc.mdu225.full)

<comment><USER15> It is not just science journalism it is all journalism. In my experience the most accurate reporting is in science.

Outside of science any reporting that I have had any personal knowledge of has been so distorted that I wonder if journalists and I inhabit different universes.

<comment><USER16> > In my experience the most accurate reporting is in science.

I agree with your general claim about journalism, but really, "the most accurate reporting is Science" ? There are so many fallacies embraced by journalists whenever they review Scientific results (the largest one being the lack of understanding of the differences between causation and correlation), that I can't even begin to fathom while that would be more accurate than the rest.

<comment><USER15> I said the most accurate, not accurate :)

In general science reporting is appalling bad, while non-science reporting is total fiction with a malign bias.

<comment><USER16> Got it, I see what you are saying now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most interesting part, IMO -

"All the cancers in which aspirin has a beneficial effect have some lifestyle causes – from smoking in lung cancer to alcohol in oesophageal cancer and obesity in all of them. Taking aspirin, said Cuzick, "should not be seen as a reason for not improving your lifestyle". The drug, however, would reduce the cancer risk even in people who have a healthy lifestyle, he said."

Now I left in the last part to be fair, but it seems like perhaps the risks (bleeding etc) may not outweigh the benefits for people with a healthy lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER18> Aspirin has potential. It might also help with mood disorders if or when they are connected to low level chronic inflammation.

(big if, nothing conclusive, just interesting connection)

[http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/14/4/248.full](http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/14/4/248.full)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15867179](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15867179)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535180/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535180/)

</comment><comment><USER19> What I find interesting about aspirin is that no one really knows how it works (its "mechanism of action"). Its anti-inflamatory effects are a consequence of something else, not the cause.

In the book "Power, Sex, Suicide"[1], Nick Lane states:

"Curiously, aspirin is also a mild respiratory uncoupler; I do wonder how many of its more mysterious benefits may relate to this property"

He is talking about the mitochondrial respitarory chain. In this context, "uncoupled" means that the electron flow does not generate any ATP; instead, all the energy is dissipated as heat. The interesting thing is that uncoupling the electron transport chain reduces electron leakage ("free radicals") and less free radicals has been associatted with ageing and disease.

Will less electron leakage reduce chronic inflamation ? Who knows ...

Once again, the analogy with computer systems is pretty straightforward: If our back-end system is "inflamed" (read, under heavy load) due to incoming HTTP requests, uncoupling it with a message queue system will have anti- inflammatory effects.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria- Meaning...](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria- Meaning/dp/0199205647)

[2] [http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/dinitrophenol.p...](http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/dinitrophenol.ppt)

<comment><USER20> Hi there,

I think you need to explain yourself a bit better - you have made a statement that is demonstrably false, at least in the sense that you have used it -

 __ _aspirin is that no one really knows how it works_ __

\- Aspirin works by a very well understood mechanism of binding irreversibly to the COX enzyme, with a preference for COX1 over COX2. there is no debate about this.

Thankyou for pointing me down the rabbit-hole regarding uncoupling and the decrease in free radical production this creates [2], something I was not previously aware of

[1] Uncoupling of intestinal mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and inhibition of cyclooxygenase are required for the development of NSAID- enteropathy in the rat doi/10.1046/j.1365-2036.2000.00723.x/

[2] Mitochondria and reactive oxygen species 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2009.05.004

<comment><USER19> Indeed. Wording is important.

I meant that the known mechanism that you have mentioned does not explain all its reported benefits. Specifically in the anti-inflammatory effect, it seems like inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis (via COX enzyme binding) is not the reason[1].

As aspirin has so many potential benefits, it seems to me that it has to have some effect in some very basic and common site and the mitochondrial respiratory chain is a good, if not best, candidate.

If you are interested in uncoupling and free radical production, Peter[2] has a good amount of info about it.

At any rate, aspirin has many knowns unkowns; that´s what I meant in my original post.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2213311/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2213311/)

[2] [http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com.es/](http://high-fat- nutrition.blogspot.com.es/)

<comment><USER20> Thanks for pointing me to that blog, really interesting stuff. Rob

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Am I correct in saying "This isn't a new trial-based study; it's really just an analysis of available study data based on either (a) other previously published analyses of this type, or (b) an interpretation on follow-ups of clinical trials"?

I'm not used to reading science journals so it's possible that I missed something.

[http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/an...](http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/annonc.mdu225.full)

 _Methods The effect of aspirin for site-specific cancer incidence and mortality, cardiovascular events was collated from the most recent systematic reviews. Studies identified through systematic Medline search provided data regarding harmful effects of aspirin and baseline rates of harms like gastrointestinal bleeding and peptic ulcer._

<comment><USER22> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta- analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> In classic biological fashion i.e., everything is connected and has side- effects, consistent use of aspirin is also linked to macular degeneration:

[http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20130118/aspirin- blindi...](http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/news/20130118/aspirin-blinding-eye- disease)

Cancer or blindness?

</comment><comment><USER24> should I start taking it now, in my 20's, or wait till I'm in my 50's?

<comment><USER25> No definitely don't start in your 20s. There's no evidence that the benefits outweigh the risks at your age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article did not say what sample size the new research was based on or how it was conducted, but provided detailed projections over the next 20 years. Media still giving us all the numbers except the ones that matter.

<comment><USER27> The answer to those questions is not simple; this is reviewing a bunch of studies and outcomes, so the answer is, it depends. As usual, there is no substitute for looking at the fulltext, eg [http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/an...](http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/30/annonc.mdu225/T1.expansion.html) (Looks like it omits the metric of most interest to me personally, RCT results for all-cause mortality, where I believe the cumulative n is ~10-20k.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wouldn't just randomly start taking aspirin every day because of this article... Im sure the next big aspirin discovery will be "oops all that asprin is actually bad"

<comment><USER8> My father does it, many people do in Greece. Not every day regularly but 3-4 times a week. He is fine so far, extremely healthy for his age.

But what you said above could be told/discovered for jus about any drug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like more tomato sauce to prevent cancer...

[http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li](http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li)

</comment><comment><USER30> Last time a "cure cancer" article appeared on HN, someone posted a link to their site, which I found pretty entertaining:

[http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/](http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/)

<comment><USER15> I am disappointed that The Daily Mail has not yet found an inanimate object starting with Z that can cause or prevent cancer. How could they have missed this on Zinc Oxide [1]!

Edit. I spoke too soon. Thee sleuths at the DM have picked this up [2].

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/09/suncream-skin- can...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/09/suncream-skin-cancer- link_n_1502237.html)

[2] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2141257/Suncream-i...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2141257/Suncream- ingredient-damage-skin-cells-exposed-UV-rays.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yes! One magic pill will cure everything!

</comment><comment><USER32> Next I'll be hearing I should chew willow bark instead of paying for Aspirin :)

Even if this worked, the amount of misinformation about this has inoculated me against taking medical decisions myself (other than avoiding the free Twix littered in the office kitchen).

John Oliver covered this style of journalism, rather sarcastically a while back.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU#t=13m09s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU#t=13m09s)

<comment><USER33> Meadowsweet or black birch would both be much more sensible than willow bark. I've heard it claimed that black birch is safer than aspirin, though I've never seen any evidence of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Time to start selling shares in aspirin producing companies as the naifs rush in to buy up?

</comment><comment><USER35> So far anybody found out the root cause of cancer. Without knowing the root cause difficult to find a good bug fix.

<comment><USER15> There is no root cause since Cancer is a description of a set of symptoms, not a single disease. Trying to find the root cause of cancer is like trying to find the root cause of broken legs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wait, what!? One of my favorite online health info sources just yesterday headlined "FDA Reverses Its Position on Daily Aspirin" [http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/0...](http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/04/daily- aspirin-side-effects.aspx) which says only certain ppl may benefit from regular aspirin. The data do not support the use of aspirin as a preventive medication ...

<comment><USER37> No one should be using mercola.com as a source for information on anything. It's one of the most well-known dens of harmful and dangerous pseudoscience on the internet (see: [http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/joe-mercola-quackery- pay...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/joe-mercola-quackery-pays/) for one of many articles the excellent folks over at Science Based Medicine have written about the site).</comment></comment>


Gnome Shell UX Plans - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2020/04/15/gnome-shell-ux-plans/ <comment><USER2> I like Gnome shell. It keeps out of my way and I can do everything I need to do without every having to lay hands on the mouse.

I think most people complaining about Gnome are trying to use it either like Windows or like OSX. That of course won't work and thus they run into issues left and right. That's a shame, because the Gnome workflow has something to it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't wait to see what they'll remove from the users the choice of next.

<comment><USER2> I did a down vote on your comment because it's just trolling.

<comment><USER3> Duly noted. As a long-time GNOME user I felt trolled by multiple statements over the 3.X years that can _very_ reasonably be reduced to "we consider the user base not very smart, so we'll cut completely a feature instead of even giving them the chance to put it back through an advanced setting and that's our way or the highway".

As was answered to you, 'twas just sarcasm while looking at the wounds in my figurative heart, and while you are entitled to your interpretation of it as trolling, it sounds fairly incorrect since I'm not even seeking official GNOME communication endpoints and picking on them directly. Trolling is sort of directed towards a target rather than random venting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I installed Ubuntu 20.04 two days ago because my old system wasn't supported anymore.

I've tried very hard to work with Gnome Shell but there are several essential things that I can't get over. How is it possible that in 2020 a DE doesn't work well on more than 1 monitor? I mean, it works, but not how it should. I won't say anything about the top bar only showing on the primary monitor but if I'm focusing on another monitor and I hit the meta button to see the menu to search for an app or a file I have to check the main monitor.

I could partially fix this with an extension but it's not updated and it won't work with the current Gnome version.

So I had to install Unity, which is unsupported and has some bugs but at least doesn't stop me from doing basic things and doesn't get on my way.

As a linux user is frustrating. I don't understand it. I can't see myself using anything else besides Unity for the foreseable future.

<comment><USER5> As stupid as it sounds, some of it might be because they are emulating MacOS: a few years back, I found it infuriating that when I hit Alt-Tab on MacOS, the window list would appear on the primary monitor, not on the monitor where the mouse cursor was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For app launching I really like what they did with windows phone - [https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/sty...](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2018/01/launcher-10-app- drawer.jpg)

Activities spatial layout too maybe requires a single column option of all the open window tabs that can be scrolled through. Will keep the UI consistent with what everyone is used to on their phones. The grid view of window thumbs I find a bit hard to locate stuff esp when my terminals and editors have similar themes. Idk what the down side is but I am imagining using the mouse wheel to scroll through a single vertical column of all open windows.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps if they are aiming for the mainstream they should add some creature comforts like window buttons for minimizing and maximizing.

<comment><USER2> Why would you want do do that?</comment></comment>


A Concurrency System for Idris and Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://lenary.co.uk/publications/dissertation/

<comment> vezzy-fnord Quite interesting. It's an Idris interface that wraps around the Erlang primitives and OTP behaviors so as to generate Erlang code from a verified Idris implementation.

It's an interesting way to get around the dynamically typed nature of Erlang, as some of its properties have meant that despite several attempts, no one has managed to retrofit a complete type system yet, though Dialyzer provides approximate inference, in a similar manner to what I believe is a SAT solver.

Nonetheless, it's worth noting that Erlang's dynamically typed nature is nowhere near as much of an impediment as in other languages precisely due to fault tolerance guarantees from preemptively scheduled isolated actors and standard OTP behaviors providing supervision links, plus the fact that you pattern match on literal values. This and the encapsulation provided by modules leads to a remarkable system resilience even without much of a typing discipline, which shows that robust systems should have many other properties besides the type system.

Even still, anything to formally verify Erlang behaviors is a welcome advance. A rigorous approach is likely to uncover plenty of bugs and strengthen BEAM, which in turn will improve Elixir and others as well.

<comment><USER2> Another powerful approach is property testing.

Here is a series of blog posts about how it was using to find bugs in the new implementation of maps:

[https://medium.com/@jlouis666/breaking-erlang- maps-1-31952b8...](https://medium.com/@jlouis666/breaking-erlang- maps-1-31952b8729e6)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like his Simpsons reference at the end there.

<comment><USER4> isn't it more of a slashdot reference now?</comment></comment>


GM, Ford Credit Arms May Lose Billions on Car-Price Plunge - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-20/gm-and-ford-face-billions-in-losses-from-historic-car-price-drop <comment><USER2> > Physical auctions have been halted for weeks along with much of the rest of > the economy.

Ah! That explains why I can't find a used car right now. We were actually searching for a used car before the pandemic, and I've been checking constantly assuming the market would be flooded with them.

Now I understand why the inventory stoped changing as did the prices.

<comment><USER3> It's hard to imagine anything other than a flood of used cars at some point in the near future. It sure feels like a lot of people are going to be cash-poor, and need to sell whatever they can. I have no idea how lenders approach repossessions when they might be stuck with a vehicle they can't sell because of a glut on the market.

We were going to replace our 15 and 20 year old vehicles this year, but we're holding off for now. We're hardly driving anywhere now, and who knows what the auto marketplace will look like over the next 6-18 months.

<comment><USER4> We won't really know until it happens, of course, but perhaps the glut will be new cars, not used -- if a lot of people change their purchase decision from a new car to a used one to save a few bucks.

<comment><USER2> That's fine though. The main reason to buy used is to save money, but if the new cars drop to used prices, then you get a new car and save money!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was talk of a vehicle loan bubble in months previous. I wonder how that impacts the feasibility of these financial arms of car companies's bottom line?

Is this another bailout target?

<comment><USER6> The sub-prime loans were likely priced correctly and with the expectation of a recession during the 84-month loan term.

The problem is leases. They are really attractive products for institutions because they get prime-rate buyers to pay sub-prime interest rates on an expensive vehicle. Dealers love them because it's easy to hide BS fees and overcharge people who are shopping on monthly payments.

However, it's so easy for a lender to lose their ass on leases. The lenders promise to buy back the car at some fixed price in the future. And finding the right price for a residual is a delicate balancing act, if it's too low then the monthly payments are high and there's likely some missed sales, and if it's too high then the lender has to pay above market value for the car.

Last year, the F Series truck sold nearly 900,000 units. Ford doesn't report their lease/purchase breakdown, but I expect it to be at least 50% of sales. Meaning, for every $1,000 their lease residuals fall, they are losing at least $450,000,000 per model year. And that's just looking at their trucks.

Not only that, Ford earned that sales money when times were good, then used the profits to pay out dividends and buy back stock. But now, their lending arm has to pay for this mistake when times are bad.

Granted, the F Series and other trucks are an outlier. A good selling _car_ (or crossover) moves like 300k a year. But still, I have to imagine that even Rav4s and the like have a lease %.

This will be a bloodbath.

Edit: for reference, Ford's EBITDA were hovering in the low $10 billion range for the past five years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not surprised really...the car market, both new and used, must be taking a huge beating. Job security and loans plus _" oh gee, do I want to be in a random person's car"_

Home sales is probably worse though. No live-in sellers want buyers wandering around, and both sellers/buyers are almost 100% _" wait it out"_.

Curious if there's a loophole here for the greedy.

<comment><USER8> That would be a really ambitious greedy loophole taker.

We were planning to put our house on the market May 1 with plans to move by July. We are actually a year later than we wanted to be "because life" and now we likely could be another year before we can implement our move.

I guess in a way we are lucky. If we had moved last summer, we would probably have an 80% finished custom home build in limbo right now.

<comment><USER7> Sure...you wouldn't be the target for the greedy. There must be, though, a pretty good market of people that HAVE TO sell or buy for job relocation, "need the equity", etc. And nobody really serving that in this environment.

And I say greedy, but there's a lot of room between the "we will give you half market value" and regular realtors right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So how exactly will they lose money?

Do they think people will default on their car loans due to unemployment, then the lender won't be able to repo and sell the car for enough to recover their losses due to low demand for used cars?

Or do they still think they'll make money on their existing loan portfolio, but be unable to roll maturing loans into new loans, because people will put off buying cars?

<comment><USER10> Because they will sell less cars. That means they hold more cars. More cars that are depreciating. They will drop prices to move cars. That means less profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> cars were now too expensive for common people to begin with. now they're offering 84 month payment terms. when I arrived in america in 2012 car terms were 36-48 months. & when you look historically at car prices compared to wages, the situation is even dire

<comment><USER12> We are living in strange times. If your credit is good, most automakers are offering no interest loans and also not doing the normal trick of making the no interest loan price higher to cover the spread. Very desperate to sell cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a lease ending in June and really trying to figure out if there's any waiting I should be doing or just get another one in June. I feel like I'm a few months too early.

Maybe I'll have to wade back into actually owning a vehicle if the prices absolutely tank.

<comment><USER14> > _Maybe I 'll have to wade back into actually owning a vehicle if the prices > absolutely tank._

I would assume that if used car prices plummet, residual values on leases will fall, making the leases more expensive.

Lightly used vehicles will be where it's at.

<comment><USER15> Not necessarily, leases are determined by the difference between the residual value and selling price, not MSRP. Automakers will likely pile on incentives to reduce the selling price.

Since car makers have their own finance arms, the residual prices will likely be kept artificially high. This allows them to kick the problem down the road until lease expiration.

<comment><USER13> If I'm following your Hypothesis right, you're suggesting that maybe they will artificially deflate the cost of a lease to move them, and then pay the price when they get them back because they're worth less than estimated at start of lease?

<comment><USER16> ... or just give incentives up front on the MSRP. Manufacturers do both, it depends on how the details of the accounting play out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the world is heading into a deflationary crisis. We're just starting. Corporations seem to think they are immune. Governments cannot do much to stem this crisis. People should be ready to brace for more shocks. When we reopen, we'd still be in recovery mode for at least a few years.

<comment><USER18> Unless we print money. Lots and lots of money. I am counting on that happening, or else on total collapse of everything.

<comment><USER10> Printing money defaces the dollar to the world. You can never create value, even by printing money. The system will rebalance because nobody works for free and everything is sold to the top bidder.

<comment><USER18> Printing money does deface the dollar.

However, it can destroy or create value, depending on how its done and why. Words like 'never' and 'always' are rarely true in economics. Value is being destroyed through debt defaults, layoffs, and bankruptcies on a massive scale right now. Inflation would almost certainly destroy less value.

My expectation is we won't get out of this without either:

(1) An economic collapse

(2) Cleverness

(3) Inflation, to where post-pandemic prices are a small multiple of where they are today (e.g. 2-10x).

(4) Mass death and disability (people underestimate the economic impact of having a big portion of the population disabled by COVID19 for the rest of their lives)

Inflation seems like among the lesser of the possible evils right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Paywall-free link: [http://archive.is/A9DZT](http://archive.is/A9DZT)

(Because why should I have to reset my cookies to read the news?)

</comment><comment><USER19> Last paragraph of the article:

        GM and Ford's captive-finance
        companies and Ally are doing
        what they can to limit their
        contribution to the glut of
        used vehicles hitting
        auctions by offering
        extensions to lease
        customers. "That helps to
        manage the supply dynamics
        relative to demand and we
        think that overall positions
        the market to be stronger,"
        Laclair said.

I suspect this is likely legal, but when I read it, I got this feeling like "that doesn't seem right". How can it be acceptable for a single private entity to control that much of the market?

It's certainly manipulative. The reality is that cars should be less valuable right now and for some period of time after an event like Covid19.

<comment><USER15> I have a lease that's up in May and have been offered an extension a few times. They are even incentivizing it by keeping the price the same which is interesting when you factor in lessee contributed cap cost reductions.

<comment><USER16> It's cheap money on their part - keep the car in your hands and on your insurance for 3-6 months until the market settles.</comment></comment></comment>


Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://eaipatterns.com/ramblings/18_starbucks.html

<comment><USER2> The reason why they call your name is because Schultz, inspired by the "bar" in Milan in the early 1980's, wanted people to believe they had a barista friend. Note that "bar" in Italy has roughly the same meaning as "cafe" in the US. In Italy, then and now, most bars have regular customers, and they get to know each other's name.

When I moved to Singapore a few years ago, I started drinking my coffee at a local "Segafredo", and had to teach to the baristas to call me by name whenever I entered. For a few months, they would say "Buongiorno Mr. Simone" to me only. I also had to teach them how to do a proper espresso. They were clueless. (I was a barista in my twenties). One day I hear "Buongiorno Mr. Giovanni", and I immediately knew it was another Italian. He also did the same, had to teach them to call him by name, and how to do a proper espresso. Funny.

<comment><USER3> Nice story, but my Starbucks barista often gets my name wrong. If being friendly was their intention, rather than matching orders and drinks, they certainly haven't gotten the memo.

<comment><USER4> I give a different name. My problem isn't so much that no one knows how to say mine; it's that no one knows how to spell it, and since someone else reads it, they generally fumble the totally weird series of letters the other barista wrote down. So I started to think of it as less about providing my name -- I don't care about fake familiarity -- and more about providing a uniquish identifier. So I optimize for that: pick a name that everyone knows but few people have. "Art" works pretty well.

<comment><USER5> Not Ford Prefect? ;-) (I suppose Art Dent is close enough...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fun article, but the title is a little misleading. It's not that Starbucks doesn't use 2-phase commit. It's that they break their sales process into a couple of atomic transactions that run in parallel: payment and delivery. Each of those steps still in fact uses 2-phase commit.

Running a credit card or accepting cash is 2-phase commit. Drink pickup could be seen as a 2-phase commit (put drink on counter, confirm name, take back if name doesn't match). What's interesting is the exception handling logic between these parallel transactions. I.e. if payment fails while drink is getting made, try to cancel the drink delivery.

So the issue here is not "atomic or nonatomic", it's "how do I break a business process down into a set of atomic transactions". Very few businesses are going to run their entire supplier-to-customer process inside of a single atomic transaction.

</comment><comment><USER7> One additional concept that Starbucks handles is name collisions. If there are two Mikes, the person then must check the type of drink in order to differentiate his order from the other Mike's order. If they happen to be the same, it goes to the first person who ordered (or if one Mike is not aware of the other Mike, it's first come, first serve).

<comment><USER8> In practice, most people hear "Mike, your Grande Triple-Shot Vanilla Latte is ready!" and immediately someone picks up the drink, studies it, and asks "Is the a Caramel Frappuccino for Dan? I don't see the Whipped Cream!"

I don't know what the programming equivalent is.

<comment><USER9> Optimistically fuzzy matching?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Probably worth a (2004) tag.

<comment><USER11> And the links to the preceding discussions:

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=starbucks+two+...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=starbucks+two+phase+commit&start=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was in Japan last March and one of the souvenirs I brought back was a Starbucks cup holder with my name written on it in Japanese. Granted, it was at a rest stop Starbucks, and I don't recall if they actually called my name out, but perhaps things have changed since 2004 or they treat tourists differently.

</comment><comment><USER13> If I have no choice but to get my coffee at a Starbucks, I will always order a "brewed coffee". The order is filled by the order-taker and therefore not subject to any of this barrista bullshit..

</comment><comment><USER14> One thing the article doesn't point out is that, in Japan, coffee shops don't usually take your name during your order.

This means that the customer must listen for the name of their drink instead of their name. Also, when two people order the exact same drink, it can be ambiguous who gets the first served drink.

<comment><USER15> > In the US, most Starbucks use an explicit correlation identifier by writing > your name on the cup and calling it out when the drink is complete. In other > countries, you have to correlate by the type of drink.

<comment><USER16> In my Starbucks, they keep the drinks in a FIFO stack. My drink might be done, but they wait until the other drinks in the queue are delivered before they call mine.

This is okay most of the time, but it is annoying when the person in front of me has a large drink order and I can see my drink ready.

<comment><USER17> That sounds like my Starbucks. I was sitting at a table and overheard a customer complaining that they got their coffee after someone that ordered after them. After the customer left, I heard the Starbucks manager explain to the new hire that the "queue" is very important. It thought "wow, this sounds like my old Data Structures class!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the Philippines, they ask for your name, but also ask for the receipt when you pick up your drink. I assume that's primarily for theft prevention. But it was wonderful to have everyone get your name right on the first try (it's Philip).

</comment><comment><USER19> The article is actually on mapping Messaging, Conversation Pattern and Asynchronous Processing to a real world example. Everybody keeps talking about coffee :)</comment>


Are New Video Networks In Trouble?  - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2008/10/27/are-new-video-networks-in-trouble/

<comment><USER2> Yes.</comment>


Ask HN - why taskers on handy needs to be screened? - <AUTHOR> Why services like airbnb do not do any screening and handy needs to screen taskers? <comment><USER2> It's a matter of risk.

With AirBnB the customer is going into the "vendor's" home. With Handy, the vendor is entering the customer's home.

While there have been incidents of bad AirBnB hosts, there has probably been a lot more cases of bad behaviour by the customers, and extensive screening before the transaction would probably be a deal-breaker.

A thief working through Handy could cause loads of problem for them, since they could get into several houses every day.</comment>


Time to Patch Adobe Flash Player. Now - <AUTHOR> http://dnlongen.blogspot.com/2015/07/time-to-patch-adobe-flash-player-now.html?m=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Step by step instructions for either removing Flash Player, or updating it and setting it to "click to play" (ask you before playing Flash content). Critical in light of the Hacking Team breach and the Flash exploit now being used to spread Cryptolocker malware.</comment>


Another YC Clone - Dream IT Ventures - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamitventures.com/

<comment><USER2> This has been posted before, when it first was announced in Jan and mentioned in other posts: <http://searchyc.com/dreamit>

Since it was announced, I've seen Dreamit up close and personal, and have been encouraged from what I've seen. The principals involved are experienced and intelligent. And there are some promising companies in the first batch.

<comment><USER3> I agree - I saw the demos of all of the teams during the kickoff and there are some really good ideas/groups. Josh Kopelman gave an inspiring speech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't people have any imagination?

I mean seriously, this is almost a complete ripoff. Can't they at the very least try to expand a bit on the Y-combinator idea instead of just blatantly ripping it off like that. Apparently it is harder to get a good idea of your own than I thought.

<comment><USER5> Oh, I don't know about that. Many of the details seem different -- for instance, instead of the partners trying to advise everybody at once they'll assign you a "guru". They distinguish between "innovators" and "strategists" as two types of people that they want applications from. They are less focused on the "web app" field than YC seems to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know two of the companies in the first batch, and they're both exciting ideas with smart founders. They differentiate themselves in some ways from the YC model: they're broader in scope, focus less on "hackers", and get an MBA student to work with each team.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Couldn't they at least anti-alias the graphics on the homepage?

</comment><comment><USER7> Wish they had a better logo, might seem more legit.

<comment><USER8> I don't know, it could be worse, like their partner's Comic Sans logo: <http://www.midcoastcapital.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that this differs from Y-combinator in that "innovators" and "strategists" apply separately and parter up later on during the program after meeting each other and finding suitable matches.

</comment><comment><USER10> Strange they haven't heard of antialiasing.

And they're using ASP?

I guess it's pretty clear that whatever advice they are giving you, it's not going to be technical; and that's underscored by their "guru"/speaker list of management types instead of programmers.</comment>


360° music video - YOU turn the camera around as it plays - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/doritosuk

<comment><AUTHOR> I would love to know how they managed to do this? What sort of camera did they use?

<comment><USER2> My guess is they mounted a few cameras in the middle and stitched the frames together using something similar to Photoshop's photomerge feature (the one that people use to make panoramas)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hire a Vet - <AUTHOR>

I would like explore asking a Vet to help me hack out a minimally viable product demo for my online social media app. Where would I need to begin this exploration? <comment><USER2> I'd venture to say that, if you don't even know how to find a military veteran in the first place, your chances of success are limited. The fact that you've asked "How do hire a vet" is very telling and, I presume, predictive of both your (a) ability to communicate your ideas (after all, "vet" is an ambiguous word and most people would likely have thought of a veterinarian first), and (b) your inability to perform a basic task without asking a community for help. It might be worth re-thinking if now is the right time...

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually, I think that most people _would_ assume you meant a military vet and not a veterinary physician, since most people hear a lot more about military vets. My question would be do you want someone with serious skills and just a good coder? If the latter, I'd suggest some community colleges.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do you mean a veterinary physician or a military veteran?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Military Vet.</comment>


Credit card thieves using free-to-play apps to launder their ill-gotten gains - <AUTHOR> https://kromtech.com/blog/security-center/digital-laundry <comment><USER2> My pet conspiracy theory: The vast majority of the CS:GO economy is a massive money laundering operation for the Russian government. You have skins for an AK47 selling for $40,000. Does anyone seriously think that's legit?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what parties you suppose to make a deal through that scheme, but for those who don't know: in Russia no money laundering is required. You simply never get 'source of funds' questions even when buying something enormously expensive. Just don't put it to the bank, unless you want to lose 10% (maximum no-brainer) on converting back.

This misconception is also shared among many russian folks who use term 'laundering' when actually they speak about tax theft or just theft through fake middleware companies who convert it to cash and that's it.

<comment><USER4> As was suggested below, what you mas actually want to do is inject untraceable money into a foreign financial system in order to use it later for some nefarious purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested to know which version of MongoDB this was.

This "no auth" was a default choice for MongoDB through at least 2013 (in this case, it helped to find nefarious actions).

For more background, I wrote a three-part MongoDB[1]. These are the notes on auth behavior from the interview with MongoDB's CTO:

> \- Defaults: I feel like it's playing with fire to set bad defaults in a > database - with numerous data breaches due to 10gen's early decisions on > authentication, remote login, and encryption (see for example, > [https://snyk.io/blog/mongodb-hack-and-secure- > defaults/](https://snyk.io/blog/mongodb-hack-and-secure-defaults/) ). For > auth, Eliot argues that developers need to take responsibility for exposing > MongoDB on public servers - and that the SLA for a self-hosted instance is > different than a managed instance (at minimum, I have issues with users > having their data exposed to the world through no fault of their own). He > disagreed with 10gen's decision to turn on auth by default in later self- > hosted versions once MongoDB ignored remote connections by default (but > thought this was the right choice for the managed Atlas service). (But > before 2014, the default behavior was no auth - and accepting all remote > connections, see [https://snyk.io/blog/mongodb-hack-and-secure- > defaults/](https://snyk.io/blog/mongodb-hack-and-secure-defaults/) ; Eliot > notes that this took a while because changing the default would have caused > issues for existing customers)

( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14804765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14804765) )

[1] [https://www.nemil.com/mongo/](https://www.nemil.com/mongo/)

<comment><USER6> _For auth, Eliot argues that developers need to take responsibility for exposing MongoDB on public servers_

That's like selling a car without preinstalled seat belts and then saying it is the responsibility of the driver if they take it on the road like that. It's technically true, but it's sort of missing the point.

<comment><USER5> I made the same seat belt point to him, and here's the section with his response:

> I do have concerns when 10gen explicitly targets junior developers ... What > [Eliot, MongoDB CTO] says makes sense say 20 years ago, but with 25% of new > software engineers coming from coding bootcamps with non-engineering > backgrounds, I worry that defaults matter ever more in dev tools (and even > seasoned engineers may mess this up, if they're coming from a database with > different defaults). We discussed analogies like seat belt lights versus the > responsibility of passengers to know better. He also argued that waiting to > get all this right - not just auth - would impact database innovation, while > I think there's a balance that gets us a lot of the low hanging fruit (like > security).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14804765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14804765)

<comment><USER7> > with 25% of new software engineers coming from coding bootcamps with non- > engineering backgrounds

This is unnecessarily elitist: I've seen no difference in security awareness based on anything other than specializing in security, and even then it can be surprisingly blinkered.

<comment><USER5> That's fair. I was mostly reflecting on the time that most bootcamps spend on a student (2-3 months) relative to other programs.

But I agree that no matter the program, security best practices are rarely taught.

<comment><USER7> Agreed — I often feel like we're in the period where the germ theory of disease is known but it's still a battle to get doctors to wash their hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given how off many of the details are in this article, I don't know that the authors have a very deep understanding of the f2p game economy. So it's hard to trust anything beyond "f2p games are used with stolen credit cards" part. Which is true, but not exactly news.

Most importantly they keep harping on about how Supercell should be doing more to ban accounts that tranfer illicit gems between accounts, or how each gem should have an individual hash so that it could be tracked to the source, etc. Well, given that gems are not and never have been transferrable between accounts in those games, having it be a bannable offense would have no effect at all. And the chain of ownership is always going to be exactly one step long.

(Yes, any game that makes the premium currency or items transferrable is inviting a lot of abuse. It's not just stolen credit cards, it'll also be account hijacks since they'd be very lucrative. Just drain all the victims items before they can recover the account. Optionally you can also buy more items with the victim's already registered CC at the same time. So if a game does support these kinds of transfers, it's good to be deeply suspicious about the motives of the creators. But afaik it's simply not the case for any of the Supercell games that this article talks about.)

And then that table showing the scale of the problem is pretty bizarre. The stated revenue numbers must be off by around a factor of 5. I thought for a moment it was talking about the scale of the abuse they've deteted. But then that'd mean the scammers are using 100M Google accounts to wash 20k credit cards/month. That's too absurd to be true.

</comment><comment><USER9> Of course the game makers aren't going to filter it, it makes them an "unwitting" benficiary of money laundering. It's not like their overt business purpose is any better.

<comment><USER10> AFAIK for card not present transactions, if a chargeback occurs, the merchant pays for the refund, plus a chargeback fee of ~$25. So unless the credit card victims are particularly clueless, this shouldn't be profitable for the merchant.

<comment><USER11> I suspect that none of the Free To Play games _ever_ get that kind of chargeback fee given the sheer volume of money they process.

The credit card companies probably trip over themselves to give phenomenal offers to be the processor for them.

In addition, who really cares about a chargeback for an online game? Since there is no physical thing that transacted, simply reversing the transaction is quite straightforward.

<comment><USER12> Chargeback fees are the card clearing services way of discouraging chargebacks/disputes. They charge everybody them. The large banks put way more money through them than you're talking about, and they have fairly high write- off levels just because it's not worth raising a dispute unless you're damn sure the other party will be hit with the costs.

A significant amount of the time when you call your provider about a dispute (fraud or non-fraud), they will just pay out of their own pocket rather than raise it with Visa/Mastercard/whomever, it's just not worth the risk of being hit with the fees. (Unless they decide it's your fault, in which case they'll tell you to suck it up.)

(I am a developer on the disputes platform for a major bank)

<comment><USER10> >A significant amount of the time when you call your provider about a dispute (fraud or non-fraud), they will just pay out of their own pocket rather than raise it with Visa/Mastercard/whomever

Are you talking about when a customer calls their bank, or when a merchant calls their payment processor? I thought when a chargeback occurs, only the merchant side gets hit with fees?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else wondering if the criminals read Neal Stephenson's novel, Reamde, as a how-to guide?

</comment><comment><USER14> > "Money laundering through the Apple AppStore or Google Play isn't a new idea > and has been done before. In the 2011 the Danish part of the Apple App Store > was flooded with expensive suspicious applications. More than 20 out of 25 > of the most downloaded applications were from China. The price of the apps > ranged from $50-$100. For example, one of them "LettersTeach", was intended > for children who are learning English letters, yet it cost nearly $78. This > pointed to money laundering then, however, what we encountered now is much > more sophisticated.

I don't understand how the laundering part works. There was a similar link posted to an overpriced book on amazon yesterday on HN, which also alluded to money laundering.

So if I understand correctly, the person(s) who want to launder their ill- gotten cash publish an app with an outrageous price, and then by the same app with their ill-gotten money, thereby turning it legitimate (buy way of the app company)?

If yes, then how much money could you possibly launder this way? Won't purchase of the same app a 100 times (if that's even possible) raise suspicion? And even then you've only managed to launder 50 - 100 x 100 = max of 10,000 USD. This is peanuts for the real money launders who would be dealing with millions of $ monthly.

<comment><USER15> The laundering part is easy. A guy has $1M need to clean up. Release a $1000 app under account A. Buy the app 1000 times with account B, C, D, ... Account A earns legit money.

<comment><USER16> What about the 30% comission the app stores take?

What's the going rate for money laundering? :P

<comment><USER17> Nothing wrong with losing a little bit of money to make a lot of money. Even Pablo Escobar had to write off 10% of all his money due to rats eating it. I feel like these people are ok with giving Google/Apple a 30% cut if it means a platform is provided for them to make the other 70%

<comment><USER14> > Even Pablo Escobar had to write off 10% of all his money due to rats eating > it.

I didn't think this was true, but your statement checks out. Wow!

> "Pablo was earning so much that each year we would write off 10% of the > money because the rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by > water or lost," Escobar wrote.

Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber- band...](http://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-bands-2015-9)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "They chose email providers with little to no protection against automated account creation."

To be specific, go2.pl, o2.pl, prokonto.pl and tlen.pl are the exact same mail provider - in fact, those domains are aliases for each other after registering. This means that by registering a single time, they get four usable e-mail addresses. Interestingly, the same provider also provides a functionality to get more aliases if you want, but it doesn't seem like criminals used this functionality (the aliases cannot be in those four domains, rather they can be in another list of 18 domains).

<comment><USER19> Doesn't fastmail offer the same feature? I remember at least a dozen aliases when I used them a decade ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm a little unclear on how they found this database and why it was left without security. It sounds like there is some well known vulnerabilities with older versions of Mongo and these people did some security audits where they found this particular database. Is the explanation for why this database was left vulnerable just a mistake on the part of the money launderers?

<comment><USER21> MongoDB's defaults have no real authentication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In the lower right they note selling an AppleID with some game currency on it.

Is that of any use to a given gamer, a whole new AppleID?

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if we'll ever know where these tools originated from.

Does the US DOJ have a history of halting this sort of fraud yet?

</comment><comment><USER24> Original article:

[https://kromtech.com/blog/security-center/digital- laundry](https://kromtech.com/blog/security-center/digital-laundry)

<comment><USER25> Thank you, we've updated the link from [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/open- mongodb-...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/open-mongodb- database-exposes-mobile-games-money-laundering-operation/).</comment></comment>


ISP responds to the Emergency Data Retention DRIP bill that was passed yesterday - <AUTHOR> https://s.aa.net.uk/1984

<comment><USER2> Anyone else notice the 'incident number' in the URL?</comment>


Ask HN : Implementing a scalable Chat server. - <AUTHOR>

I am working on an idea which involves chat backend. I don't have much knowledge about scalable systems. If I need to have a scalable chat backend, should I go ahead with ejabberd or should I write some custom software. And What are the design decisions that I should consider if I am writing custom software. Or is there any other better alternative? <comment><USER2> Why reinvent the wheel? ejabberd is likely your best bet at least until you need to customize it heavily.</comment>


Advices I wish I got at the start of my career - <AUTHOR> https://charlesxu.io/advices/ <comment><USER2> How do you know which companies are on the good trajectory?

<comment><AUTHOR> I find breakoutlist.com and crunchbase.com pretty useful.

<comment><USER2> breakoutlist seems to have more information than crunchbase but I don't think that's enough to make a judgement. You probably need to get information from them during the interview?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is ExtJS not getting any traction? - <AUTHOR> It's 2014. I'm looking for a rich-widget JS framework (datagrids, forms, widgets - all the stuff you need for building desktop-equivalent admin focused apps) and all I find is Sencha's ExtJS.
Yet everywhere I turn (esp on HN) people are talking about AngularJS, EmberJS and Backbone-based solutions. While no doubt great, none seem to be focused on back-office tasks. With the rise of building mobile apps in HTML5/JS I'm surprised - I can't be the only person building data-focused apps (and associated CRUD).
So, why do you use these, do they have a sweet spot (custom apps, games, some "I'm a website but I don't want to be" malarkey?) and why not ExtJS? ExtJS sucks, I know that - but it looks the most RAD way to develop admin interfaces, data input etc. <comment><USER3> Let me preface this with the fact that I am a Flex dev who ventured into the HTML/JS/CSS stack during the "Flexodus". Cleary, ExtJS seemed to suit my fancy more than the other libraries in the JS world.

As far as why it doesn't have traction, I would attribute this to 2 things. The first being that the JS community isn't really into app development. What I mean by that, is when you look at JS, and you look at languages like Flex and Silverlight, you notice a massive disconnect in ideas. In the JS world, visual components are rarely if ever first class citizens, simple layout tasks are far more difficult than they need to be, and SPA paradigms are also second class citizens. After noticing this and poking around, you find out that the main JS community either doesn't want the solution to begin with, or they seem to be re-inventing the wheel.

The second strike against ExtJS is the cost. I got a license for it a few years ago when I was delusional and thought I could use it to replace Flex. Dropping $1,000 on something when virtually every other tech out there is free is hard to choke down.

Also, it seemed like a major step down for those of us coming from the Flex community. Like I said, with JS app paradigms seem like afterthoughts and each peculiarity wore me down further and further. For instance, if you have a button and you declare a listener function but misspell it, you don't get an error complaining that the listener doesn't exist, you get a blank white screen. Another issue was marshalling data into objects. Whenever I brought back a Classroom JSON representation, the Student objects in the students collection remained unmarshalled. I had to use ANOTHER store to get those to behave as objects. All of these "why on earth is this acceptable" moments led me to believe such features weren't really in demand in the JS community if not resented altogether.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that's a great answer! I hadn't considered the different community mindset.

I'm curious what you settled on instead of Flex?

You've got me thinking wider than HTML/JS, for something which could be more satisfying (for me): mobile apps could be the way but I need desktop/browser/cross-platform support; Silverlight I've heard good things about but again isn't widely used I believe.

<comment><USER3> I went back to Flex ='(. Like I said, the lack of basic app principles and the fact the JS community wants to fist-fight you for saying there is a better way was kind of off-putting. If you want desktop support, you might want to look at Adobe AIR. There is also JavaFX, but it appears very, very, very half-baked to me right now.

<comment><USER4> You should really try out AngularJS. The declarative syntax of it reminds me of Flex quite a bit. I haven't used AS3 or Flex in years and really miss that environment, and when I started using AngularJS I felt like I got a taste of it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having you checked out KendoUI? They seem to be somewhere between the ExtJS/AngularJS spectrum.

I've used Sencha's frameworks on 3 different projects now, and I still hate it. For many different reasons:

1\. The learning curve: This is probably something you already know. But you may not be aware of is the other effects this can cause. If your team consists of members of different level of experience (from 0+), the code quality is going to suffer a lot from the lack of knowledge.

2\. ExtJS and Sencha Touch are 2 different products. Today's web app demands to be runnable on many different platforms. With ExtJS you get point and click. With Sencha Touch you get swipe and pinch. But what if you're running it on a touch laptop that needs both point and click and swipe and pinch? I'm working on a product right now that integrated the 2. While we succeeded at reaching the goal, the result is not something I'm proud of.

3\. Sencha is a walled garden that makes it hard to integrate other libraries into it. For the most part, Sencha already have a lot of things that you needed (like data grid, combo box, etc). But what if you want to do complex data visualization with d3? Complex interactive behavior with Rxjs? Or realtime updates with socket.io?

Eventually, I found out that no matter which framework you choose to use, you'll end up needing to read its source code to understand what's underneath. If you have to do so anyway, why not pick a framework that's simple to understand?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I've looked at KendoUI from their 'Preview' days onwards, when the license was so confused (and no one could answer) that I gave up. I've been back since and read through the demos, but to be honest I'm not a fan. KendoUI doesn't feel cohesive, and while I'm pleased they advertise framework bindings, having their own MVVM implementation seems crazy.

So, I'm biased against KendoUI as my gut feeling says something's not right with it, but have no actual experience to back that up ;)

Completely agree re the learning curve and hating ExtJS - I've 'used' a bad implementation of ExtJS 3.2 in the MODX CMF [0] where it powers the CMS's admin and it's hideous.

<comment><USER6> The backend integration is completely optional. You can put any REST controller (given that they follow Kendo's simple protocol) behind the widgets and everything can be bound using Javascript.

It integrates well with other Javascript libraries. But not so much with Angular, which is more because Angular doesn't play well with anything than a flaw in Kendo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most ExtJS apps are probably internal admin apps, but I imagine it has decent usage throughout the corporate world. 5 Years ago if you were looking to create a SPA business oriented web-app extjs was the only option really, and at the time it also looked damn nice (against java generated web-apps).

It seems the ExtJS community has fallen off a bit as the company has (in my opinion) put it in the rear-view as they focus on Sencha and mobile. I also never really felt that I have seen what a true ExtJS app could be. The examples are the same as they were 5 years ago. Only the theme has been changed. You get a lot for free with the datagrid and charts but they aren't the only game in town for this.

No one wanted to build customer facing ExtJS apps because of performance issues, hard to style so that it doesn't look like some dull enterprise thing and at the time Rails was just getting popular. I havn't touched ExtJS in a while but building an admin CRUD in Rails would be much easier. The extra features of ExtJS can be gotten elsewhere and easily integrated.

Angular just seems like a breath of fresh air when comparing it to ExtJS, and again most of the components can be found elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> I think this is exactly correct. I've used ExtJS exactly once and it was for building an internal, administrative app.

It's also correct that building an administrative interface with Rails or Django is much easier. In the case of the app I was building we had to interface with some Django code, so I wrote this Python meta-class that would inspect Django models and produce classes that would then produce ExtJS models, widgets, etc. that could then interact RESTful interfaces provided by the Django app. It worked great but was slow due to javascript blocking issues. So like you said performance issues were a barrier, but I doubt in that case it was ExtJS's fault. I've thought about posting that code somewhere but I'm kind of embarrassed that I actually tried it. After that little experiment we scrapped ExtJS and built a strait Django application that did what we needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cost. In my day job we use extJS so I know it pretty well. I would have been the first one to use it in my side project. But because pretty much every other javascript frameworks is free and the extJS licensing is terrible they weren't even in the decision.

</comment><comment><USER10> TL;DR: I use Angular (or * framework) simply because I can rapidly develop the features and adhere to ALL the requirements. ExtJS doesn't suck, but it typically doesn't fit into scope or doesn't fit all the requirements.

ExtJS is a great way to facilitate development when working with large data sets that involve (as you mentioned) CRUD utilities along with business validation constraints. With that being said, these kind of tools (And KendoUI too IMO) are being stuck inside intranet systems where the custom widgets and tools remain proprietary. No visibility == no hype.

I work exclusively on FE stacks and if the choice is Angular or any other top TODOMC* frameworks, typically that means the requirements don't fit well with ExtJS. Most JS-engine driven apps typically require a responsive implementation (cross platform is a big business trend), ability to incorporate a comprehensive design, and being able to do it within a reasonable amount of time (which is associated with budget).

ExtJS has a ton of overhead (especially browser performance and scalability in SPA sites), a large learning curve (IMO), and requires a ton of time to implement custom designs. This doesn't mean there aren't great tutorials or start kits, but its not something you can master within a week. Responsive support OOTB isn't there (KendoUI has solutions for this on their framework) and the only choice for reusable code for portable devices is an adaptive approach using Sencha Touch. This doesn't mean ExtJS is a bad choice, but typically ExtJS excels in desktop apps that are data driven with designs that were made for ExtJS (its rare to not recognize an Ext app if its built on Ext).

There's my two cents. I'm sure Sencha is going to destroy me if they ever read this.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely correct. ExtJS definitely excels at Desktop applications (pushing and pulling data sets from departmental DB's). That's we use it for and it's fine for that. However, the learning curve is fairly steep.. 4.x is much better than 3.x, more structured with some nice MVC hooks. Unfortunately, I would never use this for anything BUT an internal app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> TL;DR: because ExtJS sucks.

Long answer:

1\. The learning curve is really steep. I mean, really really steep. There's a critical shortage of (good) books, video, and tutorials on the web. I guess ExtJS' learning resources should be 0.1% of jQuery's. The examples on Sencha site were still using the 3 version last time I checked;

2\. If you need to customize ExtJS, or need something slightly more sophisticated than CRUD screen, then you are pretty much on your own. You'll spend a large amount of time trying to "fight" the framework and your chances you succeeding are very low;

3\. It's expensive and its open source license has restrictions;

4\. Sencha seems to hide and obscure the access to the learning resources so that you are pushed towards their paid support.

5\. It's slow;

6\. The error messages (when they show up!) are cryptic.

7\. ExtJS was re-designed for version 4, but some things like the Model objects are cumbersome and suffer many usage limitations;

8\. It will never be adopted as a general purpose solution on Internet facing webapps for the reasons exposed above;

</comment><comment><USER13> Last time I tried ExtJS, it struck me as a framework made by people who suffer from an extreme case of NIH syndrome. Personally, I prefer small, light frameworks that play with other frameworks well. I don't like big "uber" frameworks that re-implement everything. That's not value, in fact, it's negative value in my mind.

If I want to manipulate the DOM or do AJAX I'll use JQuery, if I want to do data binding I'll use knockout.js, etc.

But these are minor annoyances compared to the huge ExtJS no-no for me which is the fact that ExtJS seem to actually _hate_ Javascript. Or, they targeted the framework towards people who'd rather write C++ in the browser - <USER2> "class" hierarchies everywhere. Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER14> Could the problem not be the lack of desktop-looking ui-frameworks, but a lack of willingness to design something that doesn't look like a java swing app from the 90's. (Yes, ExtJS is butt-ugly).

Could the app you want to write maybe lend itself well to the UI-stylings of Bootstrap? Or Pure? Or Foundation?

Or maybe you could combine something yourself... Googling Angular CRUD gives me this: [http://angularjs-webapi-crud- grid.azurewebsites.net/](http://angularjs-webapi-crud-grid.azurewebsites.net/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I mostly use Extjs for admins and such. I would say that it offers little control over the design, structure and HTML compared to something like angular which allows full control over the presentation. Creativity room is important.

The licensing is pretty restrictive also and the prices are big.

I wouldn't say ext has no traction. I see sencha going pretty well and I've worked with extjs since the early days. It just looks more "business oriented"

</comment><comment><USER16> The licensing is bad, the control over the design is terrible, and the experience developing and learning it is painful.

Never ever use it for a client who has any ambitions on GUI design. Figuring out how to put an extra pixel here or there can take hours...

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://qooxdoo.org/](http://qooxdoo.org/)

<comment> alok-g I came across this just yesterday. Would love to hear experiences with this. Thanks.

<comment><USER17> I have no experience with ExtJS, so I can't really compare the two. I've only used the Desktop variant of Qooxdoo.

It's easy to learn, but hard to master. Though there is quite some extensive documentation, you will have to take glances at the qooxdoo sources to fully understand some more advanced stuff. And to track down if something doesn't behave as expected. The source is quite clean and readable though, e.g. the button class: [http://goo.gl/Zw6zNI](http://goo.gl/Zw6zNI)

There's also a simple playground [http://goo.gl/QAht5O](http://goo.gl/QAht5O) and an API viewer implemented in qooxdoo itself [http://goo.gl/xV5tvn](http://goo.gl/xV5tvn)

From the top of my head some random facts:

* Strictly object oriented. Every widget is a class with properties, methods, inheritance, mixins etc. [http://goo.gl/AaPb6w](http://goo.gl/AaPb6w)

* It makes (or rather you should make) heavy use of data binding. Mostly to link widgets to data stores (being populated/transmitted by some sort of rpc call, the app itself or hardcoded etc), but also to bind widgets to other widgets. [http://goo.gl/DxvNWC](http://goo.gl/DxvNWC)

* Backend communication comes in several flavors, but most prominent is the JSON-RPC interface. Qooxdoo provides backends for several languages, but it's also rather easy to implement your own. [http://goo.gl/IjCT8n](http://goo.gl/IjCT8n)

* Communication between objects is done via a simple event chain, i.e. you will use addListener and fireEvent/fireDataEvent a lot. [http://goo.gl/Yxfmot](http://goo.gl/Yxfmot)

* You can mix your project and have some parts compiled and others loaded from source at runtime. We've been using this to create a metalanguage for forms, which streamlined our application a lot. Basically we don't have to write qooxdoo code anymore to create new forms, but just a xml description of it.

All in all qooxdoo helped us more than it stood in our way. I would use it again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's pretty restrictively licensed.

<comment><USER19> To expand on that, their interpretation of the GPL is that your server code must also be GPL'd if you use Ext.

Switching from LGPL to GPL (ostensibly to clear up some license issues with the graphics) killed their mindshare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sencha Touch plays rather well with CoffeeScript

</comment><comment><USER21> anybody has experience moving from Flex to dojo toolkit ?</comment>


Why Adventure Games Suck (1989) - <AUTHOR> http://grumpygamer.com/why_adventure_games_suck <comment><AUTHOR> This was written a while back, and I feel like newer adventure games like Telltale games fix a lot of these issues.</comment>


Hadoop Needs to Be a Business, Not Just a Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/10/05/hadoop-needs-to-be-a-business-not-just-a-platform/ <comment><USER2> Cloudera doesnt have a managed cloud platform with (consulting) prof svcs?</comment>


How Hollywood Caught the UK's Most Prolific Movie Pirates - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/how-hollywood-caught-the-uks-most-prolific-movie-pirates-151227/ <comment><USER2> What is bothering me is that supposedly a private organisation (FACT) was able to approach another private organisation (Equifax) with a name and acquire further details including a home address, without warrant or personal authorisation.

Can somebody explain to me how this is not a breech of the Personal Data clauses of the Data Protection Act 1998[1]?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1998)

<comment><USER3> From wikipedia above >> Section 29 – Crime and taxation. Data processed for the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the assessment or collection of taxes are exempt from the first data protection principle.

Note that the exception does not state that a warrant is needed for the collection or sharing in such circumstances.

<comment><USER4> Somehow I suspect if I wanted to do an investigation on whether FACT were breaking any laws, Equifax would deny me information.

In many ways we have a society where it is one rule for the rich and another for the ordinary person. A good recent example of this is Facebook, which is happy to let Donald Trump say things they class as hate speech on their platform, but won't let their ordinary users do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An impressive amount of OPSEC fail. This is why you shouldn't mix real names with activity that gets you noticed!

<comment><USER6> Indeed. Never ever contaminate. If you do, it's a matter of when - not if - the link will be made. Always rotate your identities as you would your keys and credentials.

<comment><USER3> "when - not if" narratives are often pushed by enforcement groups as a scare tactic. The reality is that so many people are engaged in these activities that, even without any opsec, most will live out their careers unpunished.

The flip side to this problem is that anyone with any notion of security is practically immune. With so many easy targets out there, the hard targets go untouched year after year.

<comment><USER7> Funnily enough, that's how most criminals get caught. Boasting about it down the pub!

I was once given some wise advice. If you've ever knowingly done something wrong, never tell anyone else, and never admit to it. Your mouth is your worst enemy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those wondering, the sentences were 4.5 years, 4.2 years, 3.5 years, and 3.5 years. I'm not sure what the conversion rate between sentence and typical time served is in the UK, though.

<comment><USER9> Is it just me or does that seem like an awfully long for file-sharing? Were these guys doing more than just passing files around that would justify that amount of jail time?

<comment><USER10> As I understand it just file sharing isn't criminal - no criminal conviction and no possibility of fines or jail time. (Although the rights owners can sue for loss of earnings.)

To tip it into criminal law you need to either sell the files, or to distribute enough to affect the trade of the rights owners.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents_Act_1988#Enforcement_of_copyright)

> Copyright infringement that may be criminal offences under the Copyright, > Designs and Patents Act 1988 are the:

>Making copies for the purpose of selling or hiring them to others[11]

> Importing infringing copies (except for personal use)[12]

> Offering for sale or hire, publicly displaying or otherwise distributing > infringing copies in the course of a business[13]

> Distributing a large enough number of copies to have a noticeable effect on > the business of the copyright owner[14]

> Making or possessing equipment for the purposes of making infringing copies > in the course of a business[15]

> Publicly performing a work in knowledge that the performance is > unauthorised[16]

> Communicating copies or infringing the right to "make available" copies to > the public (either in the course of a business, or to an extent prejudicial > to the copyright owner)[17]

> Manufacturing commercially, importing for non-personal use, possessing in > the course of a business, or distributing to an extent that has a noticeable > effect on the business of the copyright holder, a device primarily designed > for circumventing a technological copyright protection measure.[18]

I agree that these people should not be in prison, and certainly not for that long. Prison should be reserved for violent criminals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just out of curiosity what's the motivation for these pirates to take these risks to share movies? Are they profiting from it financially?

<comment><USER12> No, it's community service-- just with people that are willing to go a bit further than the archive. There's also an amount of pride associated with being well known for quick releases like ettv or rartv -- or with having the smallest encoding like yify or nezu or something.

Game of Thrones is a good example. Everyone loves GOT, right? Shit some people even read the books. But you can only watch GoT if you have an HBO subscription right? Up until this year I think (?) that meant you had to be a US resident, with a physical cable subscription, and HBO service. What about people in fucking Thailand? Should they not get to watch GoT even though the whole internet is posting memes and whatever all over the place?

Or what about Django Unchained, lots of people in China went to see that film in theatres in China... minus about half an hour of edited footage. These Tarantino fans cannot legally obtain the entire version of the newest movie from their favorite director. Does that seem fair? Pirates to the rescue.

Most groups do accept bitcoin donations, but I have no clue how much that actually nets.

Honestly, it's just like a library, no clue why people get so worked up about free books, movies, music, etc. The only issue I really see is prereleases -- like cams and especially dvd screeners of films still in theatres, those can do some serious profit damages.

I fully plan on downloading this new star wars shit when it comes out. I also fully plan on going to see it in theatres because _that_ is what a movie is -- I spend 30 bucks on new movies wvery month. I download Ozzy music. I also paid fucking 150 pounds to see him in concert.

The war on pirates is just a pointless exercise by do-gooders with superiority complexes that for some reason think that copyright law as it stands is reasonable and are somehow deluded into thinking that the revenue stream of entertainment is working in a reasonable fashion. In reality that 10$ you spend on a DVD is just 10$ going into the hands of a corporation that does not actually produce anything but just runs around frantically trying to justify its own existence -- usually by harassing fans like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      > ... the actions taken by these men to hide their
      > identities aren't shining examples of the art.

I look forward to Torrent Freak's follow-up article, detailing the shining examples of pirates we all should aspire to become.

<comment><USER14> You won't hear about them. I note that these guys were all P2P pirates - direct to torrent. The real pirates are still trading over FTP sites, which then filter down to UseNet, private forums and are then "leaked" to torrents.

<comment><USER15> I used to run a FTP server back in the day, I don't see how we the operators or the scene uploaders had any better OPSEC than these guys, we were just too obscure for anyone to care about.

These guys get caught because their releases reach millions of users, while FTP scene servers that have two-digit user numbers are not exactly killing the industry.

<comment><USER14> Obscurity is a form of OPSEC, just not a very good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Communicate within voluntary relationships, get forced into a cage for years. Sounds like justice to me!

<comment><USER17> That's a pretty absurd framing of the situation.

<comment><USER18> I find it accurate enough. The very nature of data is absurd, when even far more awful stuff than merely a pirated movie can be reduced to a single (albeit large) number. It is one area where I feel our morality has not caught up with our technology.

For example, we think of trading stolen credit card numbers as wrong, but only because we have bought the narrative of identity theft, which was constructed to pass the burden onto the populace instead of the people handing out goods/services/money to verify identity. If you disregard the concept of identity theft, and think that instead it should be considered just theft, not from the one who possesses the identity used, but from the entity that handed out goods/services/money, then we need to reevaluate the ethics/morality of trading credit card numbers.

<comment><USER16> Which is of course what the credit card company tells the SOL merchant while yanking back the damages from their own willful negligence.

Consumer facing though, they'd like to define it as "identity theft" because "identity" is a bedrock abstraction their system is built on. They would _like_ an "identity" to be something prescriptive and airtight (rather than imperfectly descriptive) because it would make their job/business that much easier.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to correct a slide on an icy road (and how to prevent them) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZQXuWzBC18 <comment><USER2> Every year where I'm from the first time it snows you see all kinds of people off the side of the road, usually in a place where the road curves and they tried to take the corner at speed. Guess that's one way to learn.. driving in the snow is very intuitive: go slower than you normally do, don't tailgate, and hit the brakes gently way in advance of when you need to stop.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good advice however one more thing you should do if you find yourself sliding is stop cruising or lift foot off the gas.

<comment><USER4> In a front wheel drive card I sometimes accelerate to pull the back-end back behind. All-wheel-drive is similar, you can give a bit of gas to let the tires claw towards the direction you want.

I'm switching from an AWD sedan to a pickup truck soon. I'm a bit worried I won't have these maneuvers to help out if I slide in a truck.</comment></comment>