Cisco Changes Privacy Policy for Linksys Routers After Uproar - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/258694/cisco_changes_privacy_policy_for_linksys_routers_after_uproar.html?autoStart=0 <comment><USER2> There is so much wrong with this, that the usual EULA blunder is but the tip of the iceberg:

For a long time now, I'm using small fanless Linux boxes as routers for my home network, so clearly, I'm somewhat of a home router power user.

If there is one thing I have never ever in my life done with said routers, it must be changing their configuration while not at home.

This is incidentally the only reason why you would ever even want to consider using a cloud based home router management as an end-user.

IMHO a totally unneeded feature which also opens up a whole ton of other issues - privacy being one of them, security being a huge other part.

These linksys boxes are so far removed from even having having an acceptable security record... At least up until now, they would not respond to administrative commands from the outside. Now they clearly have to. Even if they got security significantly better than they did up to now, this is such a bad idea.

Oh, and I believe it's absolutely crazy to push an update like this as part of an automatically installed firmware update: when you alter functionality in such a broad way, the only thing you achieve is that people begin distrusting silent updates.

After years in which Chrome and Firefox finally managed to convince the public that silent updates might be a good thing (they certainly are for security - and web developers, I guess), stuff like this goes great lengths in destroying that trust again.

<comment><USER3> Let's see a couple of plausible use cases for a home router with a remote config capability:

* Husband calls wife who is at work: "Joey is visiting for a day, but he says our network is locked. Can you let him on? I don't know how to use this thing."

* Grandma calls her son the Dad who's away on a business trip: "I know you've blocked Facebook from your daughter's machine, but it's also blocked on my laptop. Can you unblock it for me? I'm trying to make plans!"

Sure, one could try to walk someone through the steps over the phone, or even remote desktop into a box to make the changes... or just tell them "wait til I get home, too bad!". But theoretically, both of these scenarios could be fixed with a cloud oriented mgt system.

Look, Cisco made a total clusterF out of how they handled this, but it's also easy to see what they were trying to solve for. They just hamhanded it, in a huge way. Also, these scenarios are potentially rare, so they made people change everything about the router just to solve these edge cases, agreed.

But I suspect many more products will have cloud/external management before long, whether they should or not. When something is hot, it becomes solutions looking for problems beyond the few they may actually solve.

<comment><USER4> I think you're giving them too much credit. To me, this screams of marketing driven decision. It seems transparent to me that Cisco was trying to get some synergy with their current marketing "Cisco Cloud" advertising.

I can just hear the marketing droids speaking now - "Wouldn't it be great if we could bring our little home users into the great cloud so they think they're important to us. Why would anyone object to that, I mean they already have opt-in to automatic updates so they are saying it's OK, they really want it".

Sheesh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cisco is reframing the issue.

The privacy policy was half of the problem. The other half was taking everyone's internal-only routers and making them accessible through Cisco. This is the opposite of what most people want.

Make Cisco Connect _opt-in_ on existing routers, make it opt-out on new routers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yet another case of 'It's better to ask forgiveness than permission.' Their capitulation is only natural considering the negative PR mess this has become, however it's hard not to imagine this being entirely intentional.

<comment><USER7> It is distressing how many companies do this now a days.

"Lets do it and see what happens. If the shit storm is too strong, we can always apologize and take it back"

Everyone wants to get away with whatever they can. I suspect it will only get worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I smell an unusually large and justified lawsuit over this.

</comment><comment><USER9> So basically, cisco was going to collect their own behavioral targeting dataset for sale or to get into the adtech business. Better yet, they were going to backdoor this in via an automatic update most users wouldn't see onto a physical device the users paid for. Some dbag there saw NebuAd and Phorm and get jealous, I guess.

Whatever else you may think of cisco, they sure do have big ole brass balls.

<comment><USER8> Don't forget they were also going to monitor what you were surfing to ensure it was safe and moral content.</comment></comment>


I write fake online reviews - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47952165 <comment><USER2> > Amazon said it was using automated technology to weed out false reviews and > that it had invested "significant resources" to protect its review system

The people in the article who write those inauthentic reviews probably aren't detectable with that automated technology. Unless they're provided specific copy to include, they're likely indistinguishable from an authentic review.

I used to think the reviewers who were particularly verbose and who included copious (sometimes superfluous) detail were likely authentic. Now I think that's an easily faked signal.

I have no clue what to believe with respect to online reviews, but I'm ever- so-slightly swayed by Amazon's explicit "amazon's choice" endorsements. I'll visit retail stores more often in order to have a clearer idea of the quality level I'm buying, and an easier recourse if it doesn't work out.

<comment><USER3> It seems "Amazon's Choice" has its issues

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/dont-j...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/dont- just-buy-now-when-shopping-on-amazon-you-need-to-pay-attention-11553592600)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Meanwhile, a trick to discover bad products anyway: Only read negative reviews.

This works somewhat because disgruntled consumers aren't prevented from posting negative reviews. However sometimes even negative reviews aren't reliable, I think because of two things: first there are just bad-tempered people out there and second perhaps unethical competition posts fake negative reviews of competitive products.</comment>


Test Drive of the Tesla Model 3 Performance - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-ever-review-of-the-tesla-model-3-performance-a-thrilling-modern-marvel-1532022533 <comment><USER2> _This thing is magnificent, a little rainbow-farting space ship, so obviously representative of the next step in the history of autos._ \- WSJ

Would make a good poster blurb

<comment><USER3> The Oatmeal is way ahead of the WSJ: [http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla_model_s](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla_model_s)

<comment><USER4> If only there was a way for the Oatmeal to enjoy his Tesla without making it sound like everyone else is a hillbilly.

<comment><USER3> If only there was a way for you to stop reading insults into the Oatmeal's love-letter.

<comment><USER4> Its "The Oatmeal's" general writing style that grates me. He always insults people who disagrees with him and portrays them in the most negative light possible.

Look, I have my interests, other people have their interests. I can tell you that Threadripper 1950x is a great CPU, and is a great computer that I just built. And I think most people would be cool with that.

But if I were to say that "AMD farts in the face of Intel and destroys the old way of building computers"... or other unnecessarily colorful language that demeans the "other side"... I'd hope that someone else on Hacker News would call me out for being unnecessarily insulting.

The comic / love letter, as you call it, directly insults any "car guy" on multiple levels. There's a word for that, and its called strawman arguments. Its preaching to the choir and overall is unhelpful for discourse.

Its certainly not unique to that comic. Its prevalent in "The Oatmeal's" writing style for years.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-----

Anyway, the WSJ review is quite good in comparison. It shows how you can heap praise upon a vehicle without insulting others.

<comment><USER3> Wow. So much for humor. You probably think Exploding Kittens is animal abuse. Also, you appear to have completely missed the point that "This thing is magnificent, a little rainbow-farting space ship, so obviously representative of the next step in the history of autos" is similar to the Oatmeal's writing... whether or not you like it.

<comment><USER4> There's a difference between having fun with someone, and making fun of someone. The Oatmeal _consistently_ errs on the side of making fun of someone.

That's all I'm trying to point out. Its a bullying tactic that loses efficacy as people become aware of it. So awareness is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I took a test drive in a Tesla the other day (hang on what you do a seven seater ?! for families ? are you free now for a ... ok let's go)

It blew me away. The acceleration (awesome), the self parking bit (I laughed till a bit of pee came out)

Some things were immediately obvious (you just showed a guy walking in front of us as another car, the handling was ... ok), others were deflected (so how many drivers have tesla's autopilot killed ... got a frosty reply)

But this was a fully electric car. And i can find dozens of charge points (ok ok in London). The point is ... they are selling the next, the only step forward for cars.

It's all electric, or it's all on buses.

So comparisons with the price points of non-electric cars just don't matter in my book. It's like public meetings about setting up new coal power station. It's not even the right question.

Of course it's waaay too expensive for me - nissan leaf. that's more my price point.

</comment><comment><USER6> It might be a good car, but not at that price tag.

If I had to spend 50+k$ for a car, I would definitely not go for a Tesla Model 3. I would go with a reliable BMW/Mercedes/Audi that is way more luxurious and offer more functionalities for the same price.

So far, the Tesla Model 3 is still for people that want to make a statement that they are part of the "green revolution" or for Elon Musk fans.

Even at 35k$ (before taxes), it is still pretty expensive for a car that will be very very basic. Look what you can get for that price tag with other car manufacturers.

<comment><USER7> I just bought an 2018 Audi A4 ($47k) and my wife just bought a Model 3 ($54k). I previously owned an S4 which (roughly $56k). I also test drove a few 4-series BMWs and few random Mercedes in the same price range.

TL;DR: I would take the Model 3 any day at that price. I have buyers remorse.

Drive feel:

The Model 3 is an absolute joy to drive and I would take it any day over either of my Audis and over any of the BMWs or Mercedes. Every gas car feels laggy now and they are kind of ruined for me. I drive my wife's car at every opportunity now even though I have a 3 week old Audi in my garage.

Autopilot makes gridlock traffic no longer a big deal. This is pretty huge and I hated driving my Audi long distance to Tahoe over July 4th weekend in traffic. I do NOT trust it with anything beyond gridlock traffic though. Not even for merges.

Interior:

The Model 3 seats are super comfy but the whole interior feels budget and I really hope you like minimalism because its extremely minimal and borderline cheap. BMW/Audi/Mercedes: I hope you like BUTTONS EVERYWHERE FOR EVERYTHING (I certainly don't). The interior feels much more premium than the Model 3 though.

Side note: Why does a tachometer still exist as a massive dial taking up most of your dash? I doubt 98% of people ever look at it.

The interface:

While significantly improved from my 2015 S4, the A4 UI is still an atrocity. Bluetooth is still awful and it auto plays whatever the hell happened to be running on my iPhone last. Lack of a touch screen (except BMW) is surprisingly frustrating now that I've used one.

The central display in the Model 3 is incredible and I love almost everything about it. Who needs bluetooth when you have Google Maps and high quality streaming audio over an incredible sounding sound system? I rarely even WANT to connect my phone.

Random:

The keyless unlock for the Model 3 is amazing as long as it actually works with your phone. My wife's Pixel XL works about 50% of the time and it makes it infuriating. PLEASE GIVE US A KEYFOB, TESLA

I can turn on the AC remotely on a hot day! The Model 3 is cold by the time we get in! There are so many delights with this car and that goes a long way.

<comment><USER8> > The keyless unlock for the Model 3 is amazing as long as it actually works > with your phone. My wife's Pixel XL works about 50% of the time and it makes > it infuriating. PLEASE GIVE US A KEYFOB, TESLA

Wait, really? If your phone is broken or out of batteries, are you locked out of the car?

<comment><USER7> No, it comes with two credit card "keys" that you keep in your wallet. They are RFID and you brush them next to the door or center console to unlock and start. Think of them like traditional manual keys.

<comment><USER8> Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > I have borrowed a new 2018 Tesla Model 3 Performance ($78,000, as tested)

I'm actually rooting for Tesla, but wasn't the Model 3 supposed to be affordable for the masses?

$78K isn't "for the masses". The incumbents aren't going to be sweating very much at that price.

<comment><USER10> A performance model isn't for the masses.

Compare it to a BMW 3 series. The BMW M3 is a lot more money and isn't for the people that go for the 328i version.

<comment><USER11> Yeah but the BMW i3 is a direct competitor. And it costs $50k and is a much better car than the Tesla model 3.</comment></comment></comment>


Phantom OS, a Russian OS where "everything is an object" - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_OS <comment><USER2> One thing it took me a while to realize is that a lot of what's provided by "OSes", the way users think of them, is _standards_ : ABIs, protocols, formats, etc. And you can play with those in userspace. I am not saying kernels don't matter or anything, just that the kernel is not the only place one can play with radically different ways to organize stuff.

So: if you want code to communicate and share capabilities through objects in a memory-safe environment, you can do that. (Browsers without strict site isolation often do this with cross-site iframes.) If you want to serialize state so you can stop and restore across reboots, you can do that. (CRIU does something like this, for apps not written for it even.) Sufficiently advanced language environments and runtimes often end up redeveloping OS-y bits (schedulers, binary formats, standard ways to exchange data).

A big problem, as with completely new OSes with their own kernels and syscall interfaces, is getting people to develop to your interfaces. But it would be (is!) interesting to see folks build alternate universes in userspace that are much easier to dip into.

<comment><USER3> So I believe I'm correct in saying that this is what Microsoft effectively does with WSL and Joyent does with Triton, i.e. faking a Linux kernel syscall table on top of a Windows NT kernel and Illumos kernel respectively.

<comment><USER2> WSL does some interesting stuff, including some new code running in kernel mode (there's more here: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/08/wsl- system-c...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/08/wsl-system- calls/)). No idea about Triton. gVisor is a user-space process providing a restricted Linux interface on top of regular-old Linux via syscall interception provided by ptrace. They all certainly demonstrate decoupling the "personality" presented to app code from the original interface of the kernel.

I'm trying to say something a little different, which is that lots of things conventionally thought of as OS design issues are not inherently about syscalls and ring 0, and can be (and are) worked on in userspace. Like, you can have capability-based interaction between mutually untrusted bits of memory-safe code (the model of this OS) inside a Unix or Windows process, and you can do a lot of other exploration of how to organize/format/communicate in userland. The kernel interface provides necessary tools but it's not all there is.

Of course kernel-side improvement is still important; foundations matter. Just, thinking big does not only have to mean replacing or even tweaking the kernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought this was interesting, it's not often I'm exposed to significant projects where the primary language isn't english. With all this new webassembly stuff it will be interesting to see if an approach like this takes off.

<comment><USER4> webassembly will make no difference at all. You still need to know english to learn how to program and read docs for libraries. It takes ages for translated books to appear, but even then most of them will be obsolete, especially for new tech like webassembly.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I say "maybe an approach like this will take off" I'm not saying "maybe we'll all be doing our programming in russian using phantom os".

I'm saying that webassembly might ultimately evolve into something that look a bit like this, since it has almost-free IPC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like the last GitHub commit in the linked repo was 2 years ago; does anyone know if the greater project is still alive?

</comment><comment><USER6> Persistent virtual memory is the future.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure it is a good idea, performance wise. A database application can use differently optimised strategies (data structures, etc.) for memory or disk access. It can't if it doesn't know what's in memory, or on disk.

<comment><USER8> Presumably, one can still lock down pages in memory ([https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mlock](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mlock), [http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/mlock.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/mlock.2.html)).

So, build default data structures as if everything is swapped out, and add structures designed for use in memory for caching that data.

Alternatively, only use structures optimized for in memory use, and trust your OS to keep the active set paged in (easier, but can harm performance if you have much more data than RAM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like Lisp Machine Lisp reborn.

<comment><USER10> Reminds me of old 80ies Smalltalk environments.

* everything is an object

* image-based persistence

I believe you cannot much traction in 2019 by merely claiming benefits of being object-oriented. These times are long gone.

The basic ideas of OO(extension by inheritance, coupling data and code=poor concurrency, wrong abstractions = expensive rewrites, wrong incapsulation = impossibility to change behavior) turned out problematic in use.

I'm still waiting for OS that positions itself to be "100% async" \- every operation/event is a future/promise/callback, everything can be hooked, is progress-trackable and cancellable. That what I can stand behind.

<comment><USER11> Opportunity lost, you could have gotten an WP 8.x device.</comment></comment></comment>


Pirate Bay Witness' Wife Overwhelmed With Flowers - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-witness-wife-overwhelmed-with-flowers-090227/ <comment><USER2> The witness sounds like an interesting guy in general:

 _"We have been married for 38 years. He proposed half an hour after we met and I said maybe. After a day, he had convinced me", she said._

<comment><USER3> I saw that line in the article and wondered if that same persuasiveness made him effective in court.

<comment><USER2> Probably, although I'm not sure she gave him the same kind of grilling that he got by the prosecution.

Also, did this make anyone else think of Randy Pausch?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Such a strange case. The people who I think are technically in the wrong all seem to be wonderful people whom I'd love to have as friends and think it would be cool to hang out with while the people who are technically in the right to defend their copyrights behave so despicably that I wish I didn't have to share the world with them.

I of course want reasonable copyright law to prevail because I believe that much of modern progress is a result of the "ownership society" ideal. I just want these (Entertainment cartel) guys to lose because they've been such asses about the whole thing.

Such a strange case.

<comment><USER5> Yes, and the "these guys" are not the artists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've pretty much stopped purchasing CDs. The only way I support artists is by going to their shows when they come to town.

Do you guys still buy CDs?

<comment><USER7> Yes - why not? Delivery from Amazon only takes two days, and then I have DRM free MP3s and the CD.

<comment><USER8> Because the band sees an incredibly small fraction of the price you pay for a CD.

<comment><USER9> The programmer sees an incredibly small fraction of the price I pay for videogames, and that never bothered me either.

I know the general "I support the band but hate the big megacorp behind it" is popular in some places on the Internet, but at least here, I can come out and say "I don't think the people who provide capital and marketing are parasites".

<comment><USER8> I don't "hate the big megacorp" at all. I just think it's no longer necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great story and great PR for the Pirate Bay.</comment>


The new Breaker 101 course has launched - <AUTHOR> https://breaker101.daeken.com/?hn

<comment><AUTHOR> First things first: I cannot thank HN enough for the support that I've had with Breaker 101. The vast majority of students in the first run came from HN; I would not have had a sold out beta were it not for this community.

Now, since this is HN, I feel like I should give a little bit of 'inside' info on how things really went. As I mention on the site, feedback was uniformly positive, but that doesn't mean there weren't missteps aplenty. From Paypal freezing my funds (man, that was a bad idea) to emails being lost in the mix over and over, to infrastructure problems with video streaming.

But the key problem was always disorganization and communication. There were 65 students in the first run, and communication happened over email, IRC, and the forums. Having all those options for communication seemed like a good idea -- flexibility is never wrong, right? -- it backfired. It meant that scheduling changes, homework information, etc was always being lost in the mix. That was the biggest problem in the course, as identified by pretty much every student in the class.

But I've spent the last month and a half working my ass off on a brand new platform for communication. While the IRC channel will still exist, this new site is where all homework, exams, lecture videos, scheduling info, etc will be distributed. I believe this will solve the core problem of the first run and make this the best course ever.

As a first-time teacher, I was nervous as hell going into this. But I could never have imagined it going this well. Every single student that finished the course (there were quite a lot of dropouts due to a lack of time -- natural consequence of a class for people who are typically quite busy) passed successfully. One student passed with an incredible 99.8% overall score, despite no background in security going in. If the next batch of students is even half as awesome as the previous one, I have no doubt that they will succeed just as impressively.

I can't thank my students enough for making this a success; I wouldn't be here writing this right now if not for them.

So as a huge thank you to HN and everyone who has supported me in this, I'm offering a 20% discount to everyone here: [https://breaker101.daeken.com/?code=hn](https://breaker101.daeken.com/?code=hn)

Seriously, I can't thank you all enough. Breaker 101 is going to make the world a more secure place and none of this would be happening if not for all of you.

</comment><comment><USER2> Disclosure: I was a student in the first round of this course and prior to enrolling, only vaguely knew of Cody as 'that guy who hacked hotel locks'.

For anyone considering this course, it's well worth the price of admission. Especially if your company pays :) Cody challenges each student to think like a breaker. The course is _very_ hands on. I'd plan to spend at least 5 hours a week on the coursework.

As a result of what I've learned, I've found numerous bugs within internal apps at my company, bugs within random email survey links, bugs within vendor code. Bugs, bugs everywhere!

My only nitpick with the course was that there were some unforeseen scheduling issues that affected the pace and caused it to extend out to > 12 weeks in length. But I attribute most of those to being part of the first/beta run. I have confidence that Cody will get everything worked out in future iterations.

It doesn't take long to see that Cody really does have a genuine interest in teaching others about security. His willingness to share his knowledge is a benefit to anyone willing to learn.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using a basic bootstrap template and not putting a price on the homepage makes it look free.

Try to register and you're surprised by a $2,200 fee. Now you have my email address and had I known upfront, I'd not to have given it to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> My apologies on the confusion -- the price is on the About page, but it could well be missed. That said, your email is only stored if you complete a purchase, so no worries there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome!

...

What is the price? The first 10 seats are priced at $2000 or 2.2BTC. Each subsequent seat is $2500 or 2.7BTC.

...oh.

I'm not saying that I don't think it's worth it. Maybe I'm just surprised since I've become used to free MOOCs and other educational sites that cost less than $100/month. Still, this looks really cool. Best of luck to you.

</comment><comment><USER5>
      > The only way to go from developer to security professional in 12 weeks.

Pretty bold claim.

The Offensive Security "Pentesting with Kali Linux" course and its accompanying OSCP certification is _very_ well-regarded in the industry and only half the cost of Breaker 101 at $1,150 for the course materials, 90 days of lab time, and certification.

Everyone in the industry knows about the OSCP course. It's _very_ hands-on. There's a wide breadth of areas it covers. You're doing everything from OSINT to breaking into lab machines to crafting your own web/win32/linux32 exploits. You will become comfortable with a debugger and x86 CPU registers by the end of it.

[http://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- train...](http://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- training/penetration-testing-with-kali-linux/)

 _Disclaimer: Satisfied customer of OffSec who went through the course._

<comment><AUTHOR> That statement should've read "web security professional"; just fixed and pushed. You're right, there are courses out there to teach you a broad spectrum of security topics, including some web content. That said, Breaker 101 covers a pretty crazy breadth and depth. The web topics covered in OffSec's course are covered in the first few weeks of Breaker 101, with significantly deeper excursions and more advanced topics after that.

OffSec's course is good for a very broad-strokes overview of security, but it doesn't dive deep, which is -- I believe -- Breaker 101's strength. The goal is that you come out of the course fully able to perform well in a web security environment, and I believe it does that.

<comment><USER5>
      > That statement should've read "web security professional"

Right, so I can buy the PWK course and their Advanced Web Exploitation course and still come out paying less.

      > OffSec's course is good for a very broad-strokes overview of security, but it doesn't dive deep,

Are you kidding? It dives pretty deep. Your website says "Each week will require between 2-3 hours of work by the students". That's _how many hours are required per day_ in the PWK course if you want to complete the materials within 90 days.

Your course claims to require a time commitment of 2-3 hours a week, but let's up it to 5 hours required. That's still only 60 hours of (expected) course time.

Contrast that with the OSCP course (3 _5 days_ 12) of 180 hours. 60 hours to cover and do hands-on for a broad range of web attacks and also deal with "in- depth" crypto breaking? And this course is targeted at a beginner?

You make a lot of claims and charge a lot of money but they don't seem to stand up and that's going to arouse a lot of perceptions like mine from the security world. Everyone is very suspicious of snake oil claims.

Sorry, I don't mean to rain on your parade. I hope you are successful and push the security industry forward. It's just rather annoying to see you show up to the party and make rather bold claims that don't seem to hold up to scrutiny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would you say this is only for entry level pentesters? In my case I work as a professional application pentester but I'm looking for training to help me "get to the next level".

Currently I'm looking at Offensive Security's OSWE or SANS Advanced Web Pentesting, but I like the idea of an extended course with 1 on 1 interaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> While most of the material is aimed at those with little-to-no security experience, the second half of the class is above the level of most pentesters. If topics like advanced exploitation, WAF attacks, cryptography failings (ECB block reordering, padding oracle attacks, hash length extensions, etc) are of interest to you, I think you'd enjoy the class. But it all depends on where you're at and what you're looking to learn.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, yeah it sounds like the second half of the course would definitely be interesting. I won't be able to do the course this time around but I'll keep an eye out for future offerings. Might you consider an advanced course in the future? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know of free resources to get a taste of this sort of thing?

<comment><USER2> natas is probably a good start. The first several levels are pretty simplistic, but it starts to ramp up eventually.

[http://www.overthewire.org/wargames/natas/](http://www.overthewire.org/wargames/natas/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> $2000? Thanks, but no thanks

<comment><USER8> Let me explain my position a bit. This thing looks cheap. I'm not talking about visual appeal, i'm talking about content. Website does not explain at all, why I should pay you $2k, as well as at the first look you cannot say at all, is this course free or not. So basically it looks like you are collecting emails.</comment></comment>


Twitter Chokes Off Meerkat's Access to Its Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/twitter-chokes-off-meerkats-access-to-its-social-graph

<comment><USER2> I've never used the Twitter API or Meerkat, but it seems that the 'choke' could be bypassed by scraping followers/following info from the publicly accessible profile pages of users.

Eg, sign on to Meerkat via Twitter, get username, scrape user's Twitter profile page for connected users, check if these connected users are on Meerkat, ask the user which of them he/she wants to connect with on Meerkat, then add on Meerkat.

Am I missing something? (I'm sure I am.)

<comment><USER3> You can't scrape a Twitter profile page for followers/following, you need to be signed on, and you'll encounter rate limits scraping even if you somehow do this with an authenticated session.

Now if you were talking about scraping Twitter user profiles, that's much easier since Twitter allows anonymous access to those. But not followers/following - they removed that around 2012 or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Twitter just bought Periscope which is a Meerkat competitor for just under $100 million.

Meerkat was being talked about as this year's breakout SxSW startup so choking off access right before shows Twitter isn't messing around.</comment>


Dave Shields, the programmer maintaining SPITBOL - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-70-year-old-programmer-is-preserving-an-ancient-coding-language-on-github <comment><USER3> I was lucky to work a little with Dave on JIKES project and I was very impressed by both his professional and human skills. I am glad to hear about his new old project and wish him very good luck with it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10103276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10103276)

</comment><comment><USER5> For those who want to try it in a more modern context, there is this recent port of spitbol patterns for Nim: [https://github.com/Henry/Nimbol](https://github.com/Henry/Nimbol)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's great to see this work receiving more attention. If anyone starts using it, I hope you'll post about it to HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. At last I found a reason to read about SNOBOL. Looks like it some interesting features. I particularly like the conditional jump on success or failure.

</comment><comment><USER8> I guess journalists read HN looking for stories? I was suprised to spitbol mentioned on HN and now there is a story on Vice news?

Alas, the interviewer asked no technical, interesting questions. There is a portable assembly language called MINIMAL that is used in spitbol. This could be a topic for an entire story itself.

<comment><USER9> IIRC there have been prior submissions of Vice stories where the author has jumped into the discussion here to clarify things, so at _least_ one of them is familiar with the site. It doesn't seem too far fetched that HN submissions may generate the occasional interest in a story if the author happens to check in occasionally (or more).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it just me, or is there no scrollbar on this article?

<comment><USER11> I do see a scrollbar, running firefox on linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slightly offtopic, but is 'Coding Language' now a thing?

<comment><USER12> Eh, I assume to non-technical readers, "coding" == "programming", therefore "coding language" == "programming language". It sounds funny to us, because we usually use "programming language" or just "language", but "coding language" makes sense, I guess.

<comment><USER13> I guess this is pretty off-topic, but I kinda always thought it was unreasonable to regard a "high-level language" as also a "programming" language. If the idea is that it's made for humans-first-computers-second, then it's not really a "programming" language so much as a language that computers happen to be able to understand.

I mean, by this definition, since computers are getting good are parsing English, isn't English a "programming" language?

<comment><USER14> The entire purpose of a programming language is that everything written in it describes an unambigiously executable process.

English isn't and never will be a programming language, no matter how much computers will be able to comprehend.

<comment><USER15> That's only one possible interpretation of computing. The field of semiotics applied to programming has interesting uses where a program needs not be unambiguous to be useful.

It's true that the underlying hardware platform will necessarily work as a deterministic sequence of steps executing a small set of primitives - <USER2> building that sequence by hand in an unambiguous language is not necessarily the only way to control the hardware; learning methods and evolutive processes, vaguely directed from high-level goals stated in an ambiguous model, is a possible alternative to the current industrial paradigm and might become common in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Advice for a First-time new startup advisor? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HH community,
I'm an experienced data scientist in the NYC area who was recently offered an advisor position with a fashion startup that's doing very well. They want to bring me along to help advise the growth of the data science initiatives / the data science team, and they're currently working out the typical 0.25% advisor equity arrangement.
I'm absolutely new to advising startups, and while I'm very excited (and a little nervous!), I wanted to get your words of wisdom on how to be a good advisor. Some particular questions:
(1) What should I be expected to do as an advisor, and how can I tell when the tasks are too much for my role?
(2) We're in the midst of hiring data scientists. After growing that team / bringing on experts / etc, how can I continue to contribute value, if the people we hired have more industry/technical experience than I do? (which seems like a good situation for the startup, in my limited experience)
I'd really appreciate any tidbits of advice. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Answer (1): As your specifically hired as an advisor for data science team, it in-a-way conveys that you are responsible to help them use/build an awesome data science tools and eventually build a team which can develop/maintain/use those tools.

I think, the most important question you should ask those guys is that, how exactly that startup want to use data?

It will help you to clarify your role and tasks within that organization.

Answer (2): Always remember that you are advisor, you can advise data science tools/practises to the team which you built. If there are some persons who have much more experience, ask them to share their thoughts on a particular topic. But at the end, give your OWN advice. Your advice will be valuable even at that time, because you are building team in the first place.

Well on another part, is REMOTE OK for you guys? :p</comment>


How Gus Mueller does Beta Testing for his Mac software - <AUTHOR> http://gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2009/09/how_i_do_beta_testing_(plus_info_on_a_private_acorn_beta).html

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably good techniques for consumer web app betas.

Although I don't like the idea of a preference to turn on features for one customer. Having code which is only run by one user cannot be a good plan: you've doubled the number of permutations to test, and there's a code path only taken by that one user.</comment>


Mozilla shuts down servo team - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/asajeffrey/status/1293220656339988483 <comment><USER2> Shuts down Servo? Isn't Servo the core of Firefox? Are they going to use Webkit now or what?

<comment><USER3> Servo is a long term bet on a future html/css engine, not the current engine. Its css engine has been merged into Firefox.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_\(software\)) )

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey Microsoft, (or some other less of activism, more of technology firm,) can you hire these geniuses?

I also hope Mozilla learns the lesson that using activism for PR ends up in situations like this.</comment>


America doesn't have a small business problem. It has a startup problem. - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/america-doesnt-have-a-small-business-problem-it-has-a-start-up-problem/2011/10/31/gIQARN9CZM_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein

<comment><USER3> "It's easier, after all, to take a risk, quit your day job, and start a new business if you don't have to worry about getting health-care coverage."

Actually, I think it's the other way around. First of all, countries with national health care have introduced it precisely because is citizens are less risk-tolerant on average. Also, with a bunch of social parachutes such as health care, solidarity pensions and the like, the willingness to risk actually decreases, as there is less incentive to "make it big".

<comment><USER4> Sorry, but I think this is delusional. The fact that I can break my leg and pay for nothing more in the hospital than a pair of crutches to take home in no way is related to what I want to do professionally.

On the other hand, the fact that it could cost some ridiculous amount in the states would definitely drive me to wanting to stay put in a reliable salary position in corporate world.

<comment><USER5> I'm from Denmark, maybe the country with the best social safety net in the world. The state pays your medical bills, your school and education (you even get a state allowance to live on while you study), if you lose your job the state will give you money, and so on. You can actually live a whole life with nothing but statemoney.

The startup culture here is terrible, exactly because of this. People become cosy and risk averse because they don't really need to fight, and because there's no need to.

So i think the parent hits the nail pretty much on the head.

<comment><USER6> That's an interesting correlation that you've transformed into causation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would say (at least from personal experience) that the funding issue is a bit of an easy culprit (especially since the article highlights three tech companies in the graphic).

In my experience, the barrier to entry for a sufficiently skilled founder or founders is fairly low, as long as one has the skills, and motivation to learn.

But for biotech and other industries, I can definitely see the potential for grants and other support to "jumpstart" these companies.

<comment><USER8> Precisely. Markets such as social, search, and cloud were the low hanging fruits because they required relatively small seed capital.

The reason why PG is complaining about a lack of truly unique startup ideas is because, frankly, many of the low hanging fruits have been picked. The next generation of fields ripe for innovation (AI, robotics, transportation, biomedicine, energy, space, etc) require orders of magnitude more seed capital. Some of these are on Manhattan project scales, requiring billions of dollars invested for a decent probably of an acceptable return on investment.

Some big spenders, such as Peter Thiel, are paving the way forward with their personal initiatives; yet few organic investment communities exist to support such endeavours. I doubt that such an investment community would spring forth without government support.

Unfortunately, government largesse is a critical issue in most developed nations at the moment, so I am pessimistic of government assistance in these sectors. Thus, we are constrained to our narrow fields of low capital startups for the time being.

<comment><USER7> I think your observation that "social, search and cloud" as you point out, are extremely over-saturated is especially relevant.

One of my main draws to programming was the extremely law barrier to entry -- a weekend spent with a Python compsci text and Google was enough to get me started on Django.

But even though I have interest in biology, genetics and related fields, I don't see how someone in my position with more time and motivation than money could "break" into the startup world.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. High capital fields such as medicine are the great entrepreneurial challenges of our time.

Everyone on HN knows of the decaying behemoth that is academic research. It is an unsustainable system built upon a terrible incentive architecture. Graduate students and postdocs are used as cheap labor in a Ponzi scheme, while Principal Investigators have no incentive to engage in difficult, high risk research due to salary caps and tenure. The market failure of academic research is the primary reason for the grinding pace of progress in fields such as medicine.

Again, there are individuals such as Craig Venter who are changing this paradigm, but the sheer magnitude of funding being dumped into the academic research black hole is unfathomable.

Our collective tax money is in the government's hands, and as such, only they have the power to dismantle such terribly broken schemes. I'm not holding my breath.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The solutions proposed here are to increase the number of startups by increasing government spending/taxation and increasing extension of credit/financing.

However, if the goal is to have more startups that are "the envy of the world", then increasing the number is not necessarily the way to do this.

We need to stop harassing those startups that do become successful. Startups by their nature are _disruptive_ in the common sense of the term, and will violate the cozy arrangements made between established businesses and governments.

Two recent examples:

[http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/31/airbnb-takes-manhattan- wi...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/31/airbnb-takes-manhattan- with-2k-bookings-a-night-but-many-listings-may-be-illegal/)

[http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/26/ubercab-ryan-graves- cease-...](http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/26/ubercab-ryan-graves-cease-and- desit/)

Of course, on a larger scale the government is now harassing Google with antitrust, even though Google is being nipped at the heels by Facebook.

The government also denied the Blockbuster/Hollywood merger in the mid 2000s ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A2310-2005Mar2...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A2310-2005Mar25.html)) on antitrust grounds. Of course, just a few years later these "trusts" were blown up by Netflix, which is itself being blown up by Amazon and iTunes.

To have more successes, we need to stop the dynamic in which government goes after successes and tries to destroy them. What we don't need are government policies that encourage more marginal entrepreneurs to jump into the pool.

<comment><USER10> I don't see why simply being a startup should give you permission to flaunt the law for whatever reason you deem necessary to be profitable.

IMHO, the law usually exists for a reason. I care about antitrust violations, or data privacy violations. If New York requires hotels to be licensed - <USER2> I think is a fair requirement - then I don't see why Airbnb patrons should be exempt from that law. This view will probably be unpopular on HN.

I don't suggest that the US government stop "harassing" startups because ... they're startups, and economy economy economy.

I think you need to find a way to spur wealth creation while still having some rule of law in the country. Tax breaks, government-sponsored venture capital, and immigration incentives are a great way to do that.

<comment><USER9> We get to the nub of the matter. There is not a single disruptive startup that did not break dozens of laws, either in spirit or in fact. It is impossible for them not to as laws are written by incumbents and are not written in the public interest.

Napster and Youtube broke copyright laws. So did Google. Apple's Jobs was a phone phreak. Gates was disciplined by the Ad Board for selling software on campus. And Facebook's creator famously "breach[ed] security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy by creating the website, www.facemash.com".

Good entrepreneurs don't give a damn about "the rules", or about those whose primary purpose in life is obeying rules or making up new ones. Indeed, good entrepreneurs have a healthy disrespect for the law. But unlike the common criminal, they break the law to create rather than to destroy.

Your assumption is that the legal system is on the side of the average Joe and is protecting their interests against "for profit companies". It is much more accurate to say that a law is like a stationary cannon, which is captured by those with the deepest pockets and aimed at those who would pose market threats to those deep pockets.

Real estate developers who already own property support restrictive zoning laws to keep rents high. Life insurers are the biggest lobbyists for the death tax. Large restaurant chains support food safety inspection regimes that result in reams of paperwork, as they can amortize this cost across more employees.

Stated good intentions mean nothing. Every system of laws will face gaming attempts from day one, not just from "evil for profit startups" but also from corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists.

This needs to be factored into your analysis, as you too easily accept the narrative of "data privacy law" rather than "a law passed to advance the career of so-and-so politician and NGO, funded by lobbyist X, covered sympathetically by journalist Y, and sold to us as a data privacy law".

<comment><USER10> >It is much more accurate to say that a law is like a stationary cannon, which is captured by those with the deepest pockets and aimed at those who would pose market threats to those deep pockets.

Every law? Antitrust laws? Data privacy laws? Laws that require hotels to be licensed?

If you take issue with a law, then that law is the problem; not the enforcing of it.

Startups should not be exempt from the law simply because they're a startup. There are better ways to spur wealth creation via small businesses than to allow small businesses to flaunt the law when they see fit.

<comment><USER11> What do you like about antitrust laws? Without government intervention there are no monopolies. How did breaking up standard oil help anyone? They ended whaling, drove the price of kerosene from 100$ to 2$ -- how was this bad for the consumer?

How did all the microsoft antitrust stuff help us? How is hassling google helping us?

I think we're in agreement with respect to the law, the point of the parent post was that instead of hair-brained schemes to increase the number of startups we should reduce useless laws and regulations so that they can thrive.

<comment><USER12> > Without government intervention there are no monopolies

Can you really justify that statement?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the reasons I see startups being more significant for fueling the economy is momentum. A startup with 2 or 3 well collaborating founders without internal conflict is following an exciting vision - there's a certain glorification to beginning the venture on an idea, and being a founder of something new and practical. On the other hand, more mundane small businesses, once established, aren't known for adapting and changing much, so much as fitting into an industry niche and remaining predictable (i.e. a small software brand which isn't superlative in any way, but is stable and profitable).

</comment><comment><USER14> Gosh this column is muddled. It's no wonder there's a problem. If you can't think clearly about an issue it's highly unlikely you're going to be able to shed light on it.

Startups are businesses that make something people want that are highly scalable.

So no, "startups" and "small businesses" are different things. Your dentist has a small business.

At the same time, it's very possible to make something that people want and simply have no desire to scale. That's what I'm seeing for a lot of American startups. Yes, there are all the wide-eyed younger folks who are out to imitate Zuck and be the next Facebook, but for every one of those there are a hundred people out in the hinterland who aren't out to conquer the world.

Why? Lots of reasons. First, _people who change the world get punished._ They get punished by competitors, by the government, and sometimes even by the popular opinion of the people who use their startups. Why make yourself a target?

Second, a disruptive startup's relationship to the government is far from clear. Is AirBnB an appointment service or a hotel service? Do the guys that offer ride shares run a taxi business? Or a bulletin board? The government, over time, has come up with thousands of little boxes that businesses are supposed to fit inside. Depending on which box you fit in, various rules apply. What this has done is create lots of stovepipe business systems. So when a business comes along that crosses many boxes, which ones apply? A lawyer can help here, but she's just going to be able to offer an legal opinion, not protect you from possible problems.

Third, there's the big business overhead hit. There's a huge difference between 3 guys in a garage and 3 thousand guys in an IT center. You need all sorts of administrative resources for the IT center, and lots of training for management on how to act. That doesn't come overnight, and you don't get there without taking a productivity hit. Now, if you're Google and revenue figures give you the slack to know you're going to be around for a while, you take the dive and go through the hassle. But if you're some fly-by-night, just-getting- started business which might have a huge staff for just one year and then disband? You can't make the overhead numbers work. I can't go out and hire 3 thousand guys to build my human-powered recommender engine for next year. It'd take a year or more of scaling just to approach that level of staffing. And even then I'd probably screw it up. All those laws to make sure "big business" behaves properly have an assumption that the business is an ongoing concern -- they have lots of money and lots more on the way. That assumption is not always true.

Finally, even if you had an idea to conquer the world, do you really want to be an executive? You can be a Derek Sivers and have all the money you want and the lifestyle you choose, or you can spend your time managing bureaucratic systems and endless people problems. Does that second forty million spend any differently than the first forty? The _idea_ of what it's like to be a business overlord and the reality are vastly different things. The smart choice for many might be to ditch the fast-growth and large-scale scene entirely.

I constantly see wonks who understand little bits and pieces of the startup scene -- that young, fast growing startups count more than small businesses in general, for instance -- yet miss out on huge chunks of what's really happening. They offer to tweak the existing environment by adding still further complexity, thinking they are helping out. They are not. There's not a lack of people creating business opportunities that are scalable. There's a lack of people wanting to scale businesses. Totally different thing.

<comment><USER15> >> There's a lack of people wanting to scale businesses.

Isn't this the role of experienced managers: join the business at a point it has shown possibility to scale(and big profits) and make the scaling happen ?

And if you've got a successful and growing business you could manage to hire a good manager to do this ? or there's a lack of people who are fit for this task ?

<comment><USER14> You would think so, wouldn't you?

This is a bigger discussion than I have time to do justice, but there's an entire field of business books around the "valley of death" -- this huge hole that businesses go into and never come out. It's not a linear-scaling thing. 10 people aren't just 10 times harder to manage than 1. The reason you see lots of 20-50 person IT shops is that they never made it out of the valley. There's this huge consulting field dedicated to helping businesses who get stuck here. (Whether they actually help or not is up for debate). For instance, if you have 500 people, you'll have a full HR staff full of people becoming experts in various areas of corporate staffing law that affect you directly. If you have 100, you don't have the funds for those guys _yet you are still affected by the same laws._ It's that way for a hundred things -- the overhead is okay if you are big but unmanageable if you are crossing the line between small and medium.

If you have enough acceleration, yes, you can bulldoze your way through. Just start writing checks. Google and others did this. But it's not like server scaling where for each bit you grow you can just add more management. Wish that it were so simple! Instead there are these regulatory plateaus you reach where it's an entirely different world past that. Then there's just the issue of scaling a lot of people working together, which gets harder in an exponential fashion. None of this is fun -- and what it does is stifle all the companies without the huge accelerations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > ... IPOs under $50 million have plummeted since the 1990s.

IIRC it costs around $10M to run an IPO, thanks to a mountain of financial regulations. Regulations that have had little apparent effect on large scale fraud.

Some states charge high fees to start a corporation. If you just want a place to park the IP for a bright idea, California charges an $800 per year franchise tax.</comment>


Dumped Bootstrap for UIKit. Result: 40 percent less bloat - <AUTHOR> http://getuikit.com/#home

<comment><USER2> This is a terrible naming choice, it's exactly the same as:

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIKit_Framework/)

Just one quick search could've ruled out "UIKit" as an available name for a software library.

<comment><USER3> And they're both applicable on mobile, too! Ugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where's that "40 percent less bloat" coming from?

</comment><comment><USER5> it seems much of a muchness?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage screen time? - <AUTHOR> I wonder how you are handling your screen time. If I'm beeing productive besides work, everything usually revolves about beeing in front of a screen (coding side projects, learning or research about a specific topic online etc.) <comment><USER3> Lately, not at all. My iPhone screen time has reached absurd heights.

Prior to social distancing - if your hobbies generally involve computers then of course this will be difficult, but some strategies of mine...

At work:

\- Instead of taking calls in front of the computer, put on headphones and "walk and talk" \- for me, a number of my calls are taken while pacing around a meeting room or my living room these days. Video calls I try to do standing up and at a distance from the screen; it doesn't feel like "screen time" in the same way.

\- In a meeting, laptops closed and take notes on a notepad, write on a whiteboard, etc.

Coding side projects:

\- Not much you can do here, but you can do a lot of the planning and architecture work on paper or a whiteboard

Learning/research:

\- The environmentally unfriendly method here would be to print articles/topics and read about these topics on a physical piece of paper

\- Something like a Kindle would be a much better solution to the above - <USER2> tries to mimick the experience of a book and feels less like a screen

\- Or try to find books that discuss these topics. On Amazon or from a friend or from a library

In general:

\- Most of my hobbies for the longest time were computer-based which led to long hours behind a computer screen, but I've started to shift my focus to non-digital hobbies, trying to minimise screen time as much as possible. My ultimate goal (when this is technically feasible) is to have only an Apple Watch (with AirPods) that I use day-to-day and a MacBook that I use for work as little as possible (an iPad would be nice but the outlook to support software development doesn't look short-term), and hopefully no phone (the Watch roadmap is slowly inching towards being self-sufficient for calls, music, notifications, etc.)

\- Woodworking: instead of buying furniture I build it

\- Fitness: great for both your physical and mental health

\- Reading: non-fiction for learning (as discussed above, somewhat replaces online reading), fiction for entertainment (helps replace watching TV)

I could list a number of other non-screen hobbies but really just find what works for you. It's likely there's a way you can make that work without a screen.

</comment><comment><USER4> Exercise outside, walk the dog, learn the piano, prepare meals. Most of the day is spent on front of the screen though, even learning the piano from YouTube so I don't have great answers for you. I don't really enjoy video calls with friends or family because it just means more screen time.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are a few good options for androids.

Outside of all the normal methods, I've found a couple of the live wall papers via google to be a good in-your-face reminder to put the phone down (Ironically as I type this on my phone)..

I did have the 'number of unlocks' wallpaper, up until earlier this week where I changed it to the 'screen stopwatch'

[https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/digitalwellbei...](https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/digitalwellbeing)

</comment><comment><USER6> I use a bunch of Chrome extensions to block out tantalizing content.

I use StyleBot to remove all YouTube recommendations and home page videos. I use Web Time Tracker to see how much time I spend on each website. I use BlockSite to block out YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc -- I still go to the websites in Incognito but I am forced to log in every time I want to look at content.

I also have insanely long passwords which makes it even more of a pain in the ass to get to the content.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using Motion for Google Chrome, you could try that out as well. In my opinion it's more thought through than blocksite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Removed all non essential apps from my phone helped. Non essential is subjective of course, but for me meant social media (I now only use 1 platform but on my laptop), YouTube was a massive time waster for me, Reddit. Another comment said take calls away from a screen by walking around and using a headset, that's a good one too.

</comment><comment> core-questions Wake up, plunk kid in front of screen, plunk self in front of screen, shelter in place, rinse repeat

<comment> a-saleh Description of reality :D

I am trying to have a bigger lunch-break for both me and my kid. I.e. "No screens for at least next hour" and usually she finds something to play with that is not a screen.

And I bought a Nintendo Labo, so there is a screen-adjacent activity at least my kid really likes.

"Dad can I play the Goose Game?" ... No, but we build the cardboard house for the fluffy creature, you could color it in maybe? ... "Ok, give me all of the stickers, I will make it the best house ever!"

As for myself, I struggle to find stuffwithout screens at home, but fortunately, we don't have a strict shelter-in-place, and while wearing masks, you can go to parks and forests, so my bike keeps me company :)</comment></comment>


Things Good Bosses Believe - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html

<comment><USER2> _Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day._

I am not sure I agree with this one, not in the technical field. I think in software in particular, our overall goals (provided they are well-selected) inform a lot of the little decisions that translate into small wins. I think one of the roles of a good geek herder is to keep these things at the forefront of their mind, so that those small wins don't end up leading you down a blind alley.

Let's have an example. Let's say your team is doing project X and one of the goals of X was to be OS-agnostic. However at the shop you only have two or three related OSes - say Linux and Solaris. Now everybody has been working on X for years, the goals are a distant memory... and then something breaks, and the developer rolls out a quick fix that will only work on Unix clones.

It is the boss's job to turn down the small win and say "no you can't do it this way". It is their job to think of this, when it doesn't occur to anybody else. _Somebody_ has to keep the big picture in their head - whether that person is called the boss, or the technical lead or whoever.

<comment><USER3> I agree, I copied this same line and came back to say I think it's a bosses job to think about these goals every single day and make sure the team is making small steps toward them.

A good boss needs to lead the team. That means getting their hands dirty and making sure the work that is being done is right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't sound like any boss I ever had. Mine have always been more like this:

1\. My people have a flawed and incomplete understanding of how valuable I am to them.

2\. My success depends largely getting obvious and mundane things done, in spite of my people's shortcomings.

3\. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to expect my people to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that maximize my own bonus.

4\. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being a jerk and appearing not to be.

5\. My job is to serve as a human irritant, to bombard my people with external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe - and to avoid letting them think for themselves.

6\. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but to appear to be humble even though I am not. I aim to fight as if I am right, and appear to listen as if I am wrong, even though I never am. I protect my job by teaching my people nothing.

7\. One of the best tests of my leadership is "how quickly do I reprimand someone when they make a mistake?"

8\. Innovation is crucial in order for me to take credit.

9\. So my job is to encourage my people to get off their lazy asses and do some work.

10\. But it is also my job to fire them when they don't.

11\. Good is stronger than bad. I am good. My people are bad. That's how I got to be the boss and they didn't.

12\. How I do things is no one's business. I am the boss. Now stop reading this and get back to work.

<comment><USER5> Bitter much? Jeez. I've had some good bosses and some bad bosses, but nothing like what you've written here!

<comment><USER6> I think (hope) he wasn't serious but instead acting more as a foil to Sutton's points.

<comment><USER7> Actually it wouldn't surprise me if he's serious. I've been a witness to at least 6 of his 12 points. And I am sure many more of us can add to that list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good points, all.

I'd like to add one more. My job as manager is to provide the support necessary so those working for me can do the best work possible. My job is to enable them, not to use them to support myself. At the end of the day, they're the ones doing most of the implementation; if I want the implementation to be successful, I've got to set the stage for it.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you have a boss like this, your work will be more rewarding than twice the pay for a jerk.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is what I call an article about true leadership.

<comment><USER10> The best boss I've ever worked for did his undergrad at the Royal Military College in Canada. The idea of leadership as something that can be studied and taught (and not just paid lip service to by MBA programs) is very valuable. Finding people to actually know what they're talking about is a whole other matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not sure about this one:

 _Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too._

Why reject most good ideas? Seems like that would discourage innovation, not encourage.

<comment><USER12> What if he said prioritize instead of kill? Often the number of good ideas and resources required to realize them far exceeds what is available, practical, or realistic. Killing is effectively setting the priority to zero. I don't think it discourages innovation if thought about in this context because it encourages innovation on the critical path.

<comment><USER11> I define a "good idea" as something that is possible to realize; practical and realistic. If it's not practical business decision, it's probably not a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure what context this one is in: 10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.

Does it mean that people don't care whether there is an exercise room if they are not being paid well? Or am I looking at it the wrong way?

</comment><comment><USER14> This list is so not relevant for a tech-intensive company. Tech-intensive work requires a manager to recruit and handle people who are smarter than him/her. Not the other way around.

> My success depends largely getting obvious and mundane things done, in spite > of my people's shortcomings.

You mean managerial success depends on managing the power point slides instead of making sure that your server-side is architected to properly streamline asynchronous tasks?

<comment><USER15> I think you looked at the joke list in the comments here instead of the original article.

<comment><USER14> No. I am commenting on point #2 of that article:

> My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of > obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas > or methods.

Follow the URL if you don't believe me;-)

EDIT: Ah! I see why you say that. I copied from the wrong place (from the comments) but the above quote was what I intended to highlight. Sorry about the confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I aspire to this, but succeed less than I would like. If you manage people, this is relevant to you.</comment>


Living in the moment really does make people happier - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/nov/11/living-moment-happier <comment><AUTHOR> "Happiness is found by living in the now, particularly if the now involves having sex"

Indeed. :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Ok, but what's the trick to focusing? It's hard to stop the daydreams. The science says people who can't focus are less happy, but it's a chicken and egg problem. Are you not happy because you can't focus or can't focus because you're not happy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lack of focus is something some of us may need to just learn to fight, whatever the underlying causes.

It may be hard to concentrate and stay on task if you're unhappy, but there's reason to believe that willfully improving focus can lead to more happiness, if only by virtue of accomplishing tasks and getting that sense of accomplishment.

<comment><USER2> Do you get a sense of accomplishment when you're not happy? I remember in my productive periods I had focus and a sense of accomplishment and was happy. In an unproductive slump I had neither, but was still accomplishing tasks at a slowed pace.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, getting a sense of accomplishment tends to make me happy, or at least happier.

If I'm down, and motivation is lacking, but can force myself to do _something_ , it usually bootstraps into getting more things down and feeling better. So, yes, I can get a sense of accomplishment when I'm not happy, if I can make the effort to get moving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "They found that people were happiest when having sex, exercising or in conversation, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer."

Camwhores must be very confused people. Well I guess we already knew that.</comment>


This is the ASUS PadFone - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/this-is-the-asus-padfone/

<comment><USER2> I'm always happy to see new devices like this because I think that having a single phone act as the central computing device for all of our electronics is a good direction to move in. That said, if I can plug my phone into a television and watch tv over Netflix, plug my phone into a tablet and surf the net, or plug my phone into my laptop and access the internet then I'm only paying for one internet connection. The alternative is to be paying for a cable package, home internet access, and then two 3g plans. I don't think that I'm being cynical when I say that there are major corporate interests against making this possible and we'll have to see how they play out. In my opinion the increasing move towards lower 3g caps isn't about current network usage but is actually about setting a precedent for the future which is incompatible with paying for only one data connection.

</comment><comment><USER3> My ASUS Transformer is probably my all time favorite gadget ever.

I wouldn't really be interested in this tab/phone thing unless they worked a Transformer-style keyboard dock into the mix. After using the Transformer I've realized I want a netbook 80% of the time and tablet 20% of the time and I won't go back to using a pad/tablet device that isn't both (I know other tablets can be used with bluetooth and/or USB keyboards, but it just isn't the same as having it in an all-in-one device).

If they really want me to buy an ASUS phone too what they should do is have a variant of the Transformer which takes a docked phone into the keyboard dock while leaving the phone's display visible and usable. When the phone is docked into the keyboard dock, have it dedicate its display to being the laptop's multitouch touchpad.

Add in an API where apps could detect being in this docking mode and modify the phone's display based on context (somewhat like Windows SideShow, but as a multitouch input panel).

That would be a worthy followup for my Transformer and also convince me to buy an ASUS phone.

<comment><USER4> What you're proposing improves on the hardware design for the Motorola Atrix + its LapDock. My own hardware tweak would be to use Project Kal-El (Tegra 3) when it comes out.

EDIT: Looks like ASUS are already at work on incorporating Tegra 3 into their designs: [http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/04/asus-planning-quad- core-t...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/04/asus-planning-quad-core- tegra-3-and-intel-based-tablets/)</comment></comment>


JointJS: Petri Nets - <AUTHOR> http://jointjs.com/demos/pn <comment><USER2> Nice to see jointjs on HN frontpage.

Have been using this for 3 months to develop a MS VISIO like editor for the web.

<comment><USER3> Sounds really interesting; I'd love to see how this shapes up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely thought this was some robotics library with functions to help program the motion of joints for better kinematics.</comment>


HandPose: Fully Articulated Hand Tracking - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=230533

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool. What about the technology requires the user to wear mirrored aviator glasses? Is that a safety thing?

<comment><USER3> No, its a hipster thing.

<comment><USER4> All of the human subjects (at least 6 subjects) whose hands are being tracked are wearing mirrored sunglasses, and fashion considerations are significantly less likely to cause "100% compliance" than safety considerations are.

<comment><USER5> This was discussed on /r/oculus and it was suggested that Microsoft could be overdriving the infrared so it's for eye protection

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like Leap Motion, a neat demo. But what are the killer applications? Games, obviously. What else? It strikes me as a horrific 2-D input mechanism. Better as a 3-D input mechanism but then you're dealing with lousy 2-D displays. 3-D displays? But then what?

</comment><comment><USER7> Very impressive, where can I find the paper?

</comment><comment><USER8> One day, we could have XBox games where kids could activate _Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_ by doing the hand signs.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone found technical documentation on they implemented this? Code or paper?

<comment><USER10> Some detail by Chris McCormick [http://chrisjmccormick.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/hand-pose- re...](http://chrisjmccormick.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/hand-pose-recognition- with-microsoft-kinect-and-cognimem-v1ku/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oculus + this.</comment>