Suspect is arrested in grisly killing of tech CEO Fahim Saleh - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/fahim-saleh-murder-arrest-tyrese-devon-haspil.html <comment><USER2> > Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Mr. Saleh > having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars > from him, despite the fact that Mr. Saleh had not reported the man and had > set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of > the officials said.

Amazing how far this is from all the early speculation. Also incredibly sad.

<comment><USER3> It's not really amazing, HN is incredibly xenophobic, just look at literally any thread that happens to mention China, even tangentially. I guess that's what happens when the majority of the userbase is well off Americans.

<comment><USER4> Last I ran the numbers, 50% of HN users were in the US. A lot of those are not Americans, since many HN users have come to the US from other countries. Moreover, a lot of the American userbase on HN are not "well off". So your assumption is far from correct.

What HN certainly is, demographically, is majority Western. What you're seeing on China-related topics is the growing rift between China and the West, the same trend that shows up in Western media and no doubt Chinese media as well. I spend a lot of moderation time and energy arguing for understanding about this. But there's no way we can expect HN to be immune from macro social and geopolitical trends.

There's no reason to believe that "HN is incredibly xenophobic" except insofar as human beings in general may be.

<comment><USER5> > There's no reason to believe that HN is "incredibly xenophobic" except > insofar as human beings in general may be.

And that's likely the case so in a way the GP was right. HN is rapidly approaching being large enough to represent a fair cross section of the communities it is active in, with the note that it skews wealthy, educated and tech oriented. Whether that slice of the population is more or less xenophobic as a rule is an open question. I fear for the answer.

<comment><USER6> > xenophobic

Disliking the actions of the CCP doesn't mean people are xenophobic any more than disliking Trump makes someone anti-American.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If what is reported is true, then that is really sad.

Saleh's assistant Tyrese Haspil stole tens of thousands of dollars from him and instead of reporting him, he instead created a payment plan to be repaid.

Saleh showed compassion and that may have been a reason why he ended up dying in the end.

<comment><USER8> > Saleh showed compassion and that may have been a reason why he ended up > dying in the end.

Yes, that's exactly what happened.

Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything happens to you.

<comment><USER9> You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an investigation. The fifth only applies to self incrimiation, not to incriminating others.

Instead, just tell your friends and family.

<comment><USER10> > You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an > investigation.

I anal but isn't that a pretty slippery slope? Like someone rapes me or tries to kill me and the law will throw me in prison for refusing to relive those moments?

Also I'm pretty sure jstor didn't want to press charges but the overzealous prosecutors did horrible things to Aaron Swartz anyways.

<comment><USER11> It's awful but it's real.

The district attorney for New Orleans, Leon Cannizzaro, has come under fire for not only issuing "fake subpoenas" that threaten jail time, he's actually arrested _the victims_ and kept them incarcerated until trial in some cases.

He's still DA there, somehow.

<comment><USER12> It's important to note that the state of Louisiana uses a completely different system of law than the rest of the United States, based off the French civil code.

It gives judges and prosecutors a lot of leeway in how they handle cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Police identified Haspil through "anti-felon identification cards that were > spewed like confetti in Saleh's apartment," NBC New York reported.

Can someone explain what this is? I assumed the guy would quickly be suspect #1 once they combed through Saleh's computer and found discussions about the stolen money. What's this "anti-felon identification cards" reference about?

<comment><USER14> [https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there- confet...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confetti-in- so-many-taser-guns)

It turns out Tasers spew many little tags with unique identifiers on them when fired.

<comment><USER15> What happens if you use someone else's taser and make them a suspect in a murder case?

<comment><USER16> Then the investigation gets more complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The alleged killer won first place (along with another person) for website design in a Future Business Leaders of America competition held in Rochester. [1]

Stunning, sad and macabre. Nothing else to say.

[1] [http://www.vschsd.org/News/Story.aspx?id=35361](http://www.vschsd.org/News/Story.aspx?id=35361)

</comment><comment><USER18> I checked the top articles to see if there is a photo of the suspect. And then I did find one eventually, after a few more searches.

The coverage of this story reminds me of this tweet:

[https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmith/status/127987036677366169...](https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmith/status/1279870366773661696)

<comment><USER19> The DailyMail published his photo, and also, even better, doesn't have a paywall:

> [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered- > Ne...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-New-York- > tech-entrepreneurs-personal-assistant-arrested.html)

The NYT wouldn't have hesitated to publish Tyrese's photo had he been white and Fahim had been black. Probably their respective races would have even been mentioned in the headline.

<comment><USER20> You're being downvoted because this is unhelpful speculation which adds nothing to the discussion - be it true or untrue. If the response to what you say is "OK...", what you have said is not terribly interesting.

<comment><USER21> how do you downvote on here?

<comment><USER22> You need more than 500 karma: [https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news- undocumented](https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Holy shit, this one hits closer to home. I worked for Fahim about 10 years ago. He was a pretty cool guy who was full of ideas. He will be missed.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also:

> Detectives believe that the killer, dressed in a black three-piece suit, > wearing a black mask and carrying a duffel bag, followed Mr. Saleh off an > elevator in his building and into his apartment, a law enforcement official > said. He used a Taser to immobilize Mr. Saleh and then stabbed him to death.

It appears the security of the elevator opening directly into the victim's apartment and the COVID-19 crisis (the suspect was wearing a black mask) both played a role.

<comment><USER25> And did the guy really think he wouldn't be recognized just bc of the mask? Obviously detectives are going to have co-workers look over surveillance videos...they'd probably be able to identify the "man in the suit" pretty quickly

<comment><USER15> An understated fact of most criminals is they are notoriously dumb. I mean, think about it, you begin stealing money, you think you can away with, then you think you can get away with invasion, murder, and disposal of the body. You really have to be dumb to even embark on this adventure.

<comment><USER26> Criminals are almost by definition dumb. Because smart ones quickly rise to the level where they pass for respectable business people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 1\. Why? Money. Works almost always. 2. Scary how little you can be killed for. 3. Scary how big of a risk to their own life people are willing to take for money. 4. Is it really money? Criminals are usually spendthrifts. All that stuff really doesn't improve life much. Seems like status signals must be the real insatiable desire. 5. Rethinking, this seems like the work of a drug addict. The person has reasonable executive capacity (dopamine drive), but lacks empathy for others or their own future.

<comment><USER28> The article mentions the stolen money was used to pay off family debts. He allegedly murdered Mr. Saleh after he was caught and fired.

<comment><USER29> Very confusing to me when I read these comments. Here's the article's reference to debts:

> _One of the officials said Mr. Saleh had paid Mr. Haspil so well that he had > been able to pay off the debts of several family members._

The train of thought that takes that to the comment

> _The article mentions the stolen money was used to pay off family debts. He > allegedly murdered Mr. Saleh after he was caught and fired._

must make sense in some degree to the comment author

Interesting that human information copying is subject to such large transcription errors over such a short period of time.

<comment><USER30> Funny that the dna that gives us these abilities is copied almost perfectly in comparison

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Mr. Saleh > having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars > from him, despite the fact that Mr. Saleh had not reported the man and had > set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of > the officials said.

Wow, that's really sad.

</comment><comment><USER32> Tidbit from the article: He founded PrankDial.com and it's a $10M business.

I'd never heard of it. Wow... $10M run rate for a website that sends prank calls to others? Like "Chinese Apology" "Indian Tech Support"? Talk about a site that should be cancelled: [https://www.prankdial.com/?category=services](https://www.prankdial.com/?category=services)

</comment><comment><USER33> Some years ago in Bethesda, Maryland, the manager of a Lululemon store was murdered by her assistant after she confronted the woman about money gone missing. The assistant gave herself some minor injuries and tried to sell the police a story of a man breaking in and attacking them. The story fell apart pretty quickly.

<comment><USER15> [https://youtu.be/ABugiItaz7Y](https://youtu.be/ABugiItaz7Y)

Good podcast on it if anyone cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't understand the second-degree murder charge. Surely this was premeditated and planned, wasn't it?

<comment><USER35> Its possible they only have hard evidence of second-degree murder at this stage, so rather than risk the guy being released due to lack of probable cause for first degree murder they can just bring a charge with fewer elements to prove and then add first degree murder later when they have gone over the evidence more.

After all, maybe he didn't originally intend to kill the guy, he did start by tasing him.

<comment><USER36> He brought an electric saw though, right?

<comment><USER37> He bought it and cleaning products the day after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This sounds like something Patrick Bateman, from American Psycho, would do. However, in the book/movie, he doesn't get caught and didn't do this act for financial reasons.

<comment><USER39> Wasn't it all in his imagination? I haven't seen that movie in years but he might have been developing schizophrenia.

<comment><USER40> It was intentionally ambiguous. It's a work of fiction, anyway, so all of it is in the imagination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A seemingly normal person goes and dismember his colleague after things doesn't go his way when he when in for a scam. Why is it not 1st degree murder?

<comment><USER42> > Why is it not 1st degree murder?

Because with initial charges, when you've got pretty solid probable cause for intent (2nd degree), there's no reason to take any risk at the probable cause hearing with premeditation (1st degree); if you've got evidence that you think can get a conviction on that as you investigate, upgrading charges is easy.

<comment><USER43> How in the world is it not premeditated??? He went to his place. It's not like he randomly stumbled into Fahim and killed him on the spot.

<comment><USER44> You have to prove the accused went there with the intention to kill. He could have gone with the intention to talk about their debt situation, but then saw the victim and went red with rage or something like that.

It's really, really hard to get prove exactly what someone was thinking. You need a very concrete piece of evidence that proves intent, just going somewhere is not going to be enough.

<comment><USER45> > just going somewhere is not going to be enough.

How about going there completely disguised, and pretending to go to a different floor in the building than Fahim? If he went there to talk to him, he wouldn't press a button in the elevator for a different apartment.

<comment><USER46> Assault? Robbery? He'd disguise himself to commit basically any criminal act agains Fahim, not just murder.

Even weapons being brought could have been intended for threatening future violence.

It's incredibly hard to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, what someone's mindset is at any given time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is chilling considering I am currently looking for a personal assistant!

<comment><USER48> David Spade's personal assistant famously attacked him with a stun gun, so be careful! Normally, though, the story is the reverse: a celeb mis-treated their personal assistant and is now being sued.

<comment><USER49> Or gets totally thrown under the bus by hostile testimony, like is happening to Amber Heard right now in the Heard/Depp trial. Her PA poked a bunch of holes in Heard's story after AH tried to publicly claim a personal tragedy of the PA's as her own for sympathy and lost all of the PA's goodwill.

Don't screw with the person who knows your whole life in and out, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is utterly tragic. Not sure that there's a lesson to be learned other than life is short and people can be unpredictable. Must be so hard for his sister and family.

<comment><USER51> My takeaway is if I discover a crime being committed by someone I don't know well, report and cut all contact. Upgrade Security. Be alert. This whole situation is a tragedy, and his willingness to impart reason with the unreasonable cost him his life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> > he built an app called PrankDial that allowed users to send prerecorded > prank calls

Oh wow .. I remember that site. Man, this entire situation just stinks :(.

</comment><comment><USER53> [https://archive.is/4gcZO](https://archive.is/4gcZO)

</comment><comment><USER25> There are cameras everywhere nowadays. I don't understand how someone thinks they can realistically get away with something like this, especially in the middle of NYC in broad daylight.

<comment><USER54> Do cameras actually matter when it's socially acceptable now to wear a mask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is sad. I'm thinking the assistant was planning on sawing the ceo up and dump him in a river. Which doesn't make sense. He would be a suspect on the list if Saleh had disapeared. Unless he planned to make out like a bandit into a country that doesn't extradite criminals.

<comment><USER55> I guess the theory would be that - if the body was never discovered, the police wouldn't be able to prove a crime occurred. They would simply have questioned a couple of people and if none of them 'broke', they would have been let go

</comment></comment><comment> john-radio That's good. The NY Times did not help this situation, or the hundreds of other potential situations that may or may not evolve in the future, with their breathless coverage of this "likely the work of a professional" job.

</comment><comment><USER56> Remember this is an ALLEGATION.

I knew Fahim personally. I know people who spoke to him the day of about this very issue, so I have some information that most people don't. I absolutely do not believe this kid did it.

Fahim was well liked in Nigeria but he was disrupting a dangerous market.

<comment><USER57> Is there anything you can share?

Tyrese had recently purchased and signed for the taser that was used in the attack. He was at home depot buying cleaning supplies right after the murder. That's some very significant evidence.

<comment><USER58> All of that combined with the monetary connection, it's rather extraordinarily strong evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Any startups that are protecting people from being murdered? What type of device would be able to sound an alarm and save his life?

</comment><comment><USER60> So much for it being "a professional job".

It just makes our law enforcement people look incompetent.

</comment><comment><USER61> can we please stop linking nytimes. their paywall doesn't even render properly.

<comment><USER62> [https://archive.is/D1sbz](https://archive.is/D1sbz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Non-paywalled article:

> [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered- > Ne...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-New-York- > tech-entrepreneurs-personal-assistant-arrested.html)

</comment><comment><USER63> Nigerian media have more info about the suspect [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871447)

<comment><USER64> You are linking to your own submitted HN story linking to an article?

Somehow this feels dirty & cheap.

[https://pageone.ng/2020/07/17/breaking-here-is-the-face- of-t...](https://pageone.ng/2020/07/17/breaking-here-is-the-face-of-tyrese- devon-haspil-the-suspected-killer-of-fahim-saleh/)

<comment><USER63> To the contrary, it's a service to the community to link other versions of the same story with the right context, facilitating discussion.

Also, you're actively suppressing African news sources, so I question your bias?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This sounds like a good old coverup lol. Seriously? The assistant? Because he stole tens of thousands of dollars and got a payment plan setup for it? And then what, he goes and uses an electric saw to dismember the body? Right. That's probably how it happened.

It's much more likely that the assistant was either blackmailed or paid a much larger amount by a 3rd party to carry this out, potentially stealing the money from him to provide an alternative motive. The way the crime was carried out might be some signature card that people involved will recognized and see as a warning.

<comment><USER29> Oh yeah, definitely. All according to keikaku.

In fact, what's really likely is that _that_ 3rd party is being manipulated by lizard overlords to make us believe there are still humans with agency in the world when actually they have brainwave modifiers that override everything we want to do.

With Neuralink, I won't even be able to say these seditious things. Celebrate your last few moments of free will!

<comment><USER66> Nonsense! The lizard overlords are only pawns in a much larger scheme

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Pay. Your. Fucking. Debts.

</comment><comment><USER68> I guess the lesson here is do background checks when hiring a PA.

<comment><USER69> Or don't hire a 21 yr old with questionable background as your chief of staff dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER70> What is their questionable background?

<comment><USER69> They supposedly had mental health problems and had trouble with law enforcements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Out of topic. When I met my (now) wife on online dating. A lot of her friends actually noted her to be careful, because there are a lot of crazy people here (NYC). I agree with that notion.

<comment><USER72> There are a lot of people in NYC, period.

That's going to increase the base number of those with some flavor of mental instability, but I've never seen anything to suggest the ratio is different than other places.

<comment><USER73> In general: "studies have shown that the risk for serious mental illness is generally higher in cities compared to rural areas" [1].

For NYC specifically: about 60k out of America's 500k homeless people live in New York City, which is the highest homeless population of any US city [2]. The "large majority of street homeless New Yorkers are people living with mental illness or other severe health problems" [3].

These sources confirm what I think a lot of people have seen for themselves through personal travel and experience: mental illness/instability correlates with urbanization.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/)

[2] [https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with- the-m...](https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-most- homeless-people/)

[3] [https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about- ho...](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness- new-york-city/)</comment></comment></comment>


InfoQ: Hadoop Futures at Structure Big Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/03/structure_big_data <comment><USER2> I mean, they're really promoting Hadoop + Cassandra in this article, but if you're scaling your application(s) you really need to ask the "Cassandra or MongoDB?" question - for a good slice of developers, MongoDB will be more appropriate. Here's a good run-down that explains how to choose between the two: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2892729/mongodb-vs- cassan...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2892729/mongodb-vs-cassandra)</comment>


CDC warns employees not to argue with anti-mask customers - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/513643-cdc-warns-employees-not-to-argue-with-anti-mask-customers <comment><USER2> "if they make threats or become violent"

Well yes that makes sense.</comment>


The Main Street Entrepreneur - spicer-matthews http://cloudmanic.com/blog/84/the-main-street-entrepreneur?utm_campaign=blog-hackernews

<comment><AUTHOR> This article is interesting but it overgeneralizes. I don't think its fair to say of tech entrepreneurs that they are somehow managed by their investors. Sure, some might be, but they are the exception, not the rule. If you listen to the rhetoric and read stuff (like venture hacks) about top VC firms, they ultimately serve the entrepreneur. I'm sure that if they own a majority share of the company and the entrepreneur is going off the rails they would intervene and run the show-- but they are in the service business. This is the golden-age of awesome entrepreneurs ditching the "pointy haired bosses" that the author points to-- a bunch of pg's essays extrapolate on this concept.

At the other end, however, are startups that never make it big by design. Not that they do not have the capacity to scale (it technically would not be a "start up" in the traditional sense if it didn't), but they just strive for organic growth in a niche market. These cases blur the distinction that the author strives to make between the tech and main street entrepreneur.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of this article. What Spicer calls a "Main Street Entrepreneur" is what I like to call a "micropreneur": The spirit, freedom of how/when/where but bootstrapped, without VCs involved. And instead of just working on one big thing hopping to make it big, one can work on a few smaller "micro businesses", which cumulatively might not make you rich, but can you make at least viable, self-sustained and more importantly, free and happy to pursue other things; be that trying out another micro- business, or recreational freedom. I can't tell you how great it is to be able to just go on a vacation or road trip when you feel like it without having to wonder "how many vacation days do I have left; need a few for christmas etc." and even having to ask your boss to get permission to take a few days off to begin with. Freedom of action.</comment>


How Marissa Mayer Almost Killed AdSense (and she names Paul Buchheit as the real AdSense inventor) - <AUTHOR> http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-03-n78.html

<comment><USER2> The sad thing is that at bigger companies like IBM dozens and dozens of billion-dollar ideas have been rejected out of hand for no good reason, far out of line with unfortunate serendipity. IBM rejected xerography, minicomputers, personal computing, and ignored the work its researchers did on relational databases.

Back in the 19th century, there were people who thought telephony was a lousy idea.

Things will always be like this.

<comment><USER3> Thats what startups and small teams and companies are for ;)

<comment><USER2> Often times people have families and other obligations that keep them from taking the huge risk that is starting up. Or they just don't have the courage. Or whatever. To the detriment of the business world and consumers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. Marissa Mayer is a serious self-promoter. When she can't take credit for an idea, she tries to take credit for "not killing" an idea?

<comment><USER5> hey, anyone at that time that wanted to keep something free was against advertisments, and many were trying to find a way to do just that. obviously you are too young to remember that, and obviously Google did it first with Paul and AdSense. A lot of ad skepticals changed their view of ads when adSense came. So, I would say its good that she recognizes that

<comment><USER4> This was my impression after reading a valleywag article. Probably bad form on my part, but whatever.

Also, I doubt I'm "too young" to remember much about google, since I remember when it didn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I for one have never quite understood the whole argument with how gmail "reads" people's emails. Yes.. it does get a little spooky at times. But how much more spookier is it than Google (or for that matter any other search engine) keeping track of what you search for? Fact is, privacy is non-existent and the onus is on the end user to protect it.

<comment><USER7> The closer analogy is actually spam filtering -- it's a very similar process (computers processes message content in order to classify it). The computer is processing and storing the data anyways, so there is no impact on privacy (eliminating spam filtering or ads won't improve your privacy in any way).</comment></comment>


Where's Apple? - <AUTHOR>

There hasn't been much excitement or rumors about what Apple will do next. Is the next version of iPhone really all that exciting anymore? What do you think Apple will do to stay current; or would you think that with the lose of Steve Jobs, Apple will expire?<p>There's the iWatch speculation/rumor, but is this all that interesting? What is so exciting about an iPhone on your wrist? Or do you think Apple is developing some cool device using graphene? A watch that could unfold into an iPhone then further unfold into an tablet would be amazing. But, I don't feel like Apple will be pulling this rabbit out of their hat. What do you think? <comment><USER2> Just because a company isn't talking about something or releasing something, doesn't mean something isn't in the pipeline. Apple is notorious for keeping their new products a secret.

I love the prospect of an iWatch and hope it happens. I think there is a lot of potential in Apple TV and its no where at the level it should be within a year or 2. Once they figure out an app store for Apple TV, they'll have a big impact on the gaming market and streaming video.

I've had almost every version of the iPhone. Is it getting stagnant? Yeah, sure. If you want something different more often, move to Android; a new phone comes out almost every month and there are hundreds to choose from.

It's not Apple's style to talk or release new products quickly. They wait until their products are polished. The iPhone was in development for years before anyone knew it existed.

I had high hopes for Microsoft Surface, but in traditional MS fashion, they rushed it and its not as good as it should be. They only feature I wish the iPad had was a hard ethernet connection (or dongle) so I can take it into the server room (we don't run wifi at the office). Surface Pro has this, but its out of my price range and the the product just seams sub par to me. Maybe version 2 will be better...

</comment><comment><USER3> The lesson of Apple is that exciting isn't a good thing. The Newton was very exciting, and it was a dud. On the flip side the iPod was just a slick MP3 player and changed the company. After that every product they made was telegraphed in advance: The iPhone was was an iPod phone, and the iPad was mocked as being a larger iPhone. Also the iPad wasn't innovative because Microsoft did it first. So those three dull products released years apart are what put the company back on the map.

Something else that people also forget: As much as I loved Steve Jobs the company I feel in love with was run by John Sculley. This was the company that introduced a color Macintosh which was a big deal and actually useful. This was the company that invented HyperCard which got me and the industry into "multimedia". This was the company that made the CD-ROM and sound cards a standard feature of every computer they sold. Apple in the late 80s and early 90s changed my life.

By the way if you're looking at the next Newton there's a huge chance that Google is working on it with Google Glass. It's a product that is "exciting" but feels rough around the edges like Microsoft's tablet.</comment>


User controls should never make redirects during GET request - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2010/02/16/user-controls-should-never-make-redirects-during-get-request.aspx

<comment><USER2> For anyone not versed in ASP.NET, that's incomprehensible.

I _think_ what it's saying is that in ASP.NET, it's possible for the code responsible for rendering a section of the UI to directly cause an HTTP response to be issued.

Assuming I'm correct, and leaving aside the statement that it's a bad idea to do this, I've got to say WTF, ASP.NET? _Why is this possible_?

<comment><USER3> What you say is how I understood it too. I am doing Asp.Net WebForms development full-time since a couple years back.

I think User Controls should be denied access to the query string too.</comment></comment>


Helping the homeless get their life back is both cheaper and more humane - <AUTHOR> https://www.sacbee.com/news/article213820554.html <comment><USER2> The problem in America at least is many people view homelessness as "their fault", even if they're teenagers who have been kicked out (it's in the US so huge % of lgbt kids are homeless because bigotry), mental health (if you have mental health issues and can't afford treatment you're kind of screwed. This includes PTSD- the well being of soldiers only matters if it's a sound bite).

Coupled with a more general: it costs money to provide healthcare, etc but even if it's way less than the total cost of not doing so, the latter costs are spread out over more or less everything else so it's hidden.

This is much like prison and jailing: while there are some people you can't "correct", the vast majority you can. Every study has found that providing support and training, etc results in a far lower long term cost it "looks" expensive. When you add in many people wanting prison to be purely punishment, you just end up with people going to jail and often coming out /worse/ than when they went in.

Another property of the "not caring for the mentally ill" is that the mentally ill often subsequently end up in jail - something that costs way more than even keeping them in a mental health hospital if that's what is needed (the staffing requirements for a mental health hospital are different from those of a prison)

</comment><comment><USER3> > It costs $126.06 per day to house an inmate at the Sacramento County Main > Jail, said sheriff's spokesman Shaun Hampton.

I suspect this doesn't include the cost of land, something of particular concern in the same areas where homelessness is most concentrated.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about those suffering from mental health conditions?

<comment><USER5> the program described here sets the person up with a social worker and mental health treatment is very high on the list of services to offer. But they can't coerce much if anything and some are extremely reluctant to participate in any kind of treatment plan, even out-patient care.</comment></comment>


Why don't emoji like 45° transforms? - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/companionstudio/pen/wvKvpWV <comment><AUTHOR> So, in a truly classic bit of 1am CSS rendering weirdness, I discovered that you can't transform (rotate/skew) Emoji by 45 degrees in Chrome, Firefox or Safari in MacOS, or they'll disappear. You can transition _through_ 45° on the way to another value, but you can't stop on that magic 45. Does anyone know what's going on?

</comment><comment><USER2> works for me, macos + firefox

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. I'm running MacOS 10.14.6, Firefox 75. Happens very consistently here!

[https://imgur.com/a/PoimMZn](https://imgur.com/a/PoimMZn)

<comment><USER2> 10.15.3, FFox 75 also.

edit: Just checked in Safari (Version 13.0.5 (15608.5.11)), no disappearing there either.</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby Web Applications Without Rails - <AUTHOR> http://codenoble.com/blog/ruby-web-applications-without-rails/ <comment><USER2> Theoretically, I'm a big fan of this. Rails is huge, and for some applications you certainly don't need it.

On the other hand, my practical experience is that _every single time_ I've tried building a Ruby web application without Rails, I end up reimplementing a buggy version of Rails. There are a surprising number of features that are required or desirable in a web application that are really easy to ignore until you realise.

YMMV of course, but don't run out looking at things like the new API-only support in Rails too, before you take this approach.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like ruby and rails, but my big concern isn't really about performance, its about how to deal with the rise of heavy JavaScript spa apps. I'm still working out how to deal with this.

One approach is to wait it out. Stay with the trade rails view, add JavaScript as needed, see what I can get out of turbolinks and sockets in rails 5.

Another possibility is to go rails-api and write the front end in react or ember. This of course requires going in heavily on JavaScript and (at least for now) duplicating a lot of effort in client and server code (models data routes ...)

Another is to say bye to ruby and go all in with node. I don't hate JavaScript but it felt great to go from java to ruby. Doesn't feel great going from ruby to JavaScript but that may change over time.

Another is to go rails api and try to carve out a role as a pure back end dev. I enjoy back end work more anyway, and maybe specialization is inevitable. It has certainly happened in other fields.

Lastly maybe the trend toward isomorphic development will continue and devs will have as wide a range of choices on the client as they have on the server. I do see signs of this - volt is one good example.

The last time I remember this kind of uncertainty was around 2004 when MVC and DI and ORM frameworks were proliferating wildly in javaland. I studied a lot and finally picked... Ruby ;). so let's also not rule out the possibility that something very new sweeps everything off the table with a loud crash to usher in a very new way of thinking.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love Ruby. That being said, if you require response times faster than what Rails & Sinatra can deliver, don't the newer/faster languages make more sense than implementing a hyper-optimized Ruby solution?

I would worry that as soon as you need to add one feature you didn't originally consider, you'll slip back to normal Rails/Sinatra turnaround times. (Which of course are perfectly acceptable for most apps).

</comment><comment><USER5> I used to be a huge Rails fan, but that was a long time ago. Now, I like simple frameworks like Sinatra and Compojure (for Clojure), with some experiments using Meteor.

Way back when, I liked keeping the source code for CRuby and Rails handy and back then the code base was interesting to explore. Sadly, I really don't know how Sinatra, Compojure, and Meteor work since I have spent very little time looking at the code.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's been a while since I last used rails, but something about

> A "Hello World!" in Rails takes about 1.13 seconds to render

strikes me as most definitely incorrect... If not, I'm shocked.

<comment><USER7> That's for a cold start. Once the application is initialized, it becomes way faster.

<comment><USER8> >That's for a cold start. Once the application is initialized, it becomes way faster.

If one uses Unicorn in production there's no such thing as a `cold start` Ruby is not the JVM lest you run JRuby or Rubinius ofc :-)

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure that's accurate - most of Rails is lazily loaded now I believe, specifically to reduce start-up time. You can use a different strategy in production of course.

<comment><USER9> By default, Rails only does lazy loading in development mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who's spent a not-insignificant amount of time optimizing the heck out of a Sinatra benchmark[1] for TechEmpower's Web Framework Benchmarks[2] (TFB), and as someone who's spent the last four months or so building a json:api compliant Sinatra back-end and Ember.js front-end (for an MVP), this subject is near and dear to my heart. I definitely thrashed on language selection for a few weeks before settling on Ruby. It was an opportunity to learn a great language, but I wanted to actually _learn_ the language instead of relying on a huge library. Rails had a lot of overhead for what we had in mind, Rails API had only recently been merged and seemed unproven, and the more esoteric Ruby web frameworks based on Celluloid (e.g. Reel) and EventMachine (e.g. Goliath) were too daunting.

I think going all (well, almost all) the way down to Rack, as suggested in the OP, is a little too extreme. One of the commenters over there mentioned Rack Server Pages[3], which is interesting. Sinatra appealed to me because most of its features come disabled out of the box (in modular mode), and you can selectively reenable them and incorporate other bits of Rack middleware to build up your stack. Some commenters here appear to be conflating Rails and Sinatra in terms of behemoth-ness, which is strange to me because Sinatra::Base is less than 2,000 LOC. Sinatra is not much more than a thin DSL for creating Rack applications as described in the OP! Anyway, it also seemed silly to eschew Rails only to pull in ActiveRecord and ActiveSupport, so after another round of research I selected the excellent Sequel ORM[4] to handle database abstraction.

There have been times when I felt like we were going against the grain. The Ruby community is oriented around Rails, and most of my early Ruby questions received Rails-specific answers, which was frustrating. Some pieces of Rack middleware and other things like json:api serializers tend to be implemented (and documented) in a Rails-specific way; getting them to work with Sinatra (or finding viable alternatives) has been time-consuming. More than once I've thought to myself, "If we're going to use some unsupported and/or fringe-y thing, we might as well have built this in Elixir or Luminus or Sails or ChicagoBoss or..." That being said, writing Ruby is fun, the community is great (MINASWAN), and we've discovered some amazing libraries. There is a ton of work going on to improve Ruby (specifically, JRuby 9K, Ruby OMR, ConcurrentRuby, etc.) so the language has a bright future. In the meantime, our solution is fast, stable, simple, and easy to test and deploy, so it meets all of our requirements.

1\. [https://github.com/mwpastore/FrameworkBenchmarks/blob/sinatr...](https://github.com/mwpastore/FrameworkBenchmarks/blob/sinatra- sequel-rbx/frameworks/Ruby/sinatra-sequel/hello_world.rb)

2\. [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)

3\. [https://github.com/migrs/rack-server- pages](https://github.com/migrs/rack-server-pages)

4\. [http://sequel.jeremyevans.net](http://sequel.jeremyevans.net)</comment>


Angst and the Empty Set - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/angst-and-the-empty-set

<comment><USER2> Of course, the empty set not "nothing": it is an object.

A set which contains the empty set contains one element, so its cardinality is 1.

If the empty set is nothing, then the set containing the empty set would contain nothing, and therefore its cardinality would be 0.

Speaking of 0, it's the additive identity element in number theory, and 1 is the multiplicative identity. Neither of them are nothing. The connection between 0, the empty set and nothing is that the empty set contains nothing (no elements), and its cardinality is 0. There is also a connection to propositional logic: we can universally quantify a negated predicate to say that nothing exists which satisfies a certain property.

One question is, can we work with an actual nothing which is not "wrapped" in the empty set.

We could try to postulate a nothing object such that when a set is constructed which contains that object as an element, it is the empty set (and still has cardinality zero). Just like every set has the empty set as its subset, every set has the nothing object as an element.

This nothing could simultaneously serve as an additive identity, and as a multiplicative identity: a plus nothing is a, a times nothing is a. (This works in Lisp, by the way: (* 42) is 42, and so is (+ 42). We can pretend there is a second operand there after 42, and that operand is nothing: it doesn't extend the length of the argument list by one. Also, nothing plus nothing should be zero. Nothing times nothing should be 1. This is needed so that (a * nothing) * nothing is equal to a * (nothing * nothing) so associativity of multiplication is preserved. (Lisp is with us here again: (+) -> 0, (*) -> 1.)

It's a matter of going through all the grunt work to see whether the formalism can be used in a way that is consistent: does its presence lead to theorem- wrecking contradictions.

The question of whether we can work with an "unboxed" nothing, of course, does not address the philosophical question. Any formalized nothing that we use is actually a something: a syntactic and semantic concept denoting the idea of nothingness. When we think of it, we are not thinking nothing; our minds are not blank. It is not wrapped in an empty set, but it's still boxed in a framework. We can have variables that hold nothing, and so on.</comment>


Show HN: PJON network protocol stack specification - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/specification/PJON-protocol-specification-v0.3.md <comment><USER2> No license information whatsoever in the entire repo. Not worth my time if I cannot legally use this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ciao majewsky you can find the lincense in every file! It is Apache 2.0

<comment><USER2> I looked at some of the files, and didn't see the license anywhere. It's curious that I didn't check the .h files in the root dir; I just saw that they have license information in them. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence Kind of reminds me of CAN BUS.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is this trying to replace and why?

<comment><USER4> Quoting the README:

       > It is a valid alternative to i2c, 1-Wire, Serial and other Arduino compatible protocols.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes can act as an alternative, but many of its feature are quite unique. For example it enables the user to use the same protocol on different media, with the same few lines code.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your resume and job applications? - <AUTHOR> Every time I apply to jobs, I feel like it's incredibly clunky to manage my resume and communication for every position I apply for.<p>What tools do you use to help organize and streamline your application process? <comment><USER2> I used the free Streak CRM for GMail ([https://www.streak.com/](https://www.streak.com/)) during my last job search. Allows you to basically turn your GMail into a CRM-type pipeline view so you can always visualize the statuses of different applications. You can also associate all of your correspondence regarding a particular position (application confirmation email, first contact, follow ups, interview scheduling, offer) with a single CRM record.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently used a Google Sheet with company name, date applied, status, action items, a link to the job description, etc. If I applied with a custom resume I add that to the same Google Drive folder with the appropriate name. Add color to the status column to make it a bit easier to scan. Move rejections to a new tab and keep post-mortem notes if you have any after phone screens/interviews (so you can study what you messed up on). It got the job done.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a repository on GitLab that contains a LaTex file each for an application letter, a CV and all my documents. In addition, I have an SQLite DB that contains past positions and a skill matrix in german and english language, and some python scripts that can convert the data into LaTeX format.

I keep the master branch up to date. Each time I apply somewhere, I branch off master and edit the files accordingly. I then generate a PDF that I can submit.

And because this is not complicated enough, I have a GitLab CI job that generates a CV from the master branch and uploads it to a private server in case somebody asks me for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I create a date stamped folder with the company's name, and put all materials in there. I'll move emails from each company to separate folder in my mail client as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't have the chance to try it yet but there is JobHound: [https://jobhound.io](https://jobhound.io).

> Job Hound is a Job Tracking System, a web application that keeps track of > every job you are applying for, manages your progress, keeps track of notes, > cover letters, etc.</comment>


Startup founders are relentless and a bit mad - <AUTHOR> http://rekatz.tumblr.com/post/14504335859/startup-founders-are-relentless-and-a-bit-mad <comment><USER2> Entrepreneurship really shouldn't be romanticized. It's already overly romanticized in the media. It's hard work with possibly no payoff.

If your the kind of person who needs every hour of your work to be truly yours then entrepreneurship. Ie if the only way you can enjoy your work is for it to be all encompassing then this is a good gig for you.

If you want to have a life etc, this is not for you. Stay away for your own good and for the sake of your own health.

<comment><USER3> So, if you love it, then go ahead? Jump in if its the only way you can enjoy your work, if you live for it? That's exactly what romanticizing means.

I think some of us are like that, and romanticizing works for us. Others are just in it for the return, and reject poetical interpretations like the parent article. It's not bad writing, really. Just doesn't resonate with everybody.

<comment><USER2> My words were meant completely literally :). I wrote this after waking up in the middle of the night wondering where'd the base premise for my startup was baseless.</comment></comment></comment>


Glowforge: From 'Robot Turtles' to Actual Lasers - <AUTHOR> http://geekdad.com/2015/05/glowforge/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, it sounds sort of promising, I wonder what kind of wattage laser it will ship with? I see you can now get dodgy-looking tiny usb-equipped laser engravers straight outta Shenzhen for about $100... but they are underpowered (~300mW), and apparently ship with buggy Windows-only software. Still, diminishing returns would make a $2,500 machine a hard sell for me, as much fun as it looks like.

<comment><USER3> Glowforge founder here - we haven't announced specs as we're still fine tuning and they might change a bit, but this will be capable of cutting material 1/4" thick.</comment></comment>


How soccer saved the Seattle Seahawks - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/14/how-soccer-saved-the-seattle-seahawks

<comment><USER2> Neat, but what is that payoff for the taxpayers of Washington state?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is there no internet micro transaction protocol yet for USD? - <AUTHOR> I understand crypto can work with micro transactions but it's unclear to me that usd would not work. I know it's expensive through the credit card model but surely some version of mobile could be adopted. <comment><USER2> You could use a blockchain to make payments denominated in USD. (e.g. Ripple) Previous to blockchains it was generally thought that micropayment protocols were expensive: after Bitcoin, people stopped caring about what they cost.

Blockchain or not, it is hard to get the costs down. Some of the problems of the credit card model (fraud) never go away.</comment>


Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/going-dark-online-privacy-and-anonymity-for-normal-people/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised he doesn't mention NoScript, Privacy Badger, etc. "Normal people" should be more concerned about about the highly detailed profiles that companies are building based on browsing habits. "Normal people" read about data breaches and embarrassing leaks that force politicians to resign. "Normal people" know nothing about the behind the scenes tracking that goes on when you google medical symptoms[0] or visit pages which have Facebook like buttons as footers[1].

Yes, this article is targeted at people who don't understand the problem of using their .gov email address to sign up for dodgy sites, but think about whether you'd rather have your bank statement made public or a large, visualizable data set representing most of your browsing history.

I would love to see more work done on privacy through noise/obfuscation, such as that started by Adnauseum[2] and TrackMeNot[3] - not necessarily publishing your credit card details online as suggest in another comment here, but in making random search queries and clicking on random ads when your device is idle. Most of us have sufficient processing power and bandwidth for the overhead not to be a problem. It's sad that it looks like both add-ons have failed to make a splash, and seem to have fallen out of active development (end of 2015 marks the last commits for both projects, which is too soon to pronounce them dead, but they definitely don't seem to be hives of activity).

[0] [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/looking-up-symptoms- online-...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/looking-up-symptoms-online-these- companies-are-collecting-your-data)

[1] [http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/cookie- profiling.html](http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/cookie-profiling.html)

[2] [http://adnauseam.io/](http://adnauseam.io/)

[3] [http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/](http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/)

<comment><USER3> I do a lecture at local hackerspaces about basic security for the common person and anonymity is far down on the list.

Much higher on the list are basic protection from dangers on the internet, like browser based exploits. So Noscript is one major selling point for Firefox due to most browser based exploits using Javascript. Even if you whitelist all the sites you're still more secure with noscript than without simply because it blacklists the unknown sites you don't know about, the ones that e-mail links open or pop-ups force your browser to load through various tricks.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if there's any demand for a pre-built whitelist for NoScript that includes stuff like Amazon, Google, Apple, banks, and most other popular sites. The admin would err on the side of allowing scripts to run, while the default-block rule would still block unknown and ad/tracker domains. It would obviously be less secure than an intelligent user making all their own decisions, but it would make the barrier to using NoScript much lower.

Edit: While I'm musing on this, I wonder if NoScript could use a UI overhaul. A little icon that says "Something broken? Try activating these domains" with some heuristics e.g. first try allowing the current domain, then stuff on common CDNs, then maybe digging into DNS records or SSL certs for common ownership...

<comment><USER5> I'm finding uMatrix is useful, and have deployed it _with ongoing support_ for non-technical users.

It's possible to whitelist (and blacklist) specific targets, including local site, and a set of specified third-party targets.

That said, overall, it's a bit of a complexity bunghole, and may not be for the general public. But then, computers in general aren't, in many ways, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I appreciate the intention of this article. Written for people only starting to change their surfing habits in light of Snowden. But the example of the tools they should use are not thought out very well.

First: Freedome by F-Secure is closed source and there is no OpenVPN alternative. Always choose a VPN that has OpenVPN so that users can configure the connection to their needs. No need for this bloated mess.

Second: Whilst disposable Google accounts might seem like a good idea, there are any number of ways for Google to cross-correlate a disposable identity with your actual identity using fingerprinting captchas or even your screen resolution. Google does this to spot serial re-registrations and to stop people gaming Google Plus voting rings and spammers in general.

Third: Be careful of online websites offering fake-name services. Most of this data is generated server-side and logged for the purposes of cross-correlation with your IP address and useragent string. Quite possibly the vast majority of fake-identity sites are run by LEA

\- I like to write some quick and dirty ruby gems to generate fake identities because then it can't be correlated. (The names are pulled in from disparate sources and I always ensure true-randomness).

\- In terms of email, use things like Riseup which use TLS at every hop so that passive dragnets cant sniff the password. 99% of all IMAP and SMTP services can be passively sniffed because they use weak STARTTLS.

\- Use 'honeywords' in an email to correlate different emails with different activities. For example:

        firstname.lastname@example.com
        email@example.com
        firstname.lastname@example.com

This way you can whitelist those addresses for the purposes of filtering out spam and phishing attempts.

<comment><USER7> I don't see the point of using honeywords. I mean, I've used them a bit, but any spammer is going to strip them immediately, so they're useless for identifying which provider leaked your address, right? And now to login, you need to remember the honeyword you used to register, which is a big inconvenience for anyone not using a password manager. (Use a password manager!)

<comment><USER8> If you primarily use honeywords, then you can filter out anything going to firstname.lastname@example.com as spam. The hard part would be transitioning people you _want_ to communicate with to craigds+{family,friends,email@example.com.

Optionally, retain firstname.lastname@example.com for personal and professional communication/correspondence, and move everything else to firstname.lastname@example.com (or a different host).

<comment><USER9> I just bought an entire TLD for signups/spam and made it a catchall. One positive is I know when companies are breached often before they announce it as my email@example.com told me a little while ago.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/incident_managers_pa...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/incident_managers_pagerduty_pwned/)

<comment><USER10> This is a great idea! What's it like viewing email? Which client do you use? Is it easy to see which email address the email was sent to?

<comment><USER9> Viewing email is as you would expect, the email they sent to is in the header so it's just a single click away in Thunderbird.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great article.

The only real omission I noticed is the lack of mention of advanced browser fingerprinting techniques that can be used against browsers, even if caches are emptied, 'porn modes' activated, VPNs opnened. As demonstrated here by the EFF's Panopticlick initiative. [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

One of the most important points about the anonymity provied by the Tor project to remember is that the Tor Browser is painstakingly hand crafted to avoid many of these problems. In other discussions about TOR it is worryingly common to see other ways to route browser traffic through TOR, without mentions of the implications.

For those interested, here's a recent look into the Tor Browser system by one of the developers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5Qbj2Aouo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5Qbj2Aouo)

<comment><USER12> What do you mean with "VPNs opnened"?

The article is wrong about Tor being an alternative option to a VPN. If anonymity is your concern, you should use TOR to connect to a VPN (paid with Bitcoins).

<comment><USER11> "VPNs opened" was poor wording. Clarifications provided by the guys below seem to match what I remember from listening to talks on Tor by the project's developers.

Operational security and Tor is such an interesting and frankly, quite scary subject. I've mainly used and instructed people on Tor for read-only uses of the web.

For my own needs, masking the origin of an actively participating persona is out of scope. I generally warn people about doing anything that requires sign- on/nicknames etc without very careful research.

I recognize that my lack of a need for serious anonymity for basic political activism etc is a huge privilege. So I try to give back by running a bunch of Tor middle relay myself.

For serious anonymity, I'd really be strict about using a forensically clean Tails USB boot environment, on varying public Wi-FI hotspots with a dedicated laptop that never has touched my regular network. The laptop must not ever be powered on near my house. Lots of systems, like Cisco Meraki business Wi-Fi APs take note of all nearby Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices for 'location analytics'.

Javascript and stuff must be disabled of course. Carrying any cell phone, burner or otherwise is out of the question.

The reasons are many, but for starters, you don't want to be identifiable as the only person at your location making Tor connections, if you're doing something important.

Here are some good points on the subject. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ2OZKitRwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ2OZKitRwc)

My approach for promoting Tor to regular people around me is through describing it as a way to do random googling on subjects people don't necessarily want linked back to them, through analytics and ad companies.

I'm personally pretty convinced that insurance companies around the globe are looking pretty seriously at how far they could push their use of intelligence from data brokers. For purposes like identifying people with potential inherited diseases, recreational drug use habits, mental health problems etc.

So, I think Tor is important for all of us.

<comment><USER13> I love the tor browser, however much of the internet without javascript is not useable, at all. Very unfortunate for a tor fan like myself. To be quite honest, if most people weren't like 'grandma' and actually took more interest in the underpinnings of the computer itself, they would automatically be more self-aware of said security. However, it can be said that our 'security', and most importantly, our identity, has been compromised by the very govts and colluding corporations who regulate the devices with which we network. The "land of the free" is anything, but not that. I can't stress enough that societies need to preach good computing habits with encryption first and foremost. Instead all I ever hear is how wonderful the latest device is because: it's newer, faster, you can piss on it, etc. Where in the hell is the spiel on how secure it is and how wonderfully it encrypts everything? The worst part of it is that most don't take enough interest and the powers that be are similar to snakes in the grass. The balance of anything, even information as well as communication is what we all need to strive for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't this create a risk of committing fraud and identity theft in some countries?

I can understand it wouldn't be a crime to create a random email address but creating a fake house address and using this for payments sounds a little tricky.

<comment><USER15> What you call "fraud" I call "privacy". Anonymous transactions happen all the time with cash, and any new payment method needs an equivalent. In the modern era where it is no longer possible to gain privacy by being unobservable, a new definition of privacy is required. Dan Geer has a very good replacement definition; privacy is "the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself"[1]. If cash isn't possible, misrepresentation is the only option.

[1] [http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt](http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt)

<comment><USER14> What you call privacy might be called fraud in some countries. That's what my question is about.

<comment><USER16> I concur & I tread lightly in my guerilla tactics. My bank, my insurance company my Dept Of Motor Vehicles & the other "legit" govs that require my info get it(and I use offline services as exclusively as/while I am still able). For every other "reg required" service, discount card "brick & mortar" or any other entity that requires a unique account, they get all the mis-info I can feed them. In the end, they get their unique identity to track and disseminate, it's just a falsey.

 __*Granted, it is an easily unravelled ball of lottery hotlines & public spaces addresses that could easily be traced back to the real "me", but I'm not really hiding, just preserving my right to be left alone from prying marketeers and... ahem.... data scientists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is just a list of more things for them to clamp down on.

I'm thinking about going in the opposite direction, and broadcasting all of my personally identifying information (credit card, SSN, etc). Obviously I would have to set aside a large amount of time to deal with issuing fraud reports, and make sure that I wasn't risking anything that I can't afford to lose--but it does seem simpler in some ways.

After all, if you don't have anything to hide, you're bulletproof, right?

<comment><USER18> The problem: "Nothing to hide" depends on the context. Maybe you don't have anything to hide under the current laws, but what about laws in 20 years from now? Maybe times change and suddenly, you've got a lot to hide.

<comment><USER19> I'm having trouble finding it but the perfect example of this is a census that collected religious affiliation (for innocent statistics) that some brave citizens went to great lengths to destroy when they came under Nazi occupation in order to try and protect Jewish residents.

<comment><USER20> Another example would be the internment/deportation of 120,000 Japanese- Americans during WW2. I'll bet when they were ticking the 'Japanese ancestry' box on their census form they had no idea they were signing up for future imprisonment without due cause or due process.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-the- us-c...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-the-us-census-b/)

<comment><USER21> Related Wikipedia page: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans)

Might be worth noting that children that were in these camps are still alive today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> TLDR: Use a VPN + Incognito mode + fake email and info

The VPN hides your IP. Incognito mode prevents your cookies from giving away your identity. And the fake info helps with things like sites being hacked and the data being dumped online.

<comment><USER23> And you really should try to use a reputable VPN, like the one they recommend in the article. Plenty of VPN services are in the business of injecting ads and malware, logging your traffic, stealing passwords and credit card numbers, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Going dark: online privacy and anonymity for normal people

Caveat: normal people don't care about such things.

<comment><USER25> Privacy is for everyone, not just the privileged few.

<comment><USER26> It isn't about privilege. It is more about whether privacy is something that you are worried about or not. Most people don't care about it and don't even think about protecting it.

<comment><USER27> Anyone with curtains on their windows, or who closes the door to their bathroom cares about privacy.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, but that's "real" privacy and they understand it quite easily. Meanwhile virtual privacy is something different and more complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really object to the language of "dark" to describe privacy or anonymity, which are thereby painted with a sinister connotation.

<comment><USER29> Similar to /s/blacklist/blocklist, maybe we can replace this with "Going Transparent" to describe privacy or anonymity.

<comment><USER30> "Going Clear"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The article recommends going to Fake Name Generator (tm) to get a random online identity. The page is not encrypted and looks very, very fishy.

That page recommends going to Social Security Number Registry. Again, an unencrypted totally scammy looking page. If you enter a random name and select a random state, it will 'verify' that your identity has been stolen. Then, if you click on 'Validate', you can enter your SSN (unencrypted, of course).

I don't even know how to code, and this is a news site for hackers? This tripe makes it to the top of the front page?

<comment><USER32> FWIW, there is a "secure" version of the fake name generator, but you have to pay $1.99/year and sign in with Google, which is hilarious.[1]

Also, as explained by the creator[2], the SSN registry site is worthless and apparently a joke (although I'm not going to poke around on the site to verify).

[1] [https://www.fakenamegenerator.com/premium.php](https://www.fakenamegenerator.com/premium.php)

[2] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/03/the- mormon...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/03/the-mormon-who- creates-billions-of-fake-identities-every-month/#772f8a467582)

<comment><USER31> That really just makes everything worse, because this site, HN, presents the blog post as if it is a legitimate guide. The Fake Name Generator(tm) page states: "You should click here to find out if your SSN is online." Making no mention that the site is intended to be a joke.

Apparently, HN is a joke.

(Note that the only way to view the Forbes article you linked is through the cached version.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's a good piece, but the treatment of VPNs is bad. There's a new site about choosing a VPN service: [https://thatoneprivacysite.net/](https://thatoneprivacysite.net/) It summarizes a huge amount of information, for 159 VPN services.

</comment><comment><USER34> It is so difficult to balance productivity/convenience and privacy/security.

Only recently did I stop worrying about privacy/security, and frankly my online experience is much better. I can now participate in any services/apps that catch my eye, I now save CC data at some sites, don't have a VPN/Tor slowing traffic and giving me cloudflare walls/"im not a bot" verification, don't have noscript/ublock/privacy badger breaking most sites, can sync across devices and backup online.

Having both secure & private online behavior is a massive inconvenience. You basically can't participate in the online world as it exists. (There are definitely opportunities to create secure/private versions of existing tools)

</comment><comment><USER35> This submission has some more tips for preserving your privacy [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11706680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11706680)

</comment><comment><USER36> The SMS receiving sites don't work so well IME. They tend to use a single number for everyone, and the demand by spammers etc is so much higher than the free supply that for any given service, your number will probably already be blocked. Or the receiving will be unreliable, etc. I've gotten it to work sometimes, but usually not. Definitely too hard and time consuming for "normal people".

Is there a site that sells phone numbers for viop and sms for bitcoin without requiring identity?

<comment><USER37> Identity is required by us (and by most "foundational" financial and phone providers) but for external use with other 3rd parties, not at all. www.abine.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As I am cranking away on some Go services on my laptop on my local coffee shop wifi, I see log entries popup of people trying to access php pages.

I go and ask the staff, and they said their POS is full of some weird software.

a good VPN provider is worth it, but finding one that will not keep logs on you is another story.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's the thing, if you are a normal person - you aren't going to read a guide on something like this. I have a 1 sentence guide on this for the 'normal person' \- If you wouldn't want your grandma to see it, just don't enter it in an internet browser.

<comment><USER33> Sadly enough, I tend to agree with you.

I will note, however, that you display some naiveté about grandmothers ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm interested in 'phishing and malware protection', which I think means all my traffic gets reported to Google. This plus Google Analytics means the electric eye is on me wherever I go. Tips to browse safely without these?

</comment><comment><USER41> The article exemplifies why the widespread misappropriation of of the VPN term is unfortunate (in same series as "router" for NAT boxes...), it serves to confuse people about the potential of real overlay networks.

<comment><USER33> Please say more about "the potential of real overlay networks".

<comment><USER41> Well, tunneling your web traffic to some random "VPN" provider and having all traffic flow out in the open to the internet is just defending against your last mile ISP basically. A real encrypted overlay would be a fully connected mesh between all the nodes of the network. Like IPSec was originally meant to work (transport mode, anyone being able to set up a security association to any other IP address with common PKI)

<comment><USER33> Thanks.

> Well, tunneling your web traffic to some random "VPN" provider and having > all traffic flow out in the open to the internet is just defending against > your last mile ISP basically.

People use VPN services because they can't trust their ISPs. ISPs log traffic, shape traffic, share data with adversaries, etc, etc. People instead choose to trust VPN providers. Typically, there are few ISPs to choose from. But there are numerous VPN services.

> A real encrypted overlay would be a fully connected mesh between all the > nodes of the network.

Well, there are [https://peervpn.net/](https://peervpn.net/) and [https://www.onioncat.org/](https://www.onioncat.org/) (which connects through Tor). From years ago, I recall one from some Russian with a friend in Antarctica. But not even the name :(

<comment><USER41> Also [http://hack.org/mc/projects/btns/](http://hack.org/mc/projects/btns/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this really still the best way to pay for stuff anonymously online? Lie to a financial institution? I understand the desire to avoid fraud, but boy does that irk me. Hrmm...

</comment><comment><USER42> Skimmed the article, saw that he reccomended using Googlemail. Looked at the title of the post again. Looked at Googlemail reccomendation. Laughed and made a mental note not to trust "Troy Hunt".

<comment><USER43> Maybe try reading the article instead of skimming. He mentions options to Gmail if you don't want to deal with them.

Pro tip: don't comment if you've just "skimmed the article".</comment></comment>


Tesla unveils its new 'sleek and low-profile' solar panel made by Panasonic - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/04/09/tesla-solar-panel-panasonic/ <comment><USER2> This looks slick, but there's actually a reason that rooftop solar panels are installed with a gap between the panels and the roof. Panel power output drops noticeably on hot days as panel temperature rises. The air gap creates a siphon effect, pulling air past the panels and cooling them.

<comment><USER3> I seriously doubt that they've spent 10 years in the industry and would read this comment and go "Wait, what?? Oh shit! We fucked up! Turns out nobody working here had any relevant expertise at all, and we were just guessing how this worked and how to design it! If only we'd talked to anyone who knew had even basic knowledge about solar panels before creating a factory to produce them!"

A more valid wording for this comment would be "I wonder how they altered the design to accommodate for the siphon effect the gap generated," instead of implying they have no idea what they're doing.

<comment><USER2> > A more valid wording for this comment would be "I wonder how they altered > the design to accommodate for the siphon effect the gap generated," instead > of implying they have no idea what they're doing.

If you want a rewording that's closer to my original meaning, it'd be more like "I bet these were made with a cold climate, like that in the northern USA, in mind. They'd lose 10-20% efficiency in summer where I live."

Edit: Although that may not be a terrible thing, if they're overprovisioned compared with the inverter's maximum output so as to keep the inverter at full power for a larger proportion of the time. Depending on climate, you could probably balance out losses due to summer heat with losses due to reduced winter daylight, at least to a degree, giving more reliable year-round power.

<comment><USER4> At the end of the day - does it matter? People expect X output at $X price. If this meets that desire, they're fine. A lot of people would probably be just fine losing some power on hot days to not have something ugly on the roof of their house. For some things aesthetics DO matter - the roof of a house is one of them for most people. Cars tend to be another one as Elon is well aware of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Solar power is catching on. Along with it, other things are changing. Selling back to grid only gets you credit towards your power bill which you need to use up in 6-12 months or you lose it (someone who recently got solar told me this is how it works for him).

I would like to see ways for customers to sell power among themselves (if possible) in this case. If I generate some extra power and someone needs it to charge their car, i'd rather sell it to him. Instead of the shady power company. But maybe it doesn't work like this.

<comment><USER6> Ignoring the time limit you mention, I fail to see the difference? Electricity isn't tangible. In the case of AC, they're just wiggling the electrons in your appliances back and forth. Any promise that your power goes to your neighbour, via the grid, would be a lie.

In financial terms, letting anyone sell electricity to the "shady power company" at the same price they buy it at is only possible as a government- mandated subsidy paid by all customers, intended to promote clean energy. It effectively makes the grid your free, unlimited, zero-loss battery.

If you want to sell it to your neighbour at the same price they and you pay to have the grid wiggle your electrons, there's no difference. If you want, for unfathomable reason, to set a different price, you can just walk over and hand them some money whenever you feel like it. But currently, there are no circumstances under which it would make sense to not sell as much as you can to the power company: if you're producing at costs above grid prices (still likely in most locations), your neighbour could always get his power cheaper from the grid. If you're producing below grid prices, selling as much as possible at the subsidised rates is your best choice.

<comment><USER7> "they're just wiggling the electrons in your appliances back and forth"

Sorry for highjacking your comment, but are there any physicists here who can comment on whether this is accurate? More in particular, does electricity have mass? Is 'current' electrons moving across a wire, or wiggling without 'moving'?

I've asked this years ago on the physics stack exchange, but I never got an answer I actually understood. The context for my question was a legal paper I was reading whose core argument relied on 'current' having mass, or rather, the consumption of electrical energy requiring the transfer of mass, however small. Note that there is an important precedent in my jurisdiction (the Netherlands) that sort of assumed this back in the 1930's, but in this particular argument (on ownership of virtual goods, like a sword in World of Warcraft), the issue of the mass was even more pertinent.

(note that I'm not interested in debating whether that matters re: ownerships of virtual goods; in my legal context it does. And yes I have a law degree. I'm just putting this in because I've asked several times in several places over the years, and there are always people who like to go 'XY problem!' and then make ridiculously wrong pseudo-legal arguments.)

<comment><USER8> The comment is accurate, and electricity should not be considered as having mass.

In a direct current (DC) setup, electrons will be moving continuously though the wires in a big loop. But the displacement of the electrons is not the electrical energy we are interested in.

It is instructive to think about alternating current (AC). In this case, electrons will be moving a bit forward, and then a bit back. So, basically wiggling more or less in place. There is still a lot of energy transferred.

A metaphor is a chain, like in a bicycle. You can use the chain to transfer energy, but it is not the chain links that are the energy. The movement is the energy. This is similar to electricity; it is not the electrons that move that is the electrical energy, instead the electrical energy is the movement itself.

(Due to Einstein's theory of relativity, we know that E=mc^2, which can be summarized as "all forms of energy are also mass". Considering this, all transfer of energy is transfer of mass. But it is miniscule. A small nuclear power plant could produce 4450 GWh in one year. The relativistic mass of this is 180g. All the energy produced in one full year of this plant has a total mass of 180g. So you should not consider electricity to be transfer of mass, even though it technically is :P )

(Also, since you asked for a physicist: I am not a physicist)

<comment><USER7> No worries, I'm using a loose definition of 'physicist' \- anyone knowing about physics is fine :)

Thanks for your contribution; as I mentioned below, I've gotten some different answers, e.g. on [http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/2188/does- electri...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/2188/does-electricity- have-mass-is-electricity-tangible) where I asked the first time. Essentially, are you saying that with DC current, there _is_ transfer of 'mass', but with AC, there isn't? In the case such as I've explained it elsewhere in this thread, this might mean that it matters how a computer is build to decide on whether the virtual sword can be stolen or not... (maybe, I haven't really looked hard at it in a few years, so I'm probably forgetting some details of it).

<comment><USER9> [Similar disclaimers about not being a physicist go here]

Something that's going to be a bit tricky here is that electrons are really, really slow when we're talking about electricity through a wire. The electrons will bounce around very quickly at random, but the average flow caused by a current is _slow_. Really, really slow.

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

For a specific but not unreasonable example:

> Therefore in this wire the electrons are flowing at the rate of −0.000023 > m/s. At 60 Hz alternating current, this means that within half a cycle the > electrons drift less than 0.2 μm. In other words, electrons flowing across > the contact point in a switch will never actually leave the switch.

That kind of speed means that any messages sent over a copper wire are not going to be sending electrons all the way for that message. The electrons that 'carry' the message "I AM A VIRTUAL SWORD" will not go from my machine to yours as a rushing block. Instead all I'll be doing is tapping the end of a very long pole connecting our two properties, so you can read the message by the patterns of the end of the pole in your house moving ever-so-slightly.

So, I guess I am transferring mass, but nothing that comes from me goes to you.

This also assumes a very particular direction. There's nothing, as far as I'd understand, that requires me to be pushing electrons at you. I could be _pulling_ on the pole slightly rather than _pushing_.

I'd love any corrections or additions to this, purely my lay understanding of the topic.

<comment><USER10> Even ignoring the speed of the electrons, this ignores that several steps of that route will almost certainly be done over fibre anyway, and at that point there is clearly no transfer or electrons from the "seller" to the "buyer". Although I have no idea whether or not this is relevant to the legal question at hand…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I was a child this is how I thought solar panels would look in the future. These look much nicer, and I imagine will help win over those who are very concerned about curb appeal.

<comment><USER12> I think the reason you thought that was because of Syd Mead: [http://www.sydmead.com/v/12/](http://www.sydmead.com/v/12/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazing how much press Tesla gets for solar panels. How about JK Solar, Canadian solar, JA Solar.. these companies ship GWs of solar panels. Today. Meanwhile their stock is worth tiny multiples.

<comment> _-__--- Not sure about the products/companies you're listing, but cult of personality must have a lot to do with the extra press. People will click on links to stories about Tesla/Elon/SolarCity without the journalists having to do as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like the final nail in the coffin for SolarCity's in-house solar manufacturing technology from Silveo, which as I recall was meant to be part of the justification for Tesla buying them. The tiles were already announced to be using Panasonic solar cells, and with their non-tile solar product switching to Panasonic-made panels too...

</comment><comment><USER15> With a relatively attractive panel like this one, what case remains for the solar roof product? Particularly considering the fact that there is a positive social signal associated with visible solar on your house? I'm not sure I understand the trade-offs between the two. Isn't this the superior product?

</comment><comment><USER16> The full title reads "Tesla unveils its new 'sleek and low-profile' exclusive solar panel _made by Panasonic_ ". From the sources it references, it also appears that Panasonic is manufacturing Tesla's batteries.

Does anyone know how much of this is Tesla's technology, and how much Panasonic's? If it's mostly the latter, what would stop Panasonic from providing the same technology to other parties?

<comment><USER17> > _If it 's mostly the latter, what would stop Panasonic from providing the > same technology to other parties?_

There's a big benefit for Panasonic supplying a company with hot products, like Tesla. But outside of whatever contractual obligations they have, there's nothing stopping them.

I implore you to look around at these industries from other sources. If you only read HackerNews, you'd think Tesla is the only company that can make a decent EV (even though motortrend said the Bolt performed nearly as well, had longer range and was $30k cheaper than the Model 60), that no one is close with self-driving and that Tesla are the only one providing this type of solar panel or battery storage solution. These are _all_ hyper competitive, low margin spaces.

Tesla is doing some very cool things, but the unjustified hype is going to blow up in people's faces. Expectations are too high.

<comment><USER16> I browsed Tesla's recent 10-K filings [1,2] in the meantime. The lithium- battery cells, at least, are purchased from Panasonic by Tesla, which (I assume) implies that it's Panasonic's technology to manufacture and sell.

The Gigafactory 1 appears to be some sort of joint venture which is bankrolled by Tesla, but operated by Panasonic, where the batteries are produced. The Gigafactory 2 is similar, but produces PV cells and modules.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459016...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459016013195/tsla-10k_20151231.htm)

[2] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459017...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459017003118/tsla-10k_20161231.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The pictures look great, but black or slate roofs are not so common in the USA so I'm not so excited. If you want the nice look a black roof parts that aren't covered with panels will probably make the attic way too hot. With less airflow the panels must be less efficient too.

I preferred the Tesla Solar Roof Shingles they announced last year [https://www.tesla.com/solarroof](https://www.tesla.com/solarroof). I any case its an exciting time and great to see people working to make them better looking.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's a nice design. The bevel around the edge makes it look better, as does making the interconnects and edges black.

Uni-Solar had a similar all-black look with their solar shingles.[1] They were once #1 in flexible solar panels. But they went bankrupt in 2012.

[1] [http://www.uni-solar.com/#&panel1-1](http://www.uni-solar.com/#&panel1-1)

</comment><comment><USER20> They look a lot like Sunpower's all black panels. I wonder how efficient they are? In Sunpower's case, the all-black ones are lower wattage and less efficient then their traditional looking ones, but also cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER21> Panasonic batteries, Panasonic panels. Panasonic does a very bad PR job.</comment>


Reasons to compete in this year's Battlecode programming competition at MIT - <AUTHOR> http://spenserskates.com/whybattlecode <comment><USER2> > "If you love programming, games, and competition, it's the most fun you'll > ever have" As both a past competitor and someone who's been following the > current game, I can't stress this enough, especially if you're the kind of > person who likes to think for a long time to come up with novel approaches > to problems.

As a contestant -- it's quite satisfying to be a step ahead of the crowd and watch other teams copy your strategy.

As a spectator -- watching the metagame evolve is exciting.

Because the game is brand new every year, there's a fast-paced metagame that the clever contestants get to define. It really brings me back the early days of starcraft, when the unit synergies were not well defined and players were theorycrafting new build orders all the time!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd encourage students to compete, even if your best bots just run away from their enemies. My buddy and I actually used Battlecode as our final project in our AI course. We worked as a team and then had a mini competition between ourselves using different techniques (his was focus on resources, mine seek and destroy).

Even if you feel underwhelmed going against MIT students taking it as a class, smaller schools still get recognition for participation. There is no correct solution; I think '08's winner just mass spawned tanks instead of running any type of strategy (he did test different set-ups and that was ultimately the best).

Finally, like the post suggests, its a great thing get experience with and if you are recognized in anyway (even Honorable Mention) is something nice to slap on the ol' resume.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh that's awesome. What was your team name/year? I may have saw you on the scrim servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Feynman once said, speaking of the merits of seeking inspiration from experiments rather than isolated theory, "The imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man."

Riffing on this idea, the imagination of a human opponent (even when expressed as an algorithm) is far greater than the possible counterstrategies you will imagine yourself when inventing your own system. Having a motivated, intelligent, competitor actively probing your designs for weaknesses rapidly teaches one about the extent to which your expectations for what a given design will do match up to reality in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER5> Competing in Battlecode was one of the best things I've ever done. Yes, it's great experience. Yes, you'll become a better programmer. Yes, it's a lot of fun.

But you learn things about _yourself_. Battlecode was my first love. It was the first code I wrote that I really poured myself into. The hunger for victory, the desire for perfection, the frantic last-minute hacks and patches...a lot of emotion goes into this competition, and I was not expecting that. I was an unmotivated, procrastinating slacker in high school. After doing Battlecode I saw what I had in me. I saw that I really could work, and work hard. I could work hard and love it! That has been life-changing for me.

I cannot recommend this competition enough. Participate, put everything you have into it, and Battlecode will give back.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would love to attend to such an event but i am neither a MIT student nor living in the US (i am living in Germany). I wonder if there are more competitions like this but open for all. If no formal competition, i would really like to see games like these. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can do it- the competition and prizes are 100% open and they have people from lots of schools at the finals.

<comment><USER6> Oh, ok. I guess i misinterpreted it as being closed. Anyways, i am also not a student at any school. In fact, i have no formal graduation whatsoever. So my question remains, are there more competition or games like those they have at MIT?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything quite like it. Top coder is a programming competition- although it's normally algorithms based instead of objective based. If you do find anything, let me know! You can also still compete if you're not a student, although I don't think you can win prizes.

<comment><USER6> Thanks a lot for your support. I will look into that :)

<comment><USER7> We could maybe use another teammate if you think you can be committed and be dedicated in working at least 6+ hrs/day (you need time to catch up as well).

<comment><USER6> Can i somehow contact you, in a private manner ?

EDIT: You could encrypt your mail address for this PGP key: [https://gist.github.com/mercora/52b6975f41c6ea93daf5](https://gist.github.com/mercora/52b6975f41c6ea93daf5)

<comment><USER7> just add me on skype: fahad.ahmed225

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny enough one of the sponsors of Battlecode is [https://amplitude.com](https://amplitude.com) , the founders of which won in 2009 and 2010.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure the OP is the CEO of Amplitude ;)

Edit: [https://amplitude.com/about](https://amplitude.com/about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is the actual battlecode execution engine available for someone to try? It seems like a nice project to set up a open battlecode server..

<comment><USER2> Yup, everything's open source, setting up your own private competition is quite doable.

[https://github.com/battlecode](https://github.com/battlecode)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Post for last year competition: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022167)

Just in case, like me, you fail to notice it last year. ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> I... don't get it. Why don't respectable hackers boycott MIT because of Aaron's death? They never apologized AFAIK.

<comment><USER13> Yes. Let us blame everyone except the man who chose to take his own life.</comment></comment>