N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/nsa-effort-pries-open-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld <comment><USER3> I do understand that it is now the status quo to disavow everything the NSA is, but foreign intelligence gathering is their mission and releasing these details simply doesn't help the cause of fixing the NSA's less savoury incursions.

While arguably any foreign intelligence agency of note isn't going to be caught off guard by these leaks, leaking these details does offer political ammunition to the very people who stand to gain from the expansion of the NSA's mission into civilian data gathering. It helps to make the case that the leaks aren't such a good thing after all and are compromising the intelligence gathering apparatus of the US of A. Add a bit of spin and you can quickly use this to get back to business as usual and people will actually support them as now it'll become a matter of identity instead of what it should be - <USER2> surgical exploration of a cancer afflicting a nation state.

<comment><USER4> What if the foreignerns don't want to spied up on? Or do they count for less?

<comment><USER5> What is the use of acting naive about foreign affairs, diplomacy, and statecraft?

Are you really suggesting that your country's intelligence service doesn't attempt to do the same?

<comment><USER6> The USA has diplomatic relations with foreign countries based on trust. They also trade with those foreign countries - and that international trade is what makes the economy and our lifestyles work.

Targeting "all foreigners" destroys trust that foreigners have in the USA system for trade and diplomacy, lowering the impact of the state on both.

<comment><USER7> Comments like this make me think that maybe all the "acting naive about foreign affairs, diplomacy, and statecraft" is not actually acting.

In the entire human history of diplomatic relations, nations have always attempted to spy on one another. Diplomatic relations are not based on trust, they are based on shared beliefs, interests, and goals.

<comment><USER8> > In the entire human history of diplomatic relations, nations have always > attempted to spy on one another.

Yes, and it's all bad. I don't see what's naive, or even controversial, about this.

<comment><USER9> So the US shouldn't have spied on the Japanese consulate in the 40s to anticipate the forthcoming declaration of war? Or intercepted German transmissions to break the Enigma code?

<comment><USER10> Both countries you were - anticipated to be - or actually at war with. That's hardly the same thing as spying on allies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "We do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies"

Nobody with an unspoiled mind and following the news last year will believe this bullshit.

If there is anything, people all over the world (also in the US) should have learned: Statements from people of some federal US organisations can not be believed at all -- in many cases the complete opposite is true.

<comment><USER12> The NSA lost all credibility for their claim not to be stealing for commercial advantage when they were caught spying on Brazil's Petrobras (government owned oil company). It is simply not credible to claim this spying was for the prevention of terrorism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The only thing that's more disappointing than the NSA spying is the NYT sitting on this scoop for more than a year, and letting Der Spiegel break it. Only slightly less amazing is that Der Spiegel and Jacob Applebaum were talking about this more than two weeks ago, and the NYT diddled until now. Incredible. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU)

<comment><USER14> I'm more disappointed that very few on HN seemes to have been paying attention.

<comment><USER13> I agree. It was also really bad timing. No news organization should break anything major between X-mas and New Years. People are offline...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given that the NSA's mission is to do surveillance against foreign targets ("There is no evidence that the N.S.A. has implanted its software or used its radio frequency technology inside the United States.")...the techniques described here actually seem to be in line of what you imagine the NSA is _supposed_ to be doing. At least it's surveillance that requires them to have a physical targeted presence, rather than just drinking from the telecommunications firehose.

</comment><comment><USER16> This sounds like a non-issue to me. Any person on this site could create little USB devices for stealing data. It's nothing special or new. I thought I was going to hear that they're light years beyond Tempest[1] or something. Feels good to finally hear an NSA story that doesn't depress me.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_\(codename\))

<comment><USER17> It can be inserted by a manufacturer, as mentioned in the article.

A little chip (inside the motherboard/CPU/hard disk/graphic card) with a radio module that can receive radio signals and write the received data directly into hard disk and/or RAM or read bytes from the hard disk and/or RAM and/or graphic card and transmit it back.

<comment><USER6> I imagine the widgets transmit and receive over multiple spectrums, bouncing the spectrum around as they do.

I wonder if technology now can tweak and coordinate the multiple existing radios (Wifi, bluetooth, GSM/CDMA/3G/4G etc) on phones and computers to deliver the same result.

Is that possible? Would that require changes in silicon or could it be done with baseband software changes or even above that? I have no idea frankly.

<comment><USER18> _I imagine the widgets transmit and receive over multiple spectrums_

I seem to recall a strong opposition by the government to the development of consumer ultra-wideband radios. I wonder if this was part of the reason. Either way, it looks like some applications of UWB are available now, though, such as wireless HDMI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a _manufacturer_ or an unwitting user." [emphasis added]

<comment><USER20> US manufacturers sold pre-bugged equipment to the eastern bloc during the cold war, so why not now?

<comment><USER21> Today it is just a well publicly known feature of modern Intel CPU (officially it is stated to be disabled on some CPUs :)

[http://www.realvnc.com/products/viewerplus/](http://www.realvnc.com/products/viewerplus/)

"Computers with particular Intel® Core™ vPro™ processors enjoy the benefit of a VNC-compatible Server embedded directly onto the chip, enabling permanent remote access and control. A RealVNC collaboration with Intel's ground- breaking hardware has produced VNC Viewer Plus, able to connect even if the computer is powered off, or has no functioning operating system."

<comment><USER22> _well publicly known feature_

I sure didn't know about it, and wish I did. I'd love to be able to use it!

Is there any easy way to make this work (and to check if your computer supports it)?

<comment><USER23> This has some more info, no idea how much it applies to current tech.

[http://blog.michael.kuron-germany.de/2011/10/using-intel- amt...](http://blog.michael.kuron-germany.de/2011/10/using-intel-amts-vnc- server/)

EDIT: and some more current stats

[http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2012/04/23/intelr- vpro...](http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2012/04/23/intelr-vpro- technology-release-80-processor-requirements)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Transmit as far as "EIGHT Miles". Does anyone know what type of power this would take? I imagine if they used a less noisy frequency combined with sensitive receiving equipment, it would not take much. I used to play with CB radios which has a cap at 4W, with a good antenna, one could transmit 7+ miles in good situations.

<comment><USER25> Could it be via powerlines?

edit: I know the article mentions wireless, but it might not be true after all

<comment><USER26> I suppose it's possible, but if I were the NSA I wouldn't bet on getting a signal past the neighborhood distribution transformer. There's often enough disturbance on a building-wide circuit to cause problems with powerline networking. Your 42" LCD TV probably has enough power-conditioning circuitry to interfere with network signals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Well, I suppose it's time for the tin-foil-hat crowd to turn their computer cases into a Faraday cages then! Of course, these NSA gizmos might plug into ground and detect radio-induced current fluctuations. Given how many computer cases are metal, this might be the obvious way to go actually. So... Faraday cage and a really expensive ground conditioner?

</comment><comment><USER28> This is another example of how Snowden has compromised national security by leaking secret information that has nothing to do with American metadata and everything to do with the NSA's charter and legal mission.

<comment><USER29> Any thought that the NSA is adding to our national security is a delusion.

How about a shift in your thinking: Instead f "securing" ourselves through trillions in weapons and intel BS - why not work toward creating a better world through better systems and people?

How many Norwegian terrorists have there been?

Fuck the NSA.

<comment><USER11> >Any thought that the NSA is adding to our national security is a delusion.

Adding more security will make our life less and less secure. Anybody who believes, such things will stop terrorism, is just dreaming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sounds like an update to The Thing:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(listening_device)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_\(listening_device\))

</comment><comment><USER31> So now one needs to run BSD, air gaped and in a Faraday cage to be 'secure'... So now what does one do with it

<comment><USER32> every day the movie 'Enemy of the State' looks more believable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have to admit I was disappointed these seem to require radio transmitters be added to the device. Was sort of hoping to discover there were little antennas built into Intel processors or nvidia video cards.

However, I now know more about what DARPA's littlest flying robots will be doing, especially the ones already described as little more than chips with wings.

</comment><comment><USER34> > Richard A. Clarke, an official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who > served as one of the five members of the advisory panel, explained the > group's reasoning in an email last week, saying that "it is more important > that we defend ourselves than that we attack others."

Pretty frightening that such things apparently still need to be said.

</comment><comment><USER35> I remember an article on here a while back of a well known security or cryptology researcher that had a machine get re-infected by unknown malware time and time again without a network connection, who also observed radio waves and thought that was the iv...

<comment><USER36> Was it this?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6646936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6646936)

"Mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps?"

<comment><USER35> Yup, thanks!

<comment><USER36> I remember coming to the conclusion at the time that the security researcher must be kind of going nuts or something; doesn't seem quite so nuts now. Surely a professional would spot a rogue chip or device though?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So, any chances of finding such a device out in the wild? Suggestions for detecting the most likely used type of radio transmissions? How can they transmit over 5Km with USB power and no antenna?

<comment><USER38> Under the right conditions you can send radio messages around the world on as little as 5 watts.

You gotta remember that there's two sides to any radio system: the transmitter and the receiver, and both determine what you can do. After all, with the right antenna on one side, you can use wi-fi over a distance of miles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > The technology, which has been used by the agency since at least 2008, > relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny > circuit boards and USB cards

Obviously if someone has physical access to a machine it can be compromised. Replace "USB Cards" with "USB WiFi stick" and you've achieved the same thing.

This is just FUD. Machines that are air-gapped from the Internet with tight physical security are as secure as ever.

<comment><USER40> It seems to me you missed the "can be inserted by the manufacturer" portion of the article. Doesn't require physical access, just that they purchase a compromised machine.

<comment><USER41> Also secured facilities generally monitor for things like unauthorized WiFi access points and clients.

<comment><USER18> Did the article say these devices use WiFi, or do they use something else?

<comment><USER40> They discuss range measured in miles, so I don't think wifi would fit the bill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This article feels like NSA bait to me. It's like NYT is trying to make NSA look good.

</comment><comment><USER43> My favorite part:

"The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers."

Oh, so they only need physical access to the machine, and then they can do stuff to it? It's like magic!

</comment><comment><USER44> very good use of tax payer money!

</comment><comment><USER45> badBIOS and now this. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER46> oh man when does this stop? these guys are clearly breaking the law all in the name of "keeping us safe from terrorists". This needs to be stopped. All the perpetrators of this program must be brought to justice with a court that adheres to the principals of democracy and freedom.</comment>


Ask HN: Couldn't the NSA force Apple to add a remote backdoor to Touch ID - <AUTHOR>

... via  software update? Normally I feel like these fingerprint systems fly under the radar, but this is the first time a standard like this is really breaking out in the US. <comment><USER2> Who's to say they haven't already?</comment>


Connex.io will stop its service on September 15 - <AUTHOR>

This is an email sent to connex.io users:
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----
Dear connex.io user,
unfortunately connex.io will stop its service by September 15. As we were not able to get enough traction we have to take this step.
Please make sure to download your contact data until then. In accordance with our Terms of Service your data will be deleted from our servers on September 15.
Thank you for your support. If you have any questions do not hesitate to simply reply to this email.
Best regards,
Marcus and Ata - connex.io Co-Founders
---
connex.io - automating your address book
Marcus Kuhn, Co-Founder & CEO
Technoparkstrasse 1; 8005 Zürich; Switzerland </comment><comment><USER2> Hey Marcus & Ata

Ich finde es persönlich sehr schade, dass connex.io eingestellt wird - war es doch einmal eines dieser vielversprechenden & breitergestreuten Schweizer- Startups. Für die Zukunft wünsche ich euch beiden viel Erfolg mit hoffentlich anderen Projekten - lasst die HN-Community doch wissen, was so bei euch als nächstes ansteht.

Grüsse aus Bern Fabian

<comment><AUTHOR> From Google Traduction:

I personally find it very unfortunate that connex.io is closing - it was once one of these promising and diversified Swiss startups. For the future I wish you both good luck with hopefully other projects - let the HN community know what's coming with you next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes we had to close the doors. Thanks to everybody who supported us.

P.S. Could the poster maybe remove my cell phone number? Thx

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, I cannot edit the entry.</comment></comment>


Uber fined peanuts in God View surveillance, data breach investigation - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/uber-fined-peanuts-in-god-view-surveillance-data-breach-investigation/ <comment><USER2> it pays off to have all those former politicians in the payroll.</comment>


Nadella's Job One - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/02/09/nadellas-job-one/

<comment><AUTHOR> A sobering analysis:

""We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization. We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity."

One hesitates. Either Nadella knows this is BS but thinks we're stupid enough to buy into such pablum. Or he actually believes it and is therefore dangerous for his shareholders and coworkers."</comment>


Grave of Walter White - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-walter-white <comment><USER2> This is a religious shrine in the making.

It's already been moved once. When the strip mall steakhouse goes bust, the marker will be moved again. And again. Each time the marker will become more elaborate. More realistic.

Walter White's story is told in such vivid detail in Breaking Bad, El Camino, and Better Call Saul that he's become the embodiment for the everyman who makes a bargain with the Devil in pursuit of greatness.

The universality of White's story will attract followers from every culture, long after the actors who starred in the show and the writers who created the character have passed away.

Did Jesus ever live, or is he the product of a freakishly good storyteller? Does it matter?

<comment><USER3> I think the religious shrine is going a bit far, Sherlock Holmes doesn't have a religious sect devoted to his gospel as far as I know, and I think that is probably a lot closer of an analogy in how important their respective stories may be to people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is quite interesting philosophical question. We usually don't bring attention to the end of imagined entities because that is what they are... Imagined entities that did not have a body. But then some people got into the story so much that this entity was like a real person for them. It made impact on their lives, one way or another. So is that entity just an idea, or we all are bunch of ideas?

I have to google that up because probably someone already came up with such way of thinking I am quite sure:)

<comment><USER5> I think it's another twist on John Locke's idea of perception in essays on human understanding. Basically, humans are the product of our sensors (vision, hearing, touch, emotion, etc).

I'm going to butcher the explanation here, but IIRC in this view, everything is imaginary because we have no way of validating our sensors without using the sensors and we process the world entirely through them.

<comment><USER4> Great one! TV series look like "Dream argument", because what TV series or movies are, basically dreams come true while we are not sleeping. Then argument is about if mentally generated world can be real or not. We can see and hear those characters, we feel emotions towards them, and we feel empathy like their emotions in us.

Only thing is that we cannot touch them. Unless you go to some conference where actor is also playing that role :) so in the end you could touch "Walter White" if Bryan Cranston is making that personality real somewhere in our world :D

<comment><USER5> Yea it gets even more interesting when you consider historical figures. Charlamagne is no more real to me than Walter White is (in fact, I'd argue due to the additional sensation of audio and video he might actually be more real from a perception sense).

Yet I believe Charlamagne was a real human who did real human things centuries ago just as I believe Walter White is a character that was invented.

Yet, without that external context, if someone were to watch Breaking Bad and was told it was a biopic on one of America's most notorious drug dealers, could they plausibly believe that? I watched American Gangster and I know that's based on a true story, because Frank Lucas was in jail and has court records. But again without that context, are the two stories really that different in believability?

I think that the ability to plausibly place a story within your own reality creates stronger emotions than something like star wars or lord of rings than can easily be placed into fantasy.

<comment><USER6> >Yet, without that external context, if someone were to watch Breaking Bad and was told it was a biopic

Reminded of exploration of similar idea in Galaxy Quest [https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Another reference is found in the epitaph, which quotes from Percy Shelley's poem Ozymandias, the title and theme of the AMC series' antepenultimate episode._

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I don't see an epitaph in any of those photos.

<comment><USER8> I learned a new word, though. "Antepenultimate." And penultimate was already one of my favorite words.

<comment><USER9> Antepenultimate is a great word because of the antepenultimate rule, which is that in English, the antepenultimate syllable is (usually) the one to stress in a polysyllabic word.

The an-te-pen-UL-ti-mate rule. Makes it easy to remember!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> IIRC, the residents of Riverside, Iowa have a monument commemorating the future birth site of Captain Kirk: [https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2081](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2081)

</comment><comment><USER11> In Cardiff there's an area called Roald Dahl Plass. It is, to put it politely, prime real estate. The Welsh Assembly is there. It was also a site used in Doctor Who and its short-lived spin-off Torchwood. The fictional location of the entrance to Torchwood has become a shrine to Ianto, a character that died in the third season. A _lot_ of people have left messages and artwork.

I came across this entirely by accident.

<comment><USER12> Is that still going? I remember seeing the shrine when i visited Cardiff about a decade ago, probably not long after that story. I know Torchwood ignited some _particularly_ fierce fandom at the time, but i'd be impressed if it was still burning now.

<comment><USER11> It was definitely there five years ago. It was already a long time after Children of Earth had screened. Being a fan I loved discovering it, but everyone that I was with was just bemused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Think about it: Walter White never died. He just moved on and became Malcom's father Hal. Hal told in one of the episodes that he had a past related to meth. So there's that.

</comment><comment><USER14> Albuquerque still gets a lot of visitors because of Breaking Bad, just like that silly UFO story still brings dollars into the treasury of Roswell. Both cities play up their fictional connections. Albuquerque even renamed its Minor League baseball team the Isotopes because the city was mentioned so much on The Simpsons.

And BTW, Vernon's makes a great steak. But if you go there do your homework first. It's a speakeasy so you have to know the password to get in the door (not kidding).

</comment><comment><USER15> I think what BB so great is the story of hope.</comment>


No-reply emails from businesses shouldn't be allowed - <AUTHOR> Why can a business send an actionable correspondence without a reply channel? What's the sentiment around this line of thinking? <comment><USER2> Counterpoint: regardless of what address is used, nobody can force a business to actually check and respond to emails. A no-reply address is at least a transparent statement that your response will go unaddressed.

<comment><USER3> Isn't that the point of this post? Force companies sending email commercially commercial to process a reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While this can be very annoying, I have two thoughts on this.

First, I'd say there is no practical way to "require" this. Some companies are just going to suck here and we should avoid them when possible.

Second, lots of the comments focus on never allowing "no reply" addresses, but in my experience we're monitoring and sending out automated alerts and notifications to our customers. We include a link for more info/actions and a clear email address for contacting support. Before we switched to sending from a no-reply address we were bombarded with out of office emails (this is a B2B platform). As a small team it was significantly slowing down our ability to reply to real support issues quickly. If there was a better OOO system widely used that didn't send an email to my support I would gladly switch back.

<comment><USER5> Surprise! If you're a government it's pretty easy to require this. You just require it and it's required.

<comment><USER6> So you're not going to allow explicit no-reply addresses. Then they'll just ignore all incoming mail to the sending address. Or are you going to require that all businesses respond to all emails they receive? Will an automated response do?

<comment><USER5> If you are government you can just say there needs to be an email address and reasonable requests to that address have to be responded to in a reasonable amount of time.

The rest can be handled by the courts. It's not that difficult, really.

<comment><USER7> Such vague laws are costly bullshit to everyone involved. How many times did you personally advance the legal precedent on your own dime to be so content with that approach?

<comment><USER5> That's the choice you make. You can either offer a working return address or you can waste your time and money 'advancing the legal precedent'.

<comment><USER7> I said you personally, that is, as a violated consumer suing a business.

If you don't want to waste your own life fighting over your proposed vague law in court, you have no business to impose that on others.

All too easy to propose a crap solution when it won't be you paying the price.

<comment><USER5> Consumers indeed have no business imposing laws on others. That's the job of governments, as is enforcing laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Too many out of office style autoresponders reply to everything, even mail properly marked to not generate autoresponders / marking mail so it doesn't trigger causes it to get flagged as spam.

</comment><comment><USER9> For us, it is because we do want to hear from you, and getting lost in an email shuffle isn't helpful to either one of us. So we send from a no-reply, but include info on all the various ways we do have to get in touch with us. Directly with us, so we can talk immediately and resolve concerns, not have you send emails into a black hole.

<comment><USER10> Why not just send emails from an address that's monitored instead?

<comment><USER11> Because then all the robots (vacation responders) reply too. The separate address in the body of the email is a little like a captcha humanity test.

<comment><USER12> Easy solution: Mandate that auto responses are marked as such in a header.

<comment><USER13> Obvious problem: the same impossibility if enforcing this applies to this solution as well.

<comment><USER12> Neither is impossible to enforce.

<comment><USER13> Please do explain how.

<comment><USER12> You want me to explain the concept of law enforcement? Or of fines? You're the one making a strong claim here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You try dealing with a million responses on every campaign and let us know how it worked out

<comment><USER15> If you can't handle that many responses, then maybe you just shouldn't be sending out so many emails.

No reply emails are a tacit admission that the emails are low-value spam.

<comment><USER16> I disagree: I highly value the emails I receive from firstname.lastname@example.com. Same for email from various noreply addressed for google docs, or things like github's notification noreply.

Marketing spam is one, but far from the only, use for noreply emails.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see subscription feed emails as you describe a bit different from a B2C/B2B email about an account or something specific to me that might require a dialog or reply should something need to be said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Twitter is the defacto location to contact most businesses these days when you can't get a hold of someone easily.

<comment><USER18> woah, hard pass!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What would be an example reply to an automated email notification?

It would be like replying to a push notification on your phone...

<comment><AUTHOR> IMO it's more like a phone call where it rings, I answer and they can't hear what I say back to the caller. They just play a user specific recording and then hang up.

In a context like this it feels like a two-way communication medium being abused for 1 way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes, this. I'm sick of finding contact forms to respond to incorrectly issued invoices.

<comment><USER21> Just don't pay them. They'll reach out.

<comment><USER22> Ha.. or they'll send multiple invoices from no-reply, then pass you off to debt collection and/or lawyers.

I'd draw a distinction between this kind of email - where a company is at least trying to require you to do something, and which may have ongoing personal or legal or personal ramifications ( e.g., credit score ), and just about any other commercial email, whether it's a "campaign", or automated function alerts or whatever.

Sending invoices from no-reply, with a vague "see our website for contact details" is such terrible customer service that it borders on bullying.

If a business can't deal with all the auto-responders, then the method of response should include enough context that the first person a reach knows what's going on, and is most likely the right person to deal with the response. So, for example a link to a contact form that's prefilled with context information ( like an invoice number, or a ticket number that was auto-created when the invoice was ), and that routes directly to the correct people, eg ccounts, not sales or tech support!

<comment><USER23> Fortunately, in US you can challenge those fraudulent debt collection attempts and they will be cancelled by default if no human fixes them, or else the collector pays fines to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Businesses need regulation to address externalities like this. Email is cheaper than almost any other form of messaging but unethical businesses will still try to cut corners if they're allowed to.

Validating emails is a similar example: it's trivial to do but marketing weasels think it cuts into their stats and try not to do it. This is how I end up with major companies sending me information like their customers' names, phone numbers, home addresses, and license plates because protecting their customers' privacy just isn't going to happen without significant legal penalties.

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_patt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_pattern)

</comment><comment><USER26> It's mostly for automated alerts/notices so that you do in fact ping back with the correct ticket/issue which is traceable in whatever CRM they use.

</comment><comment><USER27> s/allowed/tolerated/

I don't think this requires regulation, which is what the word "allowed" implies.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was more from a perspective of return address. If you mail me something I can expect to mail you back at the return address. Imagine the return address on mail being "mail sent to this address will be sent back to you without being read". Seems weird.

I hadn't thought of regulation but more of it being a poor CX pattern that businesses shouldn't do. It seems impolite and I was curious how others saw it. Thx!</comment></comment>


Apple legalizes and taxes in-app tipping for content creators - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/09/in-app-tips/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.paymeabit.com/](http://www.paymeabit.com/)

These guys do something related but with bitcoin. Will the move by Apple just blow away startups like paymeabit or enhance and help them?</comment>


Computational Statistics in Python - <AUTHOR> http://people.duke.edu/~ccc14/sta-663/index.html

<comment><USER2> Looks nice, but skimming through it I saw loads of typos. Makes you wonder how much effort was put into this.

<comment><USER3> Really? a huge volume of material was released and you question the effort due to typos? it says version 0.1 at the top.

<comment><USER4> "Using bootstrap to esitmate confidenc intervals for pcoin Interval etsimate of parameter."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anybody knows a book on similar topic with lots of practical examples and exercises? By "practical" I mean that instead of mathematical definition of covariance and example of how to use it in R/Python author would provide us with some real world use case where we're trying to obtain some information _about the real world_ , given some data. Like list of water temperature measurements over the years, number of pirates… you've got the idea.

<comment><USER6> Try ISLR (for learning/prediction-based stats). Probably the best for someone of your level. Incredibly well written, based around examples, reproducible code. The complex parts – the parts where you need math or abstract concepts – are VERY intuitive.

[http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20Fourth%20Printing....](http://www- bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20Fourth%20Printing.pdf)

Free download from the authors, too!</comment></comment>


RMS on the evils of Indian Hindu caste stystem - <AUTHOR> https://stallman.org/articles/ramayana.html <comment><USER2> Firstly, this isn't exactly news. Hindu texts are full of examples of not just the caste system but all variety of ills and discrimination.

Secondly, this one passage is an obscure reference. Contrast this for example against the story of Eklavya[1].

Thirdly, this should be seen in the context of story-telling (ie: in the context of mythological fantasy rather than 'endorsement' of any sort)

Fouthly, there isn't one authoritative Ramayana, there are more like 300+[2]

Finally, why does it even matter what RMS cites (doesn't even comment on) ...not even from a primary source ?

Is the fact that these examples exist only interesting because RMS cites it ?

What's the motive behind sharing this ? Both by RMS and by the OP ?

[1] * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekalavya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekalavya) * [https://velivada.com/2017/04/27/dalit-history-month- eklavya-...](https://velivada.com/2017/04/27/dalit-history-month-eklavya- adivasi-dalit-rejection-brahminism/)

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

<comment><USER3> > Firstly, this isn't exactly news. Hindu texts are full of examples of not > just the caste system but all variety of ills and discrimination.

Except the Brahmin caste others were denied education until british occupied although that was not their primary motive. A lot of non-brahmins are unware of this fact, so this is news to them

> Secondly, this one passage is an obscure reference. Contrast this for > example against the story of Eklavya[1].

Thats a different case. This point diverts the original issue. In my experience if pressed more the proponents of caste system will point to japanese order.

> Thirdly, this should be seen in the context of story-telling (ie: in the > context of mythological fantasy rather than 'endorsement' of any sort)

Context in religious text is an excuse. As the public is brainwashed by far right like RSS groups(the killer of Mahatma Gandhi is a member of this group and this group supports the current ruling part BJP ) the context dilutes and the text is interpreted more directly. A very recent example in Tamilnadu(a state in india) a high priest spoke in public on the merits of caste system and told the audience if dogs have caste(breed) why should not human have it.

> Fouthly, there isn't one authoritative Ramayana, there are more like 300+[2]

In all of the versions Brahmin is the high caste and ever one else is denied education. Because according to hinduism(the vedas , rig veda in particular) the brahmins are the only people who should be given access to education for the good of the socitey. The current BJP govt is proposing to have public exams for __5th __standard students(about 9 to 10 years old). The plan is to discourage students of shudras and dalits who are majorly from villages .

> Finally, why does it even matter what RMS cites (doesn't even comment on) > ...not even from a primary source ?

> Is the fact that these examples exist only interesting because RMS cites it > ?

> What's the motive behind sharing this ? Both by RMS and by the OP ?

I will try to answer the above 3 question together because they are related.

The only reason i bother to write this long comment is because it is posted by RMS. I guess thats the motive of the op, may be op can talk about it. RMS speaking against the evils of hinduism will give more weight to clarify the misconception about the hindusim being peaceful religion.

<comment><USER2> > The only reason i bother to write this long comment is because it is posted > by RMS. I guess thats the motive of the op, may be op can talk about it. RMS > speaking against the evils of hinduism will give more weight to clarify the > misconception about the hindusim being peaceful religion.

I don't understand this. How is RMS's view on something he is uneducated about 'giving more wieght' ? Would you say that the opinion of a world renowned Sadhu or Yogi on Free Software principles would automatically become worthy of being considered seriously ? I don't get this hero worship. Yes, RMS's view on software have birthed the FOSS movement but lets not fool ourselves into thinking that every opinion of his is worthy of attention.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: FlatRPC – C++ RPC using Flatbuffers and ZeroMQ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GothAck/FlatRPC <comment><AUTHOR> I made this after trying a bunch of solutions (gRPC, cap'n proto, rpclib) and getting frustrated over not being able to use other socket types (e.g. vsock).

<comment><USER2> Hmm, not to detract from what you've done, but I'm curious -- what stopped you from using Cap'n Proto with vsock?

<comment><AUTHOR> Partly down to the branding of the project, and the perceived added complexity which was not required, I just wanted a a simple extensible RPC mechanism, not a "Infinitely faster" "cerealization protocol" with "time travel" and "distributed objects". Cap'n proto is a lot to take in and wrap your head around.

Edit: I didn't "stop" with cap'n proto, I never started because the project rubbed me the wrong way :/ maybe I should have given it a go, but heh, I made a thing instead.

<comment><USER2> Heh, fair enough. The branding is just meant to be silly (and to make fun of misleading benchmarks) but I totally get how it might be off-putting to some.

FWIW the Cap'n Proto C++ implementation ought to be able to layer on top of vsock pretty easily. You can pass an arbitrary kj::AsyncIoStream to capnp::TwoParty{Client,Server}, and you can construct an AsyncIoStream wrapping any socket file descriptor.

But yeah, capnp RPC is definitely one of the more complicated RPC implementations out there and if you don't need that power it may be too much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple announces new MacBook Pro with touch strip - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/27/13436750/apple-macbook-pro-announced-laptop-price-release-date-specs <comment><USER2> Nothing particularly new, but I am comfortably in the boat of people that don't feel that laptops need to be reinvented in any major way. 95% of what I do is in the command line, the browser, or an IDE. I've consistently gone back to my MBP to do all of those things after having tried many other form factors.

That being said, I have to admit that I am at least intrigued by the Surface Book. I recently tried the Linux subsystem on Windows and was pretty impressed, it's literally just Ubuntu running with file access. The fact that I CAN pop off the tablet portion, and if I'm so inclined for art, have Photoshop, Illustrator, ZBrush actually available to me is pretty tempting. The OS differences between OSX and Windows for me have always existed only in the command line, so as long as Windows gives me bash and Linux, that pretty much disappears.

Conclusion is, I don't think Apple is suffering from a lack of innovation in the laptop department. I don't understand why people assume that we haven't yet converged on the optimal form factor. Why I chose an MBP for my current laptop wasn't because it offered anything totally innovative. It was already derivative of 30 years of laptops with the same form factor. I chose it because of the Unix development environment and the great build quality. I've never used a Surface Book, but it seems like Microsoft has stepped up their game in the build quality department. If their trackpad is as good as Apple's (I have yet to use a Windows laptop where this is the case), then I'd start to consider it a serious competitor. If the two have comparable build quality and Unix, then their form factor innovation is going to be the only thing left distinguishing them (for which Microsoft is obviously currently ahead).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think conceptually this is really neat, but it could potentially suffer from one major flaw: I hardly ever look down at my keyboard. A flat, digital screen containing changing buttons does not cater well to touch typists, of which you can reasonably assume most are who use a macbook pro.

Touch ID is sweet though.

<comment><USER4> I'm on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15" and, just glancing down at the current function row, it seems like it's really not THAT far away from the bottom of the screen. So if you look at the dock routinely, jumping an inch or so to the new Touch Bar might not be such a pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be curious to know if they tested the Touch Bar below the keyboard instead of above it.

I wonder if, as the concept further evolves, the bar might become larger or migrate locations. The comparisons they made to the original PowerBook were interesting, in that it really showed how constant incremental changes really add up in the long term.

Edit: Another possibility is to integrate an OLED display into the trackpad too, so then you have haptics as well, and could interact with both mouse and touch bar with one hand.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder whether they'll offer a version without a discrete GPU, and how difficult will it be to install/run Linux on it ...

I've been looking for a good 15" laptop laptop for some time, and all other manufacturers only offer 15" models with numpads, which is just awful. The discrete GPUs are just a rather useless nuisance for me.

So I wonder whether there's more detailed info about the exact models they'll offer, somewhere.

<comment><USER7> I'm with you on the subject of numeric keypads on laptops. The ergonomics is terrible for anyone who touch-types as your always pushed left from the centre of the screen.

<comment><USER6> I suspect there was a secret meeting where all the manufacturers discussed ways to make the users suffer, and adding the numpads was #1 on their list. The only two vendors absent on that meeting were Apple and Dell, but Dell then attended the second meeting where they agreed to never offer i5/i7 CPU with an integrated GPU. That's the best explanation why the only XPS15 config with integrated GPU only has i3 CPU ...

<comment><USER7> I'm not a legally qualified medical doctor but that does have a ring of truth to it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One concern I have is that editing in vim is going to be more annoying since the escape key is so essential to the vim workflow and now it's a touch key.

I know that some have mentioned that you can map the escape key to the caps lock key, however, I've already mapped my ctrl key to the caps lock key for more accessibility. vim problems :/

<comment><USER9> This is why I've completely switched to using "Ctrl+[" instead of escape. The escape key placement on a lot of keyboards is too inconsistent, plus it's just so far away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm already looking forward to using the touch strip in the "professional" apps like Photoshop, but I really spend a lot more time with IDEs and specifically with Emacs.

One of the frustrating things about my various keyboards is that the function keys are located in slightly different places. I already have to look down to use a specific function key.

Emacs, by default, uses so many of the possible key chords using control and alt and even command modifiers on the Mac keyboard that users are expected to bind their own functions to some of the function keys. I'm wondering if the touch strip will be capable of simplifying my interaction with a complex interface like that presented by Emacs.

</comment><comment><USER11> I had hoped it would be a click bar, rather than a touch bar based on my experience with my Lenovo touch bar. Also hoped for haptic feedback... seems a shame. At least it seems they have a bit of buffer room on both the left and the right so your fingers can sit on the side of the machine without touching something - I guess that does the job.

Will be most interesting to find out how the security is working, and if they're making using any of the Intel security features on these new machines. To date, they have been woefully bad at doing so, which is interesting given the security push on iPhones and the controlled hardware platform.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems to be well thought out and not just a gimmicky feature.</comment>


War on Food Science: Bisphenol a (BPA) - <AUTHOR> http://www.foodinsight.org/blogs/war-food-science-part-2-bisphenol-bpa

<comment><USER2> "The International Food Information Council (IFIC) describes its mission as being to "communicate science-based information on food safety and nutrition to health and nutrition professionals, educators, journalists, government officials and others providing information to consumers."[1]

"In reality, IFIC is a public relations arm of the food, beverage and agricultural industries, which provide the bulk of its funding.[1] Its staff members hail from industry groups such as the Sugar Association and the National Soft Drink Association, and it has repeatedly led the defense for controversial food additives including monosodium glutamate, aspartame (Nutrasweet), food dyes, and olestra. It also runs the corporate-friendly website, Kidnetic.com, with games and recipes for kids.[2]

"While the group's name implies that it operates internationally, on its website IFIC states that its primary focus is the U.S. "Based in Washington, DC, the IFIC Foundation and IFIC focus primarily on U.S. issues. It also participates in an informal network of independent food information organizations in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Japan and Latin America," it states.[1]"

[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Food_Info...](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Food_Information_Council)</comment>


Ask HN: Should I exhibit my rough early-stage product? - <AUTHOR> I have a SaaS tool that is in a very early stage. I'm onboarding my first alpha user next week.
There's a conference for my target tech niche in my town that's coming up in mid-October. Should I exhibit? The cost is $1000 early-bird before Aug 1, or $1500 after. I can decide not to exhibit before Mid-Sept and lose a $500 deposit.  This cost is minor to my budget.
I'll have a working product, and I'll have feedback from a few teams at that point. But I'm worried that my product will still be _rough_ and might not make a good impression.
How should I weight the pros/cons?
One side of my wants to stay quiet, and just work with a few - dozen companies I reach out to directly, and spend some more months on their feedback before pushing marketing.
Another side of my thinks it would be better to get more feedback from more people, even if it's an early-stage and kind of rough. <comment><USER2> If you're still early stage and looking for feedback you should look for feedback from actual users. Taking feedback from non-users may skew your feedback away from what actual users would provide. The audience which pays for a product and provides feedback will be different from the feedback you would receive from people watching a conference demo.

There is some hype provided by a conference demo and you may get feedback from designers + programmers. This type of feedback will be different from normal users and at an early stage the benefit may be low if your saas product provides a substantial benefit to users.

If you've already put down some money though, it may be worth seeing what other technical people think. At least you should know that this will likely be more nit-picky than the general utility type feedback non-technical people would give. It will probably help with UX + programming but less with the value prop of your product.

If it's a technical product - think about what would make the conference audience recommend your product to other potential users.

</comment><comment><USER3> Go, get more feedback. Even some rough edges during the conference won't matter as that won't be seen usually.

The mistake almost all founders make is not getting enough exposure early and working on the specific feedback, there really is almost no such thing as too much exposure.

If I was you and the conference fees work with your budget I'd be there, in fact if it wasn't in the budget I'd be trying to find the money to make it work so I could go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a marketer and we help our clients with a few trade shows a year.

If you are going to have a booth, table cloth, marketing materials (flyers, brochure, etc) you cost will be more than then the $1,500 for the space. Depending on the type of show many will also charge you for WiFi and power. Even on the low spend side, I'd anticipate spending $3k plus your food, lodging and travel costs.

Upside is many shows will provide you with the whole list of attendees which while aren't leads - can be useful for future outreach without hunting down names/emails on your own.

Like others mentioned if it's not a lot of money, then go and get feedback about the pain your product is solving. In addition to that, you can meet other vendors who can be good referral and industry connections if you don't have that yet.

My experience: I have built a failed product that no one needed before and it was an expensive (couple million) and long exercise (2 yrs) in futility that would have been helped by getting face to face with our target audience earlier, not later.

<comment><USER5> Would you be comfortable sharing the product you worked on and a postmortem on why it didn't succeed?

I'd find it helpful to learn from as I'm in the process of getting early feedback from businesses to validate or tweak my own tiny saas idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Although exposure and feedback are great, I think that exposure via a $1000/$1500 exhibit is a very expensive way to validate parts of your SaaS product at your stage. It isn't that it won't generate leads, it is just a pricey way of doing so.

</comment><comment><USER7> Since you have 2 contradictory comments right now, I'll add a 3rd that doesn't break the tie: is $1k a lot to you? If not, it would be a great way to get feedback. If it is a lot of money to you, then there are cheaper ways to get feedback at the cost of more of your time. Good luck!</comment>


Darth Vader runs for Ukraine president (for real) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X9h4VA3bc-8

<comment><USER2> and the audience bows down to their tyrans. does somebody have a translation of the speech?

i've grown very sceptical of rt lately.</comment>


Ask HN: 2D Game Programming - <AUTHOR> How do I get good at 2D game programming quick? I'm currently super deep into web and haven't touched anything else in a decade. Years ago I wrote some game cheats in ways of simple aimbots and whatnot for Doom and Quake but I can't remember anything related to games at all.<p>What are some starting points? Websites/Communities/'go-to' texts? I'm not looking for 500 page books but maybe YouTube videos or some quick starts to get my bearings again. <comment><USER2> unity 2d They have a lot of tutorials, video tutorials</comment>


He Asked Permission to Touch, but Not to Ghost - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/style/modern-love-he-asked-permission-to-touch-but-not-to-ghost.html <comment><USER2> This seems like a ridiculous anecdote that is unverifiable by anyone but the author. We even had names for these when I worked in journalism. They were called "sure it did's" because everyone was "sure, that's how it happened." Amazingly each week we had a handful of op-ed pieces or even real reporting that would open with an amazingly pertinent, often hard to believe and never verifiable slice-of-life just like this.

<comment><USER3> It's not like sleeping with a girl and then vanishing never to be seen again is some unheard-of event. There's a whole genre of country music on the same theme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not ridiculous. This is the kind of encounter that occurs with "yes means yes" laws which are being prepared/discussed/implemented. In the age of #metoo you basically need a contract ahead of time. Women aren't exactly safe to be around if you meet particular criteria.</comment>


Mold on Space Station flowers is helping develop autonomous gardening - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/How_Mold_on_Space_Station_Flowers_is_Helping_Get_Us_to_Mars_999.html <comment><USER2> "By Christmas Eve, though, Kelly called down to the ground support team to report new problems with the plants. It seemed the high fan speed was drying out the crop too much, and Kelly said he thought they needed more water. He was told, though, that the next scheduled watering was not until Dec. 27.

"I think that would be too late," Kelly told the ground team. "You know, I think if we're going to Mars, and we were growing stuff, we would be responsible for deciding when the stuff needed water. Kind of like in my backyard, I look at it and say 'Oh, maybe I should water the grass today.' I think this is how this should be handled."

I mean, that makes sense, but then again don't we want to be able to fully automate this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Is a problem if your edible plants make flowers too early. Good for PR, bad for space travels. In this case is promoted probably for the dry period. They need to be aware that this is a problem and try to fix it.</comment>


AngelList Has a Minimum Wage Problem - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@CM30/angel-co-has-a-minimum-wage-problem-28cf9cfbabea <comment><AUTHOR> For anyone who doesn't read the title, I think it's probably best I mention that it's the listings on the jobs site that are underpaid/exploitative in many cases, not the company itself. So don't take this the wrong way, okay?</comment>


Apple Proves It's One of Right-to-Repair's Most Powerful Villains - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/apple-proves-its-one-of-right-to-repairs-most-powerful-1841497751 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22259563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22259563), which has the source this article points to.</comment>


Dropbox API access signup - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apply

<comment><USER2> This is really, really, really cool. I love dropbox, but I use Linux and I'm tired of the Dropbox client's Nautilus dependency.

Besides that, imagine the apps you could create with an API. Dropbox is already one of my favorite things ever, and it looks to be getting better now.

So excited!</comment>


Footwear theory of Motivation - <AUTHOR> http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/05/footwear_theory.html <comment><USER2> See also Stanislavski (and actors in general) re finding the right shoes and "stepping into a role." This is ancient tradition for actors.

Re S. himself I believe my source is: Stanislavski: A Biography [https://books.google.ca/books?isbn=0413525201](https://books.google.ca/books?isbn=0413525201)</comment>


Is fusion success in sight?  - <AUTHOR> http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/28/2187974.aspx

<comment><USER2> I thought one of the statements in the article was especially interesting:

 _"NIF isn't truly about energy," Seife writes in his book. "It is not about keeping our stockpile safe, at least not directly. It is about keeping the United States' weapons community going in the absence of nuclear tests."_

That's obviously a pretty pessimistic point of view, but when I consider the details of the test, including the immense amount of energy required to fire the lasers ten times a second, as would be required to start it according to the article, I don't see how it would be possible to get that much power back out, at least not using the traditional water to steam technique.

<comment><USER3> Essentially if they can make the equipment small enough, there could be serious potential for a pure-fusion bomb, which could skirt the test ban treaty as it doesn't fall under the terminology of a nuclear weapon (fissile or fissile and fusion; pure fusion isn't in the CTBT terminology, IIRC).

Although the Ares 1 under development is currently capable of putting 25,000KG into LEO, and the Ares V is expected to be capable of up to 188,000KG. So it's not like the equipment has to be exceptionally small if it's capable of producing pure-fusion, it just has to be slightly smaller than the ISS!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aren't encryption algorithms measured by the amount of computing power it would take to crack them? If so, given a limitless power source, we could be in for some real privacy trouble, correct?

<comment><USER5> I do not know if you're being funny or not, because there is indeed a study of the minimum raw energy requirements for a given computation in our universe[1], so it is technically possible to rate the amount of computation something requires in terms of joules or your choice of energy unit. So I don't know if you know of this and are confused, or if you're trying to make a bad joke/pun on "power" (seems to be lolcraft's theory). Since there is a serious angle to your post, deliberate or otherwise, a serious answer:

Because encryption difficulties tend to scale exponentially as you add bits, it is relatively easy to make encryption that brute forcing would require more energy than exists in the known universe. As big as the Universe is, exponential is "bigger".

That's why even now the real problem is algorithms that have something far more clever than "brute force" available; we could already guarantee that even a post-Singularity adversary can't brute force our encryption (assuming they don't get new physics to play with), what we can't guarantee is that such an intelligence couldn't find a far more practical attack.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_computation>

<comment><USER6> maybe he read the singularity is near too many times while stoned?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary: researchers are hopeful of achieving break-even in a controlled fusion reaction this year, based on extrapolations of small-scale experiments. But it's still a long way from an actually commercially-viable process, and there are other approaches that may be more successful -- or none at all.

<comment><USER8> The Inertial Containment folks are going to go for exciting a hohlraum with their 192 lasers. I don't think blasting a precisely machined gold-plated metal cylinder every second is going to be economically viable.

<comment><USER9> If they can reach create a controlled fusion reaction, a commercial reactor would be designed to continually feed fuel into it to continue the reaction. Reaching "break-even" is when the lasers don't have to be fired for the reaction to continue.

<comment><USER7> _Reaching "break-even" is when the lasers don't have to be fired for the reaction to continue_

No, that's a "self-sustaining" reaction. Break-even means that the amount of energy released in the reaction is equal to the energy necessary to fuel the reaction.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tone deaf test – This test will tell you whether you are tone deaf or not - <AUTHOR> http://tonedeaftest.com/ <comment><USER2> 97% - is that good or bad?</comment>


Ask HN: How can I help (Germany) - <AUTHOR> Because of the coronavirus I don't have anything to do right now. I'm a student living in Germany and the start of my semester was moved by 2 weeks. Traveling isn't an option either for obvious reasons. Any ideas about where I could volunteer / assist to help alleviate the situation?<p>I'm not qualified to be at a hospital, but could maybe do some coding (studying CS). All ideas are welcome. <comment><USER2> I maintain a clear overview of the Coronavirus situation in Berlin ([https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/coronavirus](https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/coronavirus)). Right now, I'm a bit overwhelmed and I could really use some help.

\- I need help with collecting and summarising the daily updates

\- I would like to add more information about backup plans for employees and freelancers (this will become its own guide)

\- I would like to compile a list of ways people like you can help.

Feel free to get in touch (see the Impressum page). I'll take as much help as I can get, but I have zero demands.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://wirhelfen.eu/](https://wirhelfen.eu/) is a German app to offer help in your neighborhood. (found on [https://www.reddit.com/r/de/wiki/corona- links](https://www.reddit.com/r/de/wiki/corona-links))

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

<comment><USER3> In my city a couple of students build a local website doing the same. Well, the advertised the app with signs in supermarkets and you can also call in (not everybody is internet-savy). They have 500 volunteers now and almost nobody needing help (so far). Amazing response.</comment></comment></comment>


Whoah, new comment sorting? - <AUTHOR>

I noticed this on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42317. It looks like top-level comments aren't being sorted outright by score. Porque no? <comment><USER2> i thought they've always been sorted by popularity (the score per time elasped)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you could be right. Odd that I just noticed it today. I guess most threads don't have enough comments to make it obvious, and as time passes the time element fades to no effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nothing has changed.</comment>


Ask HN: Solo Founder SaaS or App Success Stories? - <AUTHOR>

I've seen these threads before[1], but I haven't seen anything recent. Things along the lines of patio11 and BCC or AR. Solo founder with profitable SaaS app replacing old income or more.<p>[1] old thread from ~ 2 years ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029771 <comment><USER2> I created Smart Receipts, a receipt tracker and expense report generator for Android - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wb.receipts](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wb.receipts).

I make about $600/month between ads on the free version and sales for the paid version; not enough to quit my full-time job but a nice monthly supplement.

<comment><AUTHOR> How much of that is ads vs paid? I've noticed that making free versions for my apps has been very helpful, but I still make 75-80% of my income off of the paid versions.

<comment><USER2> I'm in the exact same boat - about 75-80% of my income comes from the paid version of the app. The free version mostly serves as a staging ground to increase adoption and encourage users to upgrade to get rid of the ads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I've noticed that most people don't seem to care about having ads. An IAP to remove ads is of so little value it's amazing. I've had much better success adding a bit of friction and limiting the free versions. Here is this tracking app, it does everything the full version does, but you can't save more than X tracks. Stuff like that has worked nicely for me. Ads are just a bit of gravy and a slight annoyance to make someone ever so slightly more likely to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I run [https://www.improvely.com](https://www.improvely.com) and [https://www.w3counter.com](https://www.w3counter.com), and they along with some side projects are my only income. I earn significantly more from SaaS subscriptions than I did working as a full-time software engineer. Does that count?

<comment><AUTHOR> definitely. it is always nice to have multiple streams of income, just in case something bizarre happens to one of them. Another reason I'd like to start a SaaS app to diversify a bit from mobile apps. Last year I got hammered by Apple for a few months after the search changes and app store redesign. Thankfully things have gotten better since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some other discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567487) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772199) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764682)

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. This podcast has a few great examples: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-from-nothing- fo...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-from-nothing- foundation/id659981522)

2\. unicornfree.com or @amyhoy on twitter and products coming out of her 30x500 class

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> to start things off, I've made ~150k working on apps over the last couple years - [http://www.entrelife.com/2013/06/my-first-100k-on-app- stores...](http://www.entrelife.com/2013/06/my-first-100k-on-app-stores.html)

I'm hoping to start a SaaS app in the near future, as B2B is far more interesting to me than $1 mobile apps. Having an ARPU above 70 cents and recurring revenue sounds glorious.

That being said, products are the way to go. Last month was actually my best month ever, and I haven't done any work on my apps since January. (some freelance work, some big projects on my property, some traveling)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm running a recruiting app (usehuman.com/prospect) myself. Not replacing my income but I hope too grow the company in the future to do that and more.

</comment><comment><USER7> verbs.im 's founder @chaitanyapandit, made $50k as a solo developer working on a simple instant messaging client.</comment>


SourceForge attacked, resets 2 million account passwords to protect users - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/01/29/sourceforge-attacked-resets-2-million-account-passwords-to-protect-users/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this protects users? SF was already compromised. If someone gained access to the passwords in their database, they're already out in the wild. Changing your password now has zero benefit to the user outside of protecting access to SF itself.

<comment><USER3> > I'm not sure how this protects users? SF was already compromised.

The passwords were _potentially_ compromised. Changing the passwords for their users means the user accounts won't work with the (potentially) compromised passwords any more.

> If someone gained access to the passwords in their database, they're already > out in the wild. Changing your password now has zero benefit to the user > outside of protecting access to SF itself.

If the user is using one password for all websites that's a separate problem. This move is to protect SF users' accounts.

<comment><USER2> Both of which are protection for SF, not for the user. Personally, I use a utility called 1Password, which means I don't use the same password for very many sites. My point is that for those who do use the same password for SF as well as other sites, this move doesn't protect them. It only protects SF.

In short, I disagree with the wording of the title. This does nothing to protect users, it only protects SF.

<comment><USER3> What more could they be doing?

<comment><USER2> Nothing. The breach is over. And they should force user password changes. I'll say it again. I'm simply disagreeing with the phrasing of the title painting this as protecting users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So the passwords were NOT taken from the DB (should not be in there anyway, just a hash of them) but rather sniffed over the network itself?

</comment><comment><USER5> Didn't realize anyone still used SF anymore...everything seems to be on GH these days :)

<comment><USER6> "whats a sourceforge?"

... thinking the same thing. github is the new sourceforge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They should just shut it down. SF has been way over its expiry date long before this incident.

<comment><USER8> Whats wrong with it? Most projects that use it have used it for ages...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since I don't use SF these days, I'm not resetting my password. If they can't properly protect my password, I'm not giving them a new one.</comment>


SpaceX Is Launching 60 Starlink Internet Satellites Tonight - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/15/watch-spacexs-60-satellite-starlink-launch-tonight-right-here/ <comment><USER2> Scrubbed till tomorrow, May 16th at 7:30pm EST.

<comment><USER3> No, 7:30pm Pacific, 10:30pm eastern.

<comment><USER4> And not EST regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be hard to imagine they don't have a significant advantage in this massive new space with 4 billion or more potential customers.

Incredible stuff.

<comment><USER6> Most people live in cities and these satellites can't serve a large number of simultaneous users. Rural and worse that rural are the best applications.

<comment><USER7> You wouldn't have a Starlink antenna each. You'd have as many Starlink antennas as was reasonable then everyone would use traditional last-mile technologies to connect to them. The available bandwidth sounds reasonably high so it should still result in acceptable speeds unless your population density is bonkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For more details: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_\(satellite_constellation\))

In short they are planning to use a low orbit (high drag/low lifetime) to launch Ku- and Ka-band sats.

I couldn't find anything on what the consumer side of this would look like, especially since the low orbits means you can't just point a dish at a sat... at least without some fancy tracking.

<comment><USER9> The consumer side will be a phased array "pizza box" that automatically locates satellites and aims the signal, and should work on vehicles as well as stationary installations

The most important implication of the low altitude is low latency. As low as (or potentially lower than) in-ground fiber. It will be the first good satellite internet.

<comment><USER6> To the metro fiber is about 2 ms. This is 15-25 ms (I've seen conflicting numbers).

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but then another 15-25ms for sat to server while your fiber is another 60ms to server.

<comment><USER11> Why is that? I assume you mean a server so far away that the number of hops (switches, etc) is higher on land than over the air? Without a large hop count difference, I don't see why air vs ground fiber would be terribly different. Air takes a direct path but with LEO satellite there's some height, and fiber takes a slightly less direct path but without height and with switches.

<comment><USER12> Light only moves at about 60% the speed of light in glass fiber. (Specifically, it goes at C / refractive index)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Scrubbed till tomorrow 7:30pm Pacific, 10:30pm eastern.

</comment><comment><USER14> What's the consumer bandwidth here?

</comment><comment><USER3> Scrubbed until tomorrow.</comment>


Planet Earth time lapse photos from the International Space Station - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/14/cosmic-bal/ <comment><USER2> Here are the original photographs and video if you want to see the astronauts' work in context with explanations: <http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Gorgeous. Music was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Muted and played Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings in the bg for better experience.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsGRglp6tvs>

<comment><USER4> That Tchaikovsky recording was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I'm okay with the composition itself, but the recording was horribly distorted. I much prefer the electronic music, or this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQGi4gN6gI>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous HN submission with lots of comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3232435>

</comment><comment><USER6> _This new time-lapse video from Michael König shot aboard the International Space Station gives you a view of Earth that was only available to a select handful of astronauts until now._

I'm pretty sure the astronauts themselves don't see the neon-green glowing and other details that way do they? It was shot with a low-light camera.

<comment><USER7> The human eye is capable of seeing very faint glows. We need an astronaut to answer this one.

<comment><USER8> There's no way it looks like that to the naked eye. This is probably a long exposure camera with a very high dynamic range, and we're seeing the dark side of the planet.

If you have a camera with a long exposure feature, try taking a 10-15 second shot of a nearly pitch black room. That will give you a sense of how this is made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's amazing how it looks so digitally enhanced, but I guess it isn't. It would be cool if more sci-fi movies and space games showed planets looking like that.

</comment><comment><USER10> This video is pretty incredible. It's so amazing to see how visible the storms and city lights are from around (I think) 250 miles away! The northern lights look surreal as well.

It's cool that there is so much to see by a change in perspective.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's very beautiful, but damn it slow down!

Running this at half speed is so much more impressive.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had no idea lightning occurs so frequently!

<comment><USER8> It's probably a long exposure camera. Each frame could be exposed for many seconds or even minutes. Any lightning that strikes during that time appears in the frame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> San Francisco to Reno == 190 miles

Earth to ISS == 220 miles

</comment><comment><USER13> We have to get off this rock asap before the next planet killer asteroid hits earth which is due soon.

<comment><USER14> Random events... still random.

<comment><USER15> Haha yeah... We should still try to get some of our eggs out of the basket, though.</comment></comment></comment>


President Seeks Whistle-Blower's Identity - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/us/politics/trump-schiff-treason.html <comment><USER2> Chelsea Manning is a whistleblower. Edward Snowden is a whistleblower. John Kiriakou is a whistleblower. Some CIA reptile who hung out at the White House for a few months and is now deeply disturbed by Trump is not a whistleblower. Lots of people are deeply disturbed by Trump.

If she actually were blowing a whistle, it would be about one or more of the evil deeds perpetrated by CIA, where she actually works. In that case, of course, she could look forward to years of prosecutions and imprisonment, just like other actual whistleblowers. In that case her lawyer wouldn't be near as certain of this bullshit: "The law and policy supports protection of the identity of the whistle-blower from disclosure and from retaliation. No exceptions exist for any individual."</comment>


Programming music for a modern dance piece - <AUTHOR> https://blog.djy.io/out-of-the-blue <comment><USER2> Interesting! I went to download Alda, but there's only a Windows executable and an Amiga file...

<comment><AUTHOR> Details on how to install Alda on MacOS, Linux, or Windows : [https://github.com/alda-lang/alda#installation](https://github.com/alda- lang/alda#installation)</comment></comment>


Show HN: CorrelatePro, A stock portfolio monitoring / visualization tool - <AUTHOR> http://correlate.pro <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone. My name is Sam and I'm one of the co-founders of CorrelatePro. Dan, the other co-founder, and I will be in the comments ready to answer any questions you may have.

We have been working on this free tool for a while as a side project while we have been in school/working.

We eventually would like this to be a tool that also allows you to purchase stocks and cryptos and then manage that portfolio. Then select certain stock and bond splits, default would just be based on your age.

We want to make it easy for people to make informed and sound investing decisions. With tools like Robinhood and other online investment platforms, it's easy to buy and sell stocks. However, it's hard to know how to diversify your assets and manage them for the long term.

We want to make this process simple, yet transparent and honest. We really like John C Bogle and his investment methodologies and want to help make them more accessible.

We also want to mention we aren't investment professionals and are learning as we go. We don't have any form of monetization and don't do anything with the investment information you put here. It's a free tool and you can delete your information at any time.

Also, here is an example portfolio you can view to interact with a portfolio created with the tool without having to sign up. [https://correlate.pro/visualizer/daniel/risky/](https://correlate.pro/visualizer/daniel/risky/)

Here is a video demo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9XrzZ54as&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9XrzZ54as&feature=youtu.be)

</comment><comment><USER2> Getting an "Internal Server Error" when trying to confirm e-mail/logging in. Love to take a look when it's up and running.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course. Looking into it now. Got the sentry notification when it happened. Sorry about that. In the mean time checkout this link to see and interact with portfolios: [https://correlate.pro/discover/](https://correlate.pro/discover/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I didn't see a way to delete an account. Where is that functionality?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello! Maybe I should have said, "You can delete any of your portfolios". If you want your account deleted, which would just remove your username and email, you can email us and we are happy to delete it manually in the backend :)

<comment><USER3> Request sent. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Deleted! No problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Mysterious Missile Launch" Yesterday Was US Airways Flight 808 - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/e4v4c/that_missile_earlier_this_week_us_airways_flight/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, all those different stories.. this is the thing I saw passing by @ Urbansurvival.com

Wednesday November 10, 2010

Missile Firing Solved?

The reader who sent in the link to the Notices ot Mariners Report found this entry which may explain the missile launch

earlier this week from SoCal waters near Catalina Island. Check this out from Page 55 of the current Notice to Mariners report ( [http://22.214.171.124/MSISiteContent/StaticFiles/NAV_PUBS/UNT...](http://188.8.131.52/MSISiteContent/StaticFiles/NAV_PUBS/UNTM/201045/NtM_45-2010.pdf) ):

        "434/10(18).
        EASTERN NORTH PACIFIC.
        CALIFORNIA.
        MISSILES.
        1. INTERMITTENT MISSILE FIRING OPERATIONS 0001Z TO 2359Z
        DAILY MONDAY THRU SUNDAY IN THE NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER
        SEA RANGE. THE MAJORITY OF MISSILE FIRINGS TAKE PLACE
        1400Z TO 2359Z AND 0001Z TO 0200Z DAILY MONDAY THRU FRIDAY
        IN AREA BOUND BY
        34-02N 119-04W, 33-52N 119-06W, 33-29N 118-37W,
        33-20N 118-37W, 32-11N 120-16W, 31-54N 121-35W,
        35-09N 123-39W, 35-29N 123-00W, 35-57N 121-32W,
        34-04N 119-04W.
        2. VESSELS MAY BE REQUESTED TO ALTER COURSE WITHIN THE ABOVE
        AREA DUE TO FIRING OPERATIONS AND ARE REQUESTED TO CONTACT
        PLEAD CONTROL ON 5081.5 MHZ (5080 KHZ) OR 3238.5 KHZ (3237 KHZ)
        SECONDARY OR 156.8 MHZ (CH 16) OR 127.55 MHZ BEFORE ENTERING
        THE ABOVE BOUNDARIES AND MAINTAIN CONTINUOUS GUARD WHILE
        WITHIN THE RANGE.
        3. VESSELS INBOUND AND OUTBOUND FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PORTS
        WILL CREATE THE LEAST INTERFERENCE TO FIRING OPERATIONS
        DURING THE SPECIFIC PERIODS, AS WELL AS ENHANCE THE VESSEL'S SAFETY WHEN PASSING THROUGH THE VICINITY OF THE SEA RANGE
        IF THEY WILL TRANSIT VIA THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL AND WITHIN
        NINE MILES OFFSHORE VICINITY OF POINT MUGU OR CROSS THE AREA
        SOUTHWEST OF SAN NICOLAS ISLAND BETWEEN SUNSET AND SUNRISE.

</comment><comment><USER3> Or that's what "they" want you to think, wake up sheeple.

;0)</comment>


Robots: Your Guide to the World of Robotics - <AUTHOR> https://robots.ieee.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Via this IEEE Spectrum article [1]

[1] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics- softwa...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics- software/explore-the-worlds-coolest-robots-all-in-one-place)</comment>


JITB: A Java based Flash player capable of running up to 30x faster than Adobe's - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d36ck/introducing_jitb_a_java_based_flash_player/

<comment><USER2> Link to actual content rather than reddit post:

<http://blog.joa-ebert.com/2010/08/19/introducing-jitb/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Flash isn't popular because of its runtime speed. The startup speed is most important. The flash player starts instantly something that java can't do.

<comment><USER4> Actually, there's a few Java VMs that are made to start nearly instantly or have an option for a quick startup.

For example, [1] shows that the IBM J9 VM has a -Xquickstart option.

[1] [http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v5r0/index....](http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v5r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.websphere.base.doc/info/aes/ae/tprf_tunejvm.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if it's fast because it's incomplete, and when you start adding all the harder things - and especially the special cases, you realize things are more complicated - and slower - than you thought.

</comment><comment><USER6> If Java applets make a comeback and replace the Flash plugin, I will probably spit up my milk.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anything that can't run 30x faster than fp is probably dead.

And I say that loving Flash.</comment>


Google Fuchsia release date, news and rumors - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/google-fuchsia <comment><USER2> This article isn't very informative. For one thing "Andromeda" isn't Fuchsia, that was a proposed merger of Android & Chrome that was shelved in favor of Fuchsia. Kyle Bradshaw on 9to5Google has a pretty good series on Fuchsia that's much more insightful:

[https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia- friday/](https://9to5google.com/guides/fuchsia-friday/)

<comment><USER3> Andromeda was probably a bad misunderstanding/misrepresentation by the headline hungry press.

If we look at recent releases of Android, it has taken on the update scheme of ChromeOS by detaching the Android layer from the Linux kernel. Meaning that Google can push updates to the Android layer without having to deal with hardware suppliers and carriers dragging their feet.

While at the same time ChromeOS is getting the ability to run Android apps.

<comment><USER4> Thing is, if the ancient, unmaintained kernel that said Android layer is running atop is vulnerable, your pretty hosed. Securing higher up in the stack won't do you much good, nor will attempting to containerize proprietary drivers and hoping that that will ensure a secure experience.

Running modern kernels and upstreaming out of tree patches is the only reasonable way of supporting & securing these phones and tablets long term in a cost effective, until Google puts their foot down and says "No more custom BSPs", the horrible mess that is Android's security nightmare won't cease.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This feels like a keyword stuffing exercise to capture searches like "Fuchsia release date" even though it doesn't have one.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't see where they're getting this "next year" figure from. Fuchsia has been under development since 2016, there's no reason it couldn't go another year or two without seeing a consumer release.

Yes, if you just want to throw out guesses based on limited information then 2019 does seem at least plausible, but that's by no means certain.

<comment><USER7> With Google, it could also never see the light of day.

<comment><USER8> With Google, there might be 4 different kinds of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> While Google hasn't officially said what the purpose of Fuchsia is, I think they _have_ said that Flutter is the tool for writing apps for Fuchsia. Currently, Flutter emits apps for iOS and Android while the work-in-progress builds of Fuchsia run on the Chromebook Pixel rather than phones. This leads me to believe the suggestion that Fuchsia will replace both Android and ChromeOS.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm loving ChromeOS plus Android plus Debian (via Crostini) on my Pixelbook. The beat of a bunch of worlds with solid integration.

</comment><comment><USER10> _> Fuchsia wants to be the best cross-device OS to date. To achieve this, Fuchsia uses a new tool known as 'Ledger' by the GitHub community. Ledger, once you're signed into a Google Account on a Fuchsia device, will automatically save your place in all installed apps across all Fuchsia devices._

Please implement this with an open-standard API (WebDAV?) so that multi-device OS/app state can be synchronized to a self-hosted and hardened device.

<comment><USER11> [https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/peridot](https://github.com/fuchsia- mirror/peridot)

I think that's it.

[https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the- ledger/](https://9to5google.com/2018/02/02/fuchsia-friday-the-ledger/)

For some background.

It would be nice if people get interested in this and start coding before it's a done deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Release date! Release date! Release date!

Just kidding; we don't know the release date.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, but will it run Photoshop?

Until you can run real apps, how can it compete with PC clones and Macs?

I do appreciate my Chromebook a lot, but there isn't even a decent video player for it...I mean, it isn't a real OS despite all the hype.

<comment><USER13> It sure seems you've missed a lot regarding Chrome OS. OS running Android and Linux apps now.

Sure, Photoshop and Lightroom are both mobile versions, but I have a feeling that maybe WebAssembly will tempt Adobe and others to at least try to build their all's for the generation growing up with Chromebooks on school.

<comment><USER8> My Chromebook updates automatically about every 2 weeks or so, but last time I tried to install an Android app it still didn't work. And, yes, I do read tech news daily, get about 10 emails a day from sites like Techcrunch and so on, and am aware of these announcements. But it is only a very very small number of machines that these work on...not on Chrome OS itself....going against the original premise of Chrome OS which had me pretty excited about (was it) 7 or so years ago. Maybe I shouldn't have bought one so early??

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Techradar is the place that always appears in search results when you query for rumors of X for every X.

</comment><comment><USER15> why new kernel and not linux?

<comment><USER16> To see whether a new kernel, designed 25+ years after Linux, can do things better.

Linux is already there, what insight would it bring to do the same thing again?

<comment><AUTHOR> The Linux kernel was made for desktops/workstations/servers, no? I think this kernel was designed with the use case of mobile/tablet/PixelBook in mind.

<comment><USER17> A feature I would like to see in a mobile OS is per-process power quotas.

<comment><USER18> [https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/](https://lwn.net/Articles/749738/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Roadmap to becoming a web developer in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/nextdotxyz/this-picture-will-change-the-way-you-learn-tocode-4kmh <comment><USER2> This could probably really be a nice article. But that clickbait title turned me all the way off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. I'll try to fix it. I hate to change titles.</comment></comment>