School district: Spy Webcams activated 42 times - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10457126-71.html <comment><AUTHOR> Little by little more information trickles out about this case, I think it is far more serious than it looks on the outside right now.

Given the fact that there apparently was surveillance of students without proper cause it immediately becomes a legitimate question how far reaching that surveilance was.

You have to do a lot of 'watching' in order to catch someone doing something that looks suspicious in the first place (no matter they got it wrong), and then to go public with the fact that (1) you've been doing this and (b) you underestimate the ability of the world to extrapolate to whatever else you might have been up to is pretty dumb.

Then there is the question of any screen captures / voice recordings, listening in on employees without cautioning them is already a punishable offense, listening in on minors in a structural way and looking at them without going through the proper authorities is a completely different kettle of fish.

And if hardcopies or files were passed around with screenshots and / or recordings those responsible will end up in jail for a long long time, in that case you could argue that this was actually a child porn ring that got their raw materials by subverting the PCs of children in their care.

More links today on this case (which I've been following pretty closely, given my interests in anything that has to do with webcams):

<http://education.zdnet.com/?p=3655>

<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/84877027.html>

One immediate question that needs answering is _if_ this laptop was not reported stolen and that supposedly is the condition to be met before activating this system then what was the reason this student was under surveillance in the privacy of his own bedroom.

It's a typical case of 'who watches the watchers', if there are no real safeguards on enabling this feature then you can almost be sure that it will be hacked. And depending on the security of the implementation it is very possible that there are ways to enable the feature completely bypassing the schools' central safeguards (assuming those are in place).

I'm hoping for some hacker student on that school to dive in and document what exactly is going on on those computers, for instance, why there is no visible indicator that the camera is active.

<comment><USER2> Minor point, but since the laptops in question are Macbooks, there is most certainly a visible indicator; a little green light next to the camera comes on when it is active.

Overall, I agree with you though, there really are no safeguards to stop administrators from abusing their power. They only thing that I can think of to help curtail this sort of abuse is restricting the use of their remote control software to the networks explicitly provided by the school.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that light hardware or software controlled (in other words, does it come on as soon as the camera is powered up or is it a function of the driver to enable the light ? Can that be bypassed ? Or would you need to modify the hardware for that ?)

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure, because I haven't really looked at any of the api's, but I'm pretty sure that it's hardware controlled. Internally it's hooked up via USB, and none of the software I've seen has used the camera without the light on (including non-Apple software).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Spy webcams activated 42 times leading to recovery of 18 missing/stolen laptops.

Occam's Razor time, guys: a) they were looking for stolen laptops b) it is all clever cover for a kiddie porn ring.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't explain why they punished a student for "improper behavior at home". Clearly, his laptop was not stolen.

<comment><USER5> Clearly, it hadn't been stolen -- but had it been reported stolen? It's a classic method of keeping something you're supposed to return. In that case, their activating the webcam would be perfectly in line with the stated policy.

Point being, there's still a lot of information we don't yet have. The policy of remotely monitoring the webcams is stupid, but beyond that, we don't know the specifics of why this particular webcam was activated or what the "improper behavior" was, so we don't know how much additional stupid there might be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the past I briefly worked for a dept at a university that needed to recover some laptops stolen by students. The computers were macbooks

Did they spy on people using the web cam? NO! Because they weren't insane.

Instead, they simply built up a log of evidence from the machines' use (IP addresses, etc) and contacted the proper authorities. It got taken care of.

Web cam spying? Ugh. Sounds like some people developed a CSI complex. "Freeze it! Right there! Enhance! We've got you now, freshman!"</comment>


Feature Request - Check URL for previous entry - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Folks, do you think it might be a good idea if this site checked urls for duplication when they are submitted? These urls could expire in 3 months or so..thoughts?

<comment><USER2> It does do this, though it checks for an exact url string match. So, say, a trailing slash would make a difference.

(edit: Or it used to... I thought it did.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you learn new skillsets for a job posting? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking at job postings for things like data engineer/data analytics and also front-end dev postings, since these seem to be the activities that interest me enough to keep me up late working. But even if I work on them I still feel like unless I'm already in the job I don't know as much as the job wants me to know. So I was wondering what do/did <i>YOU</i> do when you wanted to apply to a job with a different skillset than yours? <comment><USER2> 1\. Learn a little, if you have the time. Not required, though.

2\. Apply to job even if you're not fully qualified.

3\. Explain that (a) you are fast learner (b) you have skills that transfer. Give concrete examples for both.

4\. Or, transfer jobs within company.

I've gotten multiple jobs where I didn't know the technology stack this way.

Long version: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/23/job-with- technology-...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/23/job-with-technology- you-dont-know/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link! The part I found the most value in is where you discuss customizing one's pitch to really emphasize what the company probably _needs_.</comment></comment>


Apple Told To Pay Patent Troll OPTi $21.7 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-told-to-pay-patent-troll-opti-217-million-2009-12

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know what exactly Apple did that infringed this patent? Looking at it (to the extent I can parse patent-speak) it appears to be on an optimization in PCI DMA transfers. Does Apple actually make their own PCI controllers? I would think this would be something they would source from chipset manufacturers like Intel, and if so, how could OPTi successfully sue Apple for it? I checked several other articles about the judgement but none had any details on this part of the case.</comment>


Bad Terms - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronkharris.com/bad-terms <comment><USER2> I've gained the impression that there is a higher risk of imbalances that disadvantage the founders occurring outside the Bay Area. It feels like the presence of lots of experienced founders (not to mention their willingness to advise others) in the Bay Area means that there there is a far smaller chance that the founders will be naive/ignorant enough to fall foul of these kinds of terms.

It's certainly a risk here in the UK.

There are even companies here that will charge founders £500 (~$720) to pitch to potential investors, and a 5% "success fee": [https://www.lbangels.co.uk/companies/costs](https://www.lbangels.co.uk/companies/costs)

<comment><USER3> Tech investment barely exists outside of Silicon Valley, and when it does, the terms are horrible. In my former city, many companies still ended up flying out and courting investors in San Francisco because the local scene was so bad for it (even though we had several local "startup accelerator" and incubation programs).

I also just think VC terms are bad in general, and I think their intentionally exploitative nature prevents a lot of good things from happening.

<comment><USER4> SV is the dominant market for funding. NYC is credible but still not ideal (and some of the best NYC firms do a lot of investments outside NYC). It's a power law distribution...SFBA, then NYC and London a lot lower down, then a long way down with a few places (LA, Seattle, Israel, Beijing/Shanghai for Chinese companies, etc.) punctuating the cliff. And indeed, the terms I've seen from non-SFBA investors are invariably far shittier than anything from SF...valuations are sometimes comparable, but lots of stupid hair on non-SFBA deals, and the _bad_ non-SFBA investors are way way worse than the bad-SFBA investors.

VC terms have gotten less bad over the past 15y, at least among the best firms.

<comment><USER5> Not sure that's entirely accurate: [http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/01/the- rise-of-global-start...](http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/01/the-rise-of- global-startup-cities/426780/)

While SF and SJ lead the pack, it's far from a power law distribution. To be fair, much of the venture deals in Boston / San Diego are life sciences / biotech, and that does you relatively little good if you're a software startup.

Totally agree about terms though. Non valley investors tend to target much lower valuations and stipulate weird conditions. This is partly a function of outsized outcomes being fairly rare in tier 2 and tier 3 markets though, so it's not exactly irrational for investors to assume a lower EV for a startup and price it accordingly.

What you really lose is this honest-keeping function that you get when there's sufficient competition for deals. Fear of being excluded or seen as "unfriendly" to founders tends to keep potential bad actors in line, which reduces some of the deal hair and benefits the overall ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good post. Especially this point:

"Get a lawyer that understands startups. It's important to find someone with experience. Not only can a good lawyer explain what's going on with terms of your agreement, he/she can tell you if those terms are standard."

I would also add parties need _their own_ lawyer. Founders, investors, and the company are all different entities with different interests. If you have multiple founders, it is wise for each to have separate counsel. I've seen too many instances where there is a law firm for the company/one founder, and a law firm for investors, but the other founders just kind of "go along" because they think their interests are aligned with founder #1, when that may or may not be the case.

<comment><USER7> I apologize if this comes off a bit glib, but sometimes this sort of advice makes me think the steps to founding a startup begin with:

1) Be wealthy

2) Don't be not wealthy

<comment><USER8> Being a founder (or co-founder or startup employee) means taking a decade out of your life for low pay and financial instability for the chance of having stake in a successful company. If you're not wealthy you're not in a position to be a founder in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Someone should really inform the college kids who keep applying to incubators like YC...

<comment><USER9> It's a different story when you've got nothing to lose. When you've already got a successful career and a life savings it's turning into a gamble that's just not worth it. The unfortunate thing is that the world needs more mature founders, and less college grad types.

<comment><USER3> I agree. This is one of my biggest problems with the current VC system: it excludes founders that have experience and judgment. I would even posit that founders who have a family to support are more likely to want to keep the company stable than a single 20-something.

You have to wonder if there are any reasons other than lower salaries that VCs prefer to work with young, nothing-to-lose types.

<comment><USER10> _it excludes founders that have experience and judgment._

Those are the ones with money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's a non-paywalled link to the ratchet explanation: [https://www.cooley.com/files/TechIPOsTriggeringMore'Ratchets...](https://www.cooley.com/files/TechIPOsTriggeringMore'Ratchets'InShakyMarket.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Didn't realize it was paywalled. Just changed it. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing that is not mentioned that has been really important of the past decade or so, to watch out for is when you pair inexperienced founders with inexperienced investors.

A lot of individual Angels really have no clue about a lot of the intricacies of Convertible Notes, for example liquidation overhang [1], and they tend to like those. So even more important to have a lawyer who knows this stuff.

I have also gotten feedback that SAFE notes are not generally used, or even heard of, outside of the valley - especially with smaller Angels.

[1] [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/05/30/one-simple- par...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/05/30/one-simple-paragraph- every-entrepreneur-should-add-to-their-convertible-notes/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Shameless plug here, but before I would model the round in Capshare.com so you can see how the terms play out with different exit scenarios.</comment>


CMU 15-721 Advanced Database Systems [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSE8ODhjZXjYgTIlqf4Dy9KQpQ7kn1Tl0 <comment><USER2> I haven't watched these videos, but I'm interested. Over time I've begun to consider database systems among the most important subjects in CS. For example, being able to perform multiple changes in a system within a transaction makes fault tolerance much simpler. Consider how many software installers are unable to handle a simple system crash. Although it's completely unsurprising, as modern operating systems don't typically provide tools to help with these kinds of issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> Andy Pavlo's lectures are one of the best database internals resources available for free on the web.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just started watching once I got home. The intro with the gangster rap is funny and stupidly awkward, but the value proposition/pitch of all these amazing rich people like Ellison show you how cool databases are does not gain traction with me. Will definitely download it all and watch it later for the technical bits, but does anyone like tech to not be a guy with a reputation for massive ego, inspiring work culture that is famously bad, and dating women of "undetermined age" (quoting the prof)? Zuckerberg is just as bad. I mean come on.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am already a fan after watching the first 2 minute. He does an "OG" intro.

</comment><comment><USER6> Spring 2018 is coming in couple of weeks:

[http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2018/](http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2018/)

</comment><comment><USER7> On a related note. I personally was never able to find a resource for databases analogous to lambda the ultimate for programming languages. So I started a community dedicated to DBMS systems (building, papers, etc) on reddit. So if you're interested in this topic, please contribute.

Link: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dbms/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dbms/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The thumbnails are pretty funny.

<comment><USER9> Yes, oddly intense. Makes it look like Mr Robot or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> +1 Pavlo is wonderful (in person as well)

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for this, will be useful for training future juniors!

<comment><USER12> Would you really start a junior off with this?

<comment><USER13> This course doesn't require any degree or work experience at all, so... yes?

<comment><USER14> Well this is a graduate level course so I wouldn't say it doesn't require any degree or work experience. In general the numbering scheme at CMU is xx-yyy where xx is the department code (15 for CS department) and yyy is the course number (where 500 and above is graduate level).

<comment><USER13> So, about where a junior programmer would be? And this would be a good course for them if they needed to implement database systems?

<comment><USER11> Seeing as we develop a database, this would be perfect

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks really really good! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks great!

Any other similar video series?</comment>


A Startup That Designed Its Office to Confuse Workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/06/procore-office-disorienting-enriched-environment/ <comment><USER2> >It's designed expressly to make workers get and feel lost, because, as neuroscience shows, disorientation keeps people alert and expecting the unexpected.

Oh my. Good luck with that, gentlemen.

>According to research in neuroscience, this kind of visual chaos can help workers stay more alert, by asking them to constantly reengage with their environment.

Alert != attentive.

<comment><USER3> People have forgotten that attention is transitive: you pay attention _to_ something. If you're paying attention to the environment, what is your attention being diverted from?

<comment><USER4> Anecdotally, I have found that my focus welcomes slight distraction, in various forms - tv show I already know by heart, stupid silly shows, instrumental repetitive music, music I'm extremely familiar already...

Basically, when I'm at risk to lose focus from task at hand, this steals it, and it's rather boring compared to what would most likely be highly abstract contemplations, totally new ideas and so on, so your focus returns to original task since immediate alternative provided is dull affair.

It somehow "eats up" part of my nature that nudges me to lose focus. It's maybe analogous to how rain noise gobbles up various distracting sounds.

<comment><USER2> Taking breaks is clearly a good thing, but being externally distracted is not. If you're thinking about where you're going, you're not thinking about how you're going to present your work at the meeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if it would remain distracting for long - as someone who has worked in some _very_ large buildings that would seem more confusing than what's shown in the pictures here, after a week I tend to have memorised most of the layout I need and it becomes more or less second-nature. If they were moving the walls regularly, that would be a different matter...

If anything I'd say the odd-angled rooms and visually "rich" environment give more navigational affordances than relatively featureless, repetitive structures like straight hallways and rows of doors: "Go straight until the ceiling turns blue, bear left and turn right at the yellow wall." I think I'd be far more likely to get lost in a place like this:

[http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group1/building3277/media/5...](http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group1/building3277/media/530%207189.JPG)

<comment><USER6> When I travel somewhere for say a week, I notice the place usually seems a lot bigger the first day or two when I don't know my way around. After a week you realize it isn't often so big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think some wild animals on variable length leashes and random screaming sounds pumped through the PA might have similar effect. That's way cheaper than moving to a fancy office space.

Time to start up MY startup, Rent-A-Tiger. We prey on bad productivity.

<comment><USER8> How about randomly switching the HVAC from 55 degrees to 90 degrees? Or maybe cutting the power off for a few minutes each day?

<comment><USER9> I think I've worked at that office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like IKEA or any department store. Designed to be a maze to trap you in so you spend more.

Steve Jobs designed Pixar's office with only one set of toilets so people would collaborate more: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-designing- pixar-off...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-designing-pixar- office-2015-3)

<comment><USER11> Catmull shows in his book Creativity Inc, how happy he was to prevent that idea from happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love this idea -- as an experiment. The trick, I think, would be the difference between "how it affects employees the first week or two" and "how it affects employees over several months or years" Of course, as a marketing move, it's brilliant. Here we all are talking about it.

Good teams are both able to spin off into fun and distraction mode -- and dive deep into concentration mode. There's an edge of chaos thing going on. If the place sounds as quiet as a library all day, we mix it up. If the nerf gun battles go on all afternoon, we tone it down. There is an ebb and flow to these things. Things tend towards a line, with variations from time to time. Groups of humans working socially remind me a lot of chaotic systems.

When the disruptions are constant, like working next to a large industrial plant that makes noises, it doesn't all come together. When the disruptions are responsive, like working in one room with 6 or 7 other guys, it's much more unpredictable.

Since this sounds predictable over time, I'd suspect that the affect wears off rather quickly.

But all of that is just unsupported speculation. I've found with things like this, it's much more important to let folks try things and then observe how it turns out. Interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER13> 246 employees with a swanky office is not a startup.

<comment><USER14> If you are hiring a firm to design your office, you are no longer a startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Image there is a fire and everyone is confused how to get out....

</comment><comment><USER16> >"The software firm opened shop in 2002 with six employees. It now has 246. "

Surely that is not really a startup?

</comment><comment><USER17> What's troubling to me is that the objections being raised here are all about how they went about it, not that the whole idea of social engineering is somewhat problematic in the first place, condescendingly paternalistic and robbing ourselves of moral independence and autonomy, etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to work in a place like that - I feel very uncomfortable in an ordered environment where row upon row of offices is filled with a placid set of cubicles, all the same shape, color, and design. Visual noise definitely helps me focus - some of my best work has been done in a coffeeshop environment during prime time, headphones on, in the zone, lots of chaos and motion going on around me - and some of my worst work experiences have been while sitting in a row, upon rows, of static desks all looking the same. Conformity may be good for the bean counters, but a lot of us can't get ourselves seeded and primed without a sip from /dev/random first, it seems.

<comment><USER19> Sure.

But my company has literally paid me over $1,000 in the past year to look up, awkwardly make eye contact, look around a moment, blink a few times, and look back at my screen because it draws my attention when people cross in front of my desk, and we have an open office design. (That cost is literally just the 15 seconds of looking around, the number of times I did so today, and my pay rate.)

I hope they're getting their money's worth for my time, but I'm not sure they are -- or that they're not taking it out on me through externals, such as expecting me to make up that lost time in "crunch time" or extra hours or something.

I feel like a lot of these plans are feel good pop science that just externalize the costs of what the executive wanted to do for pet reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't really see the point. Aren't everyone working there will know the office by heart after 2 weeks?

It looks good though.

</comment><comment><USER21> > It's designed expressly to make workers get and feel lost, because, as > neuroscience shows, disorientation keeps people alert and expecting the > unexpected.

This is an example of taking the science out of context. I think it's pretty obvious that this type of disorientation applies in a _new_ environment. The employees who work there every day? Pretty quickly you'll learn the in and outs of your own workplace.

Without this premise as the reasoning for the architecture, to me it just seems like another tech firm eager to spend its money.

</comment><comment><USER22> I did my studies in a university that was sharing some offices with the French office of statistics - called INSEE. The building was shaped as a combination of triangle (the INSEE, not my university, which was in a separate but nearby building), and I remember that whenever I had to go there - the administration had its office there - it felt so disorientating and I would get lost.

I believe it was a modern architecture, and the feeling of confusion was not on purpose. The first picture reminded me that building. I would hate to work in such a maze. Wasting time getting lost going to a meeting room, or looking for the desk of someone not in my closed quarters, would be very annoying.

Below a link to a picture of the building:

[http://www.pss-archi.eu/photos/photo-14209.html](http://www.pss- archi.eu/photos/photo-14209.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> An even greatest example of such architecture are the older buildings (also called the brown buildings) of the Technical University of Crete (Greece).

They are full of various shaped classes, most are in a free polygon form. It is not unusual for a large cylindrical pillar to be in the middle of a small- ish class, obscuring view to the blackboard, or for a seat to be one meter to the front, 3-5 meters to the side of the board.

The shape and placement of buildings confuses the first year students, many of whom don't feel at ease until the second or third year. We used to joke that they would make a great Doom level.

Despite the university being in a remote area with great weather, windows frequently are absent, or small and placed high.

</comment><comment><USER24> >> "The way we live life is very diverse … I have some of my best ideas in random places—the car, the shower—so we developed a space that is highly diverse," Corbett says.

People justifying their stupidity...

</comment><comment><USER25> The communications department in my old college campus was in a building designed to be deliberately confusing -- you had to go upstairs to get into the basement, hallways changed direction unexpectedly, etc -- with the idea that that'd get the students to communicate with each other because get it we're lost and have to ask each other directions and it's the communications dept see we're communicating get it get it huh do you get the joke hilarious

yeah they tore that sucker down a couple years ago apparently

</comment><comment><USER26> In other words, they put themselves in a boring industrial terrain in a boring suburb, just like any other boring company, and then try to recreate the creative impulses you get if you would live and work in a lively city.

What they cite is their motivation is exactly why I live and work in an urban environment, but the office is supposed to be the place where I can focus in turning that input into productive results.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd have thought they'd want to spend their employees' finite daily decision making and problem solving skills on their business.

</comment><comment><USER28> This seems kinda stupid, but I'd welcome some explanation as to why it makes any sense

<comment><USER29> > According to research in neuroscience, this kind of visual chaos can help > workers stay more alert, by asking them to constantly reengage with their > environment.

I didn't read the article, but the text for image 5/8 said this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I tore an entire doorframe out and rehung it once because the slight but obvious angle between it and the low ceiling in the room made me crazy. I obsessed about it even when I wasn't in the house!

This might not be the best place for me to work....

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow... what a stupid idea. But hey, it's cheap PR!

</comment><comment><USER32> He could get a good placebo effect with this if he communicate well :) That s the only thing that i could imagine as a good effect

</comment><comment><USER33> Surely the disorientation would only last a few weeks at the most, so any benefit would quickly disappear.

</comment><comment><USER34> ... this feels beyond absurd.

Attention and focus is important. Sounds like start-up kool-aid to me.

</comment><comment><USER35> It honestly doesn't look THAT confusing in the pics.</comment>


Amazon Daily Launches - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/daily/ref=cm_plog_open/002-0953987-3316012 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure I get where they are going with this.</comment>


Why Stashboard and Pingdom Weren't Enough: The Evolution of a Status Page - <AUTHOR> http://blog.balancedpayments.com/status-page <comment><USER2> Author of Stashboard here, love what you guys have done. I'd love to integrate your frontpage design as an optional template.

When I wrote Stashboard, monitoring was explicitly not a requirement. Since it has an API, the idea what to write your own tools for monitoring that would update Stashboard in the event of an outage.

Pingdom support is something that's been asked for many times, so it might be time to dedicate some time to adding integration.

<comment><USER3> conroy, thanks for your comment!

Can we open an issue on <https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api> so we can track this?

We'd be happy to help with the code contribution as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This was in response to the feedback we've received and requests to open source the project. The original post was here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4812222>

Happy to field any questions :)

<comment><USER4> Have you looked at anything else but Pingdom?

It has nice visuals and free trials, but it's a relative newcomer to the market of the monitoring services and they also have a tendency to keep things simpler than they need to be. Something more mature and enterprisey, like RedAlert, would fit the bill.

<comment><USER5> Over 6 years (July 2006 according to archive.org) is a 'relative newcomer'? You're hard to please :)

Their API took a long time to arrive, but we've used it for disabling checks during maintenance events pretty effectively.

As mentioned in the article, POST/PUT requests are on the list of Things I Want though. Would be good to be able to group a bunch of checks together into a service too.

<comment><USER4> Pingdom really started to develop into its current form around 2009 I think. Before that it might've existed, but I don't think it was aggressively marketed and developed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a gotcha related to Pingdom -- if your account isn't set up properly, you can run out of SMS credits which means you may not get that critical SMS alert!

<comment><USER7> Do they at least ping you to let you know you're out of funds? In an ideal world I'd hope they'd extend you some credit.

<comment><USER8> It's easy to setup correctly. It lets you set a rule like "buy me X credits when I get below Y credits"

I think ours is something like buy me 20 credits when we get below 5.

Also you can install their iphone app and use push notifications for free instead of or in addition to SMS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's a link to the actual status page: <https://status.balancedpayments.com/>

<comment><USER10> I love this!! Scanned the article several times looking for this link. Nice design work! Love the twitter integration.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Take the source. Use it at home. Tell your friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome write-up. Really love the technical depth in this post. Slurp looks great too, gonna play around with it.</comment>


Show HN: Jumpjet Preview - real time screensharing SDK for iOS and Android apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmob.com/post/51162005712/a-preview-of-jumpjet-real-time-screensharing-for-ios

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, Ayo from Hipmob here. We've been getting a lot of feedback from mobile devs (some who are our customers and some not), expressing frustration at the constant back and forth they have to engage in to get a good handle on whats going on in their apps. The web has awesome tools for screensharing like Firefly, Screenleap, Screenhero, Join.me and more. We decided to make one for iOS and Android apps, that any developer could use to see what their customers are doing (with permission of course).

Will be out in a few short weeks - would love any feedback in the comments, or directly to me at email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks pretty sweet! Will you guys be adding visualizations of which touches are currently occurring as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the plan. We want to make sure you can see the exact actions a user takes (and the user can also see the exact actions the agent is taking).

We also plan to add an overlay so there's no confusion as to when your screen is being viewed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many companies did you apply to until you got that job? - <AUTHOR>

I am just curious to fellow hackers (software engineers) here, when you were applying for a job, how many companies did you approximately apply in total? How many of that called you for an interview? How many acceptance did you get? <comment><USER2> I'm a college student still.

Apply for internships in my first three years, I typically applied to 20~30 companies, and would get 5-10 interviews, leading to 2-5 offers.

In my senior year, (now), I applied to 4 (Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Inkling). Interviewed at all of them, and got two offers and one "come back next year". I hope the one I accepted could potentially lead to a full time position when I graduate next year.

</comment><comment><USER3> Graduated May of 2008 - Sent out 10s of resumes - Two interviews (not a great GPA) - got offers at both - took the slightly lower pay one because it had a better job description and was in a more convenient location. It has worked out very well for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be a bit off topic, but when did you start applying/sending those resumes?

<comment><USER3> Knew I would be graduating in May of '08, so I started sending them out around Jan-Feb of '08 (4-5 months ahead). I got interviews in Feb-March and had my job offers by the end of March.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Out of college I applied to two of the big companies, got two interviews.

I won't name names, but one seemed slow and disorganized in their hiring process. The other got me through in a couple of weeks and I took the offer.

</comment><comment><USER5> The last time I applied for a job, I applied to about 10 different companies over a period of a couple of months. I went to interview with three of them. One made me an offer, which I rejected. The second turned me down (Unfortunately, as I liked the place). The third didn't want to hire me into the exact position I applied for, but offered me a different position. At first I rejected, but I called them back 6 months later and took it. This was back in 2008.

I'm not sure if you can use that measure for anything. Your skill set, the job marked in general and your geography are huge factors.

</comment><comment><USER6> In my experience, it is easier to find a job while you are in the beginning of your career. This is mostly because you ask for less money and are less specialized. As you get more specialized, you find that you make more money but at the same time you find fewer jobs that match your specialty.

</comment><comment><USER7> In my career, I've applied for roughly 10 full-time jobs. I got interviews for 6 of them, and each interview got me an acceptance.

</comment><comment><USER8> 100 - 200.

<comment><AUTHOR> now this is a killer, I suspect when someone applies to this many companies it usually means that you're really desperate for a job... so how does it go with applying to 100-200 companies?

<comment><USER9> Or it's the type of job where one candidate looks like another. My guess would be some sort of business position?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why Oil prices are going down? - <AUTHOR> Is there anything forthcoming disruptive beyond demand/supply/distribution? <comment><USER2> Three things influence the price of oil, supplies, geopolitical tension/policy, demand. Most recently having Iran able to sell oil again has increased supply (downward pressure), Saudia Arabia has been under increasing political tension (tends to cause oil prices to go up), and programs to curb greenhouse emissions and vehicle mileage standards have pushed down demand.

/disclosure - I work at IBM and know these guys ...

While this is just standard "what's going on in the world" sort of stuff, if you want to put a different tech spin on it you can use the AlchemyNews API from IBM Watson and use it to highlight stories related to news producers, regions, or changes in demand. That will give you a more comprehensive sense of what is going on in the market.

<comment><USER3> How would the AlchemyNews API be better than searching Google News?

<comment><USER2> Two simple ones, the AlchemyAPI News product is a crawler/flagging system so you don't have to write a web scraper to pull results of Google News. The second being that it's processing concepts, keywords, and entities so you can catch stories that mention the movers and shakers in the space without a giant regex.

That said, being well read and subscribing to a number of news sources is a solid way of keeping up to date on a topic you're interested in. There are few short cuts that are as effective as that.

<comment><USER3> The OP didn't ask for a web scraping solution. Using Google Alerts would work just as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't really track this but think I heard that OPEC was threatened by the amount of fracking-based oil that was starting to reach the market and decided to put a major squeeze on the producers of that source of oil. I'm not sure if it is working.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-oil-prices-threatening- frack...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-oil-prices-threatening-fracking- industry/)

</comment><comment><USER5> One interesting fact is that gasoline price in Algeria was increased. It has always been subsidised (20 cents/liter or something). Now diesel/gasoline, etc are almost double by Government decision.</comment>


The campaign connecting affluent techies with candidates around the country - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/8/17092684/great-slate-fundraising-congressional-campaign <comment><USER2> This is a genius form of grass-roots arbitrage: transferring money from affluent and politically safe areas to less wealthy and more contested ones.

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously I think this is an amazing story, well-reported, and relevant to a lot of people's interests here. But we can also predict the shitshow that this comment thread will become, so I think nothing less of anyone who flags it.

If you want to talk through this stuff, Twitter is probably the best place to do that right now.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, no one appears to have noticed on HN, or they don't care.

[https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/971903844799180800](https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/971903844799180800)</comment></comment>


Oops. Beware The Accidental Post To Twitter Contemplating An Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/oops-beware-the-accidental-post-to-twitter-contemplating-an-acquisition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)

<comment><USER2> Surely "beware using social media when drunk" is the more general lesson here.

<comment><USER3> Or "don't drink and text." It looks like he may have been trying to text a friend instead of tweeting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I bet he was responding to a DM that came in via SMS on his iPhone. I've done this before:

You get a text notifying you of the DM. You immediately reply to the text thinking that it'll automagically send it back as a DM.

</comment><comment><USER5> Heh, Ezra (Engineyard) tweeted these out last night, I thought he was drunk.

<comment><USER6> <http://twitter.com/ezmobius/status/14927274062>

If it was Ezra, then this is the official explanation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Who did this exactly?</comment>


IronMQ Cloud Message Queue as a Celery Broker - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iron.io/2013/02/using-ironmq-as-celery-broker.html

<comment><USER2> Sounds interesting... will check this out for python projects</comment>


Impressive graphics editor for programmers: Shadron - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4tf54r/i_have_developed_the_ultimate_graphics_editor_for/ <comment><USER2> "Impressive" is such a click-baity word for a title.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have watched the videos and it actually look useful.</comment>


Using s-expressions instead of XML - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fandle.com/2010/02/using-s-expressions-instead-of-xml.html

<comment><USER2> I'll just leave this here: <http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/xml.html>

<comment><USER3> It is still cool that he came up with this on his own.

<comment><USER4> Yea although he goes a little further with scheme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> loup-vaillant To simplify things a bit, I would suggest the use of angle brackets instead of parentheses:

         <tagname <@ attr "value" attr2 "value2">
           <tagname2>
           <tagname3 "data">>

Going a bit further, we could require the `@`, and place it _after_ the attributes list. This format has fewer special cases:

         <tagname attr "value" attr2 "value2" @
           <tagname2 @>
           <tagname3 @"data">>

Finally, we could remove the quotes around the raw strings ("data"), while inverting the brackets:

         >tagname attr "value" attr2 "value2" @
           >tagname2 @<
           >tagname3 @data<<

This may look twisted, but we stay very close to true S-expressions, while using the same escape characters we have in plain XML.

<comment><USER5> Close is not enough -- part of the attraction of s-expressions is that they are part of the language.

Thus you can use the language's escaping mechanisms, or put the escaping in your sxml->xml filter.

Preserving XML escapes is not actually a virtue. If you enter your data using S-expressions and validate on transformation, you will never have malformed XML.

(Not in any way that matters, anyway: [http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwingolog.org%...](http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwingolog.org%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0))

edit: note also that in this context, s-expressions are more about language and less about parentheses; one can have them in python too: <http://wingolog.org/pub/original/rename-to-index.py.txt>, <http://wingolog.org/software/original/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> XML is not S-Expressions <http://www.prescod.net/xml/sexprs.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice!

And a good time to remember Erik Naggum's epic S-exps vs. XML rant:

<http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/s-exp_vs_XML>

<comment><USER8> _Robbery is not just another way of making a living, rape is not just another way of satisfying basic human needs, torture is not just another way of interrogation. And XML is not just another way of writing S-exps. There are some things in life that you do not do if you want to be a moral being and feel proud of what you have accomplished._

It distresses me that someone could type that up and think it reasonable and worth sharing.

<comment><USER9> If you find that so distressing, I wonder how you feel about this little tidbit from Swift:

      I have been assured by a very knowing American of my
      acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well
      nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and
      wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled;
      and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a
      fricasie, or a ragoust.

There are types of writing that do not revolve around literally and bluntly saying what you mean. I rather doubt that Mr. Naggum actually believes that XML is morally comparable to rape, in much the same way that I rather doubt Mr. Swift was seriously arguing that the Irish should begin eating their children.

<comment><USER8> To compare one of the greatest works of satire with Eric's vitriol belies a fundamental ignorance or insincerity.

What Eric wrote is puerile condescending crap.

But please, quote me an ironic passage of Shakespeare to reiterate Mr. Naggum's subtle genius.

<comment><USER9> _To compare one of the greatest works of satire with Eric's vitriol belies a fundamental ignorance or insincerity._

I would hope neither, obviously, though it's entirely possible I'm wrong. I would rather just discuss the writer's actual point rather than his stylistic decisions or personality flaws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can you easily filter raw text out of a Sexp stream? I don't think so. It would require a full Sexp machine to read and "understand" the tree, whereas with markup-style data streams it takes a trivial regexp to extract text. (Why would you need this? Search/indexing, for example.)

<comment><USER11> An "sexp machine" is fairly simple.

And yes, you can use regexs on s-expressions in exactly the same way that you'd use them on xml/html/markup. And you'd run into the same errors.

Note that reading s-expressions and extracting things from the result is significantly easier and faster than using regexs.... (The same is true of xml.)

Regular expressions are a great hammer, but many things are not nails.

<comment><USER10> With XML or any markup you can ignore the hierarchy and easily strip out everything that's not text, while with Sexp's I'm afraid you can't. In order to extract raw text (or actually strings) from SXML you'd need to read and understand the tree structure, which is not possible with a single-regex run.

<comment><USER11> Oh really?

How do you know that the sequence of bytes <http://foo.bar.com/a/c> is text or an attribute value with a regexp? How about foo.bar? How about Times Roman or 16px? How about the four bytes html ?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Virginia considers bill to withhold all officers' names - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/02/24/secret-police-virginia-considers-bill-to-withhold-all-officers-names/ <comment><USER2> Is this at all in line with the US Constitution? If accused, you're supposed to be able to confront your accusers. If they're all "Officer Redacted", such a law would seem to run afoul of that provision.

Also, is this a good idea? What problem does it solve? Pacifying police officers who are afraid of an "open season" on cops? Stats don't bear out any "open season". Lots more police got shot in the 90s than are getting shot now. What price does this law have? Not getting to confront your accuser is a pretty big deal, it seems to me. If that takes place, any defendant is pretty much just dealing with vague "The Authorities" \- no idea who to call as witnesses and so forth.

The only problem I can think that this solves, and it isn't worth the cost, is that it keeps police officers from getting their names splashed all over The Internet when they do something stupid or authoritarian.</comment>


Deis Announces High Availability Backed by Ceph - <AUTHOR> http://deis.io/deis-0-13-0-ha-data-store

<comment><USER2> The thing that's nice about Deis is that they seem to be using lots of best- in-breed solutions to build their platform rather than falling into NIH hell. Nice.

<comment><USER3> There's lots of smart teams working on these problems. We believe working with them is better for our users and for the community as a whole. :)</comment></comment>


How a simple Node.js project turned into Iron Scheduler - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iron.io/2013/12/how-small-nodejs-project-turned-into.html

<comment><USER2> A clever idea I read about scheduling recurring jobs is to use prime numbers for interval durations to avoid inadvertent synchronization of jobs.

<comment><USER3> That is quite a commonly useful technique (that I'm surprised more people don't know about).

Straying of topic a little...

You can use repeating patterns with prime periods to generate large tiling backgrounds that don't exactly repeat for a long time and so forth (the method is used in many games with procedurally generated landscapes to apply textures that don't repeat often enough to be noticable).

Even nature makes use of prime periods to avoid clashes.

See [http://www.sitepoint.com/the-cicada-principle-and-why-it- mat...](http://www.sitepoint.com/the-cicada-principle-and-why-it-matters-to- web-designers/) for more detailed examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand how using a regex expressed over a string representation of a datetime is an improvement over the crontab format.</comment>


5 Tips To Make Your IPhone Game Successful - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedatascientist.com/2012/01/03/5-tips-to-make-your-iphone-game-successful/

<comment><USER2> Good post. I agree with your push notification retention point. And I appreciate your stats on CPC ads.</comment>


Kubernetes: Getting Started - <AUTHOR> https://chrisshort.net/kubernetes-getting-started/ <comment><USER2> Why is this article so highly voted? As someone who doesn't know Kubernets, this article is just a mumbo jumbo with links to other articles and does not provide any useful detail what so ever.

<comment><USER3> I think the answer is (a) because there are actually a lot of people out there who need a gentle introduction (at least a lot of my co-workers do, whether or not they will read it) and this article is most simply a good pointer on where to start...

and (b) because Phippy. The Illustrated Guide to Kubernetes was very highly rated when it came out, I passed around my hard copy to senior management and they all said "thank you, because this is exactly what we need."

I'm pretty sure there's not a single piece of bad advice in this post, and it has the appropriate level of detail for someone who is in need of a "getting started" guide.

(Yes, but why right now? Well it's a brand new article, EKS was just announced yesterday, so it's great timing. I know there are a bunch of people at re:invent this week who will probably be getting this link from me when they get back.)

It's just full of all the same advice I've been giving, and Phippy is also a nod to Deis, which sadly can't be recommended anymore without a disclaimer (because, at least from my recent experience, people will be feeling betrayed when they find out there's currently nobody "at the helm" so to speak that they can buy commercial support from, even though it's an open source product and they weren't going to buy support anyway...)

But Phippy is a great representative of how most people are feeling when they first start to get acquainted with K8S.</comment></comment>


Show HN: GitFrame, rapid mockups with GitHub and YAML - <AUTHOR> http://gitframe.com

<comment><USER2> I really like the idea and would have to play with it for awhile to really test it usefulness.

My feedback: -it would be cool to add possibility to play with bootstrap or foundation \- You said that it suppose to solve problem of getting mockups quickly online. I am not really sure that is faster than some cloud solution like balsamiq or mockingbird, drag and drop is hard to beat in that departament. It's still YAML ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking a look at it and for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

Maybe it's just faster with my workflow, but I wanted to be able to get something up quickly and with little effort. I also wanted something that was an actual responsive website.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been playing with this idea of getting mockups online for clients quickly, so that I can get feedback sooner. So, I built this app. I'd love to hear what people think.

</comment><comment><USER3> Brilliant! I really wish I thought of that one! Is there a way to add lists, ideally with multiple columns?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! You're too kind. I want to add a lot more features to allow displaying data (e.g., tables, graphs). These will be handy when using the dashboard layout.</comment></comment>


A Staggering Look at Baggage Fees - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmunk.com/a-staggering-look-at-baggage-fees-infographic <comment><USER2> Does anyone here really think that in the absence of baggage fees, ticket prices wouldn't simply rise to compensate? Taking advantage of customer price sensitivity is pretty much the entire ballgame for airfares.

<comment><USER3> I think Southwest has proven this not to be the case. Their fares are consistently lower than the majors in spite of having no bag fees and their bottom line sure doesn't seem to be hurting any.

You could argue that the level of service isn't commensurate with what you'd get on a Delta or AA so its not the same product - but I'd say personally that my experiences with Southwest are far more pleasant than my dealings with any of the others.

edit: s/fare/far (pun notwithstanding)

<comment><USER4> _You could argue that the level of service isn't commensurate with what you'd get on a Delta or AA so its not the same product_

The people who would argue this are probably the ones who also earned status on a legacy carrier before they started really turning the screws on people in 2008, and thus have been immune to all the bag charges and seat fees all along.

But, if you have no status on AA/Delta/United, you'll probably find you'd get a better level of service on Southwest, at least based on my experiences from having flown them recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hidden in the graphic and thus far unmentioned in the comment thread is the staggeringly stupid fact that IRS made revenue from baggage fees tax-free in January 2010.

This has to rank as the stupidest IRS decision of all time.

<comment><USER6> Time to create a startup that does nothing but charge baggage fees!

<comment><USER7> How about a startup service that only moves baggage?

<comment><USER8> You mean like this?

[http://www.theupsstore.com/products/Documents/LuggageBoxInfo...](http://www.theupsstore.com/products/Documents/LuggageBoxInfo.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The rise of baggage fees incentivizes passengers to carry on as much luggage as possible. It seems that the fight for overhead bin space is getting more intense, and it is taking longer to complete the boarding process. I would have thought the airlines would have wanted to incentivize passengers to check bags, as that makes the whole process more efficient, so I would have expected them to assess fees on carry on bags.

<comment><USER10> iirc, we had a discussion here about this here some time in the past.

jetblue and southwest don't charge for the first bag specifically because of this. their processes are optimized on the assumption that you're going to check one bag. it helps them to get more flights in per day, when people can get to their seats and they can get the plane in the air faster.

it might actually do well to provide a ticket discount if you check a bag, in order to ensure that there are limited delays. but that would require an airline to care, and most don't seem to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not quite as shocking when you compare with overall revenues.

For example, Delta had $28B in 2009 revenues compared with $482M in baggage fees, for just under 2% of total revenues.

As a side note, as long as you can get your bag through the xray scanner you should just bring it to the gate. They may not let you carry it on, but there's no fee for gate-checked bags.

</comment><comment><USER12> Airline baggage fees are good for you! Here's why: They are the a la carte portion of your ticket.

If consumer groups succeed in limiting airlines' ability to charge such fees, airlines will need to figure out other ways to monetize your travel, some that may be more difficult avoid.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is this where I complain that my Strida folding bicycle costs $200 to check, but a golf bag of the same size (and twice the weight) flies free?

It seems like a textbook example of executives, more inclined to travel with golf bags, exempting themselves from the rules.

<comment><USER14> Have you tried folding your bike up, then putting it inside a golf bag?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yet another reason to fly Southwest whenever you can.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I completely blind, or is there no way to enlarge the image to make it readable?

<comment><USER17> It takes three clicks to do so. Image, then image again, then browser-show- full-image.

<comment><USER16> Ah, looks like they just added an Imgur link above the image.

<comment><USER18> Sorry about that. IMGUR saves the day. <http://imgur.com/pCF1l?full>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have a friend who's obsessed with all things airlines, and he insists that airlines were losing money on ticket sales all through the'90s and '00s, and that all their profits came from selling frequent flyer miles to credit card companies, who could use them as incentive to spend money.

Given the financial collapse, I wouldn't be surprised if the airlines are hurting and need to pull money from somewhere.

<comment><USER20> Airline profits for 2010 were $2.5b in the black.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/06/airline_prof...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/06/airline_profits)

<comment><USER21> Which was probably all due to baggage fees. In fact that graph shows $2.5 billion in baggage fees charged in the US alone (your articles shows $2.5 billion worldwide, and I bet most of it is in the Asia-Pacific region).

Airlines had been steadily losing money from 9/11 up to 2009, except for a few low-cost carriers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What was the reason for the large jump from 2008 to 2009?

<comment><USER23> AFAIK, more airlines charging baggage fees, and more charging for the 1st bag

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> _We're hoping for this to be the first of many hipmunk infographics..._

You're obviously doing great work with your graphics, but you still have work to do...

On the main page, the letters and numbers are impossibly small to read.

On the "high-rez goodness", too much horizontal and vertical scrolling are needed.

The "SUPER high-rez version" is the worst of both worlds, too small to read when within a single window and to much to scroll when magnified.

Here's my challenge to your own resident Chief Scientist:

Give me the same easily discernible information that uses my screen, my whole screen, and nothing but my screen, so help me Tufte.

<comment><USER18> Take a gander at the new IMGUR-powered links, I think the new one should do the trick for just about any monitor size. What do you think? <http://imgur.com/pCF1l?full>

Thanks for the feedback! We're still not at Good/Mint-caliber infographics, but we hope to get there: <http://www.good.is/infographics>

<comment><USER24> Much better! If your customer service is as responsive as your hn presence, nothing can stop you.

[The almost NSFW ads at the bottom of the page were a nice little perk for a drudge-work Tuesday, too.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> His numbers aren't right. I flew United (US Airways) last week and 1 checked bag was $23 not $50.

<comment><USER23> The tiny blue print says "Prices listed are based on round-trip..."

The $23 instead of $25 each way must be the online discount</comment></comment>


Getting the most out of a laptop battery - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2234009/

<comment><USER2> 'When your laptop is turned on and plugged in, you should pull the battery out of your computer. Yes, pull it out. "I know that's inconvenient," Buchmann says, "but keeping your laptop plugged in when the battery's fully charged—that combination is bad for your battery."'

Then, when you tug your laptop the wrong way, and the power cable pops out, the machine just shuts down instead of switching over to battery power.

That's beyond "inconvenient".

<comment><USER3> I've ruined a battery by keeping it in my laptop, when it's plugged into the wall at my desk, letting it get very hot for several hours a day.

It's a small price to pay for the convenience of being able unplug my laptop and go elsewhere without fussing about.</comment></comment>


This Algae Battery Could Power A Tesla With 200X The Charge - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/30/this-algae-battery-could-power-a-tesla-with-200x-the-charge/

<comment><USER2> Engadget mentioned this in 2009: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/29/ultrathin-algae-based- bat...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/29/ultrathin-algae-based-batteries- could-charge-things-you-never-t/).

I wonder why it hasn't reached the market yet. There's gotta be a reason if the technology is as amazing as people claim. Does anyone know what the hangups are?</comment>


Should You Be Allowed To Work From Home? (Answer: No) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/get-dressed-go-to-work

<comment><USER2> Something very funny going on on this blog post. The <title> tag is:

       Should Moms Be Allowed To Work For Important Companies Like Yahoo?

but the URL slug is:

       get-dressed-go-to-work

and the actual title is:

       Should You Be Allowed To Work From Home? (Answer: No)</comment>


GitHub is forcing me to change my username, and will not tell me why - <AUTHOR> http://nerderati.com/2018/03/09/github-is-forcing-me-to-change-my-username/ <comment><USER2> The username is malware. Github does not namespace user profiles, so the link to the account would be [https://github.com/malware](https://github.com/malware) . There is no Github user with the name "about". If you go to [https://github.com/about](https://github.com/about) it is not a profile page, but a page describing github itself. I assume that github may want to make a page describing malware.

<comment><USER3> Seems like a stupid move from github not to prefix usernames from the beginning or at least start doing it later like linkedin did.

It is very possible that one day there will be another URL they need which belongs to a large account that can not be renamed just like that.

<comment><USER4> Seems like a stupid move? This is a pretty common pattern and we rarely ever hear of stories like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Joel, I can't speak for github, so I'll speak for myself.

I think the account name has a potential to cause public confusion. This may result in negative consequences to github, the github community and the public itself.

This is immaterial to you. Let it go.

(For anyone who likes analogies, it's like having a "dummy corpse" on the front lawn, left over from halloween).

<comment><AUTHOR> I can understand that.

what I can't understand is why [https://github.com/hacker](https://github.com/hacker) is okay. Or why [https://github.com/blackhat](https://github.com/blackhat) is also an account. Or [https://github.com/virus](https://github.com/virus).

Unless each one of those accounts is _also_ being changed/removed, and I'm simply the first one to point this out.

<comment><USER5> That is an excellent question, for this case and a lot of other similar ones (banned, removed etc.)

I'll rephrase the question: in a set of things that _I_ consider to be similar why is one handled differently that the others?

And the answer arises from the question: the sets are based on a different criteria.

I don't know what criteria github uses, but, I know that external input usually groups sets differently.

Put simpler - maybe someone complied?

(Analogy, "dummy corpse"", skeleton" and "sheet ghost" may seem similar on haloween night, but may get different reaction from the public)

<comment><AUTHOR> > And the answer arises from the question: the sets are based on a different > criteria.

Hopefully I'll soon find out what the criteria are, if this is the case!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even before I got halfway through the article, I knew I'd see the ever-present "due to privacy and security concerns" garbage.

If a company is contacting a customer, don't play that line. Be honest. If the reason why you can't be honest is due to embarrassment, don't phrase it as a request. Mealy-mouthed language about empty, unverifiable platitudes is not only pointless, it's insulting in a technical context.

</comment><comment><USER7> Github is totally within their right to hold this close to their vest for whatever reason, I don't see the big deal with it.

Where does the line get drawn the OP asks? I'm unsure, but I believe in Github to make a smart call there. Not every situation is a slippery slope to facism / dictatorships, and I'm unsure why many things nowadays are described with this sort of notion attached to them.

Definitely feel like I wasted time reading this whole thing, and now wasted time posting, and now I'm sad.

<comment><USER8> > Github is totally within their right to hold this close to their vest for > whatever reason, I don't see the big deal with it.

True, but github could have avoided this kind of issue all together by putting all accounts under a different namespace or domain. In fact that's what they should do now to be "future proof". I don't understand why would any business think that domain.com/username is the right thing to do.

<comment><USER7> Yea, since you know how to make the perfect products, perhaps you should just take githubs money.

Edit: To clarify, looking back it's simple to just make such assumptions. But many popular sites have existed off of this model which github holds such as facebook, twitter, myspace back in the day IIRC. I'm not saying Github made the perfect decision at the time, but they didn't make a foolish one necesarily given the landscape of how user based sites have existed.

<comment><USER8> It's not about making a perfect product. This is basic url design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the logical solution to this prefixing user urls with something like /u/ or /user/? Off the top of my head I can think of reddit doing this but I suppose for github the downside of this is it would break a huge number of existing links. One of those slightly un-winnable situations unless you think of it from the start I suppose.

<comment><USER10> I think unprefixed user urls was the right decision; I love GitHub URLs and how easy to manually type they are. I can imagine user urls are typed more often than info page urls.

Also, they could always just prefix their pages instead. (ie, github.com/about/xxx, github.com/info/xxx).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So they are working on an (updated?) internal blacklist of usernames IMHO. Seems annoying but not nefarious. I would shrug, take the offer, find a new username and move on.

</comment><comment><USER12> One year free subscription is not that bad, you know~ But thanks for writing this interesting incident.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some other possibilities as to why off the top of my head:

Github has been served with a confidential court order, warrant etc that requires this.

Github has a confidential contract with a large company or government entity and they are requiring this as part of that contract.

A piece of existing malware in the wild points to this address for a possible command and control server or verification that it's in a VM or whatever, and they want to deal with it, like that guy that registered those nonsense urls.

<comment><AUTHOR> All good hypotheses.

> Github has been served with a confidential court order, warrant etc that > requires this.

I thought of this, but figured since the account was essentially bare of public activity it was low probability.

> Github has a confidential contract with a large company or government entity > and they are requiring this as part of that contract.

An interesting idea!

> A piece of existing malware in the wild points to this address for a > possible command and control server or verification that it's in a VM or > whatever, and they want to deal with it, like that guy that registered those > nonsense urls.

Very possible, although putting 'malware' in your CnC endpoint name might not be the brightest of ideas :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think if you use the username malware, I think you should expect this kind of stuff. It's not atypical for a company like that to have references to malware that might interfere with your username.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is everyone looking for reasons be outraged all the time? Github don't owe you an explanation for asking to change your username for whatever reason (even though it is obvious in this case) on a free service that you have been using.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who said I'm outraged? If you read the post I made, and the emails I sent, I do believe I come across as measured. At most, slightly frustrated.

This doesn't outrage me in the slightest.

> Github don't owe you an explanation for asking to change your username for > whatever reason (even though it is obvious in this case) on a free service > that you have been using.

Of course they don't owe me an explanation. But does that stop me from trying to figure it out with a public blog post?

And what if I had been a paying user for the `malware` account? Would that suddenly make this forced name change not okay? I've paid Github probably north of $1,000 over the lifetime of my personal account. Would that make a difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Probably someone very rich wants to buy that account. Otherwise they would have told you it is for their very nice future product.

</comment><comment><USER17> have you thought of using "ma1ware"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really. I don't particularly care about the name "malware" at all, to be honest, so I'll probably go with something in a different direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Try some from this list: [https://www.xkcd.com/1963/](https://www.xkcd.com/1963/)

</comment><comment><USER19> it seems like too much fuss over a small request for a product that the author is not paying for. Github seems to have made a polite request and offering one year free service on his professional account. is there a reason to even post about it? moreover, the username is not just a regular username, it has special connotations on how others perceive it.

</comment><comment><USER20> This reads like a "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" kind of situation. Why would you ever want to name yourself malware, let alone to use it "with the intent of working on some new open source stuff"? From both a professional and personal point of view that's an asinine decision.

I'm going to have to side with GitHub on this one.

EDIT: Not really sure why downvotes (-2 at time of this edit update) are heading my way here, mind chiming in and contributing to the conversation then?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Why would you ever want to name yourself malware, let alone to use it "with > the intent of working on some new open source stuff"?

Why not? What about the (currently in use) github user names such as `hacker` or `virus`?

The whole point of the account was to publish things that I didn't deem worthy of my other accounts. Having a terrible name was kind of the point.

<comment><USER20> > Why not? What about the (currently in use) github user names such as > `hacker` or `virus`?

Not sure, but I wouldn't be shocked if they are at risk themselves, those aren't exactly great either. I'm also not GitHub, nor do I care if they end up getting in trouble for those names either.

> The whole point of the account was to publish things that I didn't deem > worthy of my other accounts.

Then you shouldn't really be concerned what is or isn't your GitHub username then.

> Having a terrible name was kind of the point.

And thus "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" ended up being the result. QED.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seriously? This guy spent far too many words wasted speculating about something that is transparently obvious. [https://github.com/malware](https://github.com/malware) speaks for itself. The Github rep should have said - "Dude, name yourself malware and you're surprised stuff like this happens? Try changing your name to NULL and see how that works out for you."

<comment><USER22> [https://github.com/null](https://github.com/null) is a user.

I'm not sure I understand your comment. I could not find github's username blacklist, so I don't think it's "transparently obvious", but if there is a blacklist feel free to share it.</comment></comment>


Snowden warns new surveillance measures will outlast the coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/03/25/snowden-warns-the-surveillance-states-were-creating-now-will-outlast-the-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> I was asked by my biggest client to put miradore on my personal phone so they could track my self isolation as part of the government regs, I did it because it is probably benign and they need to comply also doesnt seem the best time to look like an arsehole but it will be uninstalled the second the crisis is over.

<comment><USER3> No worries, the "crisis is over" is probably out of equation.

"Look, can't you simply keep it installed? You didn't have anything to hide when the crisis was on. Surely you have nothing to hide now. Right? Right?!"

<comment><USER4> A bit too weak. The official motivation IMO will be "...but the virus can evolve, then get back next year killing people of all ages. You wouldn't want innocent children to die, would you?".</comment></comment></comment>


The other California: A flyover state within a state - <AUTHOR> http://www.ocregister.com/articles/different-748849-one-secede.html <comment><USER2> Having grown up in a rural flyover state, I just need to point out the rank hypocrisy.

The prevailing ideology there is that the government should stay out of the way and let the market decide the best course of action. Except when the market decides that rural areas don't bring much value in the modern, information based economy. Then they expect the government to intervene to save them.

No, thank you. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice of them to not mention any of the regulations that they claim are causing harm. This is The Register.

<comment><USER4> "San Francisco, for example, recently decided to not pump oil from land owned by the city in Kern County"

"Chapman University forecaster James Doti notes that, in large part due to regulation, Inland Empire housing prices have jumped 80 percent since 2009 — almost twice the rate for Orange County."

Or did you mean chapter and verse of regulations? If so you are correct, I didn't see anything like that.

<comment><USER5> > "Chapman University forecaster James Doti notes that, in large part due to > regulation, Inland Empire housing prices have jumped 80 percent since 2009 — > almost twice the rate for Orange County."

That's not citing regulation, that's just blaming regulation. It's exactly hte type of behaviour the parent comment was talking about.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What can I do about Keeper Security holding my passwords for ransom? - <AUTHOR> I decided to use their service. What they don't tell you up front is that unless you pay for a yearly subscription that eventually you won't have access to your passwords. Is there anything I can do to get my data back from them? I don't want to pay money to perpetuate a business model that is running a scam on its potential customers.<p>https://keepersecurity.com/ <comment><USER2> Check this paragraph from the TOS[0]:

      If your subscription expires and you choose not to renew
      your subscription within 90 days, Keeper Security reserves
      the right to delete any Keeper records contained in your
      account that have files (e.g. documents, photos, videos,
      etc.) contained in them. Notice will be sent to you prior to
      termination based on the email address associated with your
      Keeper account. Expired user accounts convert to a Free User
      account.

Sounds like you're stuck. The only way I think you can get out of this hole would be to pay for a month or so of a subscription and back your data up. Then charge back the cost. You are correct that this is a shady business model but you can always prevent it by reading the TOS for anything you sign up for. :)

[0]: [https://keepersecurity.com/termsofuse.html](https://keepersecurity.com/termsofuse.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you leave Facebook for example you can request that all the data on your account be sent to you. This can be done even if the account is deleted without the ability to reactivate it.

Their "model" is akin to paying money so they will let you out of a bear trap. Why would I pay them anything if they are going to turn around and trick someone else into the same scheme and do so with the money that I gave them.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what there is you can do about it. Call customer support and explain your predicament? I've not had the pleasure of dealing with this type of company so I'm not so sure what I'd do in this situation besides limping away with my data and taking my business somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So they don't offer an export option? This is not the same as holding your passwords random, by the way.</comment>


Birds are being vacuumed up as part of olive harvesting in the Mediterranean - <AUTHOR> https://www.birdguides.com/news/millions-of-birds-vacuumed-to-death-annually-in-mediterranean/ <comment><USER2> I'm an olive producer in Portugal.

I suspect the main reason behind the need for harvesting at night is that the demand exceeds the supply for super high density harvesting service, and contractors harvest day and night in order to face the demand.

As soon as there are enough providers, working extra hours will become less interesting and this kind of practice will go away. This kind of harvesting is a lot quicker than previous practices, so harvesting during the day will be more than enough.

Harvesting is done usually in the winter (ranging from November to January) so only non-migratory birds are afected, and even then only those nesting in super high density orchards.

The harvesters are quite expensive, and usually only larger producers own them. This kind of investment is tricky, because for the most part of the year there is nothing to harvest (although there are some other crops where the harvesters are being tried in order to recover the investment more quickly).

Of course no farmer wants to needlessly kill harmless birds, but I will wait for more data, since there has been some hype regarding super high density orchards in the past months, usually portraying them as something horrible and bad to the environment.

By the way, birds to not get into the oil presses, because olives pass through a mesh in order to remove branches and leaves. Then they're washed, so there is no risk of contamination with dead birds.

I also suspect the decline of bird populations in the south has something to do with the big fires of past years, that forced northern predatory birds to come searching for food at lower latitudes. I have never seen so many eagles like this year.

Or the other side, the Eurasian magpie populations seem to be doing fine, as well as the once endangered storks.

Edit to add: the research cited in the article is not research but an information notice by the Environment Council of the government of Andalucia.

<comment><USER3> > I suspect the main reason behind the need for harvesting at night is that > the demand exceeds the supply

The third paragraph of the article suggests otherwise:

 _The trees are stripped at night because cool temperatures help preserve the olives ' aromatic compounds._

> so only non-migratory birds are afected[sic]

Again, the article begs to differ, these are migratory birds:

 _Huge numbers of birds from central and northern Europe winter in the Mediterranean_

<comment><USER2> _The trees are stripped at night because cool temperatures help preserve the olives ' aromatic compounds._

I don't think that is why they do it. First of all, producers are paid according to the titratable acidity of the oil (and classified as extra virgin, virgin, or lampante) and if paid by the tonne of olives delivered, this is adjusted to the oil-to-mass ratio (roughly 20% w/w). These values are determined in laboratory, from samples collected at delivery, and whose results come only at a later time. There is no measure for aroma.

Many times, batches from different producers are mixed before pressing, so there's no point in trying to preserve whatever aromas there might be.

Unless we're talking about producers with their own pressers, producing their own label, trying to preserve aroma is kind of pointless, and subjective at best.

But there is something else: the oil-to-mass ratio improves during dryer weeks, so transportation is cheaper and extraction is better paid. So maybe there is more pressure for a quick harvest in conditions where the oil content reaches 22%, but again I see no point in nightly harvest.

 _Huge numbers of birds from central and northern Europe winter in the Mediterranean_

But they are not being affected, that is, of all the 17 species mentioned in the cited notice, only one is listed as Near Threatened (the redwing, T. iliacus). Vulnerable or endangered species are not being affected as far as I know, and sedentary/endemic species would be in greater danger.

According to the Portuguese Natural Preservation Institute (ICNF) the numbers involved are not statistically relevant for justifying the prohibition of nightly harvests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article and the pics of the dead birds broke my heart. :-(

I can't understand any human not pausing to think twice and to find alternatives when faced with such horrendous death of innocent creatures. Yeah it's cheap and efficient but it kills millions of birds. Find another way! I don't want your fancy olives if you don't care about what you're doing to the birds.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious whether you feel the same way about windows, which kill _hundreds_ of millions of birds each year. [0]

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/stop-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/stop- blaming-cats-as-many-as-988-million-birds-die-annually-in-window- collisions/2014/02/03/9837fe80-8866-11e3-916e-e01534b1e132_story.html)

<comment><USER6> Also don't forget about wind turbines. Those result in some magnitude of thousands of bird kills (why is this such a contested figure‽) but are still necessary if we don't want to start rationing out electricity.

Edit: Wrong reply chain

<comment><USER7> The figure is disputed because it depends upon the kind of wind turbines. Old wind turbines were much smaller, they had more blades, and they turned much faster. My understanding is that this led to many more bird deaths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, the main problem is that they are harvesting at night, when the birds are going to be super docile. Birds really don't like to move during their resting period. (I can confirm, at least for chickens. Even super skittish chickens will let you grab/handle them at night, with little more than some clucks of protest.)

Other than not running the harvesters at night, I'm not sure what they could do about it. Even if they light up the whole grove as bright as day, I'd expect circadian rhythms to kick in eventually, though it might be enough to harvest first.

</comment><comment><USER9> So are we eating olives mixed with dead birds remains? It has to be impossible to clean up completely, no?

<comment><USER10> They sieve, blow and wash any foreign bodies out.

<comment><USER11> Be curious to know how they wash it.

Because having olives lying next to dead birds sure sounds like a disease risk.

<comment><USER12> Olives have to be cured in e.g. lye to become edible. Wouldn't that kill off pathogens?

<comment><USER13> Not to mention the salt

Curing olives implies to wash the raw fruit in saltwater and spices and discard the water after some hours or days. The procedure is redone as times as necessary to ged rid of the sour flavour. You can not eat it raw and green, they taste horrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can the process be slowed down, so that the birds are first woken up and given time to escape before the vacuuming starts?

<comment><USER15> I think something like this would work, or maybe trees should be "pre- shaken"/"pre-illuminated" to allow the birds to fly off

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would not it be the case to implement a way to scare birds with ultrasonic tools? Attach them to harvesters. There are ultrasonic tools that scare away dogs, there must be one for birds.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure how adding more noise would help if "The loud noise and dazzling illumination of the lights is thought to disorientate the birds" according to the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm from this area of Portugal and one day I realized there were way fewer sparrows than I remembered. I wonder if this is the cause

<comment><USER18> I have to say, I'm kinda surprised our farmers can afford such machinery. I thought we mostly used gas-powered or electric tree shakers ("varejadores").

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Greece is where olive was born. Today, Greeks harvest olives during the day and by hand. This is the natural way. Vaccuming olives at night for a slightly different taste in olive oil and killing so many birds which are members of our community does not make commonsense. I am Portuguese and if this tragedy does not stop by October 2019 rest assured that I will buy Greek only olive oil for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Had to read about this from another source, the cookies popup can't be dismissed and even when deleted from the DOM, the story is still unreadable.

<comment><USER2> On Firefox, open

      about:reader?url=https://www.birdguides.com/news/millions-of-birds-vacuumed-to-death-annually-in-mediterranean/

It won't show the comments, but at least you can read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does this make olives non-vegan since it's now known that harvesting them kills animals?

<comment><USER22> If so, then nothing but greenhouse grown plants are vegan. Millions of rodents and rabbits are killed each year (not really an exaggeration, they reproduce prolifically) using a variety of methods to prevent them from damaging crops.

One amusing example is removal of burrowing animals with FAEs; propane and oxygen is injected into a burrow and detonated. (Google for "rodent blaster" if you're curious.) It does have the advantage of being an entirely organic method of agricultural pest control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wonder if this will come back to bite them. Birds can be a form of free pest management.

</comment><comment><USER24> What kind of species are affected?

<comment><USER25> The photo in the article shows three Song Thrushes (Turdus philomelos) (the larger ones); the smaller one in the middle of the picture is most likely a Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). The small bird, the in background, next to one of the Song Thrushes appears to be a Serin (Serinus serinus). All are typical of Olive groves in winter.

The first two species are migrants from northern Europe. These successfully survived the Autumn migration so this has a more severe impact on their populations in general.

<comment><USER24> Are these in any way endangered?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you eat our food, if you compete with our food, or if you live close to our food: we will kill you.

<comment><USER27> Or if you simply exist, we'll also kill you in our factory farms.

<comment><USER28> Consider that a cow or other animal raised for slaughter would not have otherwise existed. Is it better to never have existed, or to live and be harvested? As for the factory part, I live in cattle country in Montana. I see acres of open spaces, and cows frolicking and enjoying themselves. They don't have to be packed shoulder to shoulder in crates their whole life.

<comment><USER29> I think the terror of understanding that your companions are disappearing day by day and any day now your number will be up combined with the final moments until execution probably exceed the fun of running about in fields. We may have no way to know. But then we have no right to assume this isn't the case.

<comment><USER28> Consider this exact situation, as you described it (edit: minor change, sub execution for some other death), plays out for aging humans. Dying is usually not pleasant and it happens to us all.

<comment><USER30> Yes, and many people don't get the quick death of a captive-bolt pistol to the forehead. Many people die in a hospital after years of suffering from gradual organ failure, dementia, cancer, or other terminal diseases.

Besides that, I don't think we know if cattle are aware that when their herdmates disappear that they are dying. Herd animals in the wild such as zebras and wildebeest witness their herdmates being killed by predatory cats on a daily basis, something I think would be far more traumatizing than just having them disappear on a truck. Maybe I'm wrong, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are URL Shorteners A Necessary Evil, Or Just Evil? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/06/are-url-shorteners-a-necessary-evil-or-just-evil/ <comment><USER2> I don't think they're always evil. Tinyurl started before Twitter, apparently mostly as a public service.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hyperlinking words rather than including actual URLs seems like the simple solution. Every time someone pastes a URL into Twitter, it should be replaced with an <a> tag and the word "link". 4 letters, and no 3rd party redirect required.

URL shorteners are great for newspapers printing links on paper, but on the internet, we've had this long URL problem solved since HTML 1.0.

<comment><USER4> It isn't as easy as encapsulating text in HTML. How would you deal with SMS? etc, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> maybe cell phone carriers could enter the 2009 and offer people linking in texts. How hard could it be

<comment><USER4> so we've gone from changing twitter messages to changing SMS :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would seem that if the shortened URL is known as a shortened URL, then it's just a mask for the primary URL.

In terms of the link structure of the net, it would seem that crawlers just need to know that tinyurl is a mask.

The bigger problem is the iframe for Digg and Facebook. The NYTimes used to actually bust out of that stuff when we created it back in our previous startup so that you couldn't run an ad alongside the publisher.</comment>


A college student used GPT-3, wrote fake blogposts and ended up at the top of HN - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt3-hacker-news-ai-blog <comment><USER2> Essentially a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24164470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24164470)</comment>


Webhook management in go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/PredictionGuru/webhook <comment><USER2> This might make a good "Show HN".</comment>


SplinterNet: An Unblockable Social Network for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/megamattron/SplinterNet

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks incredibly useful in light of the current moves to censor Twitter in other countries. My first thought is, shouldn't we write this for iOS as well? Unfortunately I doubt this app would be possible to create for iOS. There is no way to detect unpaired bluetooth devices while running in the background.[1]

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4204080/can-i-discover- ot...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4204080/can-i-discover-other-ios- devices-over-bluetooth-while-in-the-background)</comment>