Plutonium is Forever - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2011/03/plutonium-is-forever/ <comment><USER2> A meta point: Cringely is one of those bloggers who, previously, I have slated here on HN - I find his insights into technology poor, badly thought out or both. To make a bad joke; he makes me cringe.

So I've been (pleasantly) surprised to find his insights into Japan of actual interest and use. His tone is still a little breathy, and he tends to over- react to some items, but there is some real understanding of the culture/technology involved (I guess a fortunate meet up of having worked heavily in the nuclear industry _and_ Japan).

Which goes to show; never completely dismiss commentators, one day they might be useful reading.

<comment><USER3> It actually worries me. When I know something about the topic, I find his writing awful and full of problems and obviously dumb. Then, in another area where I know nothing, it seems decent. Is this because it is actually similarly dumb in this other area also, and I just don't know enough to spot it?

<comment><USER4> Didn't you post this same commentary already? Anyway I agree with you, get my +1; Sry, I mean".".

<comment><USER3> Nope, I post rarely. And I scanned the comments for something similar that I could just upvote instead. If it's here, I missed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something to be aware of: The fact that a radioactive material "is around forever" also implies that it is not very radioactive. You can't make a material that is both intensely radioactive _and_ stays around forever, because it's the radioactivity itself that makes it go away.

<comment><USER6> Plutonium is indeed not "intensely radioactive." The problem with Pu is that if you ingest it, it stays in your body so you can get enough radiation over time to cause cancer. So you're not going to get radiation sickness from Pu, it's just a very potent carcinogen.

<comment><USER7> I'm not particularly in favor of nuclear energy.

But it seems the danger of plutonium in particular may be exaggerated. I've mostly read the wikipedia article.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity>

 _Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Hiroshima survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed.

These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results.[89] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during the 1940's; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."[95][96]_ (etc, it's not something you'd want to ingest mind you).

Any counter-references are welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The plutonium was only found in trace amounts comparable to the amounts left behind by nearby nuclear weapons tests: <http://mitnse.com/2011/03/30/news- updates/>

<comment><USER9> In disaster management, you need to go big early. Start getting several projects under way, so if any of them are needed they can jump into effect as soon as the need is clear. Hopefully the contamination is minor, but we already know there's likely to be some significant cesium contamination for a while now, and Japan should have half a dozen task forces starting with the assumption that technology X will deal with the contamination, and figuring out what they need to do to implement it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This disaster has caused me to revisit my concerns regarding nuclear energy.

# One of the most challenging technologies ever developed, is under the control of politicians and bankers. A recipe in itself for technical disaster.

# Public concerns, under this regime, end up being counter-productive. "No new nukes" means extending the life of the oldest, most vulnerable technology.

# Human society has demonstrated no stability, sociologically, technologically, nor otherwise, approaching even vaguely the time frames required to safely utilize this technology. It is a huge bet, and burden, on future society -- on the entire planet, actually.

# Nuclear resources on this planet are limited, and unique in their performance profile. There may come a time when we need them for better uses, e.g. early space travel. Forgoing e.g. renewable energy resources for the sake of this "quick fix" is, in the long term, squandering an irreplaceable resource. (Call me when someone finally gets fusion to work.)

<comment><USER11> On the other hand it's important to weigh the risks of nuclear power fairly, relative to other power sources. These reactor accidents are novel, noteworthy, and dramatic, but how serious are these accidents in proper context?

Jumbo jet crashes are similarly dramatic and noteworthy, yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available, by a significant margin. Is the same bias for flashy and scary events happening with nuclear power?

Fukushima and Chernobyl are notable, but so is the failure of Fujinuma Dam (also due to the Tohoku earthquake), and the failure of Banqiao dam, and the Texas City disaster.

So far the record of the non-Soviet civilian nuclear power industry compares favorably with that of other industries and power sources, even including extrapolating some rather severe further evolutions of the Fukushima reactor disaster factored in.

<comment><USER12> "yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available"

Doesn't that depend on how you measure it, like accidents per miles or accidents per hours? Even if it would be safest by miles, I don't think it would follow that the safest way to get to work every morning would be by plane. It only works because airplanes go long distances, and accidents most frequently happen during starting or landing. In short, the comparison is not even very useful.

The question is also do we have to fly so much/do we need so much energy. If there were no airplanes, would people just travel the same distances by car? I doubt it.

<comment><USER11> Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively safe (1/4th as many fatalities per hour and 1/60th as many fatalities per mile, compared to automobiles).

<comment><USER13> > Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively > safe

The problem with that measure is that air accidents don't correlate with either hours or miles, but with takeoffs and landings.

The comparable incident for cars is probably intersections.

Yes, each plane trip involves only one takeoff and landing while each car trip usually involves multiple intersections, but that just means that simple comparisons don't tell us very much.

<comment><USER11> What's important for humans is whether spending time in an airplane or in a car is more dangerous and whether choosing to use an airplane or a car for a trip is more dangerous. In either case the airplane is safer than the car.

<comment><USER14> Most car crashes occur near the home, at distances that make air travel impractical. Who drives to the airport to fly 3 miles? Comparing "car miles driven on trips" to air miles would be more enlightening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some interesting insights into the culture of Japan (and corporations both Japanese and American). Is there a way we could help that would be more amenable to the Japanese culture and way of handling things?

Saving face is an important aspect of Asian cultures and if we are truly trying to help them on humanitarian grounds, we should try to become more effective rather than bemoan the fact that they have pride in their culture.

It is an interesting test these days to think how would America respond to foreign help/intervention - I didn't follow what happened post-Katrina but it seems like we also downplayed foreign aid and focused on American rescue efforts.

<comment><USER16> My understanding of face is, you first have to understand that East Asians are often _terrible_ verbal communicators. Americans _say_ that "actions speak louder than words", but in Japan they mean it (even if they don't say it).

I think that if you tell them that rescue teams (or nuclear scientists) are en-route, it's wouldn't be seen as piss-poor communication on your behalf, but a unconditional act of friendship. Asking them if they want help will most likely get a "no".

I think you may also need to have already made connections with the right people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> All nuclear plants should switch to Thorium to be honest. Much safer and there's so much available, it's crazy. Shame that it didn't get researched that much since it's not so good for making nukes.

</comment><comment><USER18> I plead ignorance. Why does a nuclear power station need an external power source? Obviously there is a good reason, but my sleep deprived brain can't fathom it.

<comment><USER19> Very simply, when a nuclear reactor stops, the fission products in the fuel rods continue to decay and therefore continue to generate heat. A lot of heat. An external power source is needed to take that heat away from the fuel. Failing to keep the reactor cool can potentially be rather catastrophic.

There is lots of information online. Why not start here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_safety#Failure_modes_of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_safety#Failure_modes_of_nuclear_power_plants)

<comment><USER20> Spent fuel rods even continue to generate a nontrivial amount of heat months after they've been removed from the reactor - one of the problems at Fukushima is the spent fuel pools (which are located near the top of the reactor buildings, outside the secondary containment).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Watch this, if you have not already.

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319&hl=en#)

</comment><comment><USER22> Fix problems early and often.

I currently work at Japanese company in San Jose, but I don't see this type of behavior. The caveat is that I've only worked for a year here, so I may not be exposed yet.

I'd really like to know if Japanese society looks down on people who have embarrassed themselves. The executives must have a reason to prevent embarrassment and risk lives.

</comment><comment><USER23> The comment about people who wished that they had written books, in opposition to wishing to actually write one, resonates with me.

"But it's like those people I meet on airplanes who find out what I do for a living and tell me they would really like to write a book: what they mean is that they would like tohave written a book."

</comment><comment><USER24> Now I'm starting to get worried. This has been up for 2 hours, and typically the "atomic trolls" would have at least 5-6 comments up about how all of this is nothing to worry about. So I guess this is truly bad.

<comment><USER25> I'm no "atomic troll" and radioactive contamination at Fukushima is potentially a significant problem. But the detected plutonium levels are almost insignificant compared to the detected Cs-137 contamination (whose half-life is 30 years, not months):

[http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp- com/release/betu11_e/im...](http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp- com/release/betu11_e/images/110328e14.pdf) (Pu) [http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfil...](http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/28/1304097_2810.pdf) (Cs-137)

The activity of Cs-137 is orders of magnitude greater.

<comment><USER24> Since day 1, I've been reading things like "Unless something catastrophic and unexpected happens, things are ok."

The problem is, catastrophic and unexpected things keep happening. I find the whole thing really depressing, as I think long-term, nuclear power is the best source of energy. But how do you implement it properly? That I don't know.

<comment><USER26> That probably has something to do with why you aren't a nuke plant designer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The plant should have been dismantled, flooded, and buried within 24 hours of the emergency generators going down. They knew how bad it was/is, this all could have been prevented.

<comment> Tuna-Fish ...

It is simply not possible to dismantle a nuclear reactor that close after shutdown -- the power produced by radioactive decay heat right after shutdown is in the order of 10MW, and the core is incredibly hot for weeks. If they had done everything as well as they possibly could, they would not be any closer to dismantling the plants than they are today. The best course would have been to maintain cooling so that nothing would have been damaged -- they tried this and failed. The failures in their actions are not asking for more help earlier, not in the basic course of action they took. The idea that the reactors should have been buried with 24 hours of the emergency generators going down betrays basic lack of knowledge of the facts of the situation. Should you have tried to bury a core that has been active less than a day before without considerable active cooling, it would have simply melted it's way to the water table.

The total amount of plutonium that has been released into the environment so far is minuscule. It is significant because it serves as an unmistakable indicator that the cladding for the rods has melted, meaning that should any containment fail now, the results would be catastrophic. But we knew that -- TEPCO said that the cladding was melting on 14th of March. Still, unless something unexpected and catastrophic happens now, the nuclear side of this disaster will still kill more people in Germany than Japan.

<comment><USER28> Germany?

<comment><USER29> They've temporarily shut off all their nuclear plants constructed before 1980. They need to get power from _somewhere_ , and nuclear power has the lowest number of deaths per terawatt-hour of any currently-viable competing energy source.

Coal pollutes the atmosphere and kills miners (among other things). Natural gas has an unpleasant tendency to explode during handling, and is considerably more expensive than coal. And so on.

<comment><USER28> I think that last thing is inaccurate. Because of better efficiency, simpler plant design, and no fly ash disposal natural gas generated electricity is a little cheaper at current prices. This was a surprise to me, because coal can be 15-70% the price per BTU vs natural gas (coal prices and energy density vary by region).

Nuclear may have the lowest number of deaths/power, but technically the Space Shuttle was the safest way to fly from 1977 to 1986.

<comment> Tuna-Fish I'd like to point out that even if there were a Chernobyl every two weeks, nuclear would still kill less than coal.

I'm not necessarily that pro-nuclear, I just cannot fathom why all the outrage in power production seems to be directed towards nuclear while coal, that kills ~2700 people worldwide _every day_ is still being used.

<comment><USER28> What did I say that made you think I wasn't aware of how destructive coal generate power is? I don't need to point out why people are talking so much more about nuclear power safety than coal safety over the past month or so.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Computing Partial Differential Equations with Water - <AUTHOR> http://pruned.blogspot.com/2012/01/gardens-as-crypto-water-computers.html <comment><USER2> In Sir Terry Pratchett's novel _Making Money_ there is a hydraulic analog computer used to model the economy of Ankh-Morpork[1]. Sounds very much as if Pratchett might have heard of this Russian one. However according to that article, the Glooper was in fact modeled after another hydraulic analog computer, the MONIAC[2].

[1] [http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Glooper](http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Glooper)

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

<comment><USER3> Not only was the Glooper used to _model_ the economy, in typical Discworld fashion it came to actually _mirror_ the economy, such that manipulating the Glooper would cause the same changes in the economy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> More model than computer, but from 1939 to 1972 there was a water driven model of the Mississippi River basin used to solve the flood models. It covered 200 acres (a little less than 1 square kilometer) and was useful until computers replaced it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Mode...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Model)

It is unmaintained but is now a park and can be visited.

</comment><comment><USER5> The University of Cambridge has a Phillips machine that works, if you're lucky it's even possible to get a demonstration. Here's a video of a demo given in 2010:

[https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1094078](https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1094078)

One interesting thing is that by attaching markers to the floats, and turning spools of paper on motors, it's possible for the machine to draw graphs as it operates.

</comment><comment><USER6> you can see the moniac running if you happen to be in wellington on the first(?) friday of the month. there's a refurbished one in the foyer of the reserve bank (invented by a NZer - while employed in another country of course).

<comment><USER7> I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure the one in the Science Museum in London runs, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Only partially off topic: I like the picture "Etienne Dupérac's bird's-eye plan view of the gardens at Villa d'Este, Tivoli" in the article, and (other than the fact that it can be seen as a giant water computer) specifically those multiple maze gardens in there.

The fact that there are multiple maze gardens in there makes me think that maybe this was not as a cool attraction, but with the actual purpose of someone being able to walk all the way to the center of it, sit there with a book or so and have some actual peace and quiet time without too much disturbance of others?

That's quite different from todays always connected world :)

</comment><comment><USER9> A more in depth version of this article that covers more examples: [http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/05/10/gardens-as-crypto- water-...](http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/05/10/gardens-as-crypto-water- computers/)</comment>


Apple script resizes iPad banner and pushes Samsung verdict out of view - <AUTHOR> https://ssl.apple.com/v/home/n/scripts/hero_resize.js <comment><USER2> This behaviour is the same on apple.de or apple.jp, so it's not just the UK site. Moreover, it was added only 2 days after the judgement was upheld:

        HEAD /v/home/n/scripts/hero_resize.js HTTP/1.1
        Host: www.apple.com

        HTTP/1.1 200 OK
        Server: Apache
        **Last-Modified: Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:31:51 GMT**
        Accept-Ranges: bytes
        Content-Length: 632
        Content-Type: application/x-javascript
        Cache-Control: max-age=600
        Expires: Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:04:23 GMT
        Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:54:23 GMT
        Connection: keep-alive

I believe this was _before_ the homepage was altered to display the ruling. Moreover, this was also just 2 days before the iPad mini was announced. Far more likely this is just related to new product announcements than any nefarious scheme.

<comment><USER3> Well, theres a screenshot here:

<http://i.imgur.com/KH555.jpg>

They fudged with the sizes, through this script here or not.

<comment><USER2> This only seems to occur on apple.com. The resizing behaviour happens on all country specific sites I've tried.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really hope they get reamed by the judge again for this. It would be great to see them forced to place the verdict at the top of the page. Unfortunately, the judge probably has no idea what JS is.

<comment><USER5> I think you too have no idea what JS is. The script basically resizes the window based on weather you're on a touch device or not. It has nothing to do with the Samsung apology.

<comment><USER4> > I think you too have no idea what JS is. The script basically resizes the > window based on weather you're on a touch device or not.

Actually, you're the one who has no idea what JS is. I just resized a Chrome window with <http://www.apple.co.uk/> loaded in it on my Windows desktop PC. As I changed the height of the window, the content above the Samsung apology was resized so that the apology would be hidden unless I scrolled down. It is most definitely not restricted to touch devices.

<comment><USER6> Same here, 1440x900px screen. You have to make the content tiny before you see the statement above the fold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This script was already used in september for the iPhone 5 homepage. This is simply called vertical responsive design. See these screenshots for exemple : [http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnblanc/7980347228/in/photos...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnblanc/7980347228/in/photostream)

It has nothing to do with the Samsung trial's verdict.

<comment><USER8> It is not used on the US site which does not feature the statement.

If it did I might agree with you, but in the current state of affairs it looks really fishy.

<comment><USER9> > It is not used on the US site which does not feature the statement.

But the resize _is_ used on apple.de, apple.co.jp, apple.ca, and a lot of othe country-specific sites, none of which display the statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't see what the big deal is. When I go to <http://apple.co.uk> I see a statement about Samsung in reasonably sized, clear print:

"On 25 October 2012, Apple Inc. published a statement on its UK website in relation to Samsung's Galaxy tablet computers. That statement was inaccurate and did not comply with the order of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The correct statement is at Samsung/Apple UK judgement."

Screenshot, in case you see something else: <http://imgur.com/79bBm>

Edit: Oh, I see...the statement gets pushed below the first visible page so you have to scroll to see it, which most people don't. Still, so what? Where did you guys expect them to put it? Tattooed on Tim Cook's forehead? Joe the plumber doesn't care about intellectual property disputes between electronics companies.

<comment><USER11> Joe the plumber may not care, but then Joe can't hold Apple in contempt.

<comment><USER12> Neither can the Judge. The exact wording is right there. So what if you have to scroll to see it. That isn't contempt.

<comment><USER11> If the intent is for it to be readily visible, then it may be contempt; they could have set the text colour to be #FFFFFF and it would still be the right words on the front page....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This stuff makes this company so incredibly unlikable.

Maybe some uninformed consumers don't see it, but for informed people Apple loses sympathy every day with this behavior.

<comment><USER14> As someone who _wants_ to like Apple (and owns a bunch of iOS gear), I agree. But the fanboys are loving it. I'll never understand that kind of corporate partisanship.

Realistically, 99% of potential customers won't even know about this sort of thing. But sometimes I do wish Apple would just make the tiny bit of effort to step on to the moral high ground.

<comment><USER15> >I'll never understand that kind of corporate partisanship.

It's no different from sport and patriotism. It's exactly the same mentality. Everyone* has their team.

<comment><USER14> But with sports, at least there's a purpose. It's not very interesting if you don't care about the outcome, so you pick teams to support. Preferably local ones so you can go to games. And it's fun.

With companies, you gain absolutely nothing by "supporting" them in the same way. You're just ceding objectivity that's useful when making purchasing decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just for the record.

var HeroResize=AC.Class({initialize:function(b){this._height=null;this._hero=$(b); AC.Object.synthesize(this);this.__boundResizeHero=this.resizeHero.bindAsEventListener(this); if(typeof window.ontouchstart==="undefined"){this.resizeHero();Event.observe(window,"resize",this.__boundResizeHero) }},setHeight:function(b){this._height=(b<0)?0:b;return this._height},resizeHero:function(){this.setHeight(parseInt(window.innerHeight||(window.document.documentElement.clientHeight||window.document.body.clientHeight),10)-310); this.hero().style.height=this.height()+"px"}});Event.onDOMReady(function(){var b=new HeroResize("billboard") });

<comment><USER17>
        var HeroResize = AC.Class({
            initialize: function (b) {
                this._height = null;
                this._hero = $(b);
                AC.Object.synthesize(this);
                this.__boundResizeHero = this.resizeHero.bindAsEventListener(this);
                if (typeof window.ontouchstart === "undefined") {
                    this.resizeHero();
                    Event.observe(window, "resize", this.__boundResizeHero)
                }
            },
            setHeight: function (b) {
                this._height = (b < 0) ? 0 : b;
                return this._height
            },
            resizeHero: function () {
                this.setHeight(parseInt(window.innerHeight || (window.document.documentElement.clientHeight || window.document.body.clientHeight), 10) - 310);
                this.hero().style.height = this.height() + "px"
            }
        });
        Event.onDOMReady(function () {
            var b = new HeroResize("billboard")
        });

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Man, this just keeps getting better... You think after the first time they would just have accepted the loss, put up the message, and gone on with things. It's amazing the extent they are willing to go to subvert the verdict. Of course, this is only if the script is indeed meant to push the ruling out of view...

<comment><USER19> I think even without the script story it's plain that Apple is acting like a child here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess the judge will soon design the Apple frontpage himself with MS Paint, if Apple doesn't stop this behaviour in the next few days.

</comment><comment><USER21> They've still got the deliberate line break between "do not" and "infringe". That trick is designed to blunt the impact of the message:

        do not infringe

</comment><comment><USER22> Additionally, there is a script to measure what fraction of people scroll down. That script is not new; Apple knows exactly how many people this will prevent from seeing the notice.

</comment><comment><USER23> This whole thing is turning into a PR disaster for Apple... Some variation on the Streisand Effect.

When Apple first posted the "apology" Gruber et al all whooped up how clever Apple was. A bit of blowback now.

<comment><USER24> > Some variation on the Streisand Effect.

In this case, the variation is "a bunch of nerds try desperately to make a mountain out of a molehill and nobody cares except themselves".

Maybe we should come up with a new name.

<comment><USER23> The "Kardashian Effect"?

After all, nobody gives a fuck about her :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can someone explain though, non-code, under what conditions is the resizing taking place?

<comment><USER26> The onresize event fires whenever you change the sized of your browser window. Eg it occurs when you maximize the window or when you click-and-drag on the corner of the window in order to make it smaller or larger. See also <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/window.onresize>

<comment><USER27> and when you zoom out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Do we know whether or not this was the behavior on the site prior to them having to post this ?

<comment><USER29> Judging from the fact that this same behavior does _not_ occur on the apple.com site, which is running the same exact promo of the iPad mini, my guess is that this is something new and not the existing behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Unfortunately in trying to be clever, they destroyed the page when trying to zoom in and out.

<http://i.imgur.com/ssKsU.png>

So they sacrificed accessibility for what, trying to be childish and clever in the execution of a court order?

</comment><comment><USER31> The statement can be found on <http://www.apple.co.uk> for anyone wondering.

</comment><comment><USER32> What page of the apple site should I be looking at to see this script in action?

<comment><USER33> apple.co.uk

<comment><USER32> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The sleezy-ness of Apple is completely unacceptable as of late

</comment><comment><USER35> I could have seen this being unrelated and just a UX polishing touch, but then they didn't think to put it on the other versions of the site to at least try and make it less suspicious.

Pushing past the limits of acceptability now, they should face some fairly serious punishment for this.

</comment><comment><USER36> This post's title is a little off.

Apple is using a script to push the verdict "below the fold".

</comment><comment><USER37> I went to the page to see what all the bother was about and ended up buying an iPad mini (to replace nexus 7). Thanks Samsung. You can't pay for this publicity.

</comment><comment><USER38> Plausible deniability or no, Apple was very dumb not to put themselves above reproach here.

If a CSS/JS behavior interferes with your ability to comply with a court order, that just means you have two problems.

I for one don't believe Apple is being contrite and forthright about the harm they were judged to do to Samsung in the marketplace. These judges will clearly lean on Apple until they get the message.

</comment><comment><USER39> They are also using a 'sosumi' comment, guess they still want to tweak someone's nose.

        $ curl -s www.apple.com/uk/ | grep -A 1 /sosumi

On 25 October 2012, Apple Inc. published a statement on its UK website...

<comment><USER40> That's actually for the div for Apple's copyright notice, which has a classname of sosumi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> They are really playing with fire...

</comment><comment><USER42> This is just a trick by Apple who don't want to admit to doing anything wrong. Expect the judge to notice this and issue another order that the text must be readable and not covered up with Javscript tricks.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't see the Samsung verdict anywhere on the page or in the source.

<comment><USER18> It only shows up on <http://www.apple.co.uk>, since the ruling was made in the UK.

<comment><USER44> I wonder if I go to <http://www.apple.com/> if it redirects to the UK site if I'm in the UK?

<comment><USER15> It doesn't, but this has always been the case. Apple didn't even own apple.co.uk until recently; the official site was apple.com/uk

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Did they just update the homepage on apple.com? Shows the iPad 4th gen now.

</comment><comment><USER46> unfair!

</comment><comment><USER47> While a bit deceptive, I think it's rather funny and cute. I almost get the impression that Apple is intentionally mocking the court. I know it doesn't make business sense, but it seems like they had to know they're taking a bit of a risk in not complying in full-faith.

</comment><comment><USER48> Samsung is a soul less copy cat. Of course I push any word of them below the fold.</comment>


The World Wants More Danish TV - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/14/arts/television/denmark-netflix-labor-shortage.html <comment><USER2> There have been so many extra shows filmed here in Denmark that we've had to import extra rain from Norway, and push sunrise an hour later to give enough moody darkness.

<comment><USER3> Oh, common you would still have enough wind to blow everything away.

Btw I'm looking forward to see the next Lego movie to be created in Denmark where it belongs, preferably with life cast as well, that could be a huge international success (only half joking here).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Competitive advantage takes weird forms.

Over here in Japan the streaming platforms have fueled a massive boom in anime production. Established studios are full up on productions and work is slowly getting out sourced to related fields.

By my count the biggest competition is coming to game's on 3d modeling side. Modeling used to be split market wise but as games have gotten higher poly, and movies/rendering has moved to realtime rendering, the two markets are competing more for the same human resources.

<comment><USER5> Good cause the industry is treating 3D artists very badly, and I'm hoping competition will force them to become decent.

<comment> rkuykendall-com As long as there are people willing to be abused, abuse will continue, as it's the most economical business model.

People will continue to line up to be abused in exchange for being able to work on anime / video games / spaceships / insert toxic industry here.

The only exception I can think of is acting, where they stopped this with extremely strict and mandatory guilds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What enjoys widespread appeal is however the cream of the crop. Being raised in Sweden I often opt out of watching a Swedish movie or tv-show simply because everything that makes Nordic Noir good, morally complex stories with plain language, can make the main characters insufferable and obnoxious. You have to remember that the most exciting stories in a culture are about those who do something daring and in Scandinavia, where we are very conflict averse, you thus get heroes acting like assholes because we wouldn't dare do that ourselves.

It can work quite well as evidenced by the popularity of _The Bridge_ , _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ and others ... but it can also not work out at all if you don't sympathize with the characters' cause. That's why they're almost all crime dramas, because asshole or not, we all sympathize in their attempt to catch the bad guy. Try watching a Scandinavian romantic drama to see what I mean.

</comment><comment><USER7> Somewhat off topic, but I saw Norsemen mentioned elsewhere in the thread ...

Norsemen was filmed simultaneously in Norwegian and English (the actors did each scene in one language and then the other). That way Norwegian audiences can enjoy this expensive-to-make show in their native tongue, and it can also gain widespread popularity in the much larger English-speaking world (which pays the bills).

I recently read that Hinterland (aka Y Gwyll) did the same with Welsh and English.

Anyhow, is there a name for this technique of producing a show in multiple languages simultaneously? Any other examples of it? It seems like a good idea for producing high-quality content in languages that otherwise wouldn't necessarily attract that level of investment.

<comment><USER8> Not exactly what you're describing, but the story of the two Draculas of 1931 is fun:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr%C3%A1cula_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr%C3%A1cula_\(film\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://archive.md/lTB8s](http://archive.md/lTB8s)

<comment><USER10> You're the hero I needed today

<comment><USER11> Check your local library. Mine (Toronto) has a feature that you can link your card and via the library portal and get full access to the NYTimes (except for the crossword). Works with the native NYTimes apps, too. Only annoying thing is you have to re-login via the library portal every 3 days.

This, on top of a lot of other products (Lynda.com, Safari books online) means you may have a lot of free resources. And check your local major city if you're in a suburb. You can have a Toronto library account if you live, work, or go to school within the city.

<comment><USER12> The crossword is precisely the thing I want! Foiled again!

<comment><USER13> No NYT but a bunch of other high profile ones, use Shortyz

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can highly recommend "Rita" (Danish) and "Bonus Family" (Swedish), truly scandinavian takes on the modern family theme.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hope it doesn't lead to them trying to make American shows that are ostensibly set in the Nordic countries but don't feel at all like it. It's already happened to the UK.

<comment><USER16> Interesting. Here's a related phenomenon: currently Spanish-speaking Netflix is flooded with a batch of Spanish-made comedies, romances, dramas and thrillers -- the most high-profile of which is The Money Heist ("La Casa de Papel") -- most of which have a distinctly Hollywood/generic feel to them. Every character and situation is a cliché from Hollywood, with no local flavor. Save for the accents of some of the actors, there's no Spanish feel to these shows. Even the credits soundtrack is in English.

I wonder if the _netflixization_ of shows will tend to erradicate local flavor forever, and if so -- what's even the point of watching them? I don't want to watch yet another heist movie or prison drama, only with Spanish actors instead of American ones.

<comment><USER17> What about Paquita Salas! That show is brilliant and has Spain coming out of every orifice. So much so that I don't even bother recommending it to English speakers because they won't get so many of the references

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would say that in general nordic TV is in demand. There's even a genre[1] associated to the trend. Some nice serials (various genres):

\- Bordertown (Sorjonen - Finland)

\- Follow the money (Bedrag - Denmark)

\- Trapped (Ófærð - Iceland)

\- Home ground (Heimebane - Norway)

\- Vår tid är nu (Sweden)

And stretching location a bit:

\- Save me (UK)

\- Bad banks (Germany)

\- Le bureau des légendes (France)

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

<comment><USER19> My picks:

      - Beforeigners (Norway)
      - Lilyhammer (Norway)
      - Welcome to Sweden (Sweden)
      - Young pope (Italy)
      - Brillant friend (Italy)
      - Deutschland 83 / 86 (Germany)

<comment><USER20> Including Italy is stretching the definition of Nordic though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They're all crime procedurals. I'd like to see more Scandinavian prestige dramas not centered around detectives returning to their hometowns or whatever.

<comment><USER22> I like the UK ones because you see the cops approach the job differently. In the US, the default response of an American cop would be to shoot first and ask questions later. In the UK shows you get more of a cerebral drama and see a situation unfold evolve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Any recommendations for comedy shows from this region? Seems like only crime shows get hyped over here, but speaking for myself, I'd like to understand the culture a little better. Comedies seem like a good way to explore that.

<comment><USER24> Klovn.

<comment><USER25> +1 If you enjoy 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' you'll love Klovn. The creators admit to being inspired by / ripping it off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any recommendations for Danish tv shows?

(can't open the article)

<comment><USER27> _The_ Danish TV series has to be Matador. Not sure about its availability or if it's the sort of show you had in mind. But it's entertaining and really well written and it tells a lot about Denmark and the Danish self image. I'm re-watching it now with my family and we are all really enjoying it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matador_(Danish_TV_series)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matador_\(Danish_TV_series\))

<comment><USER28> I think the biggest issue for danish releases is that the producers and distributors haven't bothered with english subtitles, even though most releases would see a scandinavian edition, but not an english one for whatever reason.

I would love to show my girlfriend one of the Olsenbanden movies, but there are no international releases I could find. I did write to Nordisk Film to ask about it, but I got no response back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Supply and demand. Pay 2x or 3x or... and you will get people you need.

<comment><USER2> That might work for some roles (you can bring anyone from within the EU with little to no paperwork) but there will be a limited number of people who speak Danish and are familiar with or have contacts in the country.

Cost of living is already very high here, so it is presumably already more expensive than filming almost anywhere else in Europe. 2–3× may go beyond a reasonable budget.

<comment><USER30> Also quite expensive, since the Danish government provides a lacklustre funding for filming, according to Danish film makers. Even Danish productions often goes to places like the Czech Republic to film, because financial advantages are much better there.

<comment><USER31> Do Danish filmmakers feel it's essential that the government fund their work?

<comment><USER32> Many european filmmakers but also many European publics, feel that it's not just essential that the state fund such work, but also part of the role of state.

They don't consider the government some hateful opponent entity (or rather, they don't consider the state that. They can still hate this or that particular party / person running the government, protest its decisions, etc.).

The government is people they have voted into power to pass laws and guide the state machinery. They expect from the state to promote arts and fund culture, the same way they expect of it to make roads and maintain public infrastructure.

The US doesn't need that because

(a) there's not an emphasis on culture in the European sense, it's more about entertainment, most don't even believe there's a distinction between these two

(b) it dominates globally and has the most money, so they can push their culture everywhere anyway and teach global audiences to prefer their ware from a young age (after enough Spielberg and Michael Bay and superhero stuff kids become desensitized to movies with no SFX and explosions -- that happened to European cinema -- once equally or more popular as the American in Europe -- after the late 80s and the rise of the Spielberg era),

(c) it still gives all kinds of incentives, tax breaks, government (e.g. army) support for movies anyway, just doesn't call it for what it is

<comment><USER33> Curious that you didn't cite the most salient reason why the film industry in the US isn't directly funded by the government: it is a wildly profitable industry.

Various states, notably Georgia, provide tax breaks and other incentives to lure studios into filming in their jurisdiction.

<comment><USER34> So, you're saying that US governments in fact do fund the American movie industry?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm from denmark and I don't watch danish TV/movies at all.

<comment><USER36> k

<comment><USER35> o</comment></comment></comment>


Eyes Are Amazing: A Slow Motion Look at Our Biological Lens - <AUTHOR> http://www.petapixel.com/2011/10/18/eyes-are-amazing-a-slow-motion-look-at-our-biological-lens/

<comment><USER2> It's amazing to think that given enough time, a small light sensitive splotch on a cell wall can turn into that.</comment>


Ask HN: (CloudFlare bug) - Why does write() in C allow negative length? - <AUTHOR> In context of the CloudFare fiasco, the bug report[1] states this<p>>> My current theory is that they had some code in their "ScrapeShield" feature that did something like this:<p>>> int Length = ObfuscateEmailAddressesInHtml(&OutputBuffer, CachedPage);<p>>> write(fd, OutputBuffer, Length);<p>>> But they weren't checking if the obfuscation parsers returned a negative value because of malformed HTML. This would explain the data I'm seeing.<p>I haven't used C in my professional career (I mainly use Java), so the fact that this function allowed a negative value, for "num bytes to write", to be passed to it and then even went on to write data without throwing an error for passing a negative value baffles me. I'm genuinely curious why this function doesn't throw an error for negative "num bytes to write". Is there any use case which I'm missing where it would be valid to send a negative value and expect it to write negative number of bytes?<p>[1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1139 <comment><USER2> I've written a gist that somewhat explains this:

[https://gist.github.com/technion/a16095fa6e3a027d6bc938ad6f9...](https://gist.github.com/technion/a16095fa6e3a027d6bc938ad6f9bdc50)

write() doesn't "print a negative number", as per the man page, write(2) takes a size_t for an argument. And what that means is explained if you run that gist:

        We have a count of 18446744073709551611 and will write that many characters

In short, you're looking at a signed, negative integer, cast to a very large positive integer. clang will only print a warning if you compile with -Wconversion and whilst I like to do that in my own code, most people find that too noisy.

Edit: Personally, I feel this "email obfuscation feature" should never have been written in the first place. There are a myriad of options for people to do this in their own website without something this obviously complex being built into an nginx module of a CDN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see what you are saying. So that function actually accepts a size_t which is a unsigned type. I now understand why this call to the function went through without any exceptions. When I posted my question, I was referring to this page[1] which claims the type for the "numBytes" to be a signed integer.

[1] [https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~liberti/public/computing/p...](https://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~liberti/public/computing/prog/c/C/FUNCTIONS/write.html)

<comment><USER2> I'm going to assume this is an age thing, because the example linked on that page has a date of 1996.

This is more accurate for every platform I've actually worked with:

[http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/write.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man2/write.2.html)

<comment><USER3> Hello, I understand your example, but when putting

         write(fd, buf, count);

inside your my_write function... it doesn't work. Is there something more? Thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Be a sociopath—or just act like one - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/self-help <comment><USER3> Ugh.

Firstly: Yeah, you should be aware of what things cost and what benefit you get from them. Yeah, be prepared. And, yeah, think about the world in which you live and the other people you share it with. If you really want something, make a plan to get it. The words that describes these are "thoughtful" or "responsible," not "sociopathic." (Disrupting academic conferences and acting obnoxious on airplanes -- that's what we call "childish.")

What bothers me here, though, is that it feeds into this dipshit notion I keep running into that in order to be successful you have to be some kind of self- centered asshole. "Yeah, well Steve jobs would yell at people to their face when they said something he thought was stupid." Yeah, well for every asshole Steve Jobs, there are a million assholes no one wants to have anything to do with.

This woman, for example: she sounds awful. I'm sure she thinks she's some awesome-sauce lion-tamer of the universe, wielding her wiles and "remarkably beautiful breasts" like a ninja and slicing her way through life. The people who have to deal with her on a regular basis probably see right through her, roll their eyes, and try to leave her out of their lives as much as possible because whenever they invite her to a dinner party she makes a huge annoying scene and then steals a bunch of food from the fridge.

<comment><USER4> I don't accept this premise. True sociopaths are typically not "assholes", or someone you don't want to be around. I'd bet this woman is probably VERY charming.

<comment><USER5> Until you get to know her, and then you realise that she is manipulative and unable to make real friends.

<comment><USER4> I would argue that you would never be able to see the manipulative aspect of her personality clear enough to have it affect the relationship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, those rules are really for the petty sociopath. If you do it, do it big.

1\. Disregard unspoken rules, but not the small ones like not donating at the museum, think more rules like "you just can't enter this industry", "you can't just schedule a meeting with that CEO". Those can have an immense ROI, while the petty ones may get you a punch to the face.

2\. You should also live in the best place possible for your budget - negotiate down to the last dollar, but not for some shi%%y apartment in some shi%%y ghetto.

3\. Rule 3 seems accurate - if you can't do it on your own, take some drugs :-).

4\. A few prepared anecdotes is short sighted - you should learn human psychology and the art of social manipulation for the best results.

5\. Or get them from the inside - blend in, build up support, then announce your true intentions (aka the dictator way).

<comment><USER7> >1\. Disregard unspoken rules, but not the small ones like >not donating at the museum, think more rules like "you just >can't enter this industry", "you can't just schedule a >meeting with that CEO". Those can have an immense ROI, >while the petty ones may get you a punch to the face.

Not sure if this is a good example. I've unsuccessfully proposed meetings with someone above me from a different department. Maybe I should've created Outlook invitations? ;)

<comment><USER6> But did it have any negative consequences? Trying and not succeeding is better than not trying at all - there's always the chance that you will get the desired result (maybe by applying Rule 4 :-))...

Also, since you've been rejected, why not start your own rejection therapy - [http://www.entresting.com/blog/100-days-of-rejection- therapy...](http://www.entresting.com/blog/100-days-of-rejection-therapy/)

<comment><USER7> No negative consequences, just knowing the fact that this guy really didn't want to talk to me. ;-)

> [http://www.entresting.com/blog/100-days-of-rejection- > therapy...](http://www.entresting.com/blog/100-days-of-rejection-therapy/)

Yeah I know it, saw some Videos of it. Just awesome, one should really apply that stuff in Business life

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really stupid. You don't have to be sociopathic to disregard convention and think things through for yourself. Much better to seek enlightenment and self awareness, and then make rational choices about which emotions you indulge and which you discard. Disregarding all empathy is only useful for obtaining material things, the desire for which is itself irrational and self-defeating for non-sociopaths.

To give an example, I personally don't say prepared anecdotes and eat extra food at parties. I have fun at parties and engage people in enjoyable conversations. When I meet new people I'm warm and friendly and I make an effort to form genuine connections. As a consequence, people like me and I have close friends who love me and enjoy my company. You can't look at all the fun and laughter and human warmth I have in my life and tell me I should trade it all in for some snack food and a more calculated image. That is completely stupid. Only someone who cannot enjoy human company should think like that, and those people should be pitied not admired.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is an evolutionary dead-end. You want to be the OPPOSITE of a sociopath and learn to love, and give into people.

Read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "Never Eat Alone". This be selfish crap is both evil, and harmful to your social-standing, not to mention ineffective.

No one is an island, so reach out to people and give as much of yourself to others as you can. Give unconditionally and don't keep score. Empower and inform others, and seek out the same from people. Life is not a zero-sum game: whole of society is better for it when you help just one person.

<comment><USER10> I like being alone a lot, though. Not all the time, just a significant portion of my time. It's not that I'm scared, anxious, depressed or a sociopathic asshole, I'm just passionate about a lot of things that don't involve other people. I agree with almost everything you said, except "give as much of yourself to others as you can". Change it to "give as much of yourself to others as you feel like" and I'll buy it.

<comment><USER11> You can give yourself to others and contribute to the world at large without physically being around other people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sociopaths exploit inefficiencies in the social landscape by subverting or ignoring norms. On the one hand, sociopaths are easy to hate because of this; they cut in line, lie when it suits them, cheat on their spouses, etc. But on the other hand, they are sometimes easy to admire precisely because they ignore the little "glue" rules that keep polite society humming along so nicely. They are rebels in that regard.

Steve Jobs is the perfect example. Steve was a classic sociopath. He would show up to important meetings in jean shorts and prop his dirty, bare feet up on the table. He exploited a loophole in California law that allowed him to drive without license plates. He was regularly abusive to his employees, not out of malice, but to achieve his personal goals related to perfection and execution. It's perfectly justified to both revile and admire him.

</comment><comment><USER13> I find the article repugnant; it glorifies selfishness.

'How to apply [rule #1] to your own life: Ignore "suggested donation" pleas at museums, always help yourself to more food and drinks at dinner parties and recline your seat all the way back when flying."'

I wish this article were meant as satire, but I don't think it is.

<comment> guard-of-terra It glorifies extracting diminishing results from being an asshole. Winning small while risking to lose big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let me add a slightly different perspective & pose some questions...

First, fully agree with the sentiment of the other commenters. I think the article glorifies and glamorizes behavior that shouldn't be encouraged and is, as someone put it, evolutionarily disadvantageous (game theory at play - <USER2> Dawkins / The Selfish Gene, etc. ;)

The best thing I got out of the article, though, is actually the behavior descriptions and character identification. We should be all be aware that there are sociopaths out there and be cognizant of the damage they can cause to our start-ups and personal lives.

I recently (and, thankfully briefly) dated a woman who fits the description and behavior patterns frighteningly to a T. Not a laywer, but a someone pretty deeply embedded in Silicon Valley. Charming, witty, but emotionless and hugely self-aggrandizing (among other of the noted behaviors...)

I'm sure people like that can be found in all parts of society, but part of me wonders whether there's a part of the tech / Silicon Valley culture that attracts sociopaths -- lots of awkward nerds susceptible to charm overload, easy access to a mouthpiece and validation feedback loop through Twitter ("I have 50k followers - I'm clearly a huge deal"), an entrepreneurial culture that gives leeway to potentially hand-wavey careers ("I'm starting a company"), etc.

So some questions - what do we do with with the "high functioning" sociopaths that we come across? What's their place? Are they to be shunned? Are they to be acknowledged & "noted" (i.e. as warning signs) but otherwise left in place? What if you find you've hired one? What if you find you're living with one? Etc.

Curious to hear thoughts and opinions...

<comment><USER7> Surely the article glorifies it somehow, on the other hand it's a contrast to many articles that I read in the past about it. After all I think even nerdish behaviour, becoming widely accepted at the moment, has its sociopathic elements. Seeing some things more rationally and less emotionally...

So given that a sociapath is smart enough, and that your evolutionary argument is correct, "high functioning sociapaths" should effectively behave social. He just uses different brain regions to accomplish the same goal I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A more accurate description of sociopaths can be found in Robert Hare's Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. This article seems to romanticize the term. [http://www.amazon.com/Without- Conscience-Disturbing-World-Ps...](http://www.amazon.com/Without-Conscience- Disturbing-World- Psychopaths/dp/1572304510/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376579915&sr=1-1)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow. I'm really not sure if I'm going to renew my economist subscription. Things like this make me wonder if the paper is dumbing itself down. I haven't been a reader for long enough to know, but I don't want to pay $100+ for a subscription if this kind of crap is what I'll be getting.

<comment><USER9> I'm also flabbergasted this is an Economist article; seems like something I'd expect from The Atlantic, Vice, or Huffpo, not the Economist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> She's admitting she's a "sociopath" on the cover. Why should we expect one line of the book to be true?

She has no incentive not to lie (moral guilt) and all the incentive to embellish (profit).

<comment><USER18> Even if the entire book is embellishment and lies, at the very least, the book should reveal a sociopath as they wish to be viewed, which in itself is interesting.

<comment><USER17> True. And my belief is that "successful" "happy" and "satisfied" are all things which she wants to signal (just like most of non-"sociopaths"). So using her testimony as evidence for living her lifestyle is silly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Defining people as "sociopaths" is a stupid pop-psychology trend. Any human can be a "sociopath", simply cause someone to feel disgust towards another and watch the empathy fade away. Put personal gain in the way, and it's not even a question. There is nothing sociopathic about acting "cooly rational" around someone you don't like as it is standard human behavior.

The article could be rewritten with one sentence: "don't be naive".

<comment><USER20> > Defining people as "sociopaths" is a stupid pop-psychology trend.

Yes, on the ground that it has no objective definition. Anyone can be assigned the label based on the right choice of anecdotes.

It will be interesting to see how neuroscience deals with such labels, as more objective causes for human behavior are matched up with effects, over the coming decades as psychological interpretations are finally set aside.

<comment><USER21> In addition to theorique's comment, there is a huge literature on the neuroscience of sociopathy going back 10+ years, showing some significant activation differences particularly around social/emotional processing areas in the brain.

It has been extensively studied in part because it's such an insidious personality disorder that many high-functioning people have to varying degrees, and the depth of psychological research on the topic very quickly shows how wrong mjfl's comments are. There is definitely a flippant, pop-psych use of the word 'sociopath', but it doesn't really shed much light on the actual phenomenon.

<comment><USER20> That may all be true, but people won't stop using "sociopath" in any way they please until its cause is uncovered and objective diagnostic criteria are established. Remember that the DSM simply lists symptoms, not causes, which allows great latitude for interpretation -- and misinterpretation.

The cause of that condition we informally call "sociopathy" won't be uncovered by psychiatry or psychology. For that, we need neuroscience. And to date neuroscience isn't ready to shoulder the load.

> There is definitely a flippant, pop-psych use of the word 'sociopath', but > it doesn't really shed much light on the actual phenomenon.

The absence of science in psychiatry and psychology should prevent anyone from seriously arguing that any imaginable use of the word "sociopath" is morally or ethically wrong. This may change in the future, but at the moment, such terms have no objective definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I read the first couple of chapters of that book and it simply wasn't believable. Too many serial-killer cliches, too strong an odor of creative writing classes. Pretty clearly a work of fiction

<comment><USER23> I'm confused as to why you would expect good writing. To me, if it were polished in that regard, that would indicate a constructive effort. That it sounds like it was written by a 16-year-old makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What a vapid article. Let's not medicalize being selfish. True sociopathy isn't something that can (or should, in my opinion) be emulated. Pretty low- brow pop psychology clickbait. But it got me, so I guess there's that.

</comment><comment><USER25> There are a couple good books about Sociopath/Psychopath if anyone is interested.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry @ [http://www.amazon.ca/The-Psychopath-Test-Journey- Industry/dp...](http://www.amazon.ca/The-Psychopath-Test-Journey- Industry/dp/1594485755)

Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight @ [http://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-Sociopath-Spent-Hiding- Plai...](http://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-Sociopath-Spent-Hiding- Plain/dp/0307956644)

I highly recommend both of these, since they are a very interesting read.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think shedding some self consciousness can be a good thing. Feynman captures it with a perhaps more positive spin than this book. [http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People- Think/dp/039332...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People- Think/dp/0393320928)

If this is taken to extreme, it's actually very bad. Leaders who don't care for their followers cause a lot of anguish. And how will polite society fare if nobody cares how anyone else feels? So if society needs 90% of people to be self conscious and follow norms, are they all the suckers?

<comment><USER27> >If this is taken to extreme, it's actually very bad. Leaders who don't care for their followers cause a lot of anguish.

Yes, this is called being a sociopath.

<comment><USER8> I think that's an over-use of the word sociopath. I think sociopaths lack empathy in general, but there might be a lot of reasons why normal people in leadership roles end up not caring for their followers. Rich and powerful people might feel disgusted by the poor, for example. The strong might be disgusted by the weak. Or within powerful circles a close in-group mentality might develop, so members feel little empathy for those who aren't in their group. Powerful people might even be insulated from reality, becoming emotionally detached from the consequences of their actions, and unable to equate the abstract information and statistics they receive with genuine human suffering. Maybe some even stop feeling empathy as a coping mechanism to lighten the burden of responsibility.

<comment><USER26> There are many industries (investment banking?) where empathy can hurt. For most of us, empathy helps. If you have customers, you need empathy. If you have counterparties, it can hurt. If you have employees you need empathy. If you outsource your work on fixed contract, empathy can hurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Do most people really need encouragement to be more self-centered and manipulative?

</comment><comment><USER13> I find the article repugnant; it glorifies selfishness.

> How to apply [rule #1 ]to your own life: Ignore "suggested donation" pleas > at museums, always help yourself to more food and drinks at dinner parties > and recline your seat all the way back when flying."

I wish this article were meant as satire, but I don't think it is.

<comment><USER29> That's sort of the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why is it that when we are talking about a "functioning" psychopath, we use the term "sociopath" but reserve the word "psychopath" for "crazy guy who kills without remorse"? Sugar coating by using a term (that is generally not used in the research world) confuses the issue even more than it already is in the diagnostic criteria.

Hopefully we'll get some better diagnostic criteria in the future so that we can get away from these pop-culture articles that attribute "sociopathy" to everyone who just happens to be a dick.

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure about diagnostic criteria, but I thought those were just different words in plain English. A sociopath is calculated and in control without a conscience -- they know the rules and choose to actively subvert them. A psychopath is out of control and probably violent -- as in "psycho".

<comment><USER32> They are also technical words with specific meanings.

Unfortunately the words "psycho" & "psychopath" are close to "psychotic", but very different forms of illness. Most people with psychotic illnesses pose little or no risk to others.

This happens a lot with psychiatric terms. Addiction and *aholic are often used for "really liking something"; schizophrenic is a really nice word for 'in two minds' and a lousy word for the illness; and many examples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is not a great blog post about this book. I recently read this book and have mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, you have to discount everything the author says as she makes it very clear that she is remorseless about lying to her own advantage. On the other hand, as an entrepreneur, I've done business with folks that I think could be similarly diagnosed. Anybody who isn't a sociopath needs to be aware that the business world encourages sociopaths. Knowing how they think and how they see the world can possibly help you avoid being manipulated by them.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish people would stop fetishizing sociopaths. Common sociopaths are actually pretty boring.

Most of them are very, very prone to addictions and substance abuse and spend a lot of time getting money for that. They follow the path of least resistance often in a surprisingly logically and often lazy way. Their greatest skill is finding the weakest prey. They target very emotionally vulnerable people and manipulate them. Think of the oxycodone addict conning grandmothers or mooching after their "romantic" partners and basically living a parasitic lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER35> Whenever this topic comes up, I'm confused as to how commenters railing against sociopaths for breaking social rules reconcile that idea against the reality that the collective (government) that sets these rules also routinely breaks these rules (see treatment of Snowden).

If the rules are not consistent, why so obsessively stand up for them?

</comment><comment><USER36> Im surprise that nobody has mentioned that the author here is being sarcastic. The author is clearly being facetious.

"How to apply to your own life: When in need, seek sociopathic counsel," do you really think the author means that? sociopaths are known for their deceit and predatory nature.

</comment><comment><USER37> A relevant book here is "Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television," excerpt here: [http://thenewinquiry.com/features/why-we-love- sociopaths/](http://thenewinquiry.com/features/why-we-love-sociopaths/)

</comment><comment><USER38> The article is spot on when it observes the strong correlation between effective lawyers and sociopathic personalities.

</comment><comment><USER39> Is Prospero a new byline in The Economist?

</comment><comment><USER40> Is anyone else astonished that this drivel came from the respected Economist?

</comment><comment><USER38> She's a he.</comment>


Failure must always be an option - <AUTHOR> http://rondam.blogspot.com/2008/09/failure-must-always-be-option.html

<comment><USER2> While I believe this article is a fascinating look at the bureaucracy at JPL, it is analogous to the mortgage crisis only in that it is an example of perverse incentives. Perverse incentives exist all around us, so I don't find this example particularly enlightening.

Some other examples of perverse incentives in systems: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive>

<comment><USER3> Right, in the economic case, the perverse incentives were created by the market. The bailouts are only meant to stop the failure of our economy as a whole. That sort of failure must never be an option.

<comment><USER4> not created by the market. banks took these high risk loans knowing they could sell them to fannie-mae and freddie-mac, who in turn knew they would not be allowed to fail.

<comment><USER3> The loans themselves are only a tiny fraction of the problem. It's more the credit default swaps and other forms of gambling tied to the loans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _What does all this have to do with the mortgage crisis? I believe that the mortgage crisis is essentially my experience at JPL writ large. Both situations were produced by a set of rules that produced perverse incentives that rewarded people for acting contrary to the greater good. In my case, I was rewarded for publishing useless papers. In the case of the mortgage industry, banks and brokers were rewarded for making bad loans. And in both cases, if push came to shove, the government with its deep pockets was there to foot the bill._

when you hear the truth it rings like a bell.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Is there really a moral hazard here?_

Does the bailout really remove disincentive for failure? Sure it lessens it, a bit. But this article is describing a gross moral hazard. I don't think this is comparable.

AIG shares have lost virtually all of their value. The bailout rescues some of it, but it's probably less the 5%-10% (please correct me if I'm missing something). Imagine AIG's morally hazardous executives a year or more ago (share price = $65 - $75). They know that while their desicions could cause a collapse, there's a $3.50 floor. Does that have much of an effect on their desicions?

What this article shows is how "moral hazards" & close relatives exist within organisations to a much larger extent then they do between them.

<comment><USER3> There are definitely a lot of perverse incentives that lead up to this, but they seem to be largely the fault of private enterprise.

If an executive's compensation is largely based on options, then every share price at the time they come due that is below the strike price is the same to him. So if he's given the option to purchase shares for $50 each in a year, then he makes the same if his company is trading at $49 as he would if it were trading at $2.

Add in a golden parachute and he's in a situation where his incentive is to gamble. If things go well (for instance, if people with bad credit somehow paid their mortgages consistently) share prices might be at $100. And if they tank, well, he gets his $12 million and floor seats at the Knicks games for the next 5 years, which is the same thing he'd get if things only went a little down hill.

<comment><USER5> There are definitely all sorts of problematic incentive structures all over the place. And they're definitely a problem. I think that just goes to show they're inevitable to a degree, that they're survivable & that free markets are not a silver bullet. These bailouts are certainly a push in the wrong direction, but unless I'm missing something, they're a very minor push. As you say, options as incentive are worse.

Compared to the other effects, that doesn't even show up on any kind of radar. For one thing, these companies are now essentially nationalised. Just the implications in terms of international politics & rhetoric are pretty big.

What did nationalisation do to the incentives of shareholders of other too- big-to-fail companies? What did it do the the execs. From the 1 year ago perspective this is still failure. 'This stock might lose 100% of it's worth' & 'this stock might lose 93%' look very similar when you are sitting on 100%. If any kind of serious distortion happens it probably happens near the bottom when things are pretty chaotic anyway. Executive compensation might be causing distortions, but the US' new found nationalisation policy has nothing to do with that.

<comment><USER6> Netcan, if this exercise does anything it should prove to most that free markets do work and one of the reasons they work is that they always have lots of "silver bullets" to spare. What we are watching now is silver bullets riddling companies and company execs who probably need to be riddled with silver bullets.

Unfortunately some innocents will end up going down with the ship but this has always been the case. Events like we are watching right now are caused by human weakness and human failings not by free markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not an expert on the mortgage crisis. I've had a lot of experience over the years "fudging the numbers" in the real estate sector but that was before I became a web developer and, thereby, an upstanding example of responsible personal economic behavior.

I am an expert on Matrix Management though. Unfortunately, I have lots, and lots, and lots of experience there.

My recommendation..... If any of the big shots at your company say that they are switching to "Matrix Management" just polish up the old resume and start looking for a job elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER8> "months to years -- and in the meantime my line management still had to keep me employed somehow. On a number of occasions I had proposals rejected on the grounds that what I was proposing was impossible, when in fact I had already done the work in the intervening time."

That bit made me chuckle...

</comment><comment><USER3> "And in both cases, if push came to shove, the government with its deep pockets was there to foot the bill."

Americans foot the bill. Government is just a group of people acting on behalf of Americans.

It's easy enough to get upset at the bailout, but the fact is that we Americans are going to pay the price one way or another, and this way is (or so the theory goes) significantly cheaper and less painful than a full-on depression.

The perverse incentives that caused our current economic crisis were almost entirely the fault of private industry left unregulated. So the same people who are angry about the bailout now would have been angry then had the government started intervening in the private markets by regulating private enterprise more tightly than appeared necessary.

The most important thing about the bailouts is that failure was not removed. Shareholders in many bailed-out corporations are losing tremendous amounts of money. It is sad to see the executives who ran these corporations fall gently due to their golden parachutes, but those were not the making of our government.

<comment><USER9> Oh really?

ML sold its mortgage portfolio for $0.22 on the dollar.

Wouldn't you have loved to have bought even for $0.25-30?

We're not going to see 50% forclosures and even if we did, housing prices are not dropping 70%.

The US govt shouldn't buy ANY of these securitized packages. Instead, they should be offered at public auction.

The collapse happened because govt limited the size of the market. When those folks got spooked, things fell apart.

If I'm not allowed to buy something for my benefit, I shouldn't be expected to pay for it for someone else's benefit.

<comment><USER3> I think you've got your math confused. One foreclosure can wipe out the profit from multiple non-foreclosed houses. It doesn't take 50% foreclosures to wipe that out, even if housing prices don't drop. With housing prices dropping the way they are, it might only take 10%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great post because it helps evaluate the very different goals of various organizations. That is, it shows that the "products" of large institutions (government, higher-ed, corporate firms) are not necessarily those of smaller businesses (start-ups, boutiques, small non-profits). It also helps us consider what exactly "failing" is (it has very different meanings if you're a hacking in your free time or applying for a CS PhD, even if the output is very similar).

So, in short, one man's "useless paper," may be another's inspiration. I'm not saying all products are the same, but it's important to evaluate context and think carefully about the complexity of a product's "worth." I mean, finding value (or being able to extract value) from "junk" is a goal for most entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER11> "At the peak of my JPL career I attained the rank of Principal, which is the highest rung on the technical career ladder whose existence is publicly known. (It turns out there are "secret" promotions you can get after that.)"

So, that's when you get to work on all the X-Files stuff?

<comment><USER8> Actually I think, that's when they let you in on the real secret, there is no "X-Files stuff" and leave you to wonder what the heck you just wasted the last 20 years of your life doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/allcited.html>

Who is "D. Johnson"?

<comment><USER13> David S. Johnson: <http://www.research.att.com/~dsj/>

Co-author, with Michael R. Garey (<http://cm.bell- labs.com/cm/ms/former/mrg/>), of "Computers and Intractability". (See <http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/articles.html> .)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> True scientists celebrate failures.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great reading. I recommend it heartily.</comment>


Build, Train and Deploy machine learning models with no coding experience - <AUTHOR> http://botlabs.ca <comment><USER2> How do you achieve this goal? Could you clarify it?</comment>


Nokia's strategy for breaking into the US market is to attack the low end - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18654332/nokia-3-1-a-c-att-cricket-launch-prepaid-price-specs-features-release-date-interview <comment><USER2> Nokia if you're listening: I'm sick of Android and iPhones and would by a basic smartphone with a web browser, privacy, and MP3, which is also usable as mass storage device. OLED and small size would be a plus.

<comment><USER3> Yea...it doesn't need to be perfect or have pretty much any apps except for web browser, mp3 player, PDF viewer, document viewer, text messaging, alarm ...that is the only thing I use my phone for.</comment></comment>


Randomizing Religion: The Impact of Protestant Evangelism on Economic Outcomes - <AUTHOR> https://www.nber.org/papers/w24278 <comment><AUTHOR> Ultra brief summary of findings: teaching Protestant values to ultra-poor Filipinos raises their income by 9%!</comment>


Ask HN: From Software Testing to Software Development - <AUTHOR>

I want to move to software development from my current testing job. I have 5 years of experience in testing. I want to ask my fellow hackers - 1. What are the chances to make this move? <comment><USER2> I made this move, because I had a computer science degree but due to the dotcom bust all I could find were testing jobs coming out of school 10 years ago.

Start with learning how to automate testing first. If you're testing web apps learn Watir, WatiN, Selenium, Cucumber, etc.

Next step is learn how to write automated integration tests and finally unit tests using an xUnit framework (JUnit, NUnit, TestUnit). Start pairing with experienced devs and help them write unit tests for their code. If you can pick up some BDD style testing here that's even better.

When you start feeling more confident, tackle smaller bugs on the bug list. Eventually your velocity will get noticed and you'll be a full fledged dev in no time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's very nice advice. I am following something same. learning Python and java, learning Junit, I can do automation with Selenium and QTP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Automate your testing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Waiting for ideas...

</comment><comment><USER4> learning a programming language!

<comment><AUTHOR> I know Java, brushing it up, I am learning Python (Mostly from Udacity classes and MIT classes), I can do some Android development also.</comment></comment>


iRobot Announces Sale of Defense and Security Business - <AUTHOR> http://media.irobot.com/2016-02-04-iRobot-Announces-Sale-of-Defense-Security-Business-to-Arlington-Capital-Partners <comment><USER2> Ah! That's why they put me off, when I contacted them about working in one of those divisions.</comment>


Functions as Docker containers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bfirsh/funker <comment><USER2> This looks a bit like a very small microservice with a RPC api, to call the functionality.

So there is no "serverless" which is only spinning up the container as needed. Or scaling up the containers if required. Hoped to see something like that. :)</comment>


Net Neutrality: A Better Way to Keep the Net Open and Accessible - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16iht-CACHE16.html?src=busln

<comment><AUTHOR> For those not subscribed, google search does the trick: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=A+Better+Way+to+Kee...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=A+Better+Way+to+Keep+the+Net+Open+and+Accessible)

</comment><comment><USER2> Please don't post NYTimes links that hit the paywall.</comment>


HireWheel data shows these neighborhoods are investing the most in real estate - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2016/02/these-cincinnati-neighborhoods-are-investing-the.html?utm_content=bufferb04f9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><AUTHOR> Here is an excerpt from the post:

Data obtained by HireWheel show that Oakley has seen the biggest increase in the number of permits issued to perform property improvement work between 2011 and 2015. Check out the graph below to see how some of the other top neighborhoods compared.</comment>


Poll: What Keyboard Type do you use? - <AUTHOR>

few months ago i bought a filco with cherrys and now i wonder what took me so long to realise how terrible rubberdomes are. <comment><USER2> Most of the time my laptop keyboard ... at home some nameless Logitech keyboard I bought cause the backslash was where I like it above the enter key.

</comment><comment><USER3> crappy keyboard -> DAS silent ~ <http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s- professional-silent/>

where's the poll?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> rubberdome

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> mechanical

<comment><USER4> Filco with cherry browns. I love it.

Bonus: the keys can be easily desoldered from the PCB, opened, and cleaned. Comes in handy when you spill beer all over...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> other</comment>


Show HN: Nice Ice – A widget for collecting user feedback with one LoC - <AUTHOR> https://niceice.io <comment><USER2> looks really nice, I might integrate it into my next idea :) three wishes:

\- show the 1 line integration without me needing to login

\- "report a bug" should have the option to include a screenshot or image

\- the form should have a cross at the corner to close it (dismiss)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome feedback, thank you!

These are all really good suggestions, I'll get started on them right away!

If you sign up to a pro account today and use the code LAUNCHDAY you'll get 10% off forever by the way :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's the size + performance vs Drift? I assume really good?

<comment><AUTHOR> Drift is live chat right? This is more static so it's about sending one off messages regarding the different sections - I'm also currently working on exposing the feature requests that people submit into a customisable public roadmap so users can vote on which features they want to see.</comment></comment>


Apple announces bug bounty program - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/04/apple-announces-long-awaited-bug-bounty-program/ <comment><USER2> This is definitely a step in the right direction. They say they're worried that their bounties won't be enough to dissuade anyone only interested in money from disclosing vulnerabilities to malicious sources. Honestly I think that a lot of people who discover these vulnerabilities would rather be paid slightly less money by disclosing to Apple and have the rep/CV fodder of "I broke Apple" that comes with a responsible public disclosure, than going through secret channels to make slightly more money at the risk of potential legal trouble.

And anyways, 200 grand is an astoundingly high ceiling for bug bounties; highest I've ever seen paid out was a "meager" 20k by Uber, and I thought that was a lot of money for a bug program at the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> As mentioned the program is currently invite only currently

(ie, [https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/761349794510036992](https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/761349794510036992))

<comment><USER4> From the article:

> _However, Apple won't turn away new researchers if they provide useful > disclosures, and plans to slowly expand the program._

I'm reading this as: if you find a serious bug and report it, you'll get the money.

<comment><USER5> I haven't read the article, but I was at the announcement and your take is exactly how it was clarified in the room.

If you do good work and report it, you'll get paid accordingly.

<comment><USER6> That setup doesn't make any sense to me.

Either its an open program or a closed program.

A closed program that allows submissions from others is an open program.

What reasons what they have to do it this way? My first guess is to tick some checkbox.

<comment><USER7> It's pretty straightforward. Apple wants to start off slow, with a small group of people, and develop the quality of the program. By being explicitly closed, but implicitly open, they can focus their energy on the invited researchers, and ensure a high-level of support/response.

If they had explicitly said that it was an open program, they would have had to scale up their efforts to support the entire world of vulnerability researchers, or risk disappointing people for not responding quickly enough.

Put another way - if you are not part of the invited group, and you submit an issue, but do so poorly, or without a clear Proof-of-Concept, and concise description, you can reasonably expect to hear no response from Apple, with no grounds to complain that they ignored you. But, at the same time, if you have a clear exploit, well documented, with impact and proof-of-concept, then their is still an avenue to submit it to Apple, but it's up to Apple to decide how they wish to prioritize.

<comment><USER6> > Put another way - if you are not part of the invited group, and you submit > an issue, but do so poorly, or without a clear Proof-of-Concept, and concise > description, you can reasonably expect to hear no response from Apple, with > no grounds to complain that they ignored you. But, at the same time, if you > have a clear exploit, well documented, with impact and proof-of-concept, > then their is still an avenue to submit it to Apple, but it's up to Apple to > decide how they wish to prioritize.

Thanks, that does make a lot of sense.

My main exposure to bug bounty programs has been through the blog post of submitters, that don't give much insight to the resources/support that e.g. Apple would need to give.

<comment><USER7> The actual effort is pretty minimal - 2-3 FTEs for a closed bounty program, plus maybe another 15-20 FTEs or so to assist with triage once it's opened up - total cost for Apple to set up a bug bounty is on the order of $5million/year staffing. Its more the trying to scale up so you don't end up annoying people by not being responsive - it takes time to hire the people and train them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a bit surprised, because you'd think that they'd have been doing this already.

<comment><USER9> Apple has slowly been opening up, they used to be such an incredibly secretive company under Jobs there's no way this would've ever happened.

Whoops. I just said "Steve Jobs never would've let this happen" line. Oh well.

They're letting in third-party keyboards another extensions, small additions to Siri, releasing actual software on android, it's not too surprising that they might be willing to do this now. Been very open on swift.

<comment><USER10> There was a time if you had issues with hardware, and email to Steve Jobs actually resulted in a customer escalation. I had one of the 15" MBPs that had the Nvidia chip issue, but never experienced that. But had 3 other problems -- all handled (first time for me with Mac hardware). A polite email on a friday night after I did hit my 4th hardware issue, next trip to the apple store was for a "in kind" based on purchase price replacement.

Apple Software has been suffering for awhile. And where software was involved, he certainly did call teams out for failures, but we also ended up with the path iTunes is on under his watch.

That said, I don't know now, but at a time, an email to Jobs did make things happen.

<comment><USER11> They still do. I email Tim Cook on issues and got a few replies. Sometimes I dont get a reply but a solution made to the problem months down the road.

I believe Apple has already been listening, not as bone head as many imagine. Its just they prioritize what is important and needs fixing first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not familiar with the market but these seem low when you consider:

\- The effort required to find them

\- The damage that can be inflicted on Apple in terms of brand goodwill and the subsequent loss of sales, e.g. The SEP implications for ApplePay

\- The damage that can be inflicted on users and 3rd parties, e.g. imagine the amount of cash banks would be on the hook for if someone managed to say write a worm that used iMessage/SMS to propagate without user knowledge (e.g. with the recent TIFF vulnerability), and transfer funds from the user's bank account? Or made calls to the baseband to dial shady $10/minute premium rate numbers in some banana republic at 3AM every night?

\- The amount of money TLAs and black market actors allegedly pay per the TC article.

\- How much money Apple actually has, especially all the offshore cash that can't be repatriated to the US without incurring exorbitant capital gains. These bug bounties could be be remitted from any Apple subsidiary.

\- Large bug bounties would de facto end jailbreaking

\- Knowing Apple there would be endless NDAs and restrictive covenants before any payout is made.

IMO with all this considered the max payouts seem irrationally paltry.

<comment><USER13> As tptacek loves to point out, the point of bug bounty programs is _not_ to compete on price with the black market. And in fact, according to the article, the $200k Apple is offering is one of the highest for corporate bug bounty programs already.

<comment><USER14> That $200k boot ROM bounty might be the single instance I know of where a stated bounty value _might_ be lower than the actual market for the vulnerability. If you were slick, you might make more from that bug than Apple would pay with the bounty. That is a bug class with a current, existing, liquid market.

The rest of them seem more than reasonable.

 _None of them_ are adequate compensation for the full-time work of someone who can find those kinds of bugs. Nor are they meant to be. If you can, for instance, find a bug that allows you to violate the integrity of the SEP, you have a market value as a consultant significantly higher than that $100k bug bounty --- which will become apparent pretty quickly after Apple publicly thanks you for submitting the bug, as they've promised to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if they are backfilling rewards to any of the external researchers who have been doing all of Apple's security research for the last decade. Just as an example, a single researcher from Google is credited with 11 separate vulnerabilities that would qualify for the $50k reward, in a single patchlevel of OS X (and the same person had five such credits in the patchlevel prior to that!). That's almost a million bucks worth of rewards in only half a year of disclosures.

<comment><USER16> I don't think it would make economical sense for Apple to pay for something that they already got for free.

<comment><USER15> Sure, but it would be a gesture of goodwill and a way of making amends for years of freeloading.

<comment><USER17> That guy did 10 more after the first freebie. Could it be that something else was motivating him?

<comment><USER5> I believe the researcher in question works for project 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Next they need to offer a bounty program for usability issues. iOS needs a lot of love since Forstall got squeezed out.

<comment><USER19> iOS? what about mac os x? it's completely stagnated if not gotten worse from a usability standpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wonder if they'll include their servers too; appears they're only doing the most recently released OS and hardware.

<comment> et-al Towards the bottom of the article they note this:

      The program launches in September with five categories of risk and reward:

      Vulnerabilities in secure boot firmware components: Up to $200,000
      Vulnerabilities that allow extraction of confidential material from Secure Enclave: Up to $100,000
      Executions of arbitrary or malicious code with kernel privileges: Up to $50,000
      Access to iCloud account data on Apple servers: Up to $50,000
      Access from a sandboxed process to user data outside the sandbox: Up to $20,000

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've once found security bug on OS X/Mac (low chance of occuring, however gives complete access), reported complete steps to reproduce and solutions - received moreless copy-pasted response - two years, two OS X versions later - the bug is still there, even though it looks like 5 minutes fix...

<comment><USER22> Report it again, take the bounty?

<comment><USER21> the problem with current state of the bounty program is that it's invitation- only (i'm no security researcher) and ios-centered :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The question is will they pay $1,000,000 for an exploit that unlocks an iphone?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption- idUSKCN0X...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption- idUSKCN0XQ032)

<comment><USER24> The article already addresses this:

      While $200,000 is certainly a sizable reward — one of the
      highest offered in corporate bug bounty programs — it won't
      beat the payouts researchers can earn from law enforcement or
      the black market. The FBI reportedly paid nearly $1 million
      for the exploit it used to break into an iPhone used by Syed
      Farook, one of the individuals involved in the San Bernardino
      shooting last December.

Interestingly, for altruistic / independently wealthy researchers there's an incentive to report to Apple:

      In an unusual twist, Apple plans to encourage researchers to
      donate their earnings to charity. If Apple approves of a
      researcher's selected institution, it will match their donation —
      so a $200,000 reward could turn into a $400,000 donation.

<comment> et-al Smart move. That's not too shabby of a tax deduction.

<comment><USER25> I don't understand how the deduction from giving X to a researcher and X to a charity is smarter than just giving X to the researcher?

<comment><USER26> Tax deduction for the researcher, not Apple (note the original GP was about "altruistic / independently wealthy researchers").

<comment><USER27> Hows donation of X for tax savings is better than 0.6X income?

<comment><USER28> It is meant to encourage donations to non-profits which is something pretty good that corporates could do.

So it effectively reduces to what you'd prefer: 0.6X for yourself, or 2X for a non-profit that you want to support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I reading it correctly that this is only iOS, and not other Apple software?

</comment><comment><USER28> Charlie Miller must be happy.

[https://twitter.com/0xcharlie](https://twitter.com/0xcharlie)

</comment><comment><USER30> how about you fix bugs that are already well known, like how the sd reader dies after a while in el cap?

<comment><USER31> That has nothing to do with security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Finally, I'm going to be rich!

</comment><comment><USER33> I wish Apple would just fix the myriad ordinary bugs, let alone focus on security.</comment>


Ask HN: Show off your vintage websites - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to see 10+ year old websites from HN people that are still up. <comment><USER2> [http://evangelisticpiano.com](http://evangelisticpiano.com) (Jan 2003)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://sublemon.com/](http://sublemon.com/) (ca. 2003)</comment>


VCs Step Up Investing in Mental Health Startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/vcs-step-up-investing-in-mental-health-startups <comment><AUTHOR> Woo-hoo! Good news for us (both campfire.care & humans)</comment>