Meet Ness, the Pandora for restaurant recommendations - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/ness-restaurant-app/

<comment><USER2> Amazing UI. Speedy too, which is atypical of apps that try to get fancy :)

It says I have a 84% chance of liking Chipotle... looks like I should give it more data ;)

One of the problems with this I noticed off the bat is that I only gave 4-5 star ratings. Great restaurants stick out in my mind, forgettable meals never. Unless I've had a very negative experience with a restaurant I'm not overly compelled to go and rate it.

[edit] The UI feels _really_ WP7-esque. I like it. It's like a delicious fusion of iOS and WP7... now I'm wondering what the world would be like if we had something like this across the board.

<comment><USER3> Hi Potatolicious,

I work with the Machine Learning team at Ness. Thanks for all the feedback! Please email us at email@example.com as you have more thoughts, especially about where Ness does and does not work for you.

With regard to only teaching Ness by rating restaurants 4-5 stars, this is a great point, especially for the first 10 ratings. There are a couple particular ways we address this today: 1) Which restaurants you pick tells us a lot. Did you rate hole in the walls vs. expensive places? We have spent a lot of time working on our collaborative filter to address this. Wikipedia has a good article for a starting ground on this, and the papers that came out of the Netflix Prize are great [[http://www.netflixprize.com/assets/GrandPrize2009_BPC_BellKo...](http://www.netflixprize.com/assets/GrandPrize2009_BPC_BellKor.pdf)]. 2) On the personalize page, there are multiple stages. One of them is to confirm that the system is correct about places you don't like, which is obviously also very informative. 3) Sometimes, as with your Chipotle example, we won't be right. Telling us where we are wrong is particularly helpful in correcting the system, which in some sense gives us more information that confirming what we already know. Think of it of correcting a person, who misunderstood what you like from examples you gave. In a metaphorical sense, this is like providing results that have more entropy.

-Jeremy VP of Product & Machine Learning

<comment><USER4> I'm really happy that you have addressed this problem. My question comes down to, in the rating process, I rated a fairly limited amount of places, in terms of categorical scope. Then when I moved into the main application, there were many many more categories available, like ice-cream and bbq. I found myself not finding restaurants that I liked loading in the initial 10 choices, so I kept skipping a lot. You might consider a continuous scroll feature for this initial rating set. Otherwise, integrate with open table, and this will rank as the best vertical search/discovery app I've ever come across.

<comment><USER3> Guimarin,

Thanks for the feedback. We made a slightly different mechanism for rating on the personalize page (the list of places you saw when you first came to the app allowing you to quickly rate). Either a user can skip a place manually by clicking the X, or can scroll down to the bottom and skip all the places that you don't like. You are saying you would rather just scroll past the ones you don't know?

-Jeremy

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't know if I agree with the other commenter about interspersed skip alls. For me, scrolling past seems less final then hitting skip. If I hit skip, I was afraid that a negative mark would be given to the restaurant. I know that's not the case, but it was a very strong incentive for me not to want to hit skip, or the x. I didn't feel like harshly judging a place that I'd never been to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know what their PR did to piss off Om so much?

<http://twitter.com/#!/om/status/106833400056389633>

<comment><USER6> Hi Ethan, I believe Om had a misunderstanding.

-Marissa, Head of Marketing and PR for Ness Computing

<comment><USER7> Did you clear it up with him?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally would like an Android version.

Edit: what about a web version or even mobile web version, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been dying for an app like this. Yelp's recommendations aren't very helpful for me because the reviewers rarely have the same tastes I do. I'm not a foodie, but I know what I like.

I'm a little bummed that I couldn't find some places I've been to on Ness. Maybe their locations DB isn't complete yet.

I found it interesting that I wanted to rate non-food places too, like coworking spaces I've been too. It certainly fits within their "organizing the world's opportunities" goal.

<comment><USER3> I'm very happy to hear that the problem of similar tastes is one that resonates with you.

We are working very hard to quickly add all the places in the US, so you can rate the ones you love! Please request these places by clicking the mail button in the bottom right corner of the app, and we will do our best to get them into the system promptly!

We will be building out more channels soon. You mentioned coworking spaces, what else would you like to see?

\- Jeremy, VP of Product and Machine Learning at Ness Computing

<comment><USER9> Off the top of my head:

If you're looking at the use case of locations sought via the mobile app, some suggestions would be: coworking spaces, barber shops/hair salons, groceries stores/supermarkets, running trails, and tailors. At least, as a higher priority.

Lower priority, but still important, would be places that don't need to be that close to me. Meaning, I would rather find a good, reputable service that is far away, than a nearby mediocre service. Such as: dentists, doctors, tax accountants, and mechanics.

I don't think I would need reviews for locations like retail stores, gas stations, and that sort of thing. So that wouldn't be important at all.

This is just a quick swag; I'm sure some of the prioritization could be argued. I hope this helps. Keep up the great work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It sounds rather cool, but this Englishman-visiting-New-York can't download it because it is only in the US App Store... and there are more restaurants than you can shake a stick at within a couple of block of here, that I'd love recommendations on.

But more seriously, this could be a very good app for when you're visiting a new city, and I can think of a dozen people right now who would love to download it but can't...

</comment><comment><USER11> Love how Ness realizes that I care more about my friends' reviews than that of all the random people on Yelp. Also beautiful UI that makes me hungry just using the app!

</comment><comment><USER12> The feedback via email thing is slick but confusing. Do I need to provide the details of the restaurant again? If not, it's unclear.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope it will be on Japanese app store ASAP. #from Japan.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is amazing!

</comment><comment><USER16> Great app, I wish I could code for iOS that well! Slick implementation.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm turning 21 today. What is the best life advice for me at this stage - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Same as for anyone else: be intellectually humble. Your reality is not the only valid reality, and you'll have many experiences where you feel 100% certain about something and then realize you were wrong. Stop being 100% certain and start feeling proud of each of those experiences, because some people are too afraid to acknowledge them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Understand what it truly means to be kind to people.

</comment><comment><USER4> See life around you

</comment><comment><USER5> Have a long-term purpose (what is purpose?). Stay away from toxic people, especially in love and business (what is toxic?). Wait a little before having kids (what is responsibility?). Travel widely (what are your limits?). Read good books (what do you not know?). Devote solid time to your hobby (is there purpose apart from work?). Cook for and entertain friends (where does your soul dwell?). Appreciate and practice your preferred sports and arts (what fuels your soul?). Enjoy life (why are you here?).</comment>


Announcing TrustAuth for WordPress (formerly Foamicate) - <AUTHOR> http://trustauth.com

<comment><USER2> This uses browser plugins and public-key cryptography.

The technical details page[1] mentions some problems and workarounds. Some more issues I see:

* How do you securely log in from an internet cafe?

* What if someone gets your private keys, and gets your password with a keylogger? This looks like "game over."

[1] <http://trustauth.com/technical_details>

<comment><AUTHOR> * How do you securely log in from an internet cafe?

For this we're going to have to rely on SSL but the server does check that the messages sent by itself and by the browser plugin are not modified in transit and will prevent login if they were.

* What if someone gets your private keys, and gets your password with a keylogger? This looks like "game over."

Well the encryption key is derived using random salts that are in the database so a keylogger alone won't work. Of course it would be trivial to create software to steal the salts as well but if you're computer is infected with malware TrustAuth is no worse than passwords.</comment></comment>


Trump declares emergency over IT threats - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48289550 <comment><USER3> > The president signed an executive order effectively barring US companies > from using foreign telecoms believed to pose a security risk to the country.

So let's just back up a little: A Chinese equipment manufacturer left a telnet daemon running on a single version of a single device and a national emergency is declared, Cisco leaves SSH credentials (public and private keys leaked) hard coded into multiple generations of routers over several years and not a peep..?

When is the US going to tell us what these Chinese manufacturers are up to? Heck when are they going to tell the UK's own security services? Just telling us why we should be concerned seems far more productive and effective than their current strategy that is marred by accusations of protectionism.

I'm not even saying the US are wrong. I am saying the lack of specific technical information undercuts their whole position.

<comment><USER4> I've repeatedly seen a lack of interest in geopolitical issues on HN. This whole thing is akin to "Should the US be reliant on a hardware manufacturer that can be considered a non-independent subsidiary of the Chinese government?" Replace Chinese with Russian, Iranian, North Korean, Saudi Arabian, etc. These are all countries, like China, that would love to have that kind of potential leverage and power over US infrastructure and political processes because of the benefits these would bestow.

I've said in a recent comment: It doesn't matter if Huawei is entirely innocent right now. China is a major competitor to the US as a global power - militarily. politically, economically. If people think they wouldn't at some point in the future use Huawei's ties deep into cellular infrastructure to serve China's needs, they're incredibly naive.

Hell, none of this is unprecedented. The whole debacle with all the ties between Republican representatives or people in Trump's campaign and Russia alone should give pause. Or Russia's meddling in the US election. Or Russia's meddling in Eastern Europe (Ukraine wishes somebody would give a geopolitical shit right now). And somehow Huawei, and by extension China, are supposed to be impartial and innocent and not a potential threat? Really?

<comment><USER5> If the U.S. were serious about any of this they'd be funding initiatives for open, verified hardware and software. Other than INRIA, the French research group, and CSIRO, from where seL4 comes, where else is this work being done?

I don't just mean theoretical work. I mean production ready stuff that is useable, like most commercialized solutions are, but also actually _secure_. Doing both is _difficult_. seL4 is _useable_ and in fact is being tested in U.S. drones. Why didn't the NSA do something like seL4? Instead we get seLinux which isn't even secure--anything running on Linux is as a practical matter exploitable on the first day it ships.

Our communications and control systems are so fundamentally insecure it hardly matters whether it's sourced from Huawei or not--it's six of one or a half- dozen of the other, except one of those cartons is at least substantially cheaper than the other.

The fact of the matter is that the commercial industry will never develop and deliver secure products on their own. They've never done this well, and are probably fundamentally incapable of doing so because most of the benefits of a secure product inure to the public generally. Commercial vendors can't capture the value provided by secure solutions. It's up to the public--government, academia, open source community, etc--to invest in and develop the fundamental building blocks of secure systems.

Importantly, the entire stack doesn't need to be secure. We can write secure networked systems for the Internet because we presume the network is hostile. There's no reason that cellular radios should be a trusted component of a wireless cellular network. They are because (1) it's just cheaper to do it that way (see above) and (2) the U.S. government spent decades sabotaging cryptography generally and cellular standards specifically, which means even 5G standards are fundamentally broken from a design perspective.

So the whole Huawei controversy deserves a giant eye roll. All of the arguments about why Huawei can't be trusted are irrelevant. Huawei shouldn't be trusted, but neither should Qualcomm or any of these other vendors. Rather, we should set transparency standards and verify that they're being met. But doing so requires a ridiculous amount of work up and down the software and hardware stack, starting from the design stage; work that the U.S. government isn't actually doing but, in fact, still sabotaging!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The title (written by the BBC) seems to be ambiguous. This is not about hardening US computer systems, this is about banning US companies from using Huawei 5G technology. The United States has been lobbying other countries to not use Chinese 5G technology for a while now, while it doesn't seem like there are currently any viable alternatives. This makes it a nation-wide ban.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great news. The lack of the government seeming to care about national IT security has been bothering me for years now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you sure it's about national IT security, and not just about sticking it to China because we're in a trade war with them?

<comment><USER8> Huawei has set a historical precedent of being a bad actor in regards to corporate espionage. How outlandish is it to think that they would also be participating in national espionage for the Chinese government?

<comment><USER9> Can you point to a specific example? Why was banning not done via the standard arbitrage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Text of the EO, from whitehouse.gov: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential- actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology- services-supply-chain/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Who's gonna build real 5G in the US?

<comment><USER12> I'd like to know this too. Presumably both Ericsson and Nokia are also foreign telecoms companies, so who does that leave?

<comment><USER13> Just to be clear, since the article isn't: the EO does not ban products from all foreign companies, only foreign companies who "poses an undue risk of sabotage to or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology or services in the United States" (Direct quote from EO).

So Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, etc. will not be affected.

<comment><USER12> Ahh OK thanks for clarifying that. So by 'foreign' they really mean 'Chinese', and it becomes a little less crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The president signed an executive order effectively barring US companies from using foreign telecoms believed to pose a security risk to the country."

"Mr Trump does not name any company specifically in the order."

I'm guessing they are called emergencies as they await for the threat to emerge. Which kinda seems at odds with my definition of emergencies - <USER2> would be a defined clear-cut issue that needs addressing.

All this effectively does is hurt and curtail legit business with fair and good foreign telecom providers who have now been bundeled via red-tape into the same collection as those unnamed less fair and good foreign telecom providers.

Expect a fall-out of how this will hurt and impact legit businesses over the coming days and weeks. Let alone touch upon the possible impact upon Americans using their provider SIM and roaming abroad.

</comment><comment><USER15> Every country should design and manufacture its own internet infrastructure (and be owned and controlled by its gov) as a free, level, secure playing field for the benefit of all of its citizens.

</comment><comment><USER16> is he banning every electronic that is made in china? pretty sure even if huawei is banned, chinese made equipment is still used in 5G.

<comment><USER11> I'm throwing out my PC now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A whole bunch a sound and fury, signifying nothing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does this include russian vote hacking?

<comment><USER19> It doesn't really seem like it

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sounds good. In reality this likely means Trump will abuse this power for some absurd changes and surveillance.</comment>


Ask pg: Can someone else use my startup school invite? - <AUTHOR>

I and my friend both were accepted for startup school on April 19th. We were so much looking forward to attend but due to some emergency situation we both will not be able to attend. (We are still trying to figure out if we can.)
Can we change our RSVP at http://news.ycombinator.com/susrsvp ?
We both feel that if we can not attend then someone else should benefit.
Thanks <comment><USER2> _Can we change our RSVP at<http://news.ycombinator.com/susrsvp> _

Yes

Or if you want to send someone in your place, just tell them to use your name.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sure,

colellm, wavesplash,

Send me email at email@example.com

or give me your emails. I will give you the names

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER3> You can send one of 'em my way.

</comment><comment><USER4> Me too - I will go</comment>


Where have all our manners gone? - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=manners&year_start=1790&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

<comment><USER2> Then: The etiquette of card-leaving is a privilege which society places in the hands of ladies to govern and determine their acquaintanceships and intimacies, to regulate and decide whom they will, and whom they will not visit, whom they will admit into their friendship, and whom they will keep on the most distant footing, whose acquaintance they wish further to cultivate and whose to discontinue. [1]

Now: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2tMV96xULk#t=20s>

I agree. Somewhere, somehow, society really took a turn for the worst.

[1] [http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA19&dq=%22manners%22&#...</a>

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa. I don't think society has taken a turn for the worst at all. I just found this really amusing.

I think there's definitely an aspect that the social norm or the way people were expected to behave was more classy or formal, however you want to define those words, in the Victorian era. But I think a new evolution of culture is just simply a new ice cream flavour: it's neither inherently good or bad, it's just the way it is. I know some people who take Jersey Shore as evidence that the world is going to hell. But in the grand scheme of things, on the bigger timeline, I feel everything's okay. I've spent 5 minutes trying to find another way to put it but I can't.

By the way I upvoted you.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Try out our real-world programming challenges - <AUTHOR>

For CodeSprint 2, we decided to introduce Real World Problems: programming problems that our CodeSprint companies face in real life.
Real World Problems are messy, complicated, and infinitely variable. They require API calls, use of an arbitrary number of libraries, and a file structure that contains more than a single file upload. In short: Our existing code checking architecture is mostly useless. So we're writing a new one. Please help us test it.
beta.interviewstreet.com <comment><USER2> Some random feedback:

Logfind 1) 'To consider a solution as 'passed', it would need to produce output on a log file of about 5 GigaBytes in under a seconds.' - you need to firm up this requirement especially if the tool will be scored by an automatic tool

Tweetdensity 1) <http://linode.interviewstreet.com/tasks/4890/response1.json>

Error: Parse error on line 1: { tweetdensity:{ \-----^ Expecting 'STRING', '}'

2) Would like more direction for using the Twitter API - you could at least link to the docs for the API route that will give me this information

3) Is there an upper limit on 'count'? I believe there is some limit to how far back you can get data from the Twitter API.

Facematch Sigh, not going to touch this one - 'See that feature that engineers teams at Google and Facebook have spent months implementing? Yeah, do that in a few hours/days for a chance to interview with a startup!' - the very least you could do is provide some library or guidance as to what tools might be well suited for this task.

Overall The public key stuff seems complicated and a pain. Why not use Heroku (or let me use my own VPS/ec2 instance)? Or modify the problems so that I run it locally on my machine and submit the results - for Logfind, you could provide a program that takes a seed to generate the 5GB file. When I am ready to submit, give me a seed that will expire in 5 minutes and I have to enter my output before it expires or get a new seed.

<comment><USER3> You can use this piece of code to try logfind out locally: <https://gist.github.com/1338839>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I noticed in your profile details popup you don't distinguish universities by city. I happen to go to a university which shares its name with several other institutions worldwide though there's no relation between any of them.

Could you include a city so I know that I'm selecting the correct university? Mine's in Texas, the other one is in Ireland. I'd like to know which I'm choosing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Which university is it? We'll manually add it in, and if we get a lot more comments about universities not being city-specific, we'll make the change.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you debunk this? Possible evidence of voter fraud.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qb9ea/reddit_can_you_debunk_this_some_people_with/

<comment><USER2> Votes aren't random. People vote for people they choose and voting in different precincts will have different patterns. The underlying problem here is that the person doing the analysis is assuming that votes are random and trying to fit the data.

</comment><comment><USER3> Done fairly well in the comments of the post: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qb9ea/reddit_can_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qb9ea/reddit_can_you_debunk_this_some_people_with/c3w8rta)</comment>


Diginotar and Comodo hacker the same guy and claims to have owned 4 other CAs - mike-cardwell https://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002231.html

<comment> mike-cardwell Link to his pastebin:

<https://pastebin.com/u/ComodoHacker>

And to his latest post:

<http://pastebin.com/1AxH30em>

<comment><AUTHOR> This guy disgusts me. He's so obviously either a fabrication by the iranian government or someone who has been brainwashed by their propaganda to the point that he would do irreparable harm to his fellow humans to prove some ideological point.

He claims some injustice about 10,000 Muslim soldiers being killed. How many Muslims in Iran are going to be killed for writing something against the clerics in Gmail?

<comment><USER2> "he would do irreparable harm to his fellow humans to prove some ideological point"

The harm is already there and possible, he's just forcing the issue. An "Anonymous" with a different agenda. It doesn't help "humanity" to believe that the CA system works when it's been totally subverted.

If this guy has done it, so have many others in all likelihood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Off topic: Certificate Authorities are a plot point in Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End". He's really the first novelist to grasp how dramatic revoking a certificate is.

<comment><USER4> Vernor Vinge is also the person that came up with the idea of the singularity. Prescient more than your average author, it seems.

<comment><USER5> If you read "A Deepness in the Sky" (and, perhaps not necessary but nice for the sake of story (a very good one, with its own ideas) and author's intent, his prior "A Fire Upon the Deep"), you'll encounter several other technological ideas -- e.g. smart "dust", biochemical mind "influence" ("focus"), etc. -- that are currently playing out in practical terms in the contemporary technological and research worlds.

What can make scientists with a literary gift so interesting is that their formal position helps them sit on the cusp, looking forward, while their literary skills help them articulate what they see coming.

<comment><USER4> "A Fire Upon the Deep" is one of my favorite books of all time. Ranks up there with "Dune" and the Foundation trilogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Wl2FW2TcA> The original Comodo attack was discussed by Moxie Marlinspike at Blackhat USA 2011 - quite an interesting discussion on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER7> What do you suppose is the street value of the keys to 4 CAs?

</comment><comment><USER8> Regardless of whether or not these claims are true, it sounds to me like it's time to

1\. Have a proper & independent security audit of all root CAs. 2\. Have a long, hard think about the SSL policies of some major websites. Facebook and GitHub, for instance, use certs issued by two different CAs. This makes it that much harder for me to make an informed judgement about their validity. 3\. Rethink the whole trust model. It hinges on the policies of some companies out to make money, rather than out to secure the internet. These money- grabbing folks seem a lot more interested in the money-grabbing part than in the securing part.

<comment><USER9> CAs will continue to be broken into, or be pressured by governments. If the trust model doesn't change, nothing else will matter. The best suggestion I've seen is to allow certs to be signed by multiple CAs (currently the X.509 certificate format doesn't allow this). Subverting multiple certificate authorities is much harder. (This will also need browser checks to ensure they're from truly different organizations, rather than just different names, or even from different countries for the paranoid.) It also gives software vendors a nice way to show which CAs they trust -- rather than including the list of keys with their software, instead they can sign the CAs certifying keys, and revoke when they are no longer trusted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That pastebin reeks of bullshit. Someone with those kind of skills, someone who actually fulfils the definition of "elite," would not be making ludicrous boasts such as these in public fora. They would either be working for governments or for top security firms, and in both cases would know to STFU.

<comment><USER11> It is pretty clear that 'Comodohacker' is the guy that hacked Comodo (check the first Pastebin where as 'proof' he releases the as yet unannounced email and pass of the CEO). As to the authenticity of the latest hack, perhaps that might be a bit bullshit, but I would not be surprised.

Yes, the way he/she is bragging about '1337 hacker' skills is pretty 'lulzy'. I am not a security geek, but I find it amusing to see someone bragging about skills I consider to be something not worth mentioning.

This person certainly has patience when it comes to Googling.

The most embarrassing thing that can happen to a security company is getting owned by someone like this.

<comment><USER10> I am perfectly willing to believe that this person has at least some responsibility for the attacks, what I don't believe is that he did it using all these 1337 swordfish style skillz as he describes.

I'd put money on all of them involving basic social engineering and spear phishing with PDFs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> when are google going to either (1) support notary servers or (2) open chrome's api so that perspectives can do their job properly (the current experimental chrome extension is a horrible hack that doesn't even work for me)?

firefox plugin - <http://www.networknotary.org/firefox.html> background - <http://perspectives-project.org/>

</comment><comment><USER13> _it is so unusual like greater than sign in all programming languages is " <" but in XUDA it is "{"_

....but that's a... less.... oh nevermind</comment>


Code Health: Too Many Comments on Your Code Reviews? - <AUTHOR> https://testing.googleblog.com/2017/06/code-health-too-many-comments-on-your.html <comment><USER2> This is all amazing advice - my most common comment in PRs is "Can you please add your explanation as a code comment."</comment>


UK tech startup changing billions of lives with a simple 3 word combination - <AUTHOR> https://fleximize.com/articles/007065/what3words <comment><USER2> My other half lives in Uzbekistan. How has no-one thought of this sooner?</comment>


Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/europe/germany-bans-far-left-antifa-website.html <comment><USER6> This was already covered earlier today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15097645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15097645)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a controversial topic, so I guess I'm risking massive downvotes, but...

I come from a country where being called a leftist is a compliment, and being called a rightist is generally viewed as an insult (being a centrist - <USER2> myself - also implies - in this country - that you're a rightist, go figure).

While the left has always resorted to violence and aggressive tactics (beating up professors who refused to yield to "student strikes" at universities, for example), they have always claimed the moral high ground. In the meantime, any public action or protest by the right (even moderate right) was generally viewed with scorn.

In other words, it was a mirror-image of the US. While the radical left in the US exists, it is mostly harmless, unlike the radical right.

Europe largely works as a mirror image of the US in that sense. In France, for example, people view as acceptable that workers conduct violent strikes, sometimes kidnapping and beating up managers, but any rightist manifestation is seen as an extreme danger.

It is good to see countries striving for a more neutral treatment of violent actions, from any ends of the political spectrum.

[Just in case it wasn't clear enough: antifas/radical-left in the US are pretty much a harmless joke, and by no means equivalent to the radical- right/extreme-right/alt-right/Nazis/white-supremacist/whatever threat]

<comment><USER8> Which country would that be?

<comment><USER9> Probably Sweden, because he confused the word "manifestation" with "demonstration" which is what many Swedes do, even if their English is great.

<comment><USER7> Nope :)

I can think of at least 5 languages that would make that mistake, probably representing dozens (Dozens!) of countries. Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Corsican, etc...

And I didn't confuse manifestation with demonstration. A demonstration IS a manifestation, but not all manifestations are demonstrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The abject denial of left-wing violence in the media and the correlating hysteria about right wing violence is disturbing and is obviously fueling the false sense of self-righteousness that is driving that very violence. Anyone with a shred of integrity denounces ALL violence, even if the perpetrators share your ideology.

To help burst anyone's delusions, here's just a few recent left-wing violent incidents off the top of my head.

[http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/24/berkeley-college- prof...](http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/24/berkeley-college-professor- arrested-as-assault-suspect/)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/us/dallas-quiet-after- pol...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/us/dallas-quiet-after-police- shooting-but-protests-flare-elsewhere.html)

[http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/us/baton-route-police- shooting...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/us/baton-route-police- shooting/index.html)

[https://www.rt.com/usa/366452-portland-riots-anti- trump/](https://www.rt.com/usa/366452-portland-riots-anti-trump/)

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mob-at- middlebury-148858650...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mob-at- middlebury-1488586505)

<comment><USER11> > denounces ALL violence

Police violence? War on Terror? Armed border patrols?

<comment><USER12> Yes, all violence. Just because I don't support left-wing violence doesn't mean that I support whatever the left-wing is fighting against.

That's what I hate about politics nowadays - it's either you're agree with us on everything or we immediately assume that you disagree with us on everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >the ban was an "illegitimate act of censorship" and an "arbitrary limitation of freedom of expression and freedom of the press."

Being a filthy ignorant American, all I know about Germany regarding freedom of X is that they do have hard limits on anything related to Nazism. So how "arbitrary" is this really, especially when there's a precedent for a limit on freedom of speech? Does she even have an argument?

<comment><USER14> Of note: that quote's from a spokesperson for Die Linke, which is the direct descendent of the party (the SED) that governed Soviet-occupied east Germany between 1949 and 1990. Which was hardly well known for its high levels of freedom, of expression or otherwise

<comment><USER15> Look, no party in the east was known for being a paragon of free experience or anything free. Our chancellor was member of a political party that served as a fig leaf for the GDR government. Most parties in the west trace their lineage back to parties that elected the NSDAP in power in the can hope of keeping Hitler in check. The CDU notably elected and supported judges in their ranks that signed death warrants in the final days of the war (Filbinger et. al.) It's 27 years now that the GDR ceased to exist, history has been messy and there's a lot of idiots in the ranks of Die Linke, I get it (1), but it's slowly about time to judge their statements based on their political ideas and their actions where they are in power instead of their precursors. Just slapping down a statement because it's from a politician from their side doesn't really cut it any more.

(1) as much as there are in other parties ranks more or less.

<comment><USER16> > Most parties in the west trace their lineage back to parties that elected > the NSDAP in power in the can hope of keeping Hitler in check.

No other parties "elected the NSDAP into power", the President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. Who then went on to illegalize all other parties.

<comment><USER17> While Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor, only a minority of Hitler's cabinet were actually members of the NSDAP, others were without party affiliation (like the previous chancellor Franz von Papen) or members of the DNVP (German National People's Party) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Cabinet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Cabinet)

The usual explanation is that they wanted to "tame" Hitler, but in effect they only served to help him consolidate his power.

EDIT: Regarding the lineage of current German parties: neither Zentrum (ancestor of the CDU) nor SPD had any part in the deal that brought Hitler to power; the other major parties were only founded later.

<comment><USER15> You're certainly right that the greens were founded later, but the liberals existed as a party at the times of Hitlers rise to power. There were no other major parties in Western Germany.

However, we both might want to reread our history books a bit. One crucial step in the Nazi coup was the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave the NSDAP or rather Hitlers Cabinet - despite not having a majority in the parliament - <USER3> right to pass laws. The communists had been suppressed before and could not vote and I remembered that the SPD abstained. That's where I'm wrong - <USER4> voted against, at least those present. Some were not present at the vote. The rest of the parliament, including the Zentrum and the Liberals (which had 5 seats) voted in favor, granting the required 2/3 majority. Many Zentrum members, including the head of the party at that time were strict nationalist. Other members voted under duress. So yes, the Zentrum had a part in the dealing that brought Hitler to power. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933) and [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erm%C3%A4chtigungsgesetz_vom_2...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erm%C3%A4chtigungsgesetz_vom_24._M%C3%A4rz_1933#Abstimmung)

There's a fairly interesting list of Ex-NSDAP members that after the war joined other parties. [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_ehemaliger_NSDAP- Mitglie...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_ehemaliger_NSDAP- Mitglieder,_die_nach_Mai_1945_politisch_t%C3%A4tig_waren) (among them Filbinger, and, notably, Hans Furler, President of the European Parliament and Genscher, the Exterior Minister at the time of the Reuinion)

<comment><USER16> If you read your history book, you may also remember that that vote was by no means an actual vote. Opposing parties were threatened and the parliament was filled with stormtrooper thugs. Using that vote to deduce any kind of acceptance of the violent new ruler is just absurd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So Germany gets embarrassed by protests and shuts down the website they used to organize? Seems pretty bad, especially when you combine this with Trump getting information on left-wingers who opposed him. Maybe right-wing sites are getting de-platformed but in those instances it's private companies asserting their rights. Seems like the leftwingers are the ones being actively discriminated against by the government(s).

<comment><USER19> > Seems like the leftwingers are the ones being actively discriminated against > by the government(s).

I can assure you that if you create a right wing website with bomb making instructions and a call to action to destroy the government, then it too will be shut down.

This isn't about left vs. right, this is about order vs. anarchy.

<comment><USER20> Wait, anarchy is not the opposite of disorder, it's the opposite of authoritarianism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> All the more reason tech companies should take a stand against any kind of censorship, especially along political lines (be it left/right/whatever)

<comment><USER22> It saddens me how the discussion here is focused on what i will call "fair" censorship, where because X was censored, Y should also be censored to make it even.

My American political bent surely influences this, but the censorship of _ideas_ on the internet leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I would hope that was an opinion shared among the majority of tech folks, but comments lately on HN lead to me believe that is no longer the case.

<comment><USER23> This has nothing to do with _ideas_. The site was used as a dumping ground for letters claiming responsibility^1, doxxing of right wing activists, calls for violent protest and so on. The whole thing is a little bit odd because in the past, this kind of prosecution has been targeted way bigger threats: Jihadists, Biker Gangs, paramilitary Nazi groups and stuff like that.

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

^1 for what may be best described as "petty terror": Torched cars, smashed windows etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> Germany has a history with them, for example the RAF. This may be the first website but it's not the first time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Raiding people's homes over Facebook posts while claiming to protect free speech is downright wrong, just another instance of censorship and authoritarianism.

This is just like the WTO protests here in Seattle, suppressing the citizenry so you can hold a conference with the bankers and influential politicians from 20 countries is apt to not end well. I'm sure Germany will focus their panopticon to try and eliminate those who seek to organize strong opposition to the G-20 summit.

</comment><comment><USER26> Extremists, particularly those demonstrating or inciting violent (hopefully) illegal actions, should be reported to all applicable authorities.

It should be up to the law, applied to all with equality, that decides the eventual outcome. In a short term it may be more useful to monitor the activities and determine bad actors that should also be removed from society.

</comment><comment><USER27> You can't shutdown a website twice, so I'll give them that, but there's bound to be more than one dimension of reasons for censorship and more than this one occurance, which I guess was found "Volksverhetzung".

</comment><comment><USER28> The Neo-Commies are as dangerous as the Neo-Nazis!

<comment><USER29> Antifa are not neo-commies and not all commies are bolsheviks.

<comment><USER28> It's the radical mentality that's dangerous, not the political platform itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's nice to see that someone finally acknowledges existence of left-wing extremists. However, I'm still waiting on serious move against Antifa.

<comment><USER29> That is what happened in Russia. First they got nazis, fighting people with armature, knifes and acid in the streets (car in USA). Then antifa (autonomous action etc.) stand up and start opposing nazis. Then nazis kill people (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_Baburova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_Baburova), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Khutorskoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Khutorskoy)). Then government suppresses both nazis (many of them got life sentences, especially those from BORN) _and_ antifa, with the support of people (those like you). Then you have no activists in your country, Putin/Trump reigns forever.

Nazis are intolerant and should be opposed: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

Update: the website used to track nazis is still alive: [https://nazi- watch.noblogs.org/](https://nazi-watch.noblogs.org/) See archives section: it starts in 2008 and ends in 2013. Now antifa in USA are doing the same thing, exposing nazis to their employers and doxing them. USA is repeating Russian history.

<comment><USER31> Trump doesn't reign, he barely has control of the executive branch of government over which he has direct authority. He is opposed by his own party, congress, and big business. There is no collusion of power behind Trump like there is behind Putin. They are both seen as strong men but only one is really a strong man.

Second, classifying ANTIFA as a terrorist organization is nothing like Russia cracking down on Nazis. In the US you have free speech even if the government believes you are a terrorist organization. Now if the left wing get's their way and starts imposing hate speech laws, then ANTIFA needs to watch out because then they will be silenced by the government.

Finally, there is a deep respect for protesting in the US but not for people who do it hiding behind masks. Ghandi didn't wear a mask, Malcom X didn't wear a mask, the kids at Kent State that were shot by the police didn't wear masks. A mask indicates you are there to do harm. Sometimes harm is warranted, but we respect protesters who actually practice Civil Disobedience, part of which is owning up to what you did.

My only point here is that I believe Antifa would get more support from the American people if they could convince the 10-20% of members that show up dressed in black and wearing masks to just dress down and lose the goon squad apparel.

<comment><USER32> > He is opposed by his own party,

He is opposed by a significant fraction of the other elected officials in his party in some issues, but he's also carrying out a campaign to bring he party to heel (and has not been especially constrained in taking extraordinary executive actions by the intraparty opposition, though that has limited his legislative success.) While his public support is weak overall, it's mostly concentrated in the committed electoral base of the party. So he's actually positioned better than one might expect for the intraparty struggle. If he remains in office through the midterms, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in relatively undisputed control of the party after them.

> Ghandi didn't wear a mask, Malcom X didn't wear a mask, the kids at Kent > State that were shot by the police didn't wear masks

Another thing that all those people have in common is being shot for their activism.

<comment><USER31> And they are deeply respected...

Just saying Antifa would get a lot more support if they changed their look. People in black masks busting up Starbucks are not who anyone wants in charge. They just do Trump a favor.

<comment><USER29> > People in black masks busting up Starbucks are not who anyone wants in > charge.

They don't want to be in charge, most of them are anarchists (but only a minority of anarchists are antifa and not all antifa are anarchists).

<comment><USER33> The majority in the rioting mobs don't have a clue what they really stand for. They might be able to articulate, haltingly, what they are _against_ \- which is whatever the loudest mouth in the mob has told them they're fighting - <USER5> if you ask them what they really stand _for_ the answer is generally some incoherent rabble of buzzwords.

They are like Lenin's 'useful idiots' [1], although the question is what use they serve to whom.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if this will be a wake-up call to those people on the left in the US who have been doubting the value of the First Amendment. It's ironic to me that many of the people saying Nazi/KKK symbols should be illegal "like in Germany" because of "incitement" are the same people saying things like "punching Nazis is cool"; how is that not incitement? Things like this are an inevitable consequence of losing the bright-line rule against censoring ideas.

<comment><USER35> Incitement to violence isn't necessarily protected speech in the US.

The boundary is of necessity vague. IMNSHO: arguing that free speech should be absolute is almost tantamount to arguing it is irrelevant. Isn't the point that messages matter, and being able to exchange them is powerful? Then clearly that power can be used - and _abused_. Thus to argue that it is _right_ to _never_ constrain speech implies you either believe it is of no consequence; or believe harm is good (i.e. are malicious or insane); or believe enforcement is impossible or counter-productive.

A dose of rationality in the free speech debate would be appreciated. Heck, it's not like this is the only exception... libel, fraud, and a variety of IP laws all suggest a long history of consistently democratically-backed infringements to free speech. Were our ancestors all crazy?

<comment><USER34> > Isn't the point that messages matter, and being able to exchange them is > powerful?

No, the point is that people matter, and being able to understand them is crucial. If ideas are suppressed (rather than merely problematic _expressions_ ) people become dishonest and you can't criticize their real beliefs because you don't know what they are. For example another person noted that neo-Nazi organizations survive in Germany by simply pretending to be something else. That's not success by any reasonable metric.

>A dose of rationality in the free speech debate would be appreciated.

If there's one thing that's truly ridiculous it's that fascistic positions like yours are considered "rational".

<comment><USER35> So I'm fascist now, really? I guess I better change my mind faced with this reasonable objection.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can a No Budget Indie Movie Make $1m Online? - <AUTHOR>

We've made a no budget indie movie with:
No studio
No distributor No movie stars
Our goal is:
to gross $1m and fund the next movie
It's sounds quite impossible. But we've come up with a strategy:
Everyone who registers to download the movie will get to display a picture, logo or text of their choosing on a billboard in New York's Times Square.
Prices start from only $10 upwards. So for as little as $10 you can get any message / image / logo (as long as it's not obscene and you own the rights) up on a Times Square billboard.
What do folks think about this and could this be used as a cheap form of marketing for startups? <comment><USER2> This is a novel concept. There's an emotional satisfaction that you get out of this. If you ran the ROI numbers on the advertising it probably wouldn't play out, but if you wanted to brag at a cocktail party that you had your company advertised on a Times Square Billboard, then yeah it's worth $10.

I don't think this is a cheap form of marketing for anyone because the ROI doesn't probably make sense. However, it might make sense as a novelty ad/gift or something to that effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks....You are right, there is a certain novelty factor present, but isn't that the case with all (movie/entertainment) marketing? The pricing structure makes sure there is something for everyone and the sales we have to date actually show that startups would be interested in looping the recording of their Times Square message for display on their websites. Funnily enough, our marketing strategy was actually inspired by the promotions studios used to do in the early days of cinema eg a studio used to take a lion to towns and when people came to see the lion, they would sell them a movie ticket. For more on this see: <http://bit.ly/pgyGaR>

<comment><USER3> You might want to include in your offer some high quality picture or HD vid of the message on the Times Square screen.

Assuming you guys are great with capturing a "scene" in an impressive way, this would make it at least for me much more interesting. You could include there some photomontage of the final result already on the website.

Maybe in the end the most important shoot of the movie is going to be the one of the sponsors displayed at Times Square. A true money sho(o)t ;)

<comment><USER4> This was a thought I also had. An HD recording of the message stream, with enough of the surrounding environment to make it look / demonstrate its "liveness" and context.

Rather than trying to deliver individual fragments to all the contributors, see if the ads/messages are clocked tightly enough that you can simply post one or several videos somewhere (YouTube, Vimeo?) and then provide contributors the timestamp of the start of their particular ad/message.

Possible, the ad/message stream videos may take on a life or their own. Two results for the price of one, as it were.

P.S. Beware of liability, though. At your price point, that's a lot of content to vet. And you don't have just obscene content to worry about, but possibly also trademark infringement, accusations of hate speech, etc., etc. Some of which might be hard to catch in a cursory examination. (OTOH, one brief display might reduce the change of facing legal action. IANAL and all that.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot guys. Very helpful suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think it will be as successful as you think, and my reasoning for that is that it really doesn't have much to do with the movie. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea and you should do it for the novelty if you want, but if you really want to increase sales you should do something relevant to the product you are selling.

It's probably too late for doing anything with this, but if you do more movies you should consider doing an ARG (like ilovebees, the beast etc.), and I think this would be effective because you are hitting an online audience by releasing a movie that you download. Unless you are pro at creating ARGs, or unless you really put time into it and have a bit of luck it probably won't introduce commercial success, but it would definitely open your film up to a small niche.

Another interesting thing is pricing models, and I think that it won't increase sales, but if some people want to pay more money for extra stuff, they will do so and it will help increase revenue. A good example is at <http://joshfreese.com/> (I promise I'm not affiliated, just a favourite musician of mine who had success with this model)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, which I found very interesting. We did look at the possibility of an ARG but decided to go another way for this movie. We are treating the movie launch as a software product: make, launch, get feedback, iterate, repeat. The response we've had in terms of sales and feedback has been phenomenal. We are working on other value added stuff to add to the promotion and looking at the Josh Freese site was very inspiring. Please do let us know what you think when we add more to the offering. Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think anything is impossible. Heck, take a look at the Million Dollar Homepage: <http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/>

Nonetheless, you do have to convince 100,000 to do it (if they all took the cheapest option). That is quite hefty.

I think you may have to set your sights a bit lower, but it is worth a shot. Try to raise some funds via Kickstarter or IndieGoGo - both have a heavy focus on indie films.

Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the words of encouragement. The feedback so far is actually favouring the more expensive options, which means we would need less people. But this is an experiment, so anything can happen.... Million Dollar Homepage was one of the ideas in mind when formulating this strategy. Another was the way movies were marketed originally: <http://bit.ly/pgyGaR>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There was a while ago the "1 second film" idea. I really liked that one and contributed as well. By donating money you received credit as a producer on IMDb. Unfortunately after the listing of producers went up into the thousands, IMDb stopped that game and the project died away. Might be interesting for you to read up on how they did it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1_Second_Film>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this. Very interesting. I know IMDB have clamped down on this sort of thing so that's why we offer the credit on the end titles of the film where we can control it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> how is it the movie that's making the money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. $10 buys the movie and as a "Thank You" you get a line of text on the billboard. $49 buys the movie + soundtrack and you get 1/4 screen text/image. $99 buys the movie, soundtrack, special features and you get full screen text/image and $149 gets an associate producer credit as well on top of this. Basically, people are buying the movie in different packages and are getting the billboard message as a "Thank You" from us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any specifics as to the content or genre of the movie? (Many companies wouldn't want to be associated with certain kinds of content.)

How large (as % of the billboard) are the picture, logo, or text?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, although the billboard would only be used to thank everyone who downloaded the movie and not necessarily used for the movie promotion itself.

More information on the movie and the billboard options can be found at <http://bit.ly/n4XQG0>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i'd love to be notified when my message will be shown, as well as receive a photograph of the message on the board.

sounds unreal

<comment><AUTHOR> A recording of display will be available for download; so you could grab a still or loop the video and post on your website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not just sell the movie via itunes, if the movies good enough people will buy it and recommend it to their friends.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not that easy (or cheap) to get into itunes. Plus you would be competing with blockbusters who spend tons of money on marketing. We thought this could be a way to disrupt traditional film distribution. For more on our strategy check out: <http://bit.ly/pgyGaR>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like a great deal for a poor startup. Isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The startups who have bought the package would agree, especially when they can place on their website a looped recording of their message being displayed on Times Square.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it a good movie?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question! We think so but only the audience can answer that objectively. Check out some audience reactions at <http://bit.ly/owHzdn></comment></comment>


New whistleblower steps forward on drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/dronepapers <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636)

</comment><comment><USER3> Granted I haven't read the linked documents, but how does the cited 90% link or compare to other tactics? If the target of your operation is to kill an enemy commander, and you kill 9 of his bodyguards as well, then 90% of the people killed weren't your targets, but I'd say that they weren't even 'collateral damage' \- more an 'extra bonus' (sorry if that sounds callous). I mean I can think of several different ways to spin this number just being an uninformed citizen who knows nothing about the topic at all, so I'm hesitant to take the implied claim that drones kill many more innocent civilians than alternative methods do at face value.

It could very well be true, intuitively I'd even say that yes drone strikes will have lower precision, I'm just saying that if this is the smoking gun - then it's not very convincing.

<comment><USER4> > but I'd say that they weren't even 'collateral damage' \- more an 'extra > bonus'

I think that exemplies exactly what is wrong here. The attitude that once we push a button and kill one Yemeni person, we won't feel a lot guilter if we kill 9. We are already killing, might as well "err on the side of caution" and kill more, just in case those are dangerous body guards there.

<comment><USER3> Well no, I don't think that's true. I don't think you'll find many people in the military who think 'oh I'm already killing this guy with the AK74 who's shooting at my buddies, I might as well shoot the pregnant woman with the 3-year old on her arm as well, just to be safe'.

I don't know about operations procedures, but I would imagine it's standard procedure to take out any armed people in the vicinity of your target. With drones you can't really just stun them or whatever, so yeah you have to kill them. But those aren't 'innocent bystanders'. They're enemy combatants in all meanings of the concept, and 'fair game' (sorry again if that sounds callous again).

Furthermore, I think it's easy but simplistic to say 'all these soldiers are remorseless killing machines', neither for on-the-ground troops, drone operators or generals who take the high level decisions. I think all of them have thought and think much more and harder about what it means to kill a person, and the fact that most of them in some form or another assist in killing people 'by accident', than you or I do. I also think that for the vast majority of them, this is a major psychological burden, something that literally haunts them at night. Yet they do what they do despite that, and I don't think that the majority of them do it because they're sadistic subhumans who get off on the idea of making children in an already bad situation on the other side of the world orphans.

So, if we can get past the 'killing people with drones is immoral no matter what' rhetoric, we can come back to the real question: what is the effect of drone usage on warfare, and more to the point of the OP, is the implied claim that 90% of drone killings are of innocent civilians accurate? And how does that compare to more conventional tactics, e.g. airstrikes by regular bombers, mortar attacks, or 'plain' action-movie style Special Forces droppings who engage in closed quarters shootouts?

<comment><USER4> > don't think you'll find many people in the military who think 'oh I'm > already killing this guy with the AK74 who's shooting at my buddies,

That is exactly what's happening when they act on incomplete intel, don't care to double check, (we just attacked a Doctors Without Borders hospital last month). Yet we still pull the trigger.

So I think we'll find quite a few in the armed forced would and did approve those kind of actions.

> But those aren't 'innocent bystanders'.

You seem to be very sure of that. I am not.

> They're enemy combatants in all meanings of the concept, and 'fair game' > (sorry again if that sounds callous again).

Now with a bit of pr gymnastics we can of course say "anyone near this person who may or may not be our target is an enemy combatant", and then we solve the problem and sleep better at night. And I think that is pretty much what's been happening. That is why I pointed out to your comment as an example of the problem.

> I think all of them have thought and think much more and harder about what > it means to kill a person

Why would they? Their lives are not in danger. It is fun to do mission and pad stats. Are the people who blew up the Doctors Without Borders going to jail at least for manslaughter? Nope. So why stop?

> this is a major psychological burden, something that literally haunts them > at night.

Unless there is a draft going on that I am not aware of, they got into it on their own will. Not sure what they expected? Travel, see the world? This is especially true for those signing up after the Iraq War. Still looking for WMDs I guess...

> do it because they're sadistic subhumans who get off on the idea of making > children in an already bad situation on the other side of the world orphans.

Yet they keep making children o the other side of the world orphans. Do you know in Yemen what mothers tell their children will happen if they don't go to sleep on time or don't pick up their toys? They tell them "the drone will get you".

> So, if we can get past the 'killing people with drones is immoral no matter > what' rhetoric,

That's not the argument here. But we can at least talk about why are even killing anyone in Yemen to start with, with drones or otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Among the leaked info is the startling revelation that, "nearly 90% of > people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets."_

Granted this is a cherry-picked time period, this remains a damning revelation. As far as i have heard, even the most pessimistic grumbles have not suggested such numbers.

<comment><USER6> I wonder how it compares to boots-on-the-ground operations. It seems to me that what US is doing here is not reducing the risk for their own troops (thus minimizing total combatant deaths), but _shifting_ it towards the civilians of the other side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cloudflare reports down in Chicago.

Edit: Now Chrome reports a redirect loop.

This isn't _new_ news for most of us. [https://theintercept.com/drone- papers/](https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/)

<comment><USER8> That reads less like new information and more like an activist campaign to stop the use of drones.

<comment><USER9> The OP article is commentary on the intercept piece. You can see that the logo on the intercept piece is the picture from the OP article.

This might be surprising to a technologist who thinks that all information can be objective, but sometimes, when humans learn information, they are compelled by the morality that we evolved so long ago to protect one another and establish our species, not as a sequence of individuals but as cohesive units, to act based on that information, to change the world so that the information they have learned is possibly more or less true. It is not always possible to remain on the sidelines. Information can compel you to act, or at least, compel moral humans to act.

So, to many humans, this "activism" is not a blemish, but a point of pride. Try to understand why and you will grow towards humanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When Snowden, Manning and Binney happend I was hoping that one good thing it might produce is encourage others to do the same.

So it is good to see this happening.

I looked at a few parts from the link. Some parts I liked:

\---

... 75 percent of operations in the region were strikes, and noting that "kill operations significantly reduce the intelligence available from detainees and captured material"...

\---

It looks like these drones besides being controvercial are also pretty crappy when it comes to gathering extra intelligence for other future missions.

Also interesting is this: targets seem to come from 33% CIA, 40% NSA SIGINT, 17% NSA partner (presumably other countries' intel). So a good chunk of info used to kill comes from other countries telling us who when and where, and we use that to blast away people.

One more interesting excerpt:

\---

Hellfire missiles—the explosives fired from drones—are not always fired at people. In fact, most drone strikes are aimed at phones. The SIM card provides a person's location—when turned on, a phone can become a deadly proxy for the individual being hunted.

\---

Hmm, I remember Russians in Chechnya killed the first president of a Chechen republic that way. Intercepted his satphone signal and used that to target him.

</comment><comment><USER10> In case it is down: [https://archive.is/MdnQY](https://archive.is/MdnQY)</comment>


"LuaJIT's interpreter () beats V8's JIT compiler" - Mike Pall - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3851#comment-57761 <comment><USER2> One question i have regarding these is how fair are the tests, a very quick look at the tests shows for "pidigits" the lua code has the line:

require"c-gmp"(g, aux)

Implying that it is using the GNU Multiprecision Library for it's big integer support, whereas the JS code has:

load('/home/dunham/shootout/bench/Include/javascript/biginteger.js');

Which is apparently a big integer library implemented in javascript <http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~tjw/jsbn/>

In other words, in at least one of the tests a comparison is being made between javascript and C/C++, not javascript and Lua.

<comment><USER3> Actually reading the Lua mailing list post <http://lua- users.org/lists/lua-l/2010-03/msg00305.html>, referenced in the linked text might help:

> For pidigits I'm comparing the pure JS and Lua programs, not the GMP > bindings.

I'm comparing these two:

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidig...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidigits&lang=luajit&id=2)

[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidig...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidigits&lang=v8&id=1)

Both are written in pure Lua and JavaScript and do not use a C binding.

<comment><USER2> The numbers you point to make use of [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidig...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/program.php?test=pidigits&lang=luajit&id=5)

Which is using GMP, so maybe that particular link needs to be updated?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not an apples to apples comparison, the implemented Languages are fundamentally different. I do think this is an inspiring factoid that shows what is possible with a well done JIT.

Go Rubinius!

<comment><USER5> how are they very different? Syntax aside, Lua and Javascript are actually pretty similar. I would say they actually are close cousins.

<comment><USER2> One of the big issues is that any JS function can technically walks its own call stack, which makes inlining very difficult, and for many of these tests the ability to inline is actually a fairly substantial advantage.

The basic problem faced by a JS engine is that if it wants to be able to inline a function it has to be able to either:

* Prove that it knows everything that the function may do -- in effect this means you can't inline any functions that themselves call functions, or any functions that interact with any values you can't consider constant, or identify before you enter the inlined code; or

* Have the ability to at any point in time reconstruct the call stack, and all arguments correctly.

One of these choices is exceedingly limiting in what you can do, and the other is vastly complex.

<comment><USER6> As Mike Pall said: "None of the benchmarks make use of JavaScript's weird corners. And all of them can (or could) be reduced to simple constructs. So I wouldn't blame it on the language differences alone (maybe on the implementation)."

Only the use of such a feature should trip the "do it the safe but slow way" switch. Maybe that's not possible here though, I don't know that much about compiler optimization.

edit: I'm not implying it's easy either, but if it's possible the V8 team has the skills to implement it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find affordable but capable remote developers? - <AUTHOR> Hello!
I've finally gotten my business to the point that I NEED to hire on at least one subcontractor to take over some of the development work on my plate.
My first thought was to hire out of the Philippines, as I'd heard from a couple of online business bloggers I know that there are a lot of very capable folk willing to work for what amounts to a large sum for them but a small one for me.
I'm just concerned, I guess, about hiring anyone, much less a foreign worker, for no other reason than I'm scared to "let go" as it were and trust ANYONE.
To that end, I need to find someone capable in PHP -- most of my projects are currently built on a "custom" codebase (all my spaghetti code from 10 years of work) as I'd gotten too busy to keep up with the latest frameworks and such. I would LIKE, however, to get someone who can work with me to transition to Laravel/Symfony (I'm not ready to go to Rails/Node, I don't think).
Anyone have advice for where/how to find quality developers that fit the bill? I can't quite afford to hire at American full-time rates, but I need full-time work. May be crappy of me, but there it is -- I'm in that weird limbo that I MUST get out of.
Thanks a million! <comment><USER2> I find mine on oDesk. Rates vary widely; good talent is always worth it. I'm paying between $12 and $38/hr.

I post a small gig, with well defined deliverable. Then I have like 100+ applicants. I use a tool I created to filter this down to four or five.

I'll do a quick interview, ask for code or something and then hire two of them for the same gig.

I evaluate their work over this short period (10-20h).

I pick the "winner"

The cost of this hiring via experimental gig is very low and I've had good results thus far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll give oDesk another look.

I'd just always heard about the difficulty finding an actually talented contractor, but I like your approach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Toptal([http://www.toptal.com/](http://www.toptal.com/)) could fit your bill. The average quality of developers is much higher there.

</comment><comment><USER4> > How do you find affordable but capable remote developers?

You pay them more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not entirely helpful, but I'll bite.

I'm more than willing to pay higher than "standard" rates, I just can't afford to do so here. The numbers I hard from the Philippines, for instance, meant that I could pay a yearly salary of between $5000 and $10000 (USD) and that would be an amazing wage (I haven't verified that, however).

The issue is not necessarily how MUCH to pay, but how to find the developers in a place I can afford to begin with.</comment></comment>


Senator Josh Hawley's Open Letter to Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom - <AUTHOR> https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-zoom-pick-side-american-principles-and-free-speech-or-short-term-global-profits-and <comment><USER2> Explicitly difficult to serve both China and US interests without pissing off one side or the other (or both). Zoom clearly built a system based on an MVP idea, not imagining that security and being able to block internationally was important, yet it is. Having worked for a bit on a game that had to have Chinese government restrictions in it, I know how hard it is to make their government happy. Even worse is it can change at any time. Zoom should have had someone there who had worked in a similar type of Chinese environment; perhaps they did and no one listened.

<comment><USER3> Or _maybe_ it should have not, and should've just cut off the whole China, how ever offensive to capitalist sensibilities it is.

Let the free market come up with another alternative for massacre-silencing needs.

<comment><USER4> Why not just license the software to a local company?

Or incorporate in Europe and then license it local providers around the world. Let the local providers deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: I couldn't fit the entire title in HN's title character limit, so replaced it with what it is.

Original title:

Senator Hawley to Zoom: "Pick A Side: American Principles and Free-Speech, or Short-Term Global Profits and Censorship"

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised that he even has to ask. Profits it is! Or else you better prepare for a lawsuit from your shareholders.

<comment><USER6> Or the Chinese Communist Party which can make him obsolete as they have done with other Chinese billionaires who don't two their line.

<comment><USER7> Examples?

<comment><USER8> Liu Han might be an example

<comment><USER7> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kinda funny that it's ok for zoom to become a platform for US to monitor it's own civilians but then complain that it's cooperating with Chinese law. Seems to me senator wants zoom to pick sides alright, but it has nothing to do with values or principles

<comment><USER10> Speaking as someone who isn't American or Chinese, is it too much to ask for both sides to stop spying on the rest of us?

<comment><USER11> This is too idealistic. It would never happen. You either build it yourself or choose your spy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Have there been any info shared by Zoom explicitly about this decision?

And are there any HNers who work at Zoom, or know someone who works at Zoom, who can speak to how this situation is perceived internally?

<comment><USER13> Zoom blogged about it... [https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/06/11/improving- our-poli...](https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/06/11/improving-our-policies- as-we-continue-to-enable-global-collaboration/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's unreasonable to expect any single company to act alone in this. Some pundit (Scott Galloway?) recently made the point that USA flag corporations need the US Government to make this law. I'd be fine if FAANG et al presented model legislation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Senator Hawley also introduced legislation that could be used to block efforts to implement end-to-end encryption, so maybe this is more about American nationalism than American Principles.

"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has slammed the bill as a 'Trojan horse to give Attorney General Barr and Donald Trump the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans' lives.'" [1]

[1] [https://thehill.com/policy/technology/487372-bill-to- protect...](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/487372-bill-to-protect- children-online-ensnared-in-encryption-fight) [2] [https://morningconsult.com/opinions/a-backdoor-attempt-to- re...](https://morningconsult.com/opinions/a-backdoor-attempt-to-require- backdoors-to-encryption/)

</comment><comment><USER16> > company to choose a side: American principles and free-speech, or short-term > global profits and censorship

Or both. Like most other companies.

<comment><USER17> _Or both._

You're assuming there was ever a dichotomy to being with. Many have demonstrated that a company can have "American principles" and short-term global profits and censorship at the same time. Companies have been doing it since China "opened up" in the 70s and 80s.

I would also request that the Senator from Missouri give me a specific list of what constitutes "American principles". I'll bet his list is at least _slightly_ different than my list. But there _I_ go, assuming that a solution was being sought and not just posturing.

<comment><USER16> > I would also request that the Senator from Missouri give me a specific list > of what constitutes "American principles"

You can get a great picture of his (parties) principals by his press releases. Yada yada relgious freedom, police are good, "radical left" is bad, planned parenthood is the devil etc.

1\. [https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press- releases](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases)

<comment><USER17> I was being ever so slightly facetious (I'm sure a MO Republican's views differ greatly from those of my West Coast Liberal(tm) arse), but thanks for the list as it solidifies what I was merely guessing at. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do open letters from legislators really accomplish anything other than negative media attention?

<comment><USER19> Looking at the cases of the NBA and Blizzard, no.

Next step will be hours of Congressional hearings where politicians invoke fiery rhetorics and company executives use verbal jiu jitsu to dodge out of any legal liabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is he going to be writing a similar letter to Apple?

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17055088/apple-chinese- ic...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17055088/apple-chinese-icloud- accounts-government-privacy-speed)

[https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is- apple/](https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Choose American principles and free-speech or face cease and desist

<comment><USER22> Oddly enough Im fairly confident its an American Principle to make as much money as possible as a fiduciary responsibility. So. Pick one.

<comment><USER23> That's a complete myth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I just don't understand how US government officials can criticize private companies for kowtowing to China because of its importance in the world, when the US government unequivocally does the same thing every day to a much greater degree.

<comment><USER25> I think Senator Hawley addresses your criticism head-on. China and the United States both have requirements for domestic companies to be in alignment with certain domestic goals. The Chinese and United State domestic goals are absolutely incompatible. A lot of companies think they can find a balance between these two sets of requirements, but Hawley is pointing out that increasingly this is impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Relevant XKCD - [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Lesson learned: change your chinese name when your company goes public.

<comment><USER28> That has nothing to do with it. Similar letters were written when Activision/Blizzard punished a Hearthstone player for supporting the Honk Kong protests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Suppose Zoom exits China (1.39B potential users) in response. This would almost certainly constitute a breach of fiduciary duty.

Censorship is legal. Failing to act in the best interest of shareholders is not.

Perhaps legislators should stick to writing laws?

<comment><USER30> >This would almost certainly constitute a breach of fiduciary duty.

Would it? I'm not sure simply operating in a big market or not operating it would qualify as 'breach of fiduciary duty'.</comment></comment>


Why facts don't change our minds - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds <comment><USER2> facts do change our minds, otherwise we'd all be dead and eaten by lions. what these journalists dont understand is that when something happens in the other room and i dont see it, it's not a fact for me as it is to you</comment>


The making of TANK (simulated vector animated short) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkYP7wnD40 <comment><AUTHOR> "Putting aside current 3D modeling techniques, Red Giant's Chief Creative Officer Stu Maschwitz looked to the past and built a visual homage to vector arcade games of the 80's entirely in Adobe After Effects, using math, code, and hundreds of hours of painstaking animation work. TANK tells the story of a team of pilots that must take on a weapon of mass destruction in a battle to save their world." Watch it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdQ3mwyrQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdQ3mwyrQ4)</comment>


Tell HN: Mailgun just re-added 1250 free emails/mo - <AUTHOR> I just got this email: https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048661093
As many of you here know [0], mailgun recently got rid of their permanent free trial of 10k emails/mo and replaced it with a 3 month trial with 5k emails included per month. Well, I guess someone realized that transaction fees have a fixed component (or, less sarcastically, they were probably just trying to get people who had no intention of ever paying off), and they now offer 1250 emails/mo for free.
There was a pretty big thread [0] about this a few months ago when they got rid of the free plan so I thought people might be interested.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22192543 <comment><USER2> I have a Mailgun account for the website of my daughter's gym club. After they scrapped the free tier the highest Mailgun invoice was $0.98. I always found it strange, the accounting, billing costs and transaction costs must have been much, much higher. I'm pretty happy with Mailgun and don't even mind paying, but invoices less than a dollar don't make money, they cost money. Good decision on their part.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice! I actually made a note to move off of them for this reason.</comment>


Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot's prison letters to Slavoj Žižek - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/15/pussy-riot-nadezhda-tolokonnikova-slavoj-zizek

<comment><USER2> Moxie,

Thanks very much for posting this, here. I would have missed it otherwise.

I've only waded into the first letter, but already I'm struck by the window it offers into depth of personality and thought, as opposed to simply the superficial sensation of much of what is in the news.

An "artistic" perspective as being one of deep thought, reflection, and action upon society. Punk as one element in an essential dynamic that serves to define same and carry it forward.

I look forward to reading through the rest.</comment>


Ask HN: Is HN's ranking algorithm deprioritizing posts on racism? - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/yZl1PRb <comment><USER2> Those posts frequently get user-flagged.</comment>


A CEO's Guide to Emacs (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.fugue.co/blog/2015-11-11-guide-to-emacs.html <comment><USER2> This article gets why Emacs is awesome so right, that, to be honest, there's nothing to add.

I'm always amazed by the people leaving Emacs for a few years to then come back and falling in love with it once again. Only very good tools make us feel like that. Everything else is nostalgia.</comment>