Insects Are in Serious Trouble - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/oh-no/543390/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Years ago when I lived in suburban Texas with a typical suburban house with a back yard that had open space behind it I had a terrible insect problem. Exposed skin would get a mosquito bite-per-minute, the dogs were coming inside covered in fleas, etc. So I went to Home Depot and bought this yard spray that promised to kill mosquitos, fleas, ticks, etc. and I hosed down the back yard in a desperate attempt to reclaim it for our families use.

What struck me as soon as I was done spraying the yard was how quiet it was. It was eerie. It then occurred to me that I hadn't just killed the pests, I had killed _everything_.

These sorts of products are in every hardware store. How many other people just casually eliminate all insects in their yard, and perhaps do so frequently? What do those chemicals do when they wash away into the watershed? Same question for all the chemicals used in agriculture - it can't be good, right?

In a way it boggles the mind that this is an acceptable product, which is socially acceptable to use. I certainly regret it, but I seem to be in the minority.

<comment><USER3> I think a much better way to get rid of mosquitos in a local area, but not of everything else, would be a laser turret ...

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

Unfortunately not market ready, yet ...

edit: bat boxes, water-fish traps and having birds around will certainly reduce mosquito population ... but there will be still lots of them around. A laser can take them (allmost) all out ...

Oh and about the water: if you just have open water around with no fish in it ... then the mosquitos will love that, btw.. So taking care, that there is no open water around, when it is hot, helps also a lot ... but I still want my laser turret.

<comment><USER4> TLDR: mosquitos hate air current. Just buy a few electric fans. No chems and relatively cheap.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/a-low-tech- mosquit...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/science/a-low-tech-mosquito- deterrent.html)

<comment><USER3> Not bad ... but the fans do make noise. Which is OK for a party with music anyway, but for something more romantic - not so much. At least not for me ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think nothing will change as long as _economic growth_ is understood as _economic Good_.

Current economy can't work if there's no economic growth.

Banks are among the biggest culprits. If banks lend money at a 5% interest rate, their customers must grow their businesses by 5%.

A new, sustainable economy is needed. I think about it each time I see the Race for the Galaxy card. I've seen a radical example of this among African tribes, in a documentary Africa serries by Basil Davidson. He argued the tribe (sorry I don't remember its name) can fully sustain itself by taking things from nature around it. All their wealth is external. They possess little, but whenever they have a need for something - food, medicine, water, paint, clothes, containers(...) they go to a forest, harvest a specific plant and get it. They have recipes for everything they need.

<comment><USER6> I like growth. I want to be wealthier or be able to work less (which is really just an aspect of being wealthier). I want everybody else to be wealthier too. I want my children to be better off than I am.

The problem is growth without care for the consequences. Making some people wealthier at the expense of killing the planet is a bad plan.

But I think that it goes too far the other way to turn around and say that growth itself is the problem and should be eliminated. We should strive for sustainable growth, not stasis.

The story of the African tribe with external wealth is nice, but doesn't seem like a good goal. What happens when some change in the climate (which can happen even without human intervention) wipes out a plant they rely on, or a long drought shrinks their food supply by half for a couple of years? Heck, what happens when somebody gets cancer, or cataracts, or an abscessed tooth?

<comment><USER7> I think one of the main problems is that GDP is used as the measure of national prosperity. GDP goes down when people decide to work less. Some kind of net wealth measurement would be much better parameter for a country to try and maximize. Include natural resources and the biosphere in that wealth. In this scheme taking oil from the ground and burning it would likely be a net negative on national wealth while using oil to make carbon fiber for an airplane would be a net positive. Growing a crop that builds the soil instead of depleting might add more to Gross Domestic Wealth than a more "profitable" crop.

<comment><USER5> When a company produces 1000 cars and pollutes a river in process, this counts as economic growth. When another company spends time, money and resources to clean that river, that also counts as economic growth, even if was just to get natural environment back to its original health. Some food for thought.

<comment><USER8> What? You're making a serious stretch there. The profit from the cars contributes directly to GDP, but even if individual people get paid to help clean up the river, where is that money coming from? It's a DRAIN on resources to get the river back to normal, there's no profit. Therefore it's not growth.

<comment><USER9> I think the point is that the cleanup effort is "on the books" and calculated as part of the gross domestic product.

The issue that people are trying to make is that there are many activities that do contribute to the overall wealth of a country, which don't get counted in the GDP. And there are things that are counted by the GDP which don't contribute to wealth.

GDP is a poor measure of the overall wealth and health of a country.

<comment><USER8> Right, I agree with you. From the tone of the post, it seemed like the author was justifying the GDP calculation as it's made. Perhaps there was some sarcasm there I didn't detect. But yeah, if we want to count the cost of services produced for, say, digging a giant hole and then subsequently filling in said hole, we may want to rethink our logic. I'm becoming disillusioned with the idea of economics being a valid human science when it can't seem to deal properly with the concept of externalities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It saddens and frustrates me to no end that this is the kind of work that the EPA should be doing for the long term good of our country and species and knowing that it is being systematically dismantled from the inside (as many of our federal agencies are). We've given the keys of the hen-house to the foxes and are sitting back to watch our manufacturing jobs roll in. Granted this problem was already occurring and economics almost always takes precedence over the environment _overall_ , but the fact we're going backwards makes me furious.

Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/politics/scott- pruitt-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/politics/scott-pruitt- epa.html?_r=0)

Trump signs order at the EPA to dismantle environmental protections: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/trump...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health- science/trump-signs-order-at-the-epa-to-dismantle-environmental- protections/2017/03/28/3ec30240-13e2-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.4c2cf38cccfc)

Counseled by Industry, Not Staff, E.P.A. Chief Is Off to a Blazing Start: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/trump-epa- chi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/trump-epa-chief-pruitt- regulations-climate- change.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article)

</comment><comment><USER11> I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!)

75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074) (Oct 2017, 428 comments)

<comment><USER12> Last week's article motivated me to plant Milkweed ( _Asclepias tuberosa_ and _Asclepias incarnata_ ) in my garden next year, to help with the population of Monarch butterflies and bees.

On the other hand, I'll still be deploying my organic mosquito control based on plant oils injected into a mister system. I really don't think mosquitoes fulfill any role in the ecosystem that can't be filled in by other species; but the difficulty is in avoiding messing with any other insects.

<comment><USER13> _I really don 't think mosquitoes fulfill any role in the ecosystem that can't be filled in by other species_

This is literally the exact kind of hubris that got us in this mess in the first place...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As sad as this is, the reality is that nobody cares. Biologists have been beating the conservation drum (rightly so) for decades but the behaviour of the average consumer has hardly changed. Arguably, it's actually gotten worse with metrics like the use of plastic at an all-time high [1] (thanks, bottled water). Soon enough we will learn what the economic value of the free labor provided by insects and other animals as basic agricultural processes like pollination become a service that must be paid for (on many farms this is actually already the case).

The good thing about capitalism is that it's great at optimizing a cost/value equilibrium for things that are easy to quantify. But the bad thing about capitalism is that things that are hard (or impossible) to quantify are, at best, an afterthought. Resulting in the all-too-familiar tragedy of the commons.

[1] [https://www.plasticsinsight.com/global-consumption- plastic-m...](https://www.plasticsinsight.com/global-consumption-plastic- materials-region-1980-2015/)

<comment><USER13> _But the bad thing about capitalism is that things that are hard (or impossible) to quantify are, at best, an afterthought._

It's actually worse than that. Capitalism cannot on its own deal with negative externalities even when they are quantifiable.

You solve that through government regulation. But when government is bought and sold by businesses who would prefer costs be externalized as much as possible, the outcomes are... less than ideal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just some wishful thinking here...

Is it possible that the local insect populations got wise to these malaise traps that the researchers were using in western germany?

Apparently the way that a malaise trap works is that it waits for insects to fly into it's wall, hopes that they crawl up the wall, and then hopes that they crawl right into a bottle filled with ethanol.

Now I do not know anything at all about insects and how they might learn or adapt to various situations.

But I know that they can adapt just like anything else, and maybe some of them starting saying "no I will not crawl up that screen into the bottle of alcohol" after 27 years and got the word out to other local insects?

Am I crazy for thinking that might be the case?

<comment><USER16> > Am I crazy for thinking that might be the case?

I don't know; but I wish they would be able to adapt so rapidly. Think how after thousands of years they still don't understand they can't fly through transparent glass.

<comment><USER17> Flying into transparent glass under their own power isn't something that kills an insect, so there won't be any selection mechanism at work.

One of the other things to consider is the windshield/windscreen phenomenon[0]:

      > If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen...
      > I used to have to wash my car all the time. It was always covered with insects.

I suppose there _might_ be a selection mechanism at play there. Perhaps some insects have learned to avoid flying over comparably warmer swaths of pavement?

I still think the news here is pretty frightening.

[0] [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all- insect...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone)

<comment><USER12> It also depends on which side of the Gnat Line you're driving. :)

[http://southofthegnatline.blogspot.com/p/gnat- line-101_28.ht...](http://southofthegnatline.blogspot.com/p/gnat- line-101_28.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm glad to see some of the recent research on threats to insect populations getting more attention, HN recently had a good discussion on this in "75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas" [1]. But in reading through that thread I saw a lot of discussion about pesticides but surprisingly nothing at all regarding nighttime light pollution, and in that context I think another Atlantic piece is of interest, "Night Lights Drive Pollinators Away from Plants" [2]. In particular I think that's an area where it seems like there is more direct action potential for technologists. Both individually and in terms of community ordinances we should push to better take advantage of advances in LEDs and sensors to try to reduce color temperature at light and try to better ensure that lighting exists only when and where humans actually directly need it at the time, rather then the current dumblight defaults of "always on, lots of spread, and always at the same temperature".

This should be an area where at least some level of technological win-win is possible, because we generally only need lighting on when a human is not present. Permanent-on has just been that way by default because there was no better way to ensure it would be on if somebody came around. Fixed color temperatures too have been a matter of simple necessity given the technology available. So there should be a lot of room to reduce wasted light (and in turn energy) and simultaneously benefit pollinators via smarter lighting tech.

From a personal perspective, this provided me the impetus to get my camera, door sensors, and other presence detectors all linked up with my lighting at long last so that my outdoor lighting is by default off at night except when directly needed. I'd support a national push to develop more directed, warmer, and smarter street lighting and the like as well.

\----

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074)

2: [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/confirme...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/confirmed- night-lights-drive-pollinators-away-from-plants/535983/)

</comment><comment><USER19> They'll be back, once we're gone:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/wildlife- returns-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/wildlife-returns-to- radioactive-wasteland-of-chernobyl/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder what this comment section would like if this study was released during last year's Zika panic.

<comment><USER10> I would like to think this comment section would have a more informed opinion than average, I was seeing/reading about this during the panic and even then many people were speaking out against arial spraying [0]. It decimated the insect populations [1], people describing "total silence" like another commenter except it was over huge areas.

[0] [http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/harvard-zika-expert- naled-...](http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/harvard-zika-expert-naled-aerial- spraying-doesnt-work-could-worsen-problem-8785034) [1] [http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida- keys...](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida- keys/article101067802.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if sunlight / cloud cover negatively affects insect population.

</comment><comment><USER22> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c)

</comment><comment><USER23> we really need to band all insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides.</comment>


Ask HN: Cocaine (PaaS) Alternatives in 2019 - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I used to work in a big company which had tens of thousands of apps running on their own autoscaling infrastructure and I was wondering if there is anything similar that just works out of the box.
Cocaine seemed to deliver that promise which I understood as an autoscaling, resilient swarm of apps which  talk the same protocol (RPC) despite being written in different technologies.
I see the project went inactive, are there any alternatives? <comment><USER2> You probably want to look at the OpenShift/OKD distribution of Kubernetes, by Red Hat.</comment>


New Evidence for the Strange Geometry of Thought - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/new-evidence-for-the-geometry-of-thought <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting. This is very interesting. For whoever is interested to see a lecture on this: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L0X9mEe9aY0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L0X9mEe9aY0)</comment>


Linux Journal Editor Accused of Rape - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/robotviki/status/472282706093817856

<comment><USER2> She should be going to the police, not tweeting.

As it is, depending on jurisdiction, she seems to be committing the crime of defamation. There's nothing she can accomplish here, except to erode the credibility of the journal, for...?

Perhaps she has some economic interest, perhaps a 'Linux journal by women' that she plans to chair? I'm very suspicious of the motives of any person making such an ad hominem attack.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think "Former Linux Journal Editor ..." would be a more accurate headline; AFAICT Hughes no longer works for them ( [http://www.linuxjournal.com/staff](http://www.linuxjournal.com/staff) ).</comment>


Show HN: Delim.co – Online Comma Separator - <AUTHOR> http://delim.co

<comment><USER2> This happens to be _the_ use case for multiple cursors in editors like Sublime and Atom (slide #2 on [http://www.sublimetext.com/](http://www.sublimetext.com/)) - it's what's currently preventing me from making the switch to vim.

<comment><USER3> Block interest in VIM gets you most of that functionality

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the logo should have the comma as the dot after delim instead of above the i.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like this ... easy to use, provides a quick solution for a quick problem</comment>


Vegan Eating Isn't as Sustainable as You Think - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/749443/being-vegan-isnt-as-environmentally-friendly-as-you-think/?ref <comment><USER2> My daughter went through a vegan period. I treated it as a phase, and fully supported her, including periodic nutritional testing to ensure that she was meeting her needs for calcium.

Listening to her rationale for being vegan, I got the impression that there was more emotion than science in the move. I didn't argue with her, but she'd throw statistics out like 'It takes 600 gallons of water to make 1 hamburger, and there is a shortage of water in the world.' [0] The LA Times does report this in the context of the recent drought, however, the bulk of the water is used to irrigate the grain the cows eat. They eat a lot of corn, which is grown in the Midwest (in the US, at least) and that water falls from the sky on the Midwest and is therefore not a candidate to relieve a drought in California. Certainly, we grow a lot of beef here, and providing drinking water for the cattle in California is a factor, about 40,000 gallons in one cow lifetime. But not the 3,400,000 that is implied by this data (1,800 gallons per pound on a 2,000 pound cow over 3 years).

Anyway, she grew out of it. It's beef stew and sausage pizza again.

[0] [http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of- water...](http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to- make-a-burger-20140124-story.html)</comment>


Ways we could make trains safer and smarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/make-trains-safer-and-smarter <comment><USER2> _" A train equipped with positive train control uses GPS, Wi-Fi, and radio signals to find out what to expect on the track ahead, then figure out when it should start slowing down based on things like its own speed and weight."_

The existing 1920s track circuit technology is simple and reliable. The train's wheels short the rails together, cutting off power to a relay at the end of the block, which sets signals behind the train to red. The classic system also detects broken rails and cars that are not part of trains. If someone leaves a freight car someplace, which happens, it's detected.

The classic system doesn't need GPS. The safety components ("vital" in signaling parlance) are very simple. The safety-related components are in trackside boxes along the right of way. There's lots of additional gear associated with dispatching and switching, and that's often centralized and computerized. But the basic train-presence detection and signal-setting is local.

There are later systems that still use track circuits, but provide more information to the driver and locomotive. These involve devices which sit between the rails and send signals to the train. Most of these are passive RFID-tag type devices. Some are wired into the signaling system.

The classic gear is old, but has a good track record.

 _Never buy trackside equipment from a place with a better climate than yours._ \- old railroad adage. The better railroad equipment suppliers used to be in upstate New York or Pittsburgh, where ice and snow are a normal part of life. Railroad equipment has to survive powerful snowplows, stuff dragging from trains, flamethrowers used to melt ice from switches, lightning strikes on the rails, machines which replace ties and ballast, and routine minor vandalism. There's a reason that gear is packaged in cast steel boxes.

<comment><USER3> You're right that track circuits are simple and relatively reliable, but they are also inefficient. Having to retain sufficient safety margins while being unaware of the real location of trains means that there is excess "dead space" in each signalling block that could be used to drive more trains over the existing infrastructure. It's what happens with systems like the DLR in London, which uses an advanced moving block system.

There is a tradeoff of course, but it's not at all clear that the simplicity of track circuits outweighs increased utilisation of the track.

<comment><USER2> Few railroads run trains that tightly spaced. The London Underground and the NYC subways do have that problem, and they've both been cautious about installing newer train control systems. The London Underground's Victoria Line has a modern system, and it's been troublesome.[1]

The enthusiasm for GPS-based systems comes from low-traffic railroads with a lot of track per train. Their maintenance cost for trackside equipment is high for the amount of traffic.

[1] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/09/london_underground_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/09/london_underground_trains_stopped_750_times_automatic_train_operation_failure/)

<comment><USER3> From the article you cited:

 _A strong argument in favour of computerisation, however, is that the worst delay caused to trains in service as a result of these types of failure was 30 minutes long – with the mean average delay time across all 700+ automated system failures being just five minutes._

That is _amazing_. Bear in mind that the Victoria Line runs over 30 trains per hour in the peak! I don't feel that "troublesome" is an appropriate description.

In the UK at least, a large number of railway routes really are constrained by the safety margins required for trains. In the late 90s, when the West Coast Main Line was upgraded, there was an abortive attempt to implement a modern moving-block signalling system – but it was predictably too difficult for such a complex line.

I don't doubt that you're right about the incentives being different on low- traffic lines though. It does demonstrate that there are various benefits to more automation that need to be traded off against the complexity, cost, and rust of failures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >But rail is a pretty safe way to get around (more so than driving

Understatement of the year. Even in the US the number of deaths per year averages around half a dozen; you're about ten times as likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.

From a people-safety perspective, encouraging people to use trains by making them convenient will have an overwhelmingly better impact than trying to improve train safety.

Not that they are mutually exclusive. But if you have a million dollars, I bet you save more lives by putting out a TV ad saying "Thinking of driving? Why not take the train?" than by upgrading a stretch of track. Or by using it to bribe popsci.com into not writing articles about trains subheaded with words like "frustrating", "delays", and "accidents".

<comment><USER5> Exactly. One of my favorite blog post titles: "Make buses dangerous"

[https://www.jefftk.com/p/make-buses-dangerous](https://www.jefftk.com/p/make- buses-dangerous)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The crumple zone point in the article misses the mark. The reason why crumple zones don't exist on American railways is due to incompetent and centuries- out-of-date Federal Railroad Administration regulation. FRA insists on railcars being able to withstand 800,000 lb of pressure without deformation, the so called "buff strength" requirement. This works OK for low speed gondolas and goods vans making up the bulk of the US freight network, but doesn't work at higher speeds or when there are passengers.

If you want to see conventional, FRA-approved "buff strength" safety tested against "crash energy management" \-- a broader concept including crumple zones -- watch this video [1]. The differences are striking.

But to reiterate: don't blame crash safety on lacking technology. Blame it on bad regulation.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpUJrk4QBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpUJrk4QBE)

<comment><USER7> It's a little more nuanced than that. Old cars are essentially a flat base with a structure stuck on top. This forgoes crumple zones, yes, but it also results in a situation where one car body climbs over the other, as observed, causing the structure to shear in two. Anti-climb bars are a key technology in stopping this and were introduced after a number of large accidents where two passenger cars essentially became a pair of scissors and slid into one another. It also means that the cars stay roughly in line, ensuring that the reinfroced parts of the structure stay bearing on one another and transfer the load into the body rather than into the weak cabin area. If you think about it, the structure is very strong when pressed end-on, but as soon as one climbs it's essentially crushing from above/below and the structure is far weaker that way.

Outdated regulation plays a part, particularly around the assumptions of where loads come from. As you mentioned, the buff crushing load assumes a longitudinal action only. Moreover, there has historically been minimal roll- over strength in cabins to protect pasengers. Change is disappointingly slow, however, and with asset lives of 50+ years due to the tough financial challenges facing particularly passenger rail, it takes a long time for new regulation to come into practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In short, that is what ETCS level 3 will do in all of Europe. Level 2 is currently being adopted in big lines.</comment>


Elon Musk Lays Out Plans to Meld Brains and Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-lays-out-plans-to-meld-brains-and-computers-1492738741 <comment><USER2> Didn't Big Head have a similar plan which he explained to Gavin Belson?

Look I found it using a Hooli search:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroQCyWwEgE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jroQCyWwEgE)</comment>


SwiftUI 2 code examples for every new View and modifier - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-programming/swiftui-views-and-controls-the-swift-2-documentation-youve-been-waiting-for-dfa32cba24f3 <comment><AUTHOR> 15+ new & updated controls, 30+ modifiers. Everything that changed at WWDC20 for iOS 14, iPadOS 14, WatchOS 7, and MacOS Big Sur. Swift code examples for making iOS apps.

<comment><USER2> This is really helpful, thank you!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you released software on the Microsoft store? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious about whether anyone has released software through Microsoft's app store? What was your experience like? Was it profitable? <comment><USER2> I released a puzzle game on the Microsoft Store last year. I have to admit I had fairly modest expectations from this platform -- I was also releasing my game on a couple of other platforms and I did not expect many sales from the Microsoft Store in particular. It turned out to be a great choice -- they briefly featured our game, but even if you ignore the sales from that period, the Microsoft store has accounted for about 70% of our sales overall. I've also found their payout system to be really straightforward and easy to work with compared to some other large platforms.

The whole process was reasonably straightforward. It was a bit of a pain getting the build properly set up, removing certain incompatible API calls and getting all the icon files and all the other little settings and details in the exact configuration that the system expected so the store would accept the product. But it's probably about as much of a pain as building something through XCode and uploading to Apple's store.

The game I made is called Omnicube, link here for anyone who'd like to check it out: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/p/omnicube/9njcwkrx4mmh](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/p/omnicube/9njcwkrx4mmh)

</comment><comment> piotr-yuxuan Does such a Microsoft's app store for Microsoft's Windows Phone still exist?

<comment><USER3> Microsoft's store also includes Windows. A customer base that tends to attach a dollar value to operating systems probably has some potential for a business based on paid software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No.</comment>


How Google Stole Christmas from Extension & App Developers and Users - <AUTHOR> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82592588/O/G.htm

<comment><USER2> lol</comment>


Hands-On with Apple's 'ARKit' Augmented Reality Demo for Developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/20/apple-arkit-demo-hands-on/ <comment><USER2> ARKit is amazing. But it's still a little ahead of hardware, you need a 6s/5se or faster, or IPad Pro/2017 IPad.</comment>


Ask YC: Recommendation on a chat service/software - <AUTHOR>

Anyone got any experience using things like LivePerson so add chat capabilities to a web site.  Looking for something so that I can add live customer service to a web site. <comment><USER2> We've used both LivePerson and LiveResponse (<http://www.kayako.com>). We preferred LiveResponse as it is incorporated with their help desk software which is fairly robust. Both were easy to use and install though. If you are looking for something simple then I would recommend LivePerson.

</comment><comment><USER3> We have a public chatroom in our campfire account that we use for this purpose.

Also, I heard that you can now embed gTalk widgets in webpages, allowing gTalk to be used for that purpose. I don't know the details or if that's true at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> We have the needed software stack at ProcessOne: <http://www.process-one.net/>

Contact us if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER5> You could place a Java applet on your website which connects to an IRC server, such as pirc.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you still use the mouse? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if people here are still using a mouse on a daily basis, and for which activities. I realized I don't touch a mouse since at least 4 or 5 years.<p>(In reality the reason I'm asking is that I'm starting to produce personalized mouse pads in aluminium, I'll be targeting gamers and graphic designers first, but wondering if there are other activities where mouse and high-precision matter. Thanks!) <comment><USER2> I use my mouse every day. Even with my new MBP, which has a great track pad, the ability to scroll click forward and back, all of the things I'm use to doing is unparalleled. I've worked on 6 computers in the last handful of years (Mac, Dell, HP, IBM, and a couple of homemade gaming rigs) same mouse. I love my Logitech, plus I have big hands.

More info on the mousepads?

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean you'd like more info on the pad, or you'd like to give me more info on your (ideal) pad?

If the first, we have a tech for printing with good quality on aluminum. Typical application is industrial, but prices are good enough for making consumer products, so we thought to start w/ mouse pads. In principle we can personalize every print, but we'll prob do that in phase two. Now we're focused on the details of the pad.

If it was the second, please go ahead and flood me with details (feel free to email me too)

<comment><USER2> I was speaking referring to what you were working on, if you had a page up. I think it's a really cool/novel idea, I'm just a bit weary on how well the laser would track (was having problems on customer sites this week).

As to my specifications, I'm not all that particular unfortunately, I've done square, circular, ergonomic, a little bit of everything, I travel so half the time I'm using my moleskine notebook to get some bit of laser tracking.

When you do have something up and printing, let me know, we're always looking for something high quality and out of the norm to give away at work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use an external mouse and keyboard with my laptop whenever possible because the ergonomics of having your screen and keyboard at the same level are awful, and I've got enough back pain as it is. I use a mouse sometimes and a trackpad other times - but the optical mouse does better without a mousepad. Why are you making aluminum mouse pads? Metallic surfaces (whether matte or reflective) are the only ones where the optical mouse is completely unusable without a pad, in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER4> This survey from 2014 suggests that a majority of people still use a mouse all the time: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/compu...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/computer- mice-still-a-thing/361741/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Even when I was using linux + i3 and could drive the entire thing only with the keyboard I used the mouse (mostly for scrolling / selecting text).

What is your setup like that you never use the mouse at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> I just use a regular mac book pro. I mostly program, and got used to the trackpad.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is React Native worth learning? - <AUTHOR> The recent thread on Xamarin (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12948611) gave some great insights into the pitfalls of that platform.<p>I was hoping to gather the same kind of insight on React Native from those currently using it. <comment><USER2> If you're wanting to build an app that has cryptographic capabilities, you might run into some trouble if you're expecting to be able to do it in JavaScript without touching any ObjC/Java (an expectation that I don't believe to be highly unreasonable)

React Natives's JavaScript runtime doesn't support WebCrypto. People have resorted to browserifying Node's crypto module (and the rest of Node's built- in modules, as a result) which gives you everything besides a RNG (a RNG cannot be browserified for obvious reasons).

I guess what I'm saying is: I sure hope you aren't trying to do anything too exotic with React Native without first getting ankle-deep in some native code.</comment>


Kafka Spawns Open-Source KarelDB - <AUTHOR> https://www.datanami.com/2019/09/30/kafka-spawns-open-source-kareldb/ <comment><USER2> I've been looking into Kafka lately, because I have a need for "the thing that Kafka is in practice" (not a message queue per se; rather, an indefinitely- durable event store that supports message-queuing API semantics for consumers.)

And, while Kafka _does_ do this, its infrastructure needs are kind of ridiculous when your producers 1. produce events in clean batches, and 2. could re-produce those events, in the exact same batches, if prompted.

Ideally, rather than having to basically have a whole second DBMS in the form of a Kafka cluster (stateful nodes with big HDDs, carefully backed up, needing repair when any die), what I would love is a Kafka-like "event store with MQ semantics", which is in turn backed by an _object store_. Basically, like Datomic's segment-storage architecture; or like WAL-E in its use-case as an intermediary for Postgres replication. Unlike either of those, though, MQ log- segments don't need any additional metadata (e.g. checkpoints, indices), so they can just be chucked straight in object storage, and MQ nodes can base their view of the world entirely on what happens to be in the object-storage bucket.

Of course, this kind of system only makes sense if you have no need for durability of new messages (because e.g. the producer still has the data that went into them, and can resend them), only old messages. Which is kind of an unusual requirement, I suppose, so I don't really expect anyone else to go building this sort of thing for me.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. For me, Kafka's reliance on ZooKeeper is the most annoying one. ZooKeeper is difficult to manage. And both Kafka and ZK, being JVM apps, are memory hungry, and the heap is difficult to tune — they need lots of headroom to avoid accidental GC pauses or OOM events.

Kafka also puts some of the complexity burden on the client. It's been a while since I wrote anything for it, and I believe you can tell it to manage the log position for you now. But by default I believe a client needs to talk to both Kafka and ZooKeeper (or store the log position somewhere else).

There's definitely room for a simpler solution for those who can't afford the complexity of managing Kafka.

I looked at Apache BookKeeper [1] recently. It has a nice design and now supports Etcd for consensus. Unfortunately, like Kafka, it relies on a fat client, and that client is currently written in Java, making BK impossible to use from a language like Go or Node.js.

Apache Pulsar [2] is a layer on top of BookKeeper that provides pub/sub semantics and high-level features like functions and schemas, and offers client support for multiple languages. On the other hand, Pulsar requires both BookKeeper and ZooKeeper (and doesn't support Etcd). In theory you could run zetcd to emulate ZK with Etcd, but... it gets a little bit ridiculous at this point.

I've looked at NATS Streaming, but its clustering story looks a little unfinished.

I've previously built a system that built a log on top of Postgres. You can achieve a decent approximation of Kafka using transactions and LISTEN/NOTIFY, and with table partitioning and replication you can even get some scale out of it, especially if you're able to distribute independent logs across completely separate Postgres instances. But it's ultimately not as good as a dedicated store.

I particularly like your idea that — if I understand it correctly — data can be stored independently of the log itself.

[1] [https://bookkeeper.apache.org](https://bookkeeper.apache.org)

[2] [https://pulsar.apache.org](https://pulsar.apache.org)

<comment><USER4> There is currently (much anticipated!) work underway to remove Kafka's Zookeeper dependency: : [https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-500%3A...](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-500%3A+Replace+ZooKeeper+with+a+Self- Managed+Metadata+Quorum)

As of v0.9 (about 4 years ago), clients have no use for a direct connection to Zookeeper, and don't maintain one.

Fat clients are more effort to make, which is a significant downside, but this is abstracted from the user and Kafka has critical mass - the client story outside Java is improving dramatically. A fat client allows for optimal availability, throughput, latency.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, that's promising.

A fat client makes a lot of sense, but if it's written in Java, then only JVM- based languages benefit. A client written in C, C++ or Rust — or any other language with a similarly good C-interop story — could easily be consumed by just about anything except, ironically, Go.

<comment><USER4> there are pros and cons to having a C dependency. the main benefit is reliability (get it right once, leverage that across languages). Another benefit is usually performance. The main practical gotcha is that security dependencies are incompatible across platforms, and the best you can do is distribute a number of builds of the C dependency compatible with common platforms (but that is workable).

the go story isn't as bad as you might think. there is a performance hit with the interop, which is of the order of 20% iirc - but throughput still massive, and this is not of practical significance. The Confluent go client (a binding to librdkafka), is used to push much of the volume through two of the largest Kafka installations in existence.

there is a PR open on the confluent go client that will include builds of librdkafka in the github repo, meaning this will 'just work', without the need to install librdkafka separately in most common scenarios.

note: i work on kafka clients (including minor contributions to the confluent go client).

<comment><USER3> Thanks -- I thought the Go stack switch overhead was more than 20%, that's not awful. A lot better than JNI, I think?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> KCache is an in-memory Java cache where all writes are sent to a Kafka topic and then applied locally by any instances listening to that topic, providing an eventually-consistent cache. Great for scaling a small dataset that can fit on a single-node with easy replication and a full log of all updates in the Kafka topic.

KarelDB adds relational querying, schema/table management, transactions, and a SQL interface on top of KCache by using various Apache open-source projects (Calcite, Omid, Avatica, Avro). Here's a blog post from the author that has more details: [https://yokota.blog/2019/09/23/building-a-relational- databas...](https://yokota.blog/2019/09/23/building-a-relational-database- using-kafka/)

A typical database (like Postgres) or cache (like Redis) has a WAL where all writes are applied and this log is also used for replicas. KCache and KarelDB are interesting experiments in doing this from scratch using open-source components, although using Kafka as a durable log of system-agnostic changes is already very common. In fact, it's probably the most used feature of Kafka Connect with various database connectors and changefeed streams.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like Kareldb would make a good alternative to rocksdb, when combining tables and streams in Kafka streaming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, KarelDB makes use of KCache (among other OSS). Which so happens that Kafka uses. But KarelDB does not use Kafka and vice versa. Did I get that right?

EDIT: After reading the GitHub README, it does appear KarelDB makes use of Kafka. Its unclear to me if its running kafka brokers underneath, or depends on an existing cluster.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://yokota.blog/2019/09/23/building-a-relational- databas...](https://yokota.blog/2019/09/23/building-a-relational-database- using-kafka/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone explain why this might be exciting? (genuinely curious)

<comment><USER10> Ever wanted a database with all the operational complexity of Kafka, and more? Well now you can have it!

It's exciting as someone more in the SRE side, because you'd need to pay be an obscene amount to support this.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that "side" just a bunch of clicks on a wizard on some cloud provider?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will the next version be called Josef? (to continue line of the famous authors from Prague)

</comment><comment><USER13> ... How does it do distributed joins? Which just don't scale in the AP sense, and really can you trust a distributed join in CP?

Unless your data and the data you are joining are strictly shard-local. But that's also not a distributed join.

<comment><USER5> It's not a distributed database. It's just a single-node key/value store where all updates are sent to and then read from a Kafka topic, with relational querying and schema management handled by various layered Apache projects.

It's a useful tool/model to follow if your data fits on a single node and you want easy replication across all instances.

<comment><USER13> Wow, seems like a lot of work when Postgres can just be setup.

But if someone needs it why not.

<comment><USER5> This isn't a real product, it's an experiment showing off what you can do.

Kafka is a distributed log, you can use it as replication log if you want and there are tons of production-ready connectors to all kinds of databases already. Anyone who needs non-native replication (perhaps across different databases or sources) should just use those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Discussed here previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21048822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21048822)</comment>


Ask HN: How do recruiting firms make sure they get paid? - <AUTHOR> I understand many recruiting firms (tech) take 20-30% from a successful candidate's starting salary.
How do they make sure the employer discloses that the candidate was hired and their salary?
What if multiple firms are reaching out to the same candidate for the same employer? I know I've received duplicate job offers from different sourcers on linkedin. <comment><USER2> In general, you have a contract in place first. Sometimes they'll send in nameless resumes, and if the hiring manager likes them, they get the contract in place then. I've had clueless recruiters do that to me, and I suspect some are fake resumes. I've gotten good at spotting recruiter submissions and just ignore them now.

My clients have me do all the coordination with the candidate, and we keep each other in the loop. I only work with reputable companies, but there are a couple lawyers out there who specialize in collecting from deadbeat staffing clients, so it is a risk. I understand it's more an issue with small businesses (kind of like software consulting).

The contract will stipulate grace periods, and usually if the candidate applied in the last 6 months, through any means, you are ineligible for the placement fee.

The first recruiter to submit the candidate "wins," and of course this includes internal recruiters, who get credit for website applications. I was bitten my this once, where I essentially placed a client by selling them on someone who was already in their system, but had been ignored. He had shotgunned his resume and didn't pay attention where, so he wasn't lying when he said he wasn't familiar with the company. It was painful to lose out, but at least he and the hiring manager are very happy with me, so small consolation.

This "first submission wins" has motivated recruiters to submit resumes as soon as they get them, before even talking to the applicant. To me, that is unethical and would hurt my reputation. However, I've had job seekers tell me they trust me to apply to relevant jobs on their behalf. Obviously, that's very different.</comment>


iTerm2 Leaks Everything You Hover in Your Terminal via DNS Requests - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/iterm2-leaks-everything-you-hover-in-your-terminal-via-dns-requests/ <comment><USER2> duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15286956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15286956)</comment>


Rising Costs: Is Uber's Market-Demand Pricing Ethical? - <AUTHOR> http://techonomy.com/2013/07/rising-costs-is-ubers-market-demand-pricing-ethical/

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. Raising prices during high demand increases supply by encouraging more drivers to work, and it signals to customers that they should consider other options before using one of the currently scarce cars. I credit them for taking the socially optimal action, even though they probably knew they'd get backlash from economically ignorant critics.</comment>


Fuzix OS - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/111104121194250082892/posts/a2jAP7Pz1gj

<comment><AUTHOR> Quoted for those who avoid social network sites:

"Fed up of SystemD ? Kdbus the final straw ? Linux community too large and noisy ? Yearn for the good old days when you knew every contributor by name and the source code fitted on a single floppy disc ?

I am pleased to announce the initial (very initial) code drop of the Fuzix OS. The goal of Fuzix is to provide a reasonably complete Systen 5 Unix experience without all the bloat. At this point in time the kernel needs about 40K, plus memory for user space.

The Initially supported processor architecture is the Zilog Z80. The code uses no "naughty" instructions so should run correctly on clones and variants, as well as on things like the T80 FPGA core. The core code has been built for 6809 and 6502 as a sanity test but more work would be needed to bring up an actual platform. In theory if it's got 8bits and banked RAM you can probably run Fuzix OS on it.

At this point there is no 8086 port. It's certainly doable for a PC/XT or PC/AT style box but needs a usable open source ANSI C for 8086.. I've done some initial work on pcc ([http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/](http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/)) but could do with help on bringing that up further as I've not had time to make much progress on it.

So why Fuzix ?

\- There are various other "modern" OS for Z80 systems but they are not CPU portable, and except for CP/M mostly non-free or depending upon non-free tools. In time they will become a liability not an aid to playing with old systems

\- UZI is neat but constrained by limits in the tools and unbanked memory configuration

\- UZI180 is neater but still lacks some basic features

\- All the existing UZI variants are forks, and generally incompatible. That's not a long term sustainable way to maintain retro systems.

But in truth the main reason is simpler

\- Because it's fun.... and it's halloween which as an ex Red Hatter is kind of the right day for a release

[https://github.com/EtchedPixels/FUZIX](https://github.com/EtchedPixels/FUZIX) "</comment>


In the Worlds Most Surveilled City, Citizens Happy to Trade Privacy for Security - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3031390/chongqing-worlds-most-surveilled-city-these-residents-are-happy-trade <comment><USER2> Did they have a choice or is that a form of mandated happiness?

Look at this guy, he is clearly smiling on that photo:

[https://www.rfa.org/english/news/comment-08062019130629.html](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/comment-08062019130629.html)

Sorry for the sleight, but I cannot take these articles seriously. They probably don't even get security and the data can probably show it. But yes, the regime might actually be more protected from early dissidents.</comment>


Retickr: A Year In The App Store - <AUTHOR> http://about.retickr.com/blog/2012/09/retickr-a-year-in-the-os-x-app-store/

<comment><USER2> Previous post from a year ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3115872>

Kudos on the transparency, it's refreshing.

<comment><USER3> thanks, we think it is extremely important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> just curious - why would you sunset an app that has traction and move into the mobile arena where users are even more hostile against paying for anything? Wouldn't charging for the desktop app at least give some runway?

</comment><comment><USER5> Impressive self-analysis

Striking how low the numbers are on the Mac App store. It seems it just doesn't work in the same magic insanely huge way that the iPhone store works

A criticism: my take is you never really got many downloads, even when you got those first few thousand. Lame stuff on Cnet gets tens of thousands of downloads. Popular but unprofitable shareware gets millions.

Were people telling you that 10k downloads was really awesome? Did you have any engagement metrics (usage of the app) suggesting people were going bananas with time in the app?

</comment><comment><USER6> That's a pretty sobering write up. Good luck to the team with Fireplug.

If anybody from the team is reading, it's not really any of my business but I'm going to ask it anyway on the off chance they feel like sharing: it looks like there's a time line of at least 12 months (probably more factoring in time to MVP) and a team of anywhere from 4 to 6. How did you guy's sustain your living costs during that time, consulting, credit cards & savings, incubator money, day jobs?

<comment><USER3> founder savings. then a very small seed round. then we completed a round of funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's great to see the labeled points on the graph relating to the timeline of events/mentions. I think it's worth to note that all startups should keep careful track of what types of events/mentions work well, and which don't.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, we try to keep track of as many data points as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see it doesn't exist in the store anymore. What is the reasoning behind removing it completely from the store, as opposed to just stopping work on it and leaving the latest update in the store?

<comment><USER3> we are no longer supporting the product

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Any reason this isn't available in the UK app store? I realise you are discontinuing it, but was keen to at least have a play after reading the article.

<comment><USER3> we actually officially removed retickr from the App Store. Sorry friend.

<comment><USER10> Ah, i saw the part about sunsetting at the bottom of the article but didn't realise it was effective immediately!

Shame, best of luck in the future!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "We are taking the valuable lessons from a year of trial by fire."

I am wondering what those valuable lessons might be.

<comment><USER3> Wow, that could be countless posts, but briefly:

iterate quickly (as fast as possible). keep the burn rate low. hire the best possible. get advice from people who've been there. users want features, listen to them & deliver when you can, but always value their opinions. Second that, always be nice to users. customer service = marketing.

just to name a few.

<comment><USER12> Which of those valuable nuggets of wisdom did you not possess right out of the gate?

<comment><USER3> point taken; albeit seemingly obvious, sometimes there are gaps between Reading_Understanding_Acting

and of course there were many more lessons, those were the cliffsnotes, or tl;dr version</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lawsuit over H-1B definitions brought by development firms - <AUTHOR> http://www.legalactioncenter.org/clearinghouse/litigation-issue-pages/h-1bneufeld-memo-employer-employee-relationship

<comment><USER2> Can anyone explain what does it mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I had gone to bed by the time you asked. The government says an employer shouldn't be able to hire a H-1B and then 'rent' the person out to different companies, because then the immigrant is skipping around from company to company, whereas the original idea was that they'd be working in more or less the same place, as long as they were working for the same company.

The suit is over whether a government agency can just change the rules without going through a proper public consultation, or if they should be allowed to change the rules at all (as opposed to Congress).</comment></comment>


The Strange Online Aesthetic of the YouTube Shooting Suspect - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/147753/strange-online-aesthetic-youtube-shooting-suspect <comment><USER2> My YouTube channel also used to net closer to $1k/mo (about 100 coding tutorials) and as a result of frequent algorithm changes and algorithmic demonetization now nets shy of $100 per month.

I am not fond of Google's censorship first philosophy, their willingness to push their own viewpoints (many times not backed by logic, reasoning or data), or the fact that they build platforms marketed for the users and than once these platforms hit scale they kill off the teams that took care of the users in favor of all-in monetization of any kind.

It is very sad what happened, but for a company with such a large monopoly in search and in online user-generated video I have expected better. I can see how this person would be furious if she lost nearly all of her income to a change with no way of fixing it.

To clarify, I also lost my highest grossing video to a copyright troll and YouTube ignored my support queries for 6 months before resolving it (about $400/mo lost in that time). They did not make any efforts to replace my lost income, and did not ban the copyright troll. I would have not been able to reach them to resolve it either if I just went through support. I had to send emails to support 3 times and than reach out on social media.

EDIT: And after a copyright troll steals your content, even if Google re- instates it the video seems to be lower in the search results. Being #1 for a search result is basically how you make money on YouTube if you aren't a YouTube personality. After several months of your content being removed it will lose several positions when it is visible in results again.

EDIT 2: [http://youtube.com/devfactor](http://youtube.com/devfactor)

EDIT 3: Does anyone fear this is how large corporations in the "gig" economy will treat the people making them money in the future?

YouTube now treats creators as second rate citizens. It was definitely not like that when the platform was younger and still growing.

Many people make their living on YouTube, operating as a 1099 contractor similar to how many people are now making their living driving Lyft, Uber or similar services.

Once Uber and Lyft hit market saturation can we expect massive QoL declines for their drivers as well when the companies decide to pursue maximum profits since they no longer need market share?

<comment><USER3> Live by $PLATFORM, die by $PLATFORM.

The same story happened at YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and doubtlessly more that I am unfamiliar with; likely also with older media like TV and newspaper.

The problem is mostly lack of competitors for a specific item. Vimeo might work for you, but discoveribility on Vimeo is much lower - you'll have to actively promote yourself more.

<comment><USER4> Creative section on Twitch is much more likely, as there is a culture of donation.

There's some demand for programming content there, especially if it can be applied to game development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt Making shooters and other kinds of serial killers into celebrities does a lot more to encourage future killers than it really 'educates' society on how to prevent it. Promoting these kinds of stories for sheer titillation purposes does more to undermine prevention of such crimes than anything else.

<comment><USER5> Yup. Here's the American Psychological Association statement about a study on the topic:

[http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media- contagi...](http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media- contagion.aspx)

> "Unfortunately, we find that a cross-cutting trait among many profiles of > mass shooters is desire for fame," she said. This quest for fame among mass > shooters skyrocketed since the mid-1990s "in correspondence to the emergence > of widespread 24-hour news coverage on cable news programs, and the rise of > the internet during the same period."

> She cited several media contagion models, most notably one proposed by > Towers et al. (2015), which found the rate of mass shootings has escalated > to an average of one every 12.5 days, and one school shooting on average > every 31.6 days, compared to a pre-2000 level of about three events per > year. "A possibility is that news of shooting is spread through social media > in addition to mass media," she said.

> "If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer > share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long- > winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass > shootings in one to two years," she said. "Even conservatively, if the > calculations of contagion modelers are correct, we should see at least a > one-third reduction in shootings if the contagion is removed."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading through her site and the like I see a lot of conspiracy - it's a theme - that things are far bigger than can be controlled - there is a secret and I am revealing it.

It's interesting how common that thread is in troubled people. Were there signs that could have been seen? Not many people saw her videos or site and if they did she was probably just skipped over as "the weirdo" and if someone suggested she seek help she might have seen it as part of the bigger conspiracy.

Not really going anywhere with this comment to be honest, it's just scary and I don't see any real easy solutions to this kind of situation. There are thousands of people with similar sites, similar youtube channels that will continue. They probably wont do anything horrible but maybe they will. They might seek help, they might not. It's kind of scary to me.

<comment><USER7> Unless you're a complete bore, if you look at someone hard enough you can make the case that they're a mental invalid. It's a useless thing to talk about, because prior to her shooting anyone yesterday, the only thing that could have warned us were just warning signs. Just as easily as she walked up to that office and shot people, she could have changed her mind and gone about a normal day and done nothing wrong. Does our society now support the idea of precrime?

I sure as hell don't. It bothers me when every time something like this happens, the question is always, "How could we have caught this?" or "how can we make sure she didn't get a gun?" or "how could we have institutionalized her?"

It's much more useful to talk about how to come to terms with the absolute chaos in our world and structure your life around the principle that the world is a fragile and dangerous place. Anyone can drive their car across the centerline. Any two-bit dipshit can learn how to make aluminum powder bombs and terrorize an entire city. Some crazy incel can walk up to your office and fuck your whole life up as you're leaving for lunch.

This will always be the case. I don't understand why people think it's reasonable to suggest that we can ever live in a world where your mortality isn't seriously exposed, or that it would be a world that would be nice to live in. Unless you're completely out of your fucking mind, most people are incapable of truly coming to terms with it and going about their day, willing to die at any time. Everyone else is afraid, and probably always will be.

I think some people cope with the fear by deluding themselves into thinking security is just around the corner, if only we can just fix a few things like gun access and mental invalids. We just need to do a few things just a little bit better, and then it's all going to be great. These people live in a fantasy world.

Others cope with the fear by isolating themselves and their families, avoiding cities and anyone unlike themselves, maintaining a small circle of trust, neanderthal style. This is antithetical to classical liberal values and thus is unappealing for most young and open-minded people.

If you think you reject both of these approaches, I think you're probably just in denial.

<comment><USER6> My thinking wasn't to "stop" this fully - but seeings signs of mental health and offering support can vastly lower the occurrences. Something we as a society are terrible at. There's always a chance of course no matter how good we get at lowering the harm but if we can lower the harm that's always somethign to strive for.

<comment><USER8> Mental illness doesn't predict violent behaviour.

Drug or alcohol addiction do; previous exposure to violence or previous violent behaviour does; but mental illness by itself is a poor predictor for violence.

Increasing the amount of mental health support available is a good thing to do, but it probably wont do much to stop gun crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks to me like she was always a bit 'out there' – possibly even in productively creative ways! – and wanted to be an avant-garde YouTube star.

But, because of her own limits in finding an audience (or tuning herself to an audience), or simply never having a lucky lightning-strike of fame, she didn't get the attention and wealth she wanted, and simmered with resentments.

Some background mental disorder(s) flared up – maybe due to some recent personal relationship or financial crisis, or drug/medication issues – causing a larger delusional/paranoid break from reality and civilized behavior. (Though, it may come out that she'd had other less-violent breaks in the past.)

Her known behavior before the violence doesn't strike me as that different from lots of other histrionic online personalities, or righteous ranters (either on mass media or in online niches), many with gigantic followings.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Critics and audiences have always been interested in the difference between > an artist who seems to "mean" what they say, and one who is subverting that > meaning. Does Cortright "mean" her videos, and if not, what makes them > different from the "authentic" material created by Nasim Aghdam?

Jesus this article. It's grasping for some higher relevance beyond what we had here: a troubled, mentally unstable woman with an online aesthetic that didn't jive with what we in the West consider normal design standards.

It's not that we shouldn't be examining material like hers for patterns that could potentially prevent future tragedies like this. But this is just feels amateur and needlessly judgmental.

<comment><USER11> That's too dismissive. You may not be familiar with this aesthetic but it's actually got quite a following for the exact reasons the author mentions. So she was mentally unstable; so was Van Gogh and so have many innovative artists been through history (often due to their fraught economic circumstances). My read of this tragedy is "starving artist attacks the corporation that exploited her."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish there was more to this article. I think it's an interesting point, almost of an @dril flavour. But all this article seemed to boil down to was "hey, before anyone else covers this, look how weird the homepage of the shooter is".

<comment><USER13> I agree. The author did not even bother to make their point clear (something something aesthetics something virtual illusions something personality), did not even bother to speculate as much as they hinted they might. Shame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I posted some ground school videos years ago when YouTube only allowed 10 minutes of video and they were monetized making around $100 every 3 months. YouTube is keeping that money now and even though it is a small amount I feel it is unfair. I can see how this woman became really angry. There is no alternative source to monetize videos other then YouTube and now the only way you can earn an income from it is to have a huge following.

<comment><USER15> Right, I think they said your content isn't monetized unless you have over 10k subscribers and X number of uploaded videos. This makes it hard to make money off of your cat, for example, as people click and share but don't subscribe. It's also harder to have a stream of these viral videos.

It's kind of sad that it went this way but I think it can open opportunities for alternatives to youtube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It almost seems like a scaling thing at this point. If .1% of people will at some point commit a violent crime, at some scale you will have users that are in that .1%. At 1,000 users, it's only one person. At 1m users, you've got a sizeable population.

As an aside, I don't see much discussion surrounding the physical security (or lack of) at Youtube HQ. Not saying this could have been prevented, but most of my employers have had some form of card access system to limit the impact of events such as this.

<comment><USER17> Google uses a card access system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Her site is 503 at the moment.</comment>


Bitcoin is Not Anonymous - <AUTHOR> http://anonymity-in-bitcoin.blogspot.com/2011/07/bitcoin-is-not-anonymous.html TL;DR: Bitcoin is not inherently anonymous. It may be possible to conduct transactions in such a way so as to obscure your identity, but, in many cases, users and their transactions can be identified. <comment><USER4> I'm one of the authors.

This work is about looking at the Bitcoin transaction history as a network, and investigating privacy and anonymity, in practice, on it - <USER2> there's been a good bit of discussion around recently.

You can see a lot of non-obvious things, when you 'collapse' addresses, as we describe in the paper, and look at it as a network.

We're not really talking about the extent to which Bitcoin itself is useful as a currency, or investment - that's a whole other topic, and a big one.

If anyone has any questions on the work we did, if you post them here or on the blog, I'll try and answer.

<comment><USER5> This is very nice work, thank you. I've only had time to skim the paper; pardon me if these questions are answered therein:

1\. You stop short of actually identifying the thief; is this primarily due to ethical concerns or the paucity of off-network information? Could you speculate on whether non-public information available to law enforcement would be enough to resolve the thief's identity?

2\. How easy is it for users to protect themselves to foil your analysis techniques? Could client software automate some of these obfuscation mechanisms?

Incidentally, you cite my Netflix work, but my work on deanonymizing social networks based on topology ([http://33bits.org/2011/03/09/link-prediction-by- de-anonymiza...](http://33bits.org/2011/03/09/link-prediction-by-de- anonymization-how-we-won-the-kaggle-social-network-challenge/), <http://33bits.org/2009/03/19/de-anonymizing-social-networks/>) might be more relevant, and some of the techniques potentially applicable to deanonymization of the bitcoin transaction network if and when it grows larger and gains a more substantial resemblance to the network of real-life relationships.

<comment><USER4> Those are great questions.

1) We made a decision that the purpose of this specific work was to illustrate anonymity pitfalls, for the benefit of users generally, and not to de- anonymise any individual users.

As such, we haven't dug deep to try and identify the thief. We've just examined the theft as a case study, to show that specific flows can be followed in practice.

We think that law enforcement would have, at the least, some leads to follow, if they used similar analysis techniques - we could also have looked deeper into this incident, but didn't.

We can't speculate on whether there's enough information to identify the thief - a lot would depend on whether the leads panned out, and on what sort of assumptions the thief made about trying to hide their identity - outside the scope of this work.

2) I think that some of our analysis would be possible to foil. Its probably possible for client software to avoid a lot of the account 'linking' that is due to transactions inputs being merged, perhaps by breaking the connected components formed, by putting merged Bitcoins through intermediate accounts, or perhaps by supporting mixing of some form.

There are other leakages, of off-network information, such as the Bitcoin Faucet displaying IPs, that could trivially be turned off.

But as to whether this would render Bitcoin anonymous overall, it is very hard to say. It is extremely difficult to get anonymity into your system, unless it has been an explicit design goal; and it would be possible to take this kind of analysis much further than we did.

Thanks for the tip about the paper - we should probably reference it. That was nice work - it occurred to me it was possible to use such a strategy when the competition was announced, and when we saw the results, we knew someone had!

<comment><USER6> "2) I think that some of our analysis would be possible to foil. Its probably possible for client software to avoid a lot of the account 'linking' that is due to transactions inputs being merged,"

I already did some work on this:

[http://coderrr.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/patching-the- bitcoin...](http://coderrr.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/patching-the-bitcoin- client-to-make-it-more-anonymous/)

<comment><USER4> That's really nice work.

I think it should be adopted by the official client, and, ideally, the users educated as to its usage; it would mitigate a lot of the entity resolution, which our work shows is a widespread problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Of course Bitcoin is not anonymous. The moment you make a purchase that contains some personal information about you (whether your name, IP, address, etc.) with your current wallet, any future purchases can be mapped back to you using your purchase graph. Difficult, yes, but the frequent intent with security is not to stop things cold in its tracks, but to make it such a chore to thwart all but the most dedicated intruders.

But that's not the point of Bitcoin's anonymous capabilities. The relative ease which you can create multiple wallets and keep your questionable Silk Road and Wikileaks donation purchases separate, as opposed to creating multiple offshore bank accounts in Switzerland, can establish a high degree of anonymity. Almost like how drug dealers use prepaid cell phones and discard them for new ones the moment they suspect something is compromised.

<comment><USER8> Could a service that creates a new ´wallet´ for every single transaction provide effectively unbreakable anonymity? Forgive me if the question doesn´t make sense... I haven´t used bitcoin.

<comment><USER9> Even if it was possible to create new wallets for every transaction, wouldn't you want to spend it somehow? Then, the "flow" of cash from a subset of wallets at the same time indicates _something_.

<comment><USER10> A system could create, manage and automate a 'cloud' of several hundred wallets, all shifting small amounts of money around at random intervals. When the owner decided to make a particular payment, he could set a target sum to be accumulated by a single wallet, and within a few hours (or days), make payment from there.

Once this system had a few users, the difficulty of tracing any particular wallet 'owner' would be significant.

<comment><USER11> If these nodes aren't shared between users then you're not really getting anything more than minor obfuscation. If they _are_ shared then you in fact have a third party cloudbank that hopefully is trustworthy and the money cloud aspect is a distraction that doesn't provide any benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity> says pretty much the same, though in a general terms

"The main problem is that every transaction is publicly logged. Anyone can see the flow of Bitcoins from address to address (see first image). Alone, this information can't identify anyone because the addresses are just random numbers. However, if any of the addresses in a transaction's past or future can be tied to an actual identity, it might be possible to work from that point and figure out who owns all of the other addresses. This identity information might come from network analysis, surveillance, or just Googling the address. The officially-encouraged practice of using a new address for every transaction is designed to make this attack more difficult."

Not that you are saying they claimed otherwise and it is exactly your article that made me look through this page in detail, so thanks for that.

<comment><USER4> Yes, absolutely.

We actually wrote a sentence in our paper addressing this: "While there is an under- standing amongst Bitcoin's technical users that anonymity is not a prominent design goal of the system, we believe that this awareness is not shared throughout the community."

Also, there is a gap between 'might be possible to work from that point' and actually trying to do it; and it is this gap that a lot of Bitcoin users are counting on. The idea is out there that while it might be possible to tie things together in theory, its really not doable in practice.

The discussion mentioned on this blog, and the post its replying to, is an interesting example of the uncertainty that's out there, even among very tech savvy users: [http://blogs.forbes.com/timothylee/2011/07/14/advanced- bitco...](http://blogs.forbes.com/timothylee/2011/07/14/advanced-bitcoin- anonymity/)

So, we knew that Bitcoin didn't try make hard guarantees of anonymity, but we wondered how well analysis would work in practice; and it turned out to be work much better than we expected.

The problem of linking accounts, too, turned out to give us a lot more information than we think most people would have expected.

We aren't trying to claim any more than that - some people will read this and say 'huh, obvious' but we think a large number of people will also be surprised this practically worked - we were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why someone would hold a large amount of money in BTC. The only real value i see for BTC is in secure online transactions. Basically a 'last mile' currency that should be used much like cash. So having some money in BTC would make sense (say < $200 US) just for the convenience of secure online purchases. But why would someone transfer a large amount of wealth into BTC? It seems like the digital equivalent of stuffing your money into your mattress. Am I wrong on this? is there some major benefit that im missing?

<comment><USER14> bitcoin represents a set of capabilities that haven't been combined before. People believe that the market hasn't discovered the correct market price for this set of capabilities yet.

<comment><USER15> I totally agree.

There has been some criticism of bitcoin's technical aspects. I just wanted to post a thought I've been having for the last week or two, given your great answer (perhaps you could respond):

If someone creates a better cryptocurrency than bitcoin, they should lock in a 1:1 exchange with bitcoin - so give 1 bitcoin and get 1 of the new currency back. At any time, one can recall bitcoins with the new currency at the same 1:1 rate. This way current bitcoin holders don't lose out to the new currency. There might be a minuscule commission to the creator.

One issue in uptake is trusting the issuer of this new currency to stick around to make good on their promise.

One weakness I see with bitcoin is speed of transactions across the network.

<comment><USER16> That would just be a centralised version of bitcoin which is pretty much equivalent to PayPal or any of the many clones.

<comment><USER15> There is a centralized aspect to it, a fixed-rate exchange. Sort of like having Mt Gox lock in an exchange rate and promising not to shut down and being on the other side of all trades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Bitcoin is pseudonymous. I have always been a little irratated that the developers have not tried to dispel the myth that it is anonymous. I am not sure if they ever said it was anonymous but they do not do enough (in my opinion) to stress that it is not anonymous.

<comment><USER18> All transactions are public.

It is one of the central ideas behind bitcoin and leaves no doubt about the anonymity of the transactions.

It is a well publicised idea and it is even mentioned on the main page of the bitcoin wiki (<http://bitcoin.it>).

<comment><USER4> The fact that the transactions are public is a separate issue vs. whether they are anonymous.

The reason people think Bitcoin is anonymous is because they think that identities cannot be linked to the addresses involved in the public transactions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Awesome depth, many many thanks for the analysis! I'll definitely be reading this more thoroughly when I'm more awake :)

The moral of the story is still what it's always been, and it's a two-parter: 1) anonymity is only as anonymous as how you use it. And, because Bitcoin's transaction history is public, it's _very very hard_ to use it truly anonymously. And 2) _very_ few people go to even reasonable lengths to stay anonymous. For most, I simply doubt they think it's worth the effort - <USER3> anonymize legitimate use?

</comment><comment><USER20> I imagine it will be much harder to track the flow of bitcoins as soon as larger laundering services start popping up. For instance if a major poker site switched entirely to bitcoin then then it would be very easy for someone to stash a large amount of coins in the service and pull them out slowly over time to a separate wallet. Right now it's hard to stay anonymous because there are no large anonymous entities processing transactions to hide your own transactions within.

</comment><comment><USER21> "We contract all vertices whose corresponding public-keys belong to the same user." How?

</comment><comment><USER22> Okay, it's not anonymous but it's easy to receive money at a wallet that is otherwise unidentifiable (and thus can be sent in a way equally unlinked to your real identity or public wallet endpoint).</comment>


Ask HN: What CLI tools do you use often during your day? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Ones I have an alias for ([https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/a...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/alias.zsh))

So mostly exa, rg, the usual. + some ones I wrote myself recently like [https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/gitupdate](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/gitupdate) and [https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/learning/blob/master/go/sa...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/learning/blob/master/go/savelink/main.go)

</comment><comment><USER3> grep&awk.

I've become quite fond of gnu grep.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any 3rd party vendor tools like aws-cli?

<comment><USER3> nah</comment></comment></comment>


Retailer adds 'immortal soul' clause to sale conditions - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/technology/gamers-risk-everlasting-limbo-as-retailer-adds-immortal-soul-clause-to-sale-conditions/story-e6frfro0-1225854448399

<comment><USER3> In Denmark, and to a slightly lesser extend Europe, consumer protection is so strong that pretty much any language in the T&C is pointless, and thus there's no point in reading it.

To a certain extend this is a good thing, and it's been instrumental in persuading people that online shopping is safe. But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements.

There was recently an EU ruling deciding that if you buy something online, regret the purchase and return the goods (this is already the right of the customer), you're entitled to a refund of the shipping charges also. Before this ruling, the vendors only loss on a customer regretting his purchase was handling (time) - this is comparable to the risks of running a physical store. But now the vendor stand to loose actual money from shipping - and this is a bad thing.

First, this loss has to be covered on the margins - the consumers end up paying anyway, it's just less transparent.

Second, it pulls away the competitive advantage for vendors already offering this service, and hands it to the ones that don't. I.e. benefiting those who don't go the extra mile to service the customer on the dime of those who do.

Third, it could hamper e-business in areas where shipping is expensive.

But the most troubling thing about this is consumers getting used to vendors having zero rights. I witnessed an exchange on the forum of a club recently, where somebody was organizing a party with dinner. The cost was roughly €20 and should be transferred to the hosts bank account in advance. One participant voiced concern that something might come up, and another (not the host) casually stated that he should just pay, he could always reclaim the money.

Even if this in a narrow legal sense might be so (and I'm not sure that's the case, but IANAL) this is simply no way to treat volunteer hosts of a party, that, at the time you've decided to not show up, already spend your money on food for you.

Entering into an agreement is a two-way commitment, and even though we should make it hard for shady vendors to defraud customers (including taking their souls), teaching the customer that he has no commitments or obligations is a bad idea in the long run.

<comment><USER4> _But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements._

You're making a fallacy of the excluded middle. Very few would argue that we should _completely_ remove the right to enter into a contract.

However, that's not what a purchase is. When you pay for an object, that is a sale. When your business is oriented to selling a service to many individuals, that is also, properly, a sale, and is _quite distinct from_ entering into a contractual arrangement with another corporate entity.

When you pay for a service, the terms of that service should be easy to understand and not require pages of legal boilerplate. A service oriented to consumers should have no expectation that the customer has a lawyer reading the terms of that service. As such, the terms should be clear, explicit, and most of all, short.

The solution to the horrendous way it's done in the US is not to point at Europe and say "look, it's also horrendous there!" That is a silly, thoughtless, contentless argument that far too many are using just reflexively.

Edit: Removed "In other words" at the beginning of last paragraph.

<comment><USER3> I'm Danish, so I'm not "there", I'm "here". I'm criticizing my own system from within. The article I'm reacting to is from an Australian website referencing a UK firm. What people do and don't do in the US doesn't seem to apply, and certainly not for for calling me silly and thoughtless, thank you very much.

A purchase is the entering of a contract to exchange goods for money. The terms of the contract are for most developed nations fixed and encoded in culture and the law, so we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a contract. You appear to be American, skim the TOC of Article 2 (Sales) of the Uniform Commercial Code if you don't believe me. (<http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/>)

<comment><USER4> The fallacy doesn't change based on your perspective. It's still an excluded middle. It is silly and thoughtless to pretend that if one is against terms of service on every service sale, that one is advocating no rights for businesses to enter into contracts. If you don't wish to be silly and thoughtless, then don't be.

The commercial code you point to is part of the framework of laws which form the social contract in the U.S., not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. (If your rejoinder is "well, you should", which others have also pointlessly argued, don't bother, I refuse to entertain such thoughtless trash.) In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase.

You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt. Yes, every transaction between two entities is trivially a contract, do you have anything more substantive to add?

<comment><USER3> I stated explicitly, twice, that I think consumer protection is a good thing. I don't know how many more precautions you want me to take.

> not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or > service.

Yes they do. Really, ask a lawyer.

> Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form.

They don't need to, because they generally match consumers expectations in a given culture. Merchants and those engaging in B2B trade should however read them.

> In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and > shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase.

Exactly. You seem to have this image of contracts as being reams of paper wheeled around by paralegals. They are not just that. There are such things as oral and implied contracts and they are just as binding as written ones (but might be harder to enforce).

> You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a > legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt

I don't know anyone for whom the accepted common usage of the word contract isn't also the legal one. And in the legal definition of the word contract, even buying a soda in a vending machine is entering into a contract. Never the less, commerce seems to be doing OK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I my opinion, retailers have had this clause for years, in the form: "We reserve the right to change these terms at any time without notification. Your continued use of PRODUCT constitutes your acceptance of the new terms."

</comment><comment><USER6> they should watch out, though. Taking the piss in T&Cs is a) an overt acknowledgement that they are aware that nobody reads them, and b) that they don't take their T&Cs seriously. Since it is an essential part of contract formation that the parties and an intent to create legal relations (ICLR - hence why contracts between mates, family members etc are rarely found to be valid), points a) and b) could be evidence of the company having no ICLR, and all those terms and conditions - protecting their rights in a dispute - <USER2> potentially be dumped!

</comment><comment><USER7> _A COMPUTER game retailer revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers_

To be pedantic, the retailer does not own the souls of the shoppers. It owns _options_ on those souls. Until such time as the retailer exercises the option, those souls still belong to their original owners.

<comment><USER6> I presume you could buy it from them. Now, who wants to help me start up a soul market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Related to this: <http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/eula.asp>

Summary: "Software company hiddes a message in their End-user license agreement (EULA) that promises a prize to anyone who actually reads it. Only after 3000 downloads the prize was finally claimed."

</comment><comment><USER9> Excellent point about why terms and conditions agreed to online are not as a rule legally enforceable.

You may be able to withhold service from people violating your T&C but you will not be able to go much further than that.

More reading on this:

[http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?id=...](http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?id=c82e4a36-04ea-40d6-89cf- af46e0dc9ea7)

</comment><comment><USER10> Mozy used to include "DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL" in their T&C...

<comment><USER11> I seem to recall that from a SNL skit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sure, people don't read terms and conditions, but I have to ask, do retailers care? Usually terms and conditions are tucked into a quiet corner so no one will ever find them. They're intentionally written in an almost unreadable style, even though it's not necessary. Some sites don't even have them, despite dealing with tons of user-submitted content. Stack Overflow has been claiming to license user-submitted content under cc-wiki since its inception _without ever asking users for this permission_. Stack Overflow cannot even legally _display_ content from users without permission, yet they presume to license it out to third parties and even provide data dumps of it. People don't read terms and conditions because companies don't care. Stack Overflow has grown into one of the most popular sites on the web without ever settling the most fundamental legal issue related to the site. I've even emailed Stack Overflow about this. Their response can best be summed up as "Huh?" Companies only provide terms and conditions to cover their asses. They don't care what's in there any more than customers do. If they don't think their asses need covered, they skip the terms and conditions altogether.

<comment><USER13> There is a big tag at the bottom of each page saying you submit it under cc- wiki. This is a good thing, it's better than you having to read through 100s of pages of their own license to discover that they reserve the rights to put in a pay wall later.

<comment><USER12> This is exactly Stack Overflow's (mis)understanding. The statement on the bottom of the page is that user-submitted content _is licensed_ under cc-wiki. That they are granting you a license to use it under cc-wiki. The statement is _not_ that you will license your content to Stack Overflow under cc-wiki. I can easily say, "The entire content of Hacker News is in the public domain." Without asking for permission though, this statement is meaningless. Same with Stack Overflow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one bugged by the incorrect use of "year 2010 Anno Domini"? Anno Domini means Year of Our Lord, so the proper usage is 'AD 2010', as in "The Year of Our Lord 2010".

</comment><comment><USER15> Hopefully someone important will pay attention and do away with the sillyness of user agreements.

I don't have to sign one when I buy my food, electronics or whatever...

<comment><USER6> generally, you don't have to sign anything to form valid contracts. You're agreeing to stuff just by buying the food - have a look for T&Cs posted in the shop, at the till, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is hilarious. I had this idea years ago, but never had the opportunity to implement it. It's good to see a company with a sense of humor who realizes that no one reads these things.</comment>