The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html <comment><USER2> One of the things that I find interesting about Dwarf Fortress is that (to use programming jargon) it's sort of a declarative game rather than an imperative game. In e.g. StarCraft you select an individual unit and demand that it move to a specific point on the map; in Dwarf Fortress you configure which dwarves are allowed to perform certain tasks, then you place a task in a queue, and some dwarf somewhere will (eventually (hopefully)) take care of it (until they get distracted by a party, or decide to go fishing, or get hungry and wander off to the dining hall, or fall asleep in a stockpile, or drop anything they're carrying and run screaming from the forgotten beast hurtling down the hallway at them). It's a fascinating difference in paradigm, and I wish more games would explore the idea of actors in the world being chaotic/free agents which will only somewhat prioritize your wishes.

<comment><USER3> There is a great and popular game called Rimworld[[http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/)] that does this. It's a colony management game where the default mode is colonists acting according to priorities and rules you set. You can override if you want but you quickly realize this is only for rare situations. It's really a fun game and a much easier learning curve than Dwarf Fortress.

<comment><USER4> now that is an expensive 2d game. holy shit.

<comment><USER5> I downvoted you.

£23 for a game actively developed, with great replayability, tons of mods, a passionate fan base and community? Holy shit, that's a bargain.

<comment><USER6> $30 for a game that's early access, may never be finished.

I think GP is also potentially balking at the $300 DLC pack (what could be worth $300 from a game that isn't finished?)

<comment><USER7> Those DLC packs are actually more like Kickstarter rewards. The text of the Pirate King DLC is this:

> This DLC gives you the right to enter a name and character backstory into > the game, with skills, appearance, and special work requirements. In > addition, your character will appear as the leader of another faction!

and follows with a note that says it does not affect game play, only gives you the right to add your desired content to the game.

<comment><USER8> Sure would be nice if people would look at what the DLC actually is before complaining about it....

<comment><USER6> I'd like to note that I wasn't complaining about it, just noting that at a glance it makes the game look expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dwarf Fortress is an example of how a great idea can be held back by a horrible user experience. The UI is a nightmare, and the performance worsens as the game gets bigger.

I've recently started playing Rim World, which is essentially a Dwarf Fortress light. I'm enjoying it way more than I enjoyed Dwarf Fortress despite being a less complex (relatively speaking) game because it offers a FAR superior interface and presents it's mechanics in a friendlier way.

<comment><USER10> Honestly I feel the opposite.

I agree Dwarf Fortress is quite hard to learn and the UI plays a large part of that as it's completely keyboard based and requires a lot of upfront effort to learn, but once you do you become much faster than you would otherwise (much like text editors).

People often complain about Dwarf Fortress's graphics in the same vain and breath as the UI, but I think these are parts of the charm and instead of being weaknesses they are leveraged as strengths.

For instance, the lack of fidelity of the game allows any new character to be added in 2 seconds, yet Rimworld needs a considerable amount of time and effort developing each texture. To an extent I think the 'horrible' user experience cannot be divorced from Dwarf Fortress. Losing is fun, after all.

I think what you consider a 'horrible' user experience cannot be divorced from what we know as Dwarf Fortress today. Losing is fun after all. I love Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, but they occupy different spaces within a similar genre in my mind.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that the criticism is that easily dismissible.

It's not so much that it's keyboard controlled (that's great for the reasons you mention) or that it's hard (that's ultimately part of its charm). It's that the interface is inconsistent with itself. A great example (from when I last spent any comsiderable time with it) is that different menus use different controls and mechanisms for selecting a menu item. Some have you type a single character, while others have you scroll through them with varying pairs of keys for no obvious reason. It's a natural result of organic growth and IMO outweighed by a great game, but the cognitive load of using the interface definitely isn't its charm for me.

<comment><USER12> The jeweller's workshop UI is a weird disaster. You need to specify specific a task to cut a specific type of gem. You can make it repeat, but the task will erase if that gem type is unavailable.

Then you need to create a task with a specific type of gem to encrust, again the task will delete if that gem type is unavailable.

Finally the encruster will select an item in your fortress at random to encrust with that type of gem.

<comment><USER13> There should really be an option to handle gemstones by value rather than mineral type, which would require (and exercise) the appraisal skill.

So if you want to cut semiprecious stones, queue a task for cut gemstone, worth ¤1 to ¤5. It would also be nice if you could specify the type of cut, since the game engine already randomly produces cabochons and baguettes and cushions and such.

The encrusting randomness can be controlled by locking the jeweler in a room with only one encrustable item, but I shouldn't have to. If I want a masterwork silver hammer encrusted with small jade cabochons, I want to be able to specify that.

Also, building multi-part instruments is just insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dwarf Fortress was one of the first computer games that I really ever got into. I was a little 15 year old that had a shitty desktop computer that wasn't always connected to the internet and DF has provided me with many tens of hours of entertainment. I remember the depth and realism included in game caused me to want to learn to program myself. I wish the UI was better, but honestly I think the engagement with the keyboard in DF is it's strongest selling point. Every game action can literally be performed with the keyboard, and this means that I don't need to wait for the text on menus to mentally register, move a mouse, click. I can essentially type the commands at speed.

TLDR: DF is a great game that shaped my childhood and motivated me to become a programmer.

<comment><USER15> > Every game action can literally be performed with the keyboard, and this > means that I don't need to wait for the text on menus to mentally register, > move a mouse, click. I can essentially type the commands at speed.

This is a sentiment that crops up again and again. In particular as long time users of a terminal ui (not necessarily CLI but using ASCII/ANSI to draw the interface, and keyboard for input) when they transition to a GUI replacement.

The thing about keyboards is that they are designed to be used without looking. Special keys have special shapes to make them stand out. Every key is in a fixed location. And certain ones are marked but a bump or similar to make them easy to find by touch and thus use as navigational aides.

Yes, mouse and touch screens make it easier and faster to localize and develop a UI. But we humans are quite capable of doing repetitive tasks with our hands without looking.

I think that in RTS and MMORPG circles there is a certain degree of disdain for "clickers". People that operate the game mostly via mouse. This because it is slower and thus limits how quickly they can react to in-game events.

<comment><USER16> > And certain ones are marked but a bump or similar to make them easy to find > by touch and thus use as navigational aides.

Completely off-topic, but there are two keyboard changes over time that absolutely drive me bonkers.

First, caps lock replacing control on the left, but that's not what prompted this post, but I'm still grumpy at Sun and Apple for surrendering to the idiot PC world on that.

Second, moving the bumps from "d" and "k" to "f" and "h". Pretty sure Apple also had that right originally.

When the bumps are supposed on the 2nd finger, you _always_ feel them, even if your fingers are offset by 1. Feeling the bump on the wrong finger is great feedback to fix your hand position.

When the bumps are now in the 1st finger, if your fingers are offset by 1 you don't feel it at all, and it's much harder to notice the absence of something than it is to notice the presence of the bump on the wrong finger.

Bad designers, bad bad.

<comment><USER17> Bumps on my MBP late '13 are now F & J for what it's worth.

<comment><USER16> Meant f/j. d/k is better for the reasons I outlined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone who has wasted far too many hours in games, i believe that DF to be simply the best game ever made. The UI is rather horrific but something you can get used to. Admitedly it took so many efforts to figure out the game but that becomes half the 'fun'. Anyone wanting to play, find a lets play video (for the current version) and just follow along. Sounds silly, but thats how i finally got it.

</comment><comment><USER19> This winter a player has documented seemingly the greatest game ever to be played out on Dwarf Fortess. A lyrically narrated 320 year Saga, culminating in the construction of a glass fortress... in Hell.

Archcrystal - 320 years in a fortress (w/spoilers read 37592 times)

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.0](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.0)

<comment><USER20> Oh lord well there goes a good hour of my time.

I'm a sucker for a good DF story... :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A very touching story about the two brothers. I especially enjoyed the idea that they send drawings and stories to donors. I hope they're still doing well.

I dl'd it and started it up. I'm now wondering what I'm looking at. Not being a gamer, I don't have the visual vocabulary or expectations, so I'm glad there's a wiki; the in-game manual doesn't fully work. EDIT: My reading comprehension is not fully functional, the manual works.

> "Water's not doing it for me these days," he said. "I know it's bad, but the > sugar goes right into programming the game. If I don't drink soda now, I get > a headache and can't do any work."

I feel bad that he's sacrificing his health for our pleasure.

> He'd enrolled at the University of Washington, ... Tarn moved into a string > of "dingy one-bedrooms" with "bad moisture problems" — in one, he discovered > a shelf fungus growing behind his couch.

I probably lived in one of those when I was at UW. It was a "World's Fair" apartment building, garden level, the only window facing north and looking up an outside stairwell into the alley. Google maps shows me that much of all that has been scraped and replaced.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very strange timing -- I spent about an hour last night looking in to DF and other games since I like that type of 'emergent' or 'declarative' (as another comment here put it) gameplay.

Other games I have played of a similar vein: Rimworld (great), Prison Architect (great), Banished (great, needs mods to add more content), Planetbase (EA, good, light on content after 2~ hours).

Others I found were: Stonehearth, Gnomoria, Town, Kingdoms and Castles (not out yet), Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 (kinda) / War for the Overworld (fan remake of DK, essentially).

<comment><USER23> Rimworld and Prison Architect are practically training for DF. Now that you know you like the style of gameplay you will probably love DF

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615)

<comment><USER25> Wow, the creator of Dwarf Fortress doesn't use version control? I don't even know what to say about that. It's like when I heard the creator of KeePass doesn't use version control either... why are people so resistant to VCS?

<comment><USER26> I've been trying to understand how the author of DF does development. My impression is that he doesn't really add features the way most of us add features. Instead he'll rewrite large portions of the game, or he'll write some stand alone test application and then integrate it into the mainline code. Apart from safety (I really hope he has backups), there probably isn't that much use in VCS because he intends to simply rewrite everything every time. He also does not like to have anyone touch his code. He allowed a few people to improve the performance of his display code once and has since sworn off it. While the performance improved as promised, he says that he can't understand any of the code and now never touches it again.

Not the way I would do my work, but when you are your own boss you get to do whatever you want ;-)

<comment><USER27> I heard once that he is burning the code on discs once in a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One of the central questions of our time may become whether or not it's ethical to turn off dwarf fortress.

<comment><USER29> It is probably, in a limited sense, ethical to suspend (save) the game, but not ethical to destroy the saved game file. When the game is off, the dwarves do not experience an interruption of continuity to their time. So on the face of it, there is no harm done to the dwarves if there is an existential interruption from the perspective of some external context.

However, the abstraction of the dwarven universe from the universe in which it is being simulated is hardly complete.

By suspending the game and keeping it in storage for several days, for instance, you are placing the dwarves at greater and greater risk that some external-universe course of events will prevent their universe from ever resuming. Furthermore, as the cycles of time which can occur in the universe ultimately face a limit with respect to the rate of the processor and the cycles of time available in the external universe, so in a very real sense you are causing a sort of existential damage to their universe.

This, in fact, raises the question of ethics with respect to the resources devoted to the simulation. Is it ethical to run dwarf fortress on a consumer- grade general purpose computing device? Should not the dwarven reality be given the strongest underpinnings we can provide it, with equivalent respect given between an internal universe subjective & sentient existence an external universe subjective & sentient existence? In fact, given our moral debt as the creators of the dwarven universe, do we not actually owe them more than we owe each other?

<comment><USER30> Heh, falling into the void of never executing again is a much better outcome than normally occurs when I'm playing. Such as building stairs and ramps in the wrong place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Got to meet Tarn Adams a few years ago when I was into Dwarf Fortress and the community. Really cool guy, you can tell he loves what he does.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've never played Dwarf Fortress (something I hope to rectify in the nearish future). However, friends have told me that it's somewhat similar to Factorio, which is a game that I highly recommend programmers to play.

<comment><USER33> I finally cracked open Factorio again over this weekend and sunk way too many hours in. It's quite literally Engineering: The Game.

<comment><USER32> I made the mistake of introducing some friends and team members to the game. Their productivity has gone to shit.

Of course, it's only a corollary that they now spend too much time playing Factorio. Their productivity was liable to go to shit anyway; I simply gave a purpose to it haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here's a question about Dwarf Fortress: I play a lot of roguelikes, which are a genre of similar games, insofar as they're relatively complex, keyboard-and- ASCII oriented games made by geeks for geeks. Like Dwarf Fortress, these tend to have accumulated a lot of developer-hours, and like Dwarf Fortress, these developer-hours tend to get channeled into adding complexity to the game rather than superficial polish, like graphics and interface.

But they vary in terms of their approach this complexity: some seem to always want to add more, seeing more complicatedness as always better, and end up feeling like they contain everything but the kitchen sink - complexity for complexity's sake. (Nethack, I'm looking at you.) Others add it only where it's justified by producing interesting gameplay decisions. (Brogue and Sil are rigorous about stripping out unneeded complexity and getting the maximum amount of subtlety and nuance from a stripped-back set of mechanics. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is more complex, but seems aware of the trade-offs around complexity, and is known for removing features as often as it adds them.)

Which of these camps does Dwarf Fortress fall into? There's a lot of complexity, features and mechanics there. Is it all justified, in terms of adding interest to gameplay? Or is just for complexity's sake?

<comment><USER35> I think Dwarf Fortress falls squarely on the Nethack side of things. The motto of Dwarf Fortress is 'Losing is !FUN!' (exclamation points on either side of an item indicating it is currently on fire, a common occurrence in DF.) The fun and the !FUN! in Dwarf Fortress is because of complexity, not in spite of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Semi-related: Don't Starve is a great indie game with a different theme but IMO similarly complex world simulation. [1] [2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve)

[2] [http://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/)

<comment><USER37> More relevant, their latest game: [https://www.kleientertainment.com/games/oxygen-not- included](https://www.kleientertainment.com/games/oxygen-not-included)

System-driven space colony simulation, with a particular emphasis on maintaining breathable air.

<comment><USER38> > __ _space colony simulation, with a particular emphasis on maintaining > breathable air._ __

Seems only logical...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How did Dwarf Fortress become popular?

<comment><USER12> The complexity allows a lot of emergent gameplay.

For instance in one game a dragon attacked my fort. NBD. Everyone got inside and I was planning to catch it in a cage trap. Then use it as a decoration.

However there was a group of Human traders at my Trade Depot. They decided to run over and fight the dragon. Now the dragon is running around breathing fire. Which started a forest fire. Which destroyed my wooden bridges and doors.

Completely unscripted fun, just a result of the game simulation.

Also the game manages to make you hate goblins and elves through your interactions with them.

In evil regions eyeballs grow out of the ground, blinking at passing dwarves. However cattle will happily graze on them.

If you "delve too greedily and too deep" you'll unleash horrors of the underworld.

There's just a lot of neat stuff there.

<comment><USER40> I never understood the appeal of Dwarf Fortress until a good few hours into my first game I had just finished following a detailed tutorial and was starting to get a hang of the interface. I decided to start work on my first big construction project - a deep pit to keep the regularly attacking trolls away and a gargantuan drawbridge to lead over it. It's probably child's play by any non-noob player's standards, but I was so proud of it. All of the noble dwarves came to the grand opening of the drawbridge - the mayor, the sheriff, the captain of the guard and all of the highest ranking military dwarves in their bright shining armor. They all stood at the base to witness the first lowering of the grand drawbridge. It was lowered and with a mighty crash, flattened the gathered nobles and military elite...Because I had placed it facing the wrong way.

The fortress didn't last too long after that. I tried my best to clean things up, making a nice new dining hall and brewery, but the remaining dwarves took it pretty hard - one of them ended up losing his mind while drunk and slaughtered most of the rest in the great dining hall, the rest died of disease because nobody wanted to clean up the mess. I was so proud of my towering (and first!) fortress, and I lost it all because of one stupid mistake, but it's definitely the most fun I've ever had losing a game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How hard DF is compared to Nethack? I've ascended on Nethack and it is always a very tricky business... this game seems on a whole new level.

<comment><USER42> Well for one, there's no victory condition. At best, its do so well that you try to see how well you can survive is the face of stupid decisions/goals

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > His expenses are low — $860 a month in rent, $750 a month to Zach for his > help and a few hundred dollars for utilities and food

Uh. The US... sorry, but if you spend like $1600 before food that is not "low expenses". If you can get below $1300 WITH food then I'd say that's low. Some people have to live with much less than $1000/month altogether.

<comment><USER44> $750 of that is an employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The DF adventure mod have a very very potencial, Imagine skyrim in 2d, multiply it by 1000 in terms of gameplay/content

</comment><comment><USER46> Dwarf Fortress is incredibly hard to learn.

Gnomoria and Rim World might be simpler games to learn. However not as deep or complex.

<comment><USER47> I don't think "incredibly hard" is a good term.

In more development terms, to me, "incredibly hard" is embedded assembly programming (im probably not even using the right term for this) ...

The level of hard i would put DF at is "learning VIM"... which I think is apt, because 1) its a steep but rather short learning curve to get around, 2) over a while you naturally get better at navigating/commanding/etc and 3) there are plugins and "distributions" just like vim, to make it easier for a beginner, etc.

Now that I write this out, im thinking VIM is the perfect analog for DF :)

[NOTE] I'm a DF n00b. I have less than 5 hours playing. I'd say it took me about 30 minutes to "get it" though, and now I'm actually playing what I would consider "normally"

<comment><USER48> I like your analogy, but what's missing is that the vim interface is much (much!) more powerful than the DF interface.

Any number of DF players who are also UI designers (hey, there have gotta be a lot of 'em) could propose a dozen minor interface changes that would make DF feel more consistent, and easier to learn without even changing any of the mechanics of the game. You couldn't say that about vim. (Or, if you could, I'd love to hear your interface change proposals for vim!)

<comment><USER49> Move the default movement keys to the home position -- shift them right by one. Right now I have to choose between shifting my hand off the home position or my index finger doing double duty. JKL; is very comfortable to move around with.

<comment><USER50> But that's totally possible with a slight change in .vimrc. I would argue that since you can change it in .vimrc your proposed rebinding is still part of the vim "interface".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Winning go and poker ? Easy, I'll believe in IA when it will be able to handle dwarf fortress !

</comment><comment><USER51> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615)

</comment><comment><USER52> Just yesterday I was looking up how to recommend someone for a MacArthur grant specifically for the Adams brothers. Sadly, the nomination committee is anonymous and does not accept recommendations. It's a shame because this seems like the ideal case for their grant.

</comment><comment><USER53> Only in DF you can talk about turtle reproduction....

here's a bug related to turtle pond going extinct :

[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2780](http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2780)

"Since turtles were my only source of shells, which are ever so important for moods, I am keenly feeling their absence after a few years. I went ahead and modded my world so that hoofs and horns can be used also for shells, (which is actually very cool btw, its awesome to have an artifact decorated with Elk Bird horn.)

However, my ponds were filled with turtles early on, and I accumulated many shells that unfortunately rotted away. It seems like fish populations are regenerating, but turtles are not among those, and since I found that odd I decided to report it."

"Pond turtles lay eggs, which might contribute why they will only breed in off site statistics if that's any relevance.

DF structures used for dfhack only implies that eggs that are hatched go into certain classes, and entity ID is one of them for intelligent species (crow men eggs layed and hatched on site belong to you etc., underground egg laying races have been in constant decline since they were added because of this until recently)

Egg layers have always had a hard time repopulating due to dependency on a object to breed which limited and stagnated them in world gen (made easier by spontaneous population regeneration in world-gen recently). I cannot recollect if its possible to offer pet pond turtles nestboxes to use by pitting or pasturing enough of them in a contained area as a alternative or even if they have additional orientation/marriage barriers to overcome we are not aware of.

All gendered vermin breed (or apparently breed, they have the prequesite animal tags but its uncertain whether they become pregnant whilst in the game world before leaving for the site population tally and being replaced with a new generated creature in their momentary existances, or even if they do become pregnant at all with child/adult born states) hermaphrodital or non- gender typical vermin are usually accounted for by being virtually innumerable to compensate for no breeding on site. Technically if the female pond turtle could get off the map by dissapearing and being replaced whilst pregnant it could spawn additional turtles slowly.

Fish are very visible with ASCII symbols and can be seen in murky ponds and rivers for periods of time if a example is needed, if they are close together they are in the capacity to breed and keep the numbers up. Drop a sizable amount of caught vermin fish into a empty pool and it should sustain the fish in theory as they repopulate with compatible mates in that area.

Similar designs have been used with isolated cave spider rooms with wild vermin which appear to be self sustainable and harvested with burrowed animal trappers & web collectors. "</comment>


William Faulkner Was Really Bad at Being a Postman - <AUTHOR> https://lithub.com/william-faulkner-was-a-really-bad-at-being-a-postman/ <comment><USER2> As a postman, this cheered me up a little.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me - one of the ways Philip Glass made ends meet in the early days was by being a plumber, and he was particularly bad at that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) worked as a field ornithologist in his twenties. The samples (=dead birds) he collected from New Guinea are notoriously poorly labeled and poorly prepared (e.g. bits or flesh, missing feathers, etc.).

<comment><USER5> Einstein may have sucked as a patent clerk too. We tend to look at people's achievements rather than the things they did poorly at unless that's all they did.

I was - alas - a pretty good postman. That's not much of a legacy.

<comment><USER6> It sounds like anyone could have been better than Faulkner as a postman by caring a whit for the job.

<comment><USER5> The point is - it seems that I could have been clearer - that Faulkner would likely not have been as well known as he is today if he had been a better postman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ahhh Bukowski was my favorite postman

</comment><comment><USER8> John Prine still has my vote as best former postman.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, well, Trollope was quite good at being a postal official, though he got off to a slow start.

</comment><comment><USER10> Oddly inspiring

</comment><comment><USER11> Despite its being in the title (and URL) of the article itself, it seems almost certain that the first 'a' doesn't belong.

<comment><USER12> Yikes, how did we miss that! Reminds me of "Paris in the the spring".</comment></comment>


Middle-School Dropout Codes Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/09/new-encrypted-chat-program-thwarts-nsa-eliminating-metadata/?mbid=social_fb

<comment><USER2> Using encryption isn't that hard the problem is authentication - how do you know the person you're talking to is really them? You end up falling back to some NSA-hackable source (certs, emails, whatnot).

You need to implement a confluence-type system where you poll a bunch of sources unlikely to collude (i.e the EFF, PETA, China, and the US) who can authenticate an identity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meta question about ranking - why is this article so high? Right now it's #39, 12 pts in 17 hours. It is above an article with 43 points in 16 hours and one with 324 in 22 hours. For a while yesterday it was near the top of the front page with 3 points. Does wired.com get a big boost, or is there something else going on?

</comment><comment><USER4> From the article, "The new version of Ricochet they plan to release in November will use the revamped protocol and have a file-transfer feature. Although the code hasn't undergone a proper security audit yet, the group is negotiating with a code-review firm to run a scan on the completed program, and they plan to conduct a full security audit once the revamped protocol is done. They don't anticipate any surprises, though."

So what do those of you here on Hacker News who work with security applications think? Is that group in for an unanticipated surprise?

</comment><comment><USER5> Doing a search on John Brooks brings up a retired crypto-dude who worked for USAF in the 70's. Not to be confused with this John Brooks who's a software engineer who's interested in solving privacy-related problems.

Until this gets thorough vetting by cryptographers it's a "meh" from me.

</comment><comment><USER6> I bet it doesn't.

<comment><USER7> Second this.

Also: HN link bait rate is increasing exponentially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> [learn about this] Middle School Dropout [and how he] codes [a] chat program that foils [the ability of the] NSA [to] spy [on communication]

<comment><USER9> Is English your first language? I'm not asking out of disrespect. I'm genuinely curious. The grammar of headlines and titling is often confusing to several non-native speakers. Incomplete sentences and 'news speak' play a vital role in language. For starters, it isn't a mouthful.

[http://esl.about.com/od/intermediatereading/a/newsheadlines....](http://esl.about.com/od/intermediatereading/a/newsheadlines.htm)

If you want a complete sentence that's more aligned with the meaning and intent of the original headline, try the following. "[A|This] Middle-School Dropout [Codes|Coded|Is Coding] [A] Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying." The one you wrote has some subtle, imperative differences in meaning. Adding "[the ability of the]" is hypercorrective. And it's verbose. "NSA Spying" is appositive speech; it's perfectly normal and understood.

<comment><USER10> The post was a riff on the standard "One weird trick that [does something] discovered by [quirky, unexpected source]" ads you see.</comment></comment></comment>


Thepatwalls is going live on YouTube/Twitch launching a startup in 24 hours - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1043242997050167302 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.twitch.tv/patwalls](https://www.twitch.tv/patwalls)</comment>


FOIAing the NSA: What you can get, what you can't and where to start - <AUTHOR> https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jun/11/foiaing-nsa-what-you-can-get-what-you-cant-and-whe/

<comment><USER2> In the case of Snowden, PRISM, etc, you have a good case to request expedited processing. The NSA uses DOD rules, which will fast-track requests:

"urgently needed by an individual primarily engaged in disseminating information in order to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity"

[[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/foia/submit_foia_request/](http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/foia/submit_foia_request/), [http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/540007r.pdf](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/540007r.pdf)]

</comment><comment><USER3> Also worth trying are Privacy Act requests about data that they have collected on you personally; the Privacy Act is separate from the FOIA, and allows you to request information that they have collected about you.

Of course, there is an exemption for information needed for law-enforcement and counter terrorism. So they may simply deny your request (or provide entirely redacted documents) for that reason. But it's still worth a shot.

Also remember that technically, it's the FBI which conducts domestic operations. While the NSA may provide services to the FBI to help them collect information, it's the FBI which is officially gathering that information. So any requests, either Privacy Act or FOIA, should be made of both the FBI and NSA.

</comment><comment><USER4> Speaking of which, here are some FAA-related documents which have been out for a while:

[http://www.aclu.org/national-security/faa-foia- documents](http://www.aclu.org/national-security/faa-foia-documents)</comment>


The Freehackers Union - <AUTHOR> http://zedshaw.com/essays/the_freehackers_union.html

<comment><USER2> Note: old link (Zed needs to date stuff :))

This was the result (some useful conclusions in there eventually)

<http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-03-16.html></comment>


5,000 Developers Talk About Their Salaries - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/5-000-developers-talk-about-their-salaries-d13ddbb17fb8 <comment><USER2> On that pay gap...

I've noticed over the years that the SQA teams tend to have more women as a percentage than development teams[1]. And, SQA tends to pay less than, say, full stack roles[2].

Again, it is not scientific, but the difference in populations of women in a lower paying role seems to explain some of the pay difference. Perhaps the research needs to be more granular.

Is there anything to this, or have I just not seen enough organizations? And then even if true, there is still the question of causation. Why is there an apparent affinity for women in SQA roles over standard developer roles?

[1] Not scientific, but search LinkedIn for Title: SQA. 10 of first 20 hits appear to be women in my search. Then search Title: Full Stack. 0 of 20 are women in my search.

[2] salary.com:

Software Quality Assurance Analyst II, Mountain View, Ca: $83,362

Software Engineer II, Mountain View, Ca: $95,881

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want to prove the pay gap with data, at least do it correctly. You need to control for things like:

1) Experience

2) Education

3) Number of hours worked

4) Negotiation skills + actual attempts to negotiate the pay

5) Taking risks

Pretty much every study that did that arrived to the same conclusion - there's no pay gap. We have men who work more, have better education, more experience, work longer hours, negotiate better and more often, and take on risky projects more often.

If women developers were cheaper and just as effective, wouldn't you just hire women?

<comment><USER4> [citation needed]

I've seen at least 1 study that showed controlling for those factors (and many others) reduces, but doesn't come close to eliminating the pay gap. Iirc, there's still ~7% unaccounted for.

I believe it's a widely held misconception that pay discrimination _doesn 't_ exist.

<comment><USER3> It's your job to prove that there's a gap attributed to gender, specifically. Good luck showing us even one such study.

When PayScale did their study, they controlled for some of the obvious factors, and the gap pretty much disappeared. They obviously didn't control for everything.

[http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings- gap](http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap)

You can also find a niche in which men or women make more, that's inevitable, just due to the randomness of the salaries. I'm yet to see any evidence for the systemic discrimination.</comment></comment></comment>


Google dropping consumer Exchange support for Gmail, calendar, and contacts - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/14/3767626/google-dropping-google-sync-exchange-support-for-gmail-calendar-and <comment><USER2> From the comments: "It looks like this is just for new users. Existing users will not be affected"</comment>


3-D printers: a factory on your desk - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14299512

<comment><USER2> And now, another thread about 3-d printing that is _exactly the same_ as every other thread about 3-d printing.

 _Reprap can copy itself only not really.

Gee, imagine what this will mean for copyright.

Has anybody read the Diamond Age or Printcrime?! Wow, we're like, living in a sci-fi novel!

Great, now computers have reproductive organs. We're doomed.

Costs way to much to be useful. Should be so cheap I can leech a used one off someone else and hack it to perform better.

They don't actually print different materials, only plaster. Does nobody read?!

Sintering is soooo much better.

3-d Porn in 3, 2, 1...oh wait, it's already here._

      > Thread complete.
      > Print thread again? (Y/N)

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. They do tend to be repetitive. However, as someone who has a start-up in this area, it's nice to see it on HN every so often anyway.

Your example posts are all correct... it's just a shame that not a lot of people are aware of how 3D printers have been improving steadily over the last few years. For instance, your 'only plaster' comment... lots of people still don't know that we can print in metal, or multiple materials, or ceramic... or stem cells. Or how medicine is doing all kinds of crazy things with them. Or that costs are (and have been) dropping dramatically.

Or that they exist at all.

<comment><USER2> I love 3-d printing - it makes me giddily excited in the same way that 256-color graphics did back in the 1980s. I just wish the discussions would catch up with the advances! Please put up some info about your startup when the time is right, or some linkage to where you think the cutting-edge stuff is, either technically or economically.

<comment><USER3> Well, the startup is called CloudFab. We haven't announced a whole lot, so all I'll give you is the link: <http://www.cloudfab.com/> We're currently in super closed alpha, beta coming when it's ready. I'll be sure to post it here when the time is right.

Well, as for some of the really cool cutting edge stuff, just last week 3D Systems bought Desktop Factory, and they said that they're commited to keeping the sub-$5000 3D printer idea alive. We'll see how that goes. There's also that whole 'print in stem cells' thing... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80DhBLEhdzk> seems to be good, I'm on a computer without sound right now, but I think this is the one I saw.

In terms of where good stuff is... I read a _lot_ of RSS feeds. Check out my PostRank account: <http://www.postrank.com/user/SteveKlabnik> There's a lot of good stuff in there, including the one replicatorblog mentioned in a sibling post to yours.

<comment><USER2> Awesome, both you and replicatorblog. Please post more often, you two!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cross-referenced to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806893>

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome></comment>


American Literature Needs Indie Presses - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/why-american-publishing-needs-indie-presses/491618/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> I've been involved in small-press publishing, and it can be an interesting way to lose a lot of money. It might be a little easier now with the interwebs to do direct sales and marketing, because I presume distributors are still no better at paying their bills. I mean, everything this article says was already true 20 or 30 years ago--it's just a little worse now.

<comment><USER4> There is a pretty healthy grant ecosystem which sustains a lot of small presses. SPD, a distributor, also does a lot to help alleviate costs involved with getting books to stores and handling reviews / promotions. Book fairs, such as the Brooklyn Book Fest, also can make the difference between being in the red and being able to reprint.

I would disagree that it is worse now. If anything, you lose less money these days. I run a small press myself and while I wouldn't say we are rolling in the dough we are still able to keep the lights on. My strategy has been to make really unique-looking titles - both design-wise and content-wise - <USER2> small limited print runs (less than 200). This helps build the buzz about the author / work and then I sell the PDF for about half the price. I've been running it for about three years this way. Small presses are slow burners. Ugly Duckling Presse, perhaps one of the biggest "small presses" in NYC, has been ongoing twenty years and are just starting to get mainstream recognition.

It's a really great scene. I've worked in publishing (one of the big five) and I honestly find the culture and taste toxic. Small presses are very much their own community, still a distinct lifestyle and scene. I know people who sleep in their workshops next to their letterpress. I've held some of the most gorgeous books I've ever seen, designed by my friends, only one copy, made just for fun in the middle of the night. Losing money is worth it for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're seeing this everywhere. The major beer distributors are snapping up indie breweries and cultivating their own. Hollywood is fragmenting into numerous smaller production shops, the big 5 can't hold on to as much of the gross. Advertising has long fragmented into countless small channels, each with their own rules and their own players. Porn used to be dominated by a few shops, they got sucker punched by video uploading.

The Internet has leveled the playing field everywhere, democratizing access to the market and lowering barriers to entry, not just in production, but also marketing too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Side note: the picture at the top of the article is the Brattle Book Shop, or more accurately the empty lot next door where they have carts of used books for super cheap, it's an amazing place.

</comment><comment><USER7> The barriers to entry seem lower than ever. Small, high quality print runs are relatively cheap. Amazon to distribute for you. Social media for marketing. Indie presses should be sprouting up all over the place.

<comment><USER4> They are. Entropy, the sci fi and literary magazine, keeps a running interview series of old and new small presses. There are a lot and they all do different niches: [http://entropymag.org/category/small- press/](http://entropymag.org/category/small-press/)

<comment><USER8> I was excited at first when I read your comment because it seemed like exactly what I was looking for, having read the above article.

... Then I followed the link and discovered that the text of the website was too faint for me to easily read. Is this a colorblindness thing? Anyone else have this problem?

<comment><USER4> That's unfortunate :( What browser are you using? I'm using chrome and it looks readable to me, but I have decent eyesight. Entropy using a thin font that might render poorly on other browsers. Plus their quote font is gray, which is hard to read even for me

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does No Starch Press count? They have some very good technical publications, including _Hacking: The Art of Exploitation_.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> > Each of these books is between 400 and 1,000 pages long, costs around $30 > for a hardcover

Wait people are still thinking about paper books?

<comment><USER11> You can own a paper book in perpetuity. You can lend it, gift it, and read it in 40 years when the tech giants at the time of its publishing are long dead and their standards long forgotten. No one needs to know you have it or what page you're on, it doesn't need network, it doesn't have naturally degrading rechargeable batteries, doesn't need a charge at all. It strikes a reasonable balance between freedom for its user and renumeration for its creator.

I love reading on my Kindle, but ebook-exclusive publications are going to have evaporated in a few decades, and hardbacks will still be here.

<comment><USER12> Not to mention people have a tendency to read deeper when its a paper book rather than an e-book.

[http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain- and-y...](http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18/your-paper-brain-and-your- kindle-brain-arent-same-thing)</comment></comment></comment>


Switching from Windows to Mac - One Year Later - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidalison.com/2009/03/switching-from-windows-to-mac-one-year.html

<comment><USER2> I found Mac and OS X very appealing as a development platform. For me the most important think would be that I have a *nix system without any hardware support issue -- yes, "it just works".

Got really really tired of dealing with various driver issues on Linux as I would usually spend tens of hours trying to configure some devices and then they just became unusable again when I did an upgrade.

Oh, and the font rendering on Mac is so nice esp. when one has to face codes more than half of the day!! ClearType on Windows looks so so. Linux fonts ... well, not so many great free fonts :( This is just personal preference though ...

<comment><USER3> I'm an Ubuntu 8.10 user, and I have to say that the font smoothing is much better than XP, and almost on par with macintosh computers.

If you are looking for graphic design fonts for Ubuntu, I would highly reccomend the Aenigma fonts package: [http://crunchbang.org/archives/2008/06/14/aenigma-fonts- for-...](http://crunchbang.org/archives/2008/06/14/aenigma-fonts-for-ubuntu/)

<comment><USER2> I've been using Ubuntu since 7.04 and I'm still using it in virtual machine now. I agree that esp. for 8.x Ubuntu really beats XP on font rendering (well, except for OpenOffice and occasionally Firefox).

However both Windows and Linux still have very far way to go to beat Apple's font rendering engine. Apple just needs to get the font right because otherwise it cannot sell so many Macs to designers. And they did.

I remembered I was seduced by the Ruby guys' screenshot of Monaco font in TextMate. In my opinion Monaco is probably the best ever designed monospace font for programmers. Well, of coz it must be rendered by Apple's font engine to get the right look -- tried Monaco both on XP and Ubuntu and it sucked big.

I have to face code more than half of the day, and thus a good Monospace font is very important to me. On Ubuntu I think Bitstream/Dejavu Mono is the best, and on Windows I prefer Consolas, but both look kinda unpolished compared to Monaco on Mac.

No, I'm not talking about those cool design fonts. I'm talking about the basic typefaces like Times, Helvetica, etc. I think probably fonts are the area where commercial companies do better than open source --- fine-tuning a font requires so much time and energy of artists which I think is a very very scarce resource in the open source community. It also explains why a good set of typefaces costs big bucks. Sad, but true ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every new release getting better, faster, more usable; growing market-share faster all the time... I'm a Mac user (for now) and this scares me. I mean, statistically -- how long can such a thing be maintained? What goes up must, must come down, at some point.

P.S. Enjoy your new computing preference, David. You're in good company.

<comment><USER5> > Every new release getting better, faster, more usable; growing market-share > faster all the time...

You could be describing Windows or Mac OS X with that.

> What goes up must, must come down, at some point.

That rule doesn't really apply to software. The main thing problem in producing an operating system is coming up with a significant improvement over the previous release. For example, Windows XP was and is still good enough for almost everybody. Vista makes a lot of things easier and simpler, but for many people that isn't a compelling reason to upgrade. I'm sure Mac OS X has the same problem; except for programmers, I've never met a Mac OS X user that has upgraded Mac OS X.

<comment><USER6> > > Every new release getting better, faster, more usable; growing market- > share faster all the time...

> You could be describing Windows or Mac OS X with that.

Vista was faster than XP?

<comment><USER5> I used Windows XP for years and then switched to Vista about six months ago. AFAICT, there is nothing slower about Vista than XP on the same machine (an old ThinkPad T60). But, because of usability improvements in Vista, I can get things done faster. UAC removes a lot of the hassles of running as a limited user in XP, and that is the main reason I upgraded. UAC probably saves me at least an hour a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I bought an ipod touch and mac mini to develop iphone apps.

I don't find OS X to be better than Win 7. But the ipod touch is pretty cool and hopefully I will have some success selling Numbrosia for the iphone/ipod touch.

<comment><USER8> " _hopefully I will have some success selling Numbrosia for the iphone/ipod touch._ "

Come on, you didn't just shamelessly plug your app, did you? :/

<comment><USER9> It's better than a coy back-and-forth exchange of "I don't want to plug my crap" -> "Just tell us what app you're working on"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've owned 3 mac minis over the last 4 years or so (2 G4's and now a new Core 2 version), and there's one thing that keeps me coming back to Windows for dev work - window management. Maybe I just don't get it (or haven't figured it out), but when I have 20 windows open on then Mac, trying to figure out what is what in the dock is painful (all of the terminal windows look the same in icon form). I find it much easier to jump between apps using the Windows task bar.

<comment><USER11> I don't know what people did before Expose came around (I'm only about 2 years into being a Mac user here so I have no non-Expose experience). I have thumb buttons on my mouse bound to Expose and Spaces, I use them constantly (often at the same time, Expose in Spaces is very convenient). Honestly I have enough running most of the time that the Windows taskbar would have to be 4 rows high to be readable, but with nine desktops in Spaces and Expose a touch away I have never had a problem finding my way through the absurd mess of windows I make.

By the way, if you use Terminal in OSX, I highly recommend checking out Visor (<http://docs.blacktree.com/visor/visor>), I have it bound to ctrl-~ (tilde) and I use it constantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd have more belief in Apple software engineering genius if I didn't have to use iTunes on Vista to sync with my (otherwise wonderful) iPhone. What an awful, awful, product. And god help you if you try to do any management of your music files outside of the program.

So sure, OS X is great, I hear. But every time I put a Mac on my desk next to my Windows or Linux machine at work or at home, I get bored of it very quickly. Like Linux, like Windows, it runs multiple graphical applications at once. What else do I need an OS to do except stay out of my way?

<comment><USER13> It could be worse. You could be a Mac user who needs to use one of Microsoft's products. There is no more worthless piece of shit in the world of computing than MS Entourage....

<comment><USER14> I wholly disagree. Entourage sucks, but Excel and (particularly) Word for Mac are even better than their Windows counterparts.

Word 2008 is a masterpiece. It has a number of nice features (notebook mode is great for university students).</comment></comment></comment>


Nine Steps to a Successful Online Community - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickapps.com/get-started/resources.php

<comment><AUTHOR> I can say from experience that those tips are all very true</comment>


Alphabay Forfeiture Complaint from the United States Attorney - <AUTHOR> http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3898396-Alphabay-Cazes-Forfeiture-Complaint.html <comment><USER2> Yet again. Some idiot used a personal email address in the darkweb to run an illegal website. What did they think would happen! Hotmail!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm continually amazed that Reddit comes up in every discussion about darknet sites. Is anyone actually confident that the subs where vendors and buyers discuss their activities are only accessed over Tor by those users?

And that none of those accounts have posted on any other sub information that could be doxed?</comment>


Ask HN: Why would or wouldn't you do a marijuana-focused startup? - <AUTHOR> A lot of HN is libertarian and I would assume that many would see no problem with doing a marijuana focused startup. Considering how much opportunity there is in this space, I'd expect to see a lot more companies (WeedMaps, Leafly etc.) pop up.
I can imagine some of the issues:
  - Family would frown on it
  - "Unfundable"
  - Difficult regulation
  - Not a "sure" thing
So HN, why wouldn't you do a Marijuana-focused startup? <comment><USER2> The best opportunity in this industry is selling the pick axes to the gold miners. The marijuana industry will need a _lot_ of infrastructure. Just look at all the regulations. For example, there is a lot of tracking involved. So maybe a startup could focus on tracking inventory for dispensaries. But the point is that you can make money here without doing anything illegal. Just build the infrastructure for the people who are selling the weed, and once it's legal, you'll be in a great position.

<comment><USER3> Are you certain that providing infrastructure to an illegal industry is not illegal in itself?

And I guess illegal industries have high barriers of entry as participants tend to be a bit paranoid.

<comment><USER2> Obviously I'm not certain because I'm not a lawyer. But it's hard for me to imagine the Feds arresting the principals of a company that provides inventory tracking to state-legal marijuana dispensaries with the express purpose of helping them to conform to the new laws. Infrastructure startups that help follow regulations are in the best interest of the federal and state governments because it gives them both assuredness that dispensaries and the like will be responsive to new law changes.

<comment><USER4> Your client gets their money frozen. They've been paying you regularly so you get your money frozen. You spend 5 years in court maybe getting some money back.

<comment><USER5> That's a risk you get other places too. Not unlike businesses going under.

However, whomever is poised to move the second the industry goes 50 state legal is going to make a huge pile of money

<comment><USER4> Yea, but it's a perfectly good "why wouldn't you".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Regulation. In a true "free-market" system, like we would have if the HN Libertarians were in charge, running a business of this type would be much easier and more profitable. In Colorado, for example, the only reason they have recently "legalized it" is to tax the hell out of the sale of marijuana. The licenses to run a weed-selling business are expensive and almost impossible to get, the taxes you pay on each sale are the highest of anything in the state (more than gas, cigarettes, ect...), and they have crazy regulations regarding the way you are allowed to acquire inventory (the majority of your inventory must be home-grown, all your workers documented and screened, grow-space must be separate from retail space, ect...)

Selling weed legally is a logistical nightmare. Not worth it, in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> Good points. If the OP could navigate the nightmare and still make a good profit margin, I'd say it's worth it.

Perhaps a risk is black market weed selling for less enough than legal weed that a legal profit can't be made.

<comment><USER8> That's is roughly my take on the situation. Until it is legal nationally, it is much too risky to make big money investments that would produce at scale, which would compensate for the thinner margins. At this point in time, you essentially have backyard growers competing against each other and those that stay on the black market can compete at lower prices and with higher margins.

If Washington and Colorado both make efforts to punish dealers who don't comply with state law, then that might push the risk-reward balance further to the legal side of things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cannabis is currently illegal. This means that some of the people involved in growing and distributing cannabis are vicious criminals. This includes some of the Mexican narco gangs, and in the UK includes people who traffic illegal immigrants into the country and force them to work in grow farms. (Here's one example, but there are more [http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local- news/illegal-immig...](http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local-news/illegal- immigrant-made-guard-cannabis-1370117) )

Any cannabis related service would have to risk-assess that kind of involvement.

And any attempt to create a "nice" market - avoiding that kind of exploitation by having small growers providing small amounts to locals, avoiding the associated criminality and restricting service to those over the age of 21 would be destroyed by The War On Drugs.

"We" might think it's a good idea, but plenty of people would call it Evil and get support for that viewpoint.

<comment><USER10> Cannabis isn't illegal _everywhere_. Washington and Colorado legalized it recently, and other states will likely follow in the future.

Not to mention that Cannabis is legal as a medical treatment in many states.

<comment><USER11> >> Cannabis isn't illegal everywhere.

Well that's the first problem I thought of. The federal government maintains that it's banned at that level, and that's still an ambiguous conflict that no one's really confronted directly yet. Some local / municipal governments have also banned it inside these states, often only a short time after the state legalization.

The reason I wouldn't do a cannibis-focussed startup is because it seems impossible to predict how you might negotiate this legal terrain. Can you count on your town not to make it illegal again? Can you count on how the state vs. federal disagreement will be resolved? Can you deal with such inconsistency between towns if you have a broad client-base?

<comment><USER12> Fair point but the point has actually been addressed. The federal government will take no direct intervention in the two states so long as the proposed state laws are followed.

<comment><USER13> And that could change at the drop of a hat when a new president steps in - it's simply too risky a business proposition.

<comment><USER14> Sounds like a good time to lay groundwork and draw up plans for investors and mabe run a test business in Colorado without burning too much money. If it then swings in your favour you are early for the rush, if not you can ditch. Everything is a risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Regulatory gray areas are risky, but can sometimes be great opportunities. Uber and Airbnb are two well known examples of companies that got huge by doing something that may not have been legal everywhere.

Related examples include drones[1], bitcoin, crowdfunding investment[2], self- driving cars[3] and 3D printing[4].

Both Airbnb and Uber have become so big that they can try to work the system and change the regulations in their favor, but smaller companies might have to be more wily. For example, commercial drone activity is basically illegal in the U.S., but I know of one startup that currently develops and flies their technology on manned aircraft with the idea of putting it on drones when they can, and another that resides in the U.S. but is currently focused on customers outside the U.S.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/drone- regulation/](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/drone-regulation/) [2] [http://www.crowdvalley.com/2013/05/06/the-secs-recent-no- act...](http://www.crowdvalley.com/2013/05/06/the-secs-recent-no-action- letters/) [3] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2013/06/03/feds- ask...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2013/06/03/feds-ask-states- to-ban-self-driving-cars/) [4] [http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/10/how-3d-printed-guns- are-...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/10/how-3d-printed-guns-are-shooting- a-hole-through-firearm-regulation/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Without going into too much detail, I did found a MJ based startup, however I ran into 3 big problems:

1\. My startup focused on fostering relationships with producers and distributors, both of whom are hesitant to openly discuss or display their business, location etc in a way that can be easily accessed publicly.

2\. Legal fees. I tried to set up everything as legitimately as possible through a lawyer as well as keep him on retainer in case I ended up in any trouble with the law. Massive overhead.

3\. Saturation and fear. At the time of my efforts there were two major shifts in the West Coast market. The first was a flood of growers both indoor and out that greatly reduced the value of anything that was not of the absolute highest quality. The second was the crackdown on many major players in the game; people saw that old names in the MJ industry were getting raided and prosecuted and started to either withdraw or severely limit their business relationships.

Basically until everything is legalized at both the state and federal levels it will continue to be very difficult and expensive to try to revolutionize this industry.

</comment><comment><USER17> Canada is a whole new ballgame for Cannabis startups.

Prime Minister Harper announced that legalization is coming in the next 10 years, tops. We have 6 months before the new regulations are in place, which open the floodgates for corporate cannabis providers. We're currently in a cannabis gold rush right now, so I figured this would be a great time to start a Cooperative that courts illegal growers into becoming legal ones, if just to prevent clogging the courts with people trying to produce medicine for sick people.

We've gotten a lot of support from Health Canada, too, as it seems that there's a massive contingent within that's unhappy with MMAR (the previous regulations) going away. We haven't even sought outside (public or semi- private) funding yet, because we haven't had to. :)

we have a website with a fantastic (imo) domain name, but we're keeping it quiet until we're closer to launch. hoping to pimp it here when it's ready.

<comment><USER18> Interesting but I see a lot of liability issues on your behalf if you offer consulting services to people who end up breaking the law for some reason 'based on your advice'. Careful.

<comment><USER17> we're not really venturing into "consulting" per se; more of a franchise sort of setup, where everyone interested in growing ensures their product and growing space meets our internal standards, which meet or (in most cases) exceed the requirements listed in the Controlled Drugs & Substances Act. We're cooperating at every step with Health Canada to keep our product and facilities as safe as possible, in order to deliver directly to customers come April 2014, when the MMAR/MMPR switch flips.

While we've met many people looking for a legal loophole to commit crimes, we're only really interested in those people willing to be in harmony with the government's new MMPR program, and are focused on growing medicine for sick people.

We understand there's a massive Blue Ocean of legal consumer cannabis product opportunities that will be opening up here in ten years, but weeding out (sorry) the criminal element is of paramount importance to us before even thinking of expanding our scope to cover those markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious thing, which is that you'd end up in prison. The DEA might ignore small shops in CO and WA but not a nationally known internet startup.

<comment><USER20> Websites for Nevada brothels exist.

<comment><USER21> Prostitution is not illegal under federal law, only under (most) states' laws.

Marijuana production / distribution / etc is illegal under federal law. The DEA (a federal agency) could come after you -- and would, if you get big enough -- even if it's legal in your own state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, but I do have an anecdote that might explain why you should be cautious.

About 15 years ago, I did some work with a guy who ran online pharma websites. He made a mint in the business, but it wasn't without it's bumps.

This was before the online pharma boom, and before the Feds really got involved. He ran a website where users filled out questionnaires, which were then reviewed by a doctor (no really, an actual doctor), who then wrote a prescription, which was then filled by a pharmacy.

One day, the men in the black suits came knocking. Right now you're probably thinking that everything above was clearly illegal and this guy is screwed, but that turned out not to be the case. He and his partner sat in jail while the Feds figured out exactly what they were doing wrong. They had good, detailed records of every "patient", and because selling medication over the internet was so new, there weren't a lot of laws that covered exactly what the requirements were.

In the end, the two owners spent about 90 days in jail, and had millions of dollars seized by the government. The Feds dictated that they could continue to operate their business under a handful of conditions:

1) They could no longer operate their own pharmacy.

2) They could no longer directly employ the doctor reviewing prescriptions, and the doctor must be paid regardless of whether a prescription is written.

3) They could not sell any drugs of a certain classification (controlled?).

There was some specific class of controlled drugs they couldn't sell, but I can't remember what it was.

This guy, and his family, ended up in the press with their name slandered all over the place. They ended up moving out of state to escape the aftermath.

I'm sure plenty of people are lined up ready to judge the guy, but I knew him. He was the kind of guy who gets shit done, and he ran an above-board business considering what they were doing. That's the only reason he's not still rotting in a cell.

So, the moral of the story is, these kinds of businesses can be very profitable, but they're not without risks. This is an entirely different kind of risk than what an investor is willing to take on. We're not talking capital risk, we're talking criminal prosecution. Those are the risks when you operate in a legal gray area. Don't get me wrong, someone has got to do it, otherwise there will be no progress, but you should go in with eyes open.

</comment><comment><USER23> Karma. You're in a business that's easy for ordinary people and makes a lot money and is arguably exploiting people who develop a habit. You are competing with the illicit drug industry. In societies eyes, anything goes, so if someone with a little power wants to strongarm you there will be no one anywhere on your side. If you have any success someone will just come and take it from you. Many people won't even do business with you. Good luck even renting a space. There are much better industries and opportunities to be in.

<comment><USER24> You do realize that Karma is a metaphor and not a real thing, right?

<comment><USER23> The dispensary application fee in CO is $18k. Karma is the thing that costs $18k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would do a marijuana-focused startup. Marijuana has a real impact to improve people's lives in an abundance of ways. Culturally, it's not very well accepted now, but that will change. To me, it's a lot like sex: a couple of decades ago, there was this tremendous stigma surrounding sex that eroded to a large extent in our culture. I think we're seeing the same thing with marijuana.

A lot of people have no experience with marijuana, or experience limited to partying in high school and college. There's much more to it than that which society at large has not yet realized. Modern strains with high CBD combined with carefully controlling your dosage and using smoke-free delivery systems such as vaporizers and tinctures make taking it a much cleaner, less offensive affair. Not all marijuana has to blow your mind; it's quite practical to control your dosage and type to just give anxious people clarity of mind, help uneasy people sleep better, and a hundred other applications.

I know lots of people who wouldn't take drugs or smoke a joint, but when I show them a neatly packaged high cbd lozenge which will help them get right to sleep and have no hangover effects are most intrigued.

I bought a Pax vaporizer and it's amazing, and made by a San Francisco startup. It's a tremendous product.

</comment><comment><USER26> In 30 years we'll be looking at a billionaire or two who made their money from the decriminalization of marijuana. The question is wether you want to be one of them or not.

I don't smoke weed. Never have. But I don't see anything immoral with a marijuana based company. In fact, providing a legitimate means for people to buy weed would take a lot of money away from violent drug criminals. So you'd likely be doing society a service.

</comment><comment><USER27> I would try to learn from the lessons of music sharing businesses from Napster to Spotify. For legally-vague ideas with a lot of money to be made, the key seems to be staying in front of how things are being regulated. Marijuana in CA, for instance, is more or less legalized for consumers but the feds have spot-targeted producers and storefronts through infrastructure attacks (like threatening landlords). To me, this sounds like a stalling tactic to keep the industry from growing too rapidly.

If I was to work on a startup in this field I would focus on the consumer end of the business and only in a supplemental way, like a review site. What you don't want is a business with a warehouse full of pot or a lot of bills owed from producers/retailers who are used to being threatened and have no incentive to pay you.

<comment><USER28> I think Leafly is already dominating in the review space:

[http://www.leafly.com/](http://www.leafly.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Despite some of the obvious problems, the matter of "taste" provides the biggest challenge / opportunity. By "taste", I mean something similar to what plagues wines especially, but also beers and single malt scotches -- maybe better described as snobbery.

How does one either surf (or conquer) the matter of "taste" in weed? What happens when -- by analogy -- someone makes the weed version of "Sideways" and you're the guy holding the weed version of merlot?

<comment><USER30> Just make some types more expensive. Here's a study that was showing "You get what you pay for" essentially saying that when you pay more for a wine, you get more pleasure (than if you bought that same wine for cheaper).

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html)

<comment><USER31> yeah weed isn't like that

if you can produce good shit, there will be a market for it

but the real startup opportunities (for now) are not in mass production

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Unless I had full-on born in the US grade citizenship, I wouldn't touch it. The US legal hassle plus the arbitrary nature of border guards makes this an absolute non-starter.

</comment><comment><USER33> Sounds boring unless you're prepared to do the illegal stuff, and then that introduces its own problems.

</comment><comment><USER34> From a legal standpoint, I'd love to get involved just because it is a kind of frontier.

</comment><comment><USER35> I wouldn't do one because I don't know the domain, so can't figure out what the problems surrounding it are for enthusiasts.</comment>


Ask HN: Java ecosystem, where to start? - <AUTHOR> My background is mostly on web development (using the .NET stack), I'll looking to get into Java, but I don't know exactly how to get started ... help? <comment><USER2> You could try Spring Boot [http://spring.io](http://spring.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.baeldung.com/](http://www.baeldung.com/)</comment>


Lavender in whisky (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://whiskyscience.blogspot.com/2011/06/lavender-in-whisky-conspiracy-of-french.html <comment><USER2> Caution: the links in the first paragraph lead to a series of redirects and an aggressive warning to the effect "your machine has been infected".

<comment><USER3> Looks like a parked domain at park.above.com.

With Javascript disabled nothing happens. No redirect, no compressed payload of who knows what.

Their scheme appears to be 100% reliant on Javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wayback has the "e-pistle" link saved [https://web.archive.org/web/20070715184101/http://www.maltma...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070715184101/http://www.maltmaniacs.org/ADHD/mm16.html)

<comment><USER5> Can we always trust wayback for this resource? It'd be real nice if someone could tar up maltmaniacs.org and throw it on bittorent.

<comment><USER6> Eventually: [http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.B...](http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK)</comment></comment></comment>


Pi-hole 4.4.0 Remote Code Execution - <AUTHOR> https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157839/Pi-hole-4.4.0-Remote-Code-Execution.html <comment><USER2> FWIW 5.0 has been out for a bit and addresses this vuln.

Also, here is actual info about the vuln: [https://natedotred.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/cve-2020-8816-pi...](https://natedotred.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/cve-2020-8816-pi- hole-remote-code-execution/)

<comment><USER3> When 5.0 was released the comments were full of people saying they had forgotten about the pi hole they were using.

I bet most installs are running very old software.

<comment><USER4> That tends to happen with 'it just works' solutions, until it either doesn't or causes some other problem

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vulnerability requires web access and password for the pi-hole.

<comment><USER6> ^Thanks for that. I was frantically looking to patch my pihole till I saw this comment.

Everyone else, action item: Make sure your pihole web interface is not public (duh) and that you set a non-trivial password (sorta duh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How would privilege escalation work in this case?

<comment><USER8> Regarding the older CVE-2020-8816: The code sent in the request is executed using sudo. From there, the code can use curl/wget to download a script from a specified server, and execute the script as root and take over the device.

For this CVE, here is a description:

[https://frichetten.com/blog/cve-2020-11108-pihole- rce/](https://frichetten.com/blog/cve-2020-11108-pihole-rce/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite podcasts? - <AUTHOR> I know this gets asked a lot, but just thought I would throw out a request for an updated list. Programming / computer science themed casts are encouraged not but required! Also, if you have a favorite app for consuming casts please mention that as well! <comment><USER2> I use podcast addict on android and Grover Pro on win10.

Not programming, but I like these easy listening podcasts that stay away from politics and focus on good stories about people.

Our American Stories @ [http://www.ouramericannetwork.org](http://www.ouramericannetwork.org)

Art of Manliness @ [https://www.artofmanliness.com](https://www.artofmanliness.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe this article was posted on here awhile ago. I couldn't find the "HackerNews" link so here is a direct link instead. [https://hired.com/blog/candidates/top-podcasts-software- engi...](https://hired.com/blog/candidates/top-podcasts-software-engineers/)

Also check out rocket [https://www.relay.fm/rocket](https://www.relay.fm/rocket)

</comment><comment><USER4> Jupiter Broadcasting host some really nice podcasts

[https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/](https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/)</comment>


45-year physics mystery shows a path to quantum transistors - <AUTHOR> http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22557-45-year-physics-mystery-shows-a-path-to-quantum-transistors

<comment><USER2> _45-year physics mystery shows a path to quantum transistors_ is the original and better title. Given that the desired behavior still requires the substance to be supercooled, I'm not seeing the 'just around the corner' claim in the headline reflected in the article. This sounds many years away from commercialization, neat as it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Changed title as suggested. :)</comment></comment>


Is Robotic Surgery Cheaper?  - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/is-robotic-surgery-cheaper/

<comment><USER2> It seems kind of odd that the Times ran an article about how the Da Vinci is awesome written by an employee of the company that makes it. This seems a little like asking an employee at McDonald's HQ to write an article about the health effects of fast food.</comment>


Turn a user into a passionate customer before making them sign up - <AUTHOR> http://sachin.posterous.com/designing-for-social-traction-turn-a-user-int

<comment><USER2> If you're going to take the time to write blog posts like this one, make images, and market your site, what is spending a couple minutes signing up?

I feel more confident signing up and knowing I have a place to go where I can change settings, update content, delete comments, etc. With Posterous, I don't feel that confidence so I would tend to shy away from it and sign up with something like wordpress.com

</comment><comment><USER3> And this is why my site <http://www.memengo.com> has "Try Demo" button that asks no questions and gives you a full demo right away. This button is used by a lot of visitors.

<comment><USER4> But that makes people a demo user, not a customer, before sign-up. From your site:

 _The downside is that you will not be able to return to where you left off later on and all the changes you made during this simple demo run will be eventually deleted._

A site like yours requires ID and security tokens to function once you've established those things then a user is effectively "signed up" already.

<comment><USER3> I see. The difference between demo user and customer wrt to posterous approach did not occur to me, but you are right - a demo user would not have as much incentive to return.

I was meaning to redo this part to allow conversion form demo to real account. This will demo more sticky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about using Facebook Connect? Apparently site that use it see a huge spike in sign ups.</comment>


NeXT logo by Paul Rand - Interview with Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.logodesignlove.com/next-logo-paul-rand

<comment><USER2> Jobs on Rand: "I asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, 'No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don't have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.'"

Wow, talk about a taste of your own medicine! I love it.

<comment><USER3> No, Jobs is entirely consistent. He brought this up as an example of what made Rand great.

It would be a "taste of his own medicine" if Paul Rand's terms resulted in a bad outcome for Jobs and NeXT.

(Also, I really like the products that Jobs makes, because they're really well designed and conceived. Apple products are great for the same reason that Paul Rand was great.)

<comment><USER2> I had originally written that they were "cut from the same cloth". In retrospect that's probably a better characterization. I imagine Jobs smiling to himself that he had clearly picked the right guy for the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Strangely enough, this Rand fellow sounds quite _Roarkian_.

I have to say though, the NeXT logo looks a bit too 80s...

<comment><USER5> It also seriously channels the ~1990 Windows logo with that color palette; I realize it's magenta and not blue, but still...

<comment><USER6> I guess this would be a good time to point out which came first (Windows 3.0 = 1990).

This kinda thing reminds me of the Amazon comments about Diane Duane's "So You Want to be a Wizard - 20th Anniversary Edition" being a "ripoff" of Harry Potter. Time is hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a good interview with Paul Rand where he talks about his design decisions and reflects on the value of his own trade:

"I've been thinking about this for many years [..] I concluded that we are not very important."

"A good designer who understands his business can make things memorable, make them easy to recall and improve the general quality of life, which is the only reason for our existence."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta4ef1xBeMA>

Great designers leave their ego at home and build things for a purpose. Or how Paul Rand put's it: "Don't try to be original. Just try to be good."</comment>