CurrentC Has Been Hacked, Testers' Email Addresses Stolen - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/retailer-backed-apple-pay-rival-currentc-has-been-hacked-testers-email-addresses-stolen/ <comment><USER2> This is a big problem I've noticed with startups. Stupid web vulns are EVERYWHERE.

I've reported so many serious web vulnerabilities to startups it isn't even funny (4-5 S14 YC batch alone). Account hijacks, XSS, SQLi. Everywhere.

If you are starting a startup (or writing any web software software), PLEASE read OWASP to at least get an idea of what types of issues can exist in Web Applications. Their top 10 is a good place to start ([https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2013-Top_10](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2013-Top_10))

<comment><USER3> Worse than stupid web vulnerabilities of the sort you mention, but many startups don't even practice a modicum of best practices.

My coworkers recently tried a new New York-based food delivery startup and found that their auth wasn't even HTTPS. Forget XSS or SQLI, this is basically propping your front door wide open with a sign "please take whatever you want".

Worst part is when we emailed them they tried defending the use of HTTP for auth. Took a bit of convincing to get them to take us seriously.

There are a _lot_ of startups out there whose security practices aren't just deficient, they're straight up amateur hour.

<comment><USER4> I think I know the food delivery service you're talking about (free delivery, no tips). They use Stripe as their processing backend, and they said that their connection to Stripe is over HTTPS, however, I gave up trying to explain that of the initial transmission to their servers is unencrypted, it doesn't matter.

I thought about reporting this to Stripe, but I don't know if that is an appropriate thing to do.

I still gave them a try, but I generated a virtual card number to use.

<comment><USER5> If the form is POSTed directly to stripe (which is the recommended usage), your info is never seen by a third party. The site in question would only potentially store a token. Are you sure this wasn't the case?

<comment><USER6> If the form itself was delivered over http then it doesn't matter. An attacker could easily change the POST address to something else. And how could you even tell? Browsers don't display the URL that a submit button is going to POST to...

<comment><USER7> Of course if an attacker can MitM any HTTP web page on a site (ie. if a site is not all SSL) then it really doesn't matter if they serve the form over HTTPS because the attacker can set up another form over HTTP and the victim will be none the wiser.

And then there's the possibility of XSS in which case neither lack of MitM access or use of HTTPS will be sufficient protection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Straight from the horse's mouth [1]:

"On the data security side, the technology choices we've made take consumers' security into account at every aspect of their core functionality. We want to assure you, MCX does not store sensitive customer information in the app. _Users' payment information is instead stored in our secure cloud-hosted network_. Removing this sensitive information from the mobile device significantly lowers the risk of it being inappropriately disclosed in a case that the mobile device is hacked, stolen or otherwise compromised."

There are simply not enough faces to palm.

[1] [http://www.mcx.com/blog/answers-to-your- questions/](http://www.mcx.com/blog/answers-to-your-questions/)

<comment><USER9> It's funny that they say that, considering that storing tens or hundreds of millions of credit card information or e-mail addresses in the "cloud" represents a _much_ higher risk than storing everything locally, in a secure enclave in devices, with little to no exposure to the OS, the way Apple does it, in terms of potential for total damage.

<comment><USER10> They worst part is that they aren't even going to store credit card details because they aren't launching with credit card support. They want to tie into your checking account and do ACH! (This being the big pitch to the retailers, not only can you track across stores but you can forget about credit card fees). This is an instant fail company.

<comment><USER11> > This is an instant fail company.

This is a project largely driven by Walmart with some buy in from other merchants. Walmart has recently announced it'll provide low cost checking accounts to its customers[1]. Walmart's profits are basically driven by volume and beating up their vendors for low prices so they can in turn sell to customers at low prices - the margins are razor thin. Cutting out 2-3% from credit card fees has got to look attractive.

I'd never touch this product, because it's got shitty implementation and security written all over it, but I'm not so sure if it'll be instant fail or not. If they offer a portion of what they save in credit card fees in flat discounts to people, they might be able to make it work.

Of course, I don't really see what non-Walmart merchants are gonna get out of this. Helping them improve their margins seems like it'd only make things worse for places like Target or grocery stores.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/business/finding-a-door- in...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/business/finding-a-door-into-banking- walmart-to-offer-checking-accounts.html)

<comment><USER12> So far, what I've heard about CurrentC reminds me of Circuit City's failed attempt to push their proprietary pay-per-view DVD scam.

Like any number of similar schemes, up to and including Microsoft's attempt to force-feed Metro to desktop users, it's all about what the company wants, rather than what the consumer wants. That always works out _so_ well for the company.

<comment><USER11> > it's all about what the company wants, rather than what the consumer wants.

This is definitely true, but I'm not sure how much it matters.

I, as a consumer, definitely prefer using credit cards because of the protection it affords me, plus I get rewards for what I buy - I never use a debit card to pay for things. I'm also a bit leery of the marketing surveillance state that's cropped up in the US over the past few years, and a scheme like this sets off alarm bells immediately. And I'm sufficiently well off that I'm unlikely to be enticed to try it out just to get some discounts.

But I'm also not a typical consumer. I could see where - if properly and/or luckily done - this might appeal to a not insignificant number of people. If I'm getting a bank account at Walmart, it's likely because I have difficulty getting one somewhere else. Those discounts might seem more attractive to me. Maybe you could argue that's the type of consumer who's also less likely to pay with their phone (or have a phone capable of handling the payments). Dunno, but it seems like even though nobody particularly wants this, it could work because there's a lot of folks who might not dislike it enough to make a difference. DIVX failed because the idea of DVDs that are single use is just a blatant cash grab. It's less obvious here, from the consumer's perspective.

My gut says clusterfuck, though.

EDIT: added a sentence.

<comment><USER8> I find it hard to believe that the consumer benefits of CurrentC (pretty much just that it works on phones without NFC) outweigh the PITAness of the system. A Walmart-issued card could be directly linked to a Walmart account and people inside that closed ecosystem that bypassed the credit card companies (saving Walmart that precious 2%) would be _easier_ and _safer_ using a Walmart card than CurrentC, at least as currently described.

It looks to me like a very expensive way for some midlevel executive at Walmart to collect huge bonuses for a few years and then get fired after burning through billions with no appreciable change in the mix of payment systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MCX's privacy policy is a hoot, and worth a read if you like picking such things apart: [http://currentc.com/50D6A97C-4B72-44D6-9021-BE0884ED2F8D/pri...](http://currentc.com/50D6A97C-4B72-44D6-9021-BE0884ED2F8D/privacy- policy/)

Where you see "enhance services", read it as "mine the hell out of your data and sell it". Amongst all of that "service enhancement", there's this gem: _We do not respond to web browser "do not track" signals at this time._

They'll also track which pharmacy you go to, and the time and frequency of when you get your prescriptions. And so on, and so on. Apple and the rest of the NFC stakeholders could have a lot of fun with this. But I think they'll wisely just sit back for now and watch the whole thing blow up on its own.

</comment><comment><USER14> The fact that they've already had a data breach within the first week or so of launch is not exactly a strong argument for how secure their platform is.

<comment><USER15> I'm sure this is directly connected to the outrage at NFC payments being disabled in CVS, etc. - effectively, they've become a target.

That said, they're supposed to be a payments provider. They should be able to cope with being a target.

<comment><USER16> Hacking as retribution for personal data mining? Not likely. Sounds like an opportunity to get details from a financial transaction application while it's still green.

<comment><USER17> Hacking to discredit and distrupt seems plausible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18>
      But then those retailers disabled NFC at their registers,
      ending their unofficial support for Apple Pay. The
      problem, apparently, stemmed from the fact that
      retailers' contracts with MCX states they're not
      supposed to accept rival mobile payment products.

Interesting example of applied public relations here - you want to do foo but you don't want to be blamed for doing foo, so you create a scapegoat organisation and have them take the blame.

<comment><USER19> The FAQ ([http://www.mcx.com/blog/answers-to-your- questions/](http://www.mcx.com/blog/answers-to-your-questions/)) has a very evasive answer to the question "Does MCX Require its Merchants to Only Offer CurrentC?":

"MCX merchants make their own decisions about what solutions they want to bring to their customers; the choice is theirs. _When merchants choose to work with MCX, they choose to do so exclusively_ and we're proud of the long list of merchants who have partnered with us. Importantly, if a merchant decides to stop working with MCX, there are no fines." (emphasis mine)

The important part here, that they've clearly buried, is that yes, if you go MCX, you have to go all the way. While merchants can choose whether to use MCX or not, they _cannot_ choose to use MCX _and_ NFC. Any implication that they can is absolutely false.

<comment><USER18>
      Any implication that they can is absolutely false.

This is the brilliance of this PR tactic - it seems just like that, doesn't it? I mean, when you sign a cell phone contract the contract you can't negotiate it, it's offered to you take-it-or-leave-it, right?

But MCX is retailer owned - and even if it wasn't, there is nothing stopping MCX from varying the contract at a retailer's request. If Wal-Mart came along and said they would sign a contract, but only if the exclusivity language was removed, do you think MCX would turn them down? Of course they wouldn't, they can and they would change the contract.

The exclusivity clause is there because the retailers want it there.

<comment><USER19> > The exclusivity clause is there because the retailers want it there.

More accurately, I'd contend the exclusivity clause is there because _every other_ retailer wants it there. You don't want it applied to yourself, but the only way it would work is if it bound everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> CurrentC will not fail because of this, they will fail because they use QR codes. An old lady could probably write a check faster than most people can scan a QR code.

<comment><USER10> To be fair it works the other way around--the retailer scans your phone with the QR code on the screen. Like Starbucks' app. It's still clumsy, especially compared to Apple Pay, but you don't have to use your camera for anything.

<comment><USER13> I looked for the picture I saw somewhere on the MCX website, but can't find it, so I'll have go with the same pic but from the MacRumors site: [http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/27/currentc-mobile- payments...](http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/27/currentc-mobile-payments/)

If I'm reading that diagram correctly, not only does the consumer have to scan a code, but the vendor then scans another code. So not one, but two QR code scans. The success is built in!

<comment><USER21> The TechCrunk article that MacRumors get their info from says: "When it's time for a user to check out, they request to pay with CurrentC. The consumer then unlocks their phone, opens the CurrentC app, opens the code scanner, and scans the QR code shown on the cashier's screen. In some case, the reverse may happen where the consumer's CurrentC app displays a payment code and the cashier scans it."

So sounds like one or the other.

<comment><USER13> Hmm, okay, I guess it could be just one scan.

But unrelated, the steps you quote: gawd dahyum. I'd rather stand behind the old lady writing a check, as mentioned by another commenter. Thing is, retailers have mostly solved the check-writing problem (but they still can't make Mr. OldSkool fill out everything but the amount _before_ he gets to the front of the line). No more "I need check approval on aisle 3", no more 3 pieces of ID, just scan it and stick it in the drawer. It sounds like there's a strong possibility that they're bringing us back to the time when those behind get to roll their eyes and sigh as we all wait for the person at the front because "oh, gawd, they're using _that_ thing".

<comment><USER10> > It sounds like there's a strong possibility that they're bringing us back to > the time when those behind get to roll their eyes and sigh as we all wait > for the person at the front because "oh, gawd, they're using that thing".

Except I doubt you'll ever see anyone actually use CurrentC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Since CurrentC blocked NFC technology at the terminal, it would be funny if Apple and Google blocked CurrentC from their app stores.

<comment><USER23> Isn't CurrentC a "physical-only" payment system, i.e. not supported for online transactions?

<comment><USER22> You're correct, but like Jeremy said, they have mobile apps in both the Apple [1] and Google [2] Store. Funny enough, they both have over 2000 ratings at 1 star.

[1] - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/currentc/id912922036?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/currentc/id912922036?mt=8)

[2] - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.currentc](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.currentc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You know what works every time, is accepted everywhere, has no processing fees, and won't leak your personal data?

Cash.

<comment><USER21> In reality, as a consumer, I average 3% back on credit cards. I probably average 2% fees on cash, between ATM fees and driving to free ATMs.

<comment><USER25> Plus if you lose you wallet, or something horrible happens when you have cash, it's gone. There is a bit of a hassle replacing cards, but you don't just lose your money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They were hacked before even launching publicly. I suppose they're trying to build trust in their service early on.

</comment><comment><USER9> We can only hope this uber-data mining [1] app has a swift death.

[1] - [http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Good riddance. Leave the difficult problems to capable companies and let this be a lesson.

</comment><comment><USER28> Perhaps it's a new feature where everyone can mine user's information.

<comment><USER29> It's part of their new open data platform?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Considering the already known issues with CurrentC, where the customer is liable for any type of fraud and they want to connect directly to your bank account, not to mention potential issues with health information, I was already feeling roughly hell no on having anything to do with these guys. Having a data breach in like the first week only makes it look more dangerous.

I know it's just email addresses - this time. Sounds like next time, the hackers might be able to clear out the connected bank account, and you'll bear full liability.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have more trust in Apple Pay and hope that wins.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems like CurrentC have a great product on their hands. Effectively they are cutting out the middle man and tying in a rewards program, not groundbreaking, but still a better deal than Apple's offering. If all else fails for them in the payments space, they have a great name that would allow them to pivot into the bottled juice market as well.

The fact this thing has not even launched fully just yet, worries me they have already been hacked. Just wait until CurrentC is rolled out to more vendors and adoption increases (if it happens), it will just make them a bigger target. To some of those vendors supporting CurrentC, I bet Apple Payments is looking more appealing right about now.

Pretty rookie error, lets hope they get their act together before a more widespread launch.

<comment><USER33> how is this a good product? It's essentially making the payment workflow even more complicated for users. NFC or chip+pin is the way to go, as it's more user-friendly.

<comment><USER34> They expect CurrentC users to get discounts that you wouldn't get with using a normal credit card.

<comment><USER33> Based on the fact that it will save merchants the credit card processing fee. They'll most likely pocket the difference instead of passing along the savings to the consumer, especially since there's no risk that their competitors will pass along the savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is just the beginning.

Anyone who has account information stored in their care should pull it now.

<comment><USER36> Not typically possible with such systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> And then you read what they show with just email addresses: [http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal- data-t...](http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal-data-they- want-collect)

</comment><comment><USER38> Well at least this system is open with saying that it exists for the retailers to mine customer data. Looking at the technology, it seems it would just be faster to pay with a card than rely on my phones camera to make a payment.

</comment><comment><USER39> However no personal data or payment card data was breached [http://www.techworm.net/2014/10/currentc- hacked.html](http://www.techworm.net/2014/10/currentc-hacked.html)

</comment><comment><USER40> Courtesy of Apple

</comment><comment><USER41> The entire cellphone based NFC payment system is retarded. Money needs to be free from electricity and endure the elements.

I don't get it why they are not using proven NFC payment card systems like in japan...

<comment><USER19> As far as I can tell, they work exactly the same way. I was able to use my iPhone 6 at an NFC terminal (built for MasterCard PayPass/VISA PayWave) at Dublin Airport where nobody had ever used it before in that fashion.

<comment><USER42> I suspect it's the same as well. I think CurrentC wanted to stop Apple Pay and the rest were just collateral damage.

Which is stupid. Apple Pay is the most available way to pay for something that is as secure as chip & pin in the USA.

<comment><USER19> I have a feeling the MCX participants and card issuers are going to come to an impasse over their respective agreements. All the issuers have to do is require that terminals capable of NFC (for the purpose of accepting PayPass/PayWave) not have the functionality disabled. This will put the merchants in a bind and force them either to replace the terminals altogether, or re-enable NFC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 5.) Walmart is like a monopoly. Tax deals as well as real estate location. CVS, Walgreen are like a monopoly. Especially in Florida where 1/3 of population is older, retired or using Medicare.

6.)Identity theft is rising due to Affordable Health Care LAW, aka 'Obamacare.'

7.)Try to open an independent pharmacy in Florida and compete with the 24 hour, cut throat pricing of CVS, Walgreens. Like an EFFECTIVE monopoly.

8.)Your Grandma is NOT tech smart and lists her phone number in the phone book EXPOSED. She uses her name in her e-mail address. I use mail redirectors like 33mail and others as well as 'changing configurations.'

9.)As a non-public USA Citizen, it is AMAZING how many ROBOT phone calls I get on an unlisted phone number and how much spam and malware oritented stuff.

10.)why? The easiest and richest WHO OWN A HOUSE AND a BANK ACCOUNT that is public rrecord are the SAND STATES.

11.)why? why? the Sand States are fast growing and have retirees like Florida, Carolinas, Arizona (think Senator John McCain). and even California.

Not a lot of folks who love to LIVE IN North Dakota Winter. Unless you are a oil drilling FRACKER who is making 250 thousand a year and living in a trailer.

18.) SUMMARY: Attitude - CurrentC hires security codes for 'close to minium wage' \- SO THE QUALITY IS FAR ABOVE THAT OF GOOGLE???? note: alleged and even stupidity can be relative in context. Top Management Stupidity - the top are marketers of HIGH END Soda. CVS pharmacy competes head to head against Publix Shopping Chain. The BIG FLASHING SIGN marquee says 'special deal on Coca Cola Soda. If Target and Home Depot Top Management have Never heard of BSD OS or even linux command [ lsof -i ], then there is little hope for the KEY PHARMACY SUPPLY CHAINS of the USA, in my opinion. Add in the screens of the hospital waiting rooms that SHOW WINDOWS XP or old version Windows NT which can cause some of HN to laugh out loud.

New chaos + Monopoly + Attitude + Rise of Botnets + Testers= YOUR Grandma + Old White Hair Consultant (think Captain Crunch) \+ Top Manager Stupidity == No Surprise

Do I expect the SWAT RAIDS on Grandma's house?... errr no rare that someone would borrow her identity as a 'tester' and

where are you hiding 'the pills' grandma?

*all respect to Grandma, she is used as a generalization. 1st amendment. fiction, no specialized mention of YOUR GRANDMA's name and no animals were hurt in the making of this message.

</comment><comment><USER44> Am I the only one that sees this as somewhat promising? They've become a massive target because of all the recent news with apple pay and whatnot, so it's not that surprising that there are people attacking them and all that was stolen (so far) was email addresses, but no actual important data. This is a pre-release system, it wouldn't be surprising to me if they just stole some logs off an under-protected email server that is being used to testing or something. Plus they're actually being open about it rather than just sweeping it under the rug like so many try.

Yes, it's never good when any amount of personal info is stolen, but it's just email addresses and if you're not already getting spam, you just haven't been using that address long enough.

<comment><USER45> _They 've become a massive target because of all the recent news with apple pay and whatnot_

They're a payments platform, they should expect to ALWAYS be a HUGE target no matter WHAT the news is. If it's not the Apple & Google fans it will be the Chinese & Russians.

 _This is a pre-release system, it wouldn 't be surprising to me if they just stole some logs off an under-protected email server that is being used to testing or something_

Why would a pre-prod system even be accessible to the outside world? It shows a lack of judgement and experience in security that they either made an known insecure pre-production system accessible by the outside world OR they were not competent enough to secure the server properly. They are either ignorant or incompetent, neither of which are good when talking about a payment processor.

<comment><USER46> They're not just a payments platform that contains 16 digit CC#s, they also contain SSIDs, Drivers Licenses, Checking/Routing #s and the PID that goes along with that. My god, if you had that data, you could create all the 16 digits credit cards you would want, by forging those people's IDs. You could even create bank accounts in their name, and probably get a Passport.

Not just a small target...</comment></comment></comment>


Europe Is Kaput. Long Live Europe (Žižek, Varoufakis and Assange) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yjxAArOkoA0 <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a summary of the even in written form: [http://alainahrook.weebly.com/blog/slavoj-zizek-yanis- varouf...](http://alainahrook.weebly.com/blog/slavoj-zizek-yanis-varoufakis- julian-assange-the-europe-is-kaput-event-in-london-what-was-said)</comment>


Using MongoDB as a Graph Database - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.talis.com/articles/using-mongodb-as-graph-db/

<comment><USER2> Amazing slides, but seems like a lot of work and not really a natural fit for (graph)relations.

Ever thought about a multi-model database like Orient or ArangoDB? The latter allows multi-collection JOINS on documents and graph's and is extensible by Javascript.

[https://www.arangodb.com/key-features](https://www.arangodb.com/key-features)</comment>


Accurate Genomic Prediction of Human Height - <AUTHOR> http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/19/190124 <comment><USER2> Good post/paper in general. Predicting traits in humans has been more challenging than most geneticist want to admit. The good news is that most high heritable traits will become "solved" as we enter a new order of magnitude of data availability (i.e 5 million people instead of 500k).

Much work left to do though, and there are interesting methods being developed in this space

<comment><USER3> > there are interesting methods being developed in this space

Would you mind posting any relevant links? Is there general agreement in the field that more data is the solution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This result is explained by Hsu in a recent talk at the Allen Institute.[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386749](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386749)

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks pretty good: digging into the supplement it appears they controlled for age, which is how the controlled for things like improved nutrition, elimination of smoking while pregnant etc

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there any way to export data from 23andme, and find the SNPs and calculate on your own?

Would be nice if you could predict the height of your kids at a young age.

<comment><USER7> Looks like we are not that far from the dystopian future depicted in the movie Gattaca[1].

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

<comment><USER8> Selective in vitro fertilization has been around for at least a decade now, where you select fertilized eggs based on genetic markers.

It's not direct genetic engineering yet, but we're pretty much already in Gattaca.

<comment><AUTHOR> PGD has been in use to a very limited extent, testing on just 1 or a bare handful of specific genetic diseases, along with basic checks for gross abnormalities like microscope examination. Use of full SNP arrays is still very new and no one has ever used them to select based on complex traits like height.

<comment><USER9> For anyone else who's wondering: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagno...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnosis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Replication tests show that these predictors capture, respectively, ~40, 20, and 9 percent of total variance for the three traits. ".

This seems very low, almost like saying genes don't have any practical predictive power, right ?

<comment><USER11> In his book Behave[1], biologist Robert Sapolosky explains the issue as follows:

> Heritability scores are relevant only to the environments in which the > traits have been studied. The more environments you study a trait in, the > lower the heritability is likely to be.

He goes on for several pages, describing the ways the surrounding environment can change an organism's gene expression, and I think this quote best summarizes his point:

> Here's a rule of thumb for recognizing gene/environment interactions, > translated into English: You are studying the behavioral effects of a gene > in two environments. Someone asks, "What are the effects of the gene on some > behavior?" You answer, "It depends on the environment." Then they ask, "What > are the effects of environment on this behavior?" And you answer, "It > depends on the version of the gene." "It depends" = a gene/environment > interaction.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Behave-Biology-Humans-Best- Worst/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Behave-Biology-Humans-Best- Worst/dp/1594205078)

<comment><USER12> Not very related, but Sapolsky's A primate's memoir is a very funny and edifying read. Strongly recommended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I didn't read the article, but isn't this like predicting country of birth? I.e. how well is the prediction if you take someone from the US and let them grow up in Africa?

<comment><USER14> Like many traits, height is a mix of genetic and environmental factors. Based on things like twin studies, we know that 60-80% of the variation in height is due to genetic factors [1]. This paper shows that you can predict height from genetic information with an accuracy that is in line with that heritability estimate. It doesn't mean that it will be 100% accurate all the time, since environmental factors (e.g. nutrition) will account the remaining 20-40%.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of- human...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human- height/) "The short answer to this question is that about 60 to 80 percent of the difference in height between individuals is determined by genetic factors, whereas 20 to 40 percent can be attributed to environmental effects, mainly nutrition."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Updated version at [https://doi.org/10.1101/190124](https://doi.org/10.1101/190124)

</comment><comment><USER16> Step towards designer babies? Check the genes after fertilization, reject embryous if the genes are not "right".

<comment><USER17> The models are predicted off of "~20k activated SNPs" \- 20,000 separate mutations, most of which have really small effects on height. "Designer babies" are pretty far off (IVF is awesome and great, but not trivial, so it would be risky to do this just to make sure a baby will be...probably somewhere near average height). Engineering the right mutations with CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing would be astronomically expensive (and is realistically impossible); filtering embryos for the right genetic background would also be incredibly expensive and probably impossible, as you'd be relying on the natural, stochastic arrangement of those 20,000 mutations to be in sync with the vision you have for your baby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having small mutations is irrelevant; it could be dozens of large effects or thousands of small effects, it doesn't matter, you get a normal distribution anyway. The question is how much variance there is and how much of it you can predict.

Or let me put it this way: how much do siblings (ie embryos) vary in height? It's by quite a bit, often several inches. Most of this is due to genetics. And this PGS is able to predict half of the genetic contribution. So...

(If you're curious, my best estimate is that embryo selection could boost height by about an inch on average.)

> filtering embryos for the right genetic background would also be incredibly > expensive and probably impossible

It would cost about $2000 for the biopsies and SNP arrays of the usual ~5 embryos, and can be done either now or in the next few years and could have been done years ago if any real effort was put into it.

<comment><USER17> You would only be able to select from those 5 backgrounds, however, and the predicted heights for those embryos will be drawn from a normal distribution; you can only "design" from what you've sampled.

On the other hand, if you sampled millions of embryos, you could find the rare few predicted to grow to be 6'5" person -- but this would be very expensive and basically impossible without synthetic embryos.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You would only be able to select from those 5 backgrounds, however, and the > predicted heights for those embryos will be drawn from a normal > distribution; you can only "design" from what you've sampled.

Yes, and this is cheap and does lead to gains. (Specifically: around 1 inch.)

> but this would be very expensive and basically impossible without synthetic > embryos.

First, this is not remotely what you said. Second, it's not true: you only need more eggs and they don't have to be 'synthetic' whatever that means, and there's a lot of work on inducing egg development from stem cells so in another 10 years it may well be possible for parents to do massive selection like that. Third, you don't need millions of embryos if you just want a very tall person, as the advantage is cumulative over generations (which is the critical insight behind Iterated Embryo Selection: it's much more efficient to take a few hundred embryos through multiple generations of selection than it is to try to brute force a single selective step). That's omitting any gains from CRISPR or genome synthesis or other methods not yet thought of. Fourth, why would any parent want that in the first place as that's into the realm of potential healthy problems (even if we're assuming only male embryos) and beyond the useful level of height advantages, especially when they could be instead spending that count of embryos to maximize a weighted sum of all health and other complex traits? (Remember, just because everyone talks about doing embryo selection on a single trait at a time doesn't make that remotely a good idea; there are big gains to selecting on many traits simultaneously.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Books of College Libraries Are Turning into Wallpaper - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/college-students-arent-checking-out-books/590305/ <comment><USER2> In the past, college libraries with open stacks of printed books were often the only way to learn of the existence of an obscure book that might be of use to you ... even change your life or at least enhance your research.

They were in close proximity to other books that you knew to be useful. Example: I might be looking at someone's obscure technical book from the 1870s at the college they worked for ... and nearby might be the world's only remaining copy of a bio written by a friend or colleague that mentions facts found nowhere else.

I won't know ... because neither is shelved any more. The 1870s book is found at archive.org. But not the bio. And the computer doesn't duplicate the proximity once found in the physical card catalog.

The rewards of the physical browsing experience are lost in the digital age. No way to assess the damage that's been done by hiding college stacks underground in containers. To assess the effect of moving uncommon books to special collections with infrequent hours and stringent requirements.

I have to wonder about the professionalism of the people who too carelessly make the decision to overturn systems evolved by centuries of scholarship.

<comment><USER3> Yes! I taught myself programming by browsing the 000 section as a kid, something that would be impossible today.

<comment><USER4> > something that would be impossible today

Why?

<comment><USER5> I'd wager most coding languages are described in their website docs rather than in physical books long before they reach libraries. Only the most popular languages get a full write up more than a few times and then you've got to compete against shelf space already occupied by long useful books. While library organizations orgs have our can get most books, your have to know what you were looking for in advance.

<comment><USER4> But you don't need to learn the very latest language in order to learn programming.

I think it's pretty obviously nonsense to claim you can't teach yourself programming at all using the books available right now.

<comment><USER6> Yes and No. Every library is different. A university library may be better stocked, but my local library's computer section is mostly old books on outlook, Excel, and Photoshop. There are some coding books, but they're mostly old books on VB and the like that might be difficult for someone new to programming to setup. The topics on loops and branching and variables are probably all relevant, but it's harder to learn just by paper.

<comment><USER7> Our local library gets books only slightly slower than what I can get ordered online. From the time I ask for a book, they often have it on the shelf within a few days, with an automatic reservation for me sent by SMS for pickup at the local branch just outside the door. Of course this is the socialist country of Sweden and we love our libraries... :-)

Last time I got a ZX-spectrum coding book that a friend on a forum wrote. Before that some obscure manga comic book. That one took a few months because they had a hard time to find it, it was long out of print.

They are very open to suggestions even of odd books and very curious librarians, both young and old.

<comment><USER3> Here in the US, you can use interlibrary loan to get nearly any book from a public or university library. Worldcat [0] is a great resource for finding books in other libraries that can be sent to you free through ILL.

[0] [http://worldcat.org](http://worldcat.org)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I was in college, books played a bigger role than just wallpaper, although they still weren't used for reading and nobody was browsing through the stacks.

They were great at sound dampening. Studying in the library was great because if there was a row of books between you and the people working on a group project. The books muffled the sound enough to concentrate.

I don't mind losing physical books in the library, as long as we can keep the same ambiance.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I read too many horror stories when I was younger, but the concept of a "digital dark age" has stayed with me. I never fully trust online resources to be there after a wildfire, flood, or multiple changes of storage format.

<comment><USER10> This is also a major concern of mine, to the point that I _actually_ considered to start printing the English Wikipedia at home, on very thin paper. Sure, it will take a few years (and probably a few printers) and will occupy most of my basement, but at least I will have access to this knowledge in case another dark age emerges.

I am extremely worried that libraries are now replacing physical books by digital representations. If this is going to continue, there will be a point where the slightest global catastrophe will wipe out most of the knowledge of the past 2000 years.

<comment><USER11> The signal-to-noise ratio there will be huge. Wouldn't a normal multi-volume printed encyclopedia be way cheaper and less time and resource consuming?

<comment><USER12> Where would you get a printed encyclopedia that's current? The only encyclopedia that I've heard of that's still actively being published is World Book Encyclopedia and that's meant for grade school children. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica released its final edition in 2010.

<comment><USER13> Most information usuful in a postindustrial society is over 100 years old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > And it runs contrary to the experience of public libraries and bookstores, > where print continues to thrive.

Ha? What about all the stories of public libraries and bookstores closing down?

These seems like a long article that avoids the obvious - people don't use books because eBooks and computers are simply more convenient.

<comment><USER15> Ebooks aren't doing so hot these days: sales were down about 5% this year.

[https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/ebook-sales- decline...](https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/ebook-sales-decline- by-4-9-in-january-2019)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From my experience as an undergrad and grad student in the 1990s, you can learn a lot about a subject by just going to the relevant section of the library and browsing.

</comment><comment><USER17> There are many aspects of a library of technical books that I miss online: the curation process, the higher bit rate once you are holding the book, and the lack of distractions in the library.

What I fear may go away is the long form books offer. When exploring a new topic, articles are often too dense. In books, authors can establish the background, help create a shared vocabulary, and motivate what is often so condensed in a research article.

<comment><USER18> There was just recently discussion about books on HN. It was based on some blog post where the author complained about the book format and how hard it is to remember what you just read.

The discussion revealed that people don't learn in shool how to read and study with books anymore. Of course you don't remember much if you read the book from start to end. E-readers may share the blame. It's very hard and slow to study with e-book. If you spend hours studyin, you really need a book written into a paper.

<comment><USER19> Books are _damn_ good interfaces for reading long-form text. Footnotes, end notes, indices (sure search is handy—indices are better for some things, though, by excluding invalid partial matches and other irrelevancies) glossaries, integrated author bios and expert introductions, and so on. Multi- page marking with near-instant switching. Two pages visible at a time. Cover, title, and author visible when sitting on the table not actively in use, to help passively absorb and retain that info—ever forget who wrote an ebook _while reading it_? Spatial recall. Margins to mark on or write notes in. They're _excellent_. E-book readers are a replacement only for disposable cotton-candy fiction—which has its place, and that part's nice.

Maybe one day computers and digital readers will actually be good enough to replace books. They're not even close today. The tech's just great.

<comment><USER20> These are all solvable technical issues.

For example, I use Foxit for looking at PDFs. Maddeningly, I cannot view two PDFs at the same time in different windows. There is no technical reason for this limitation, in fact, the limitation was _deliberately_ programmed into it.

I'm pretty sure the people who program PDF readers have never actually used them. (There are a number of bizarre and trivial limitations to them that are trivially fixed. For example, many readers can only remember the last page read for the most recently read PDF. So if you open another PDF, your earlier place vanishes.)

<comment><USER13> The technical problems are largely trivial, and yet in over a quarter century's use of PDFs, mass-market readers fail to incorporate them. One might begin to suspect an incentives alignment failure within the industry.

I use a (reasonably good) Android reader which affords metadata presentation and editing, _but lacks an "author" field_.

Long since reported. Not fixed.

<comment><USER20> None of the issues I report ever get fixed, either. I don't bother reporting them anymore. I just complain on HN :-)

I remember on PDF reader on a tablet which would remember your last read position only in the last 3 PDFs you opened. Open another one, and one gets pushed off the bed. I simply cannot understand the train of thought that concluded that 3 was the lucky number here.

<comment><USER13> I send Pocket long screeds and periodically re-share those to HN. May be due for another RSN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't know how this works in the US, but I wonder if allowing/encouraging the general public (i.e. you're not an alumni, and perhaps you never went to college) to sign up and use university libraries would increase usage?

Just had a scan of Glasgow and Edinburgh University's library membership pages. The general public can access the libraries but how and what you're permitted to access can vary between institutions.

<comment><USER22> If the state of public libraries is anything to go by, no. At least here in the Netherlands, most public libraries that are still open, have reduced their book shelf capacity in the past couple of years and added study spaces, conversation spaces, coffee corners, computer spaces, meeting spaces, and workshops to the menu.

The experience of going to the library now compared to 30 years ago when I was a kid is totally different. Then it was a quiet place with books, catalogues, a reading table, and maybe a computer or two. Now it is a social meeting place.

(What I do wonder is, what were the social meeting places of 30 years ago? Why is there a need for them now?)

Anyway, in my experience with university libraries, unless you know what you're doing research-wise, these libraries are not the most accessible for the outsider. There is a lot of information to wade through, and if you're unlucky, you have to order books you want from the archive/warehouse anyway, which can take from a couple of hours to a couple of days. Unless you can go to the library every day, you will have to plan your visit, search and request the books and materials you think you want beforehand, and hope for the best.

How I miss searching for hours or days in libraries and archives!

<comment><USER23> > What I do wonder is, what were the social meeting places of 30 years ago? > Why is there a need for them now?

Check out the book _Bowling Alone_ by Robert Putnam

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> People used to access printed materials largely because, well, there was no other choice. Today digital is the native medium of authoring and creation. Sharing, copying, and indexing come "for free" where historically those were high-cost.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, there's still a lot of information that's locked up only in books. The more obscure or specialized your need, the less likely it is to be found on the web. Countless books will never be digitized because there's no profit motive to do so. And HathiTrust, while useful, keeps most of its PDFs behind a 'paywall' so that you can only download them if you are physically sitting at a partner University. I can't think of a dumber restriction on a digitized book than making you drive to a university campus to download it.

<comment><USER19> I've been repeatedly surprised and disturbed at how quickly one can hit "go get one of the five copies of this book if you want to know more" on any given topic, when researching online. You don't even have to go _that_ deep. If you're lucky you can spend 30min digging around and find a scanned PDF on some foreign university library's site or something. If not....

[EDIT] and that's just when you can find out that there _is_ something more to find. How many times does the Internet not even know—or if it does, not in any way you could reasonably find—what it doesn't know? I have a whole book that's _just_ a list of works by and about T.E. Lawrence. Books, articles, introductions, collections, papers. It's the length of a normal book, and contains almost nothing but a list of works. It's a book-length bibliography. That's one guy. Granted, famous, but there are tons of people as or more famous/important as/than him. Plus all those topics that aren't single people. Buildings, movements, art works, events. The Web's smaller than one might hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does it follow that dramatically reducing the volumes available in university libraries is the right way to respond to this? Seems to me that might lead to a death spiral for the library by killing its remaining utility to students and researchers.

<comment><USER25> The article makes it clear that the library still has enormous utility for students and researchers in the form of providing a focused space for study and collaboration. Those needs aren't going away anytime soon, and no other place fulfills them nearly as well as a library.

<comment><USER26> Starbucks without coffee sounds like a death spiral to me.

<comment><USER25> There's a big difference between a public space like a library, which has no admission price, and a private cafe like a Starbucks, that exists to make money from you.

There's a huge demand for both types of spaces, and said demand is not interchangeable.

And anyway, cafes are way too loud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In my university there were so many books that part of the comp sci section was in basically crawl space (I was too tall to enter and had to crawl.) It was such a vivid experience, I can't imagine not browsing books as a student.

</comment><comment><USER28> We absolutely must match the archival properties of books. Send your cold hard cash and public support to archive.org so that not everything is forgotten.

I can't tell you how many of what would eventually be cultural and historic artifacts I've seen just disappear on a failed disk somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER29> In the past, students read the books in the college library, as it was the best way to find information about the topics they studied. Having their own copy was prohibitively expensive for anything more than the textbooks and maybe one or two books of required reading (this may be an experience in countries with free education, when you're borrowing several thousand a semester, another thousand for textbooks is probably less significant, but it was true in Ireland), and the only other source of information was the college's journal archive which was definitely not aimed at beginners.

Nowadays, most students have a library of pirated PDFs, meaning they have the information on hand where they need it and with no need to return it or find it already borrowed in the college library. Most colleges will give you access to online databases of journals, so they aren't a draw either.

The other problem encountered was that of QC. At least in my institution more substantial books were always in short supply, as they'd never have more than 5-6 copies of a single book, so you'd arrive at the computing section and find... "Java 2 for Dummies". Or "Teach yourself C++ in 24 hours". Books that might have been fine to self-learners (when they were not significantly outdated), but nothing that wouldn't be covered in a textbook and nothing more substantial.

Probably this is a disconnect between the people running the library and the lecturers, but the attitude of the library was "Yes, we have software development books. What do you mean 15 years is out of date? The psychology books have been there since the 70s. And our figures show that more students have taken out 'Java 2 for Dummies' than 'Design Patterns' or 'The Pragmatic Programmer', so we don't need more copies."

But those two factors, the greater accessibility of pirated PDFs and blogs (and for some of the slightly more recent students, Stack Overflow), and the lacking quality of what was probably available on the shelves at any given point you chose to look meant that the library was definitely way more useful as a study space than for the contents of the shelves for the other students and myself during my degree.

</comment><comment><USER30> > _Before you tsk-tsk today's kids for their lack of bookishness, note that > the trend lines are sliding southward for graduate students and faculty > members, too_

Graduate students, and some faculty members, are also "today's kids", depending on your vantage point.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have strong feelings about this. When I was in university, I would quite frequently just going wander through the stacks in random sections, look at the titles, and pick up some that seemed interesting. I'd also go to some sections I liked (physics, math) and browse for hours. Frequently I'd end up spending a while looking though several hundred year old books written by the people that invented what the book was about.

There weren't many people that did this, so in my senior year the library decided that the books were a poor use of space, and started tagging books that hadn't been checked out for N years for removal (just with a sticker, I had to ask to find out what the tags were for). Then they started to remove the books, so the 10 aisle section (each aisle with 20 or so full size bookshelves) on physics got reduced down to ~3 shelves. I asked the librarians where they had gone, and they assured me that I shouldn't be concerned because they had just gone to storage, so they could still be requested if needed. But this change meant that instead of just quickly checking several relativity books (indices are great) when I needed further explanation, I would have to search in the catalog and individually request them, which took several orders of magnitude longer.

I have never seen a catalog with an interface that allows replicating the experience of walking through the stacks. Most interfaces allow you to find 1) popular books in some field which are almost always from the last decade or so and reflect what is currently hype, or 2) books with a particular title or author that you are already looking for.

I'm reminded of a study on the dynamics and distribution of academic citations over the past century. I can't seem to find it at the moment (maybe it was referenced in one of Carr's works), but I think the gist is that the breadth of citations has reduced substantially in the last decades. Rather than citing many different papers from many different times, papers have begun to cite that same most-cited papers over and over again (that show up first in the search results), if I recall correctly. Reading a single pdf excerpted from a journal is a very different experience from reading the same article in the physical journal, because in the second you end up flipping past all the other articles which may catch your eye. In the same vein, reading a single ebook (or even requested book from storage) is a very different experience that finding it on the shelf and maybe running across several other awesome books on the way.

It makes me very sad that centuries of knowledge from the best minds of humanity are getting shoved in storage, accessible only via search terms and the like, and replaced by couches where students can sit and browse Facebook/reddit/etc and occasionally work on schoolwork.

<comment><USER32> That experience _was_ my education. Professors, classes, assigned work — all helpful, but at best secondary to the time I spent in the library, deepening and broadening my knowledge of the fields I cared about. I can't imagine how you could gain from the Internet and your classes the kind of knowledge I gained from those books in that library.

This is a tragedy, and the worst of it is that the people it's happening to don't realize what's going on.

<comment><USER33> And then there are all of us, so enamored by tech, that we promote the destruction of serendipity in the stacks every step of the way because serendipity isn't searchable. Or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've found as a graduate student that lots of things I've wanted access to are out of print, and there's been no digitisation other than bad scans that you can only access through LibGen and which I end up printing out anyway.

Journal access is also a pain - digital subscriptions are amazing, but my University is not subscribed to some journals I need access to, or they only have a subscription for papers after a certain date, which is when they stopped buying the print copy.

</comment><comment><USER35> People think of this as the information age, but we are just approaching it. Libraries as we know them, public and academic, are about to be completely different. Even already the old way is obviously just the same because society doesn't have leadership to advance in blatantly obvious ways because we can't disrupt the cash flow.

</comment><comment><USER36> I was at university in the 80s, I was often the first person to borrow CS books that I read.

</comment><comment><USER37> When I would study in the library I would sometimes grab random books to read when I got bored or needed a break.

</comment><comment><USER38> Are they selling the books in second hand libraries? Does anybody where I can buy them in bulk?

</comment><comment><USER39> And I have some good times with my girlfriend in the more obscure parts of the stacks. That's another reason to presume these stacks for posterity.</comment>


Possible patent troll suing duo, vasco and more - <AUTHOR> http://www.microcapdaily.com/the-exciting-rise-on-strikeforce-technologies-incotcmktssfor/118225/ <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they own some patents involving mobile push security or something. Companies targeted involve gemalto, duo, vasco, secureauth, entrust, centrify and trustwave. Do people actually realize big paydays from these types of lawsuits?</comment>


Startup dies after topping Product Hunt charts. Founder shares lessons learned - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/music-app-lisn-shutdown-insights-from-failed-startups <comment><USER2> "Product Hunt doesn't matter"</comment>


Show HN: run – replace the current terminal with a graphical program - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/blevy/run <comment><USER2> I can't access the link

<comment><USER3> Does GitLab require login to view a repo now?

<comment><USER4> I hope not. It would seem like a really bad move, especially now. I don't seem to have a problem accessing other resources from their explore page[0]. Perhaps an issue with the submitted link.

[0] [https://gitlab.com/explore](https://gitlab.com/explore)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> link is dead (404)

</comment><comment><USER6> Like start in windows

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not really. It's more similar to the way Plan 9 handles graphical programs. The run command lets you pass arguments to programs _and_ it doesn't remove the power of shell autocompletion, unlike something like dmenu_run or rofi. There's also the benefit of running programs that aren't in your PATH, without the conventional annoyance having a terminal attached to it. Honestly, I'm surprised a tool like this didn't exist earlier.</comment></comment>


Motorola sees future in Google's Android OS - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/11/BUV719LAEG.DTL <comment><USER2> I hope Motorola or somebody else will put a low-cost android phone in the market with the ability for the owner to replace the whole operating system and public full specifications.

In a closed environment Apple will win because the iPhone just rocks from the point of view of the quality and design of the UI, the amount of applications, and so forth, but something really _open_ can contrast the iPhone using the Apple everything-close policy against itself.

<comment><USER3> 'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level of training the telecom operators would have to receive in order to take calls from users of this open phone when they accidentally hid the SMS function, deleted important system files by accident or even formatted the phone?

Also, openness is not necessarily a good thing - specially for mass markets. If people really, really wanted to 'replace the whole operating system', wouldn't they all have migrated to linux (on its thousand formats) already...?

<comment><USER4> _'really open' is also a huge headache to support: could you imagine the level of training the telecom operators..._

It's not the telecom's responsibility to support your phone's OS any more than it is your internet provider's responsibility to support your computer's OS. The point that was made is that an open device, analogous to the PC in the early computer days would be a Good Thing for the phone ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> and that's exactly why most internet providers specify they only support Windows (some include OSX, but not many AFAIK): if you call them with your all-custom OS and complain about faulty Internet access, they can simply say it's not their problem...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Motorola is so screwed right now they have NO choice but to put faith in the one OS that's looking for people to pick it up. They are seriously about be out of the race.

</comment><comment><USER6> Motorola is going to need more than the 3rd Android phone on the 4th place carrier to save themselves. Hopefully they have a Verizon Android phone up their sleeve.

That said, it's great to see the flood of Android phones hitting the market. Time to finish up that little game I've been hacking on.

<comment><USER7> They are apparently releasing an Android phone on Verizon later this year: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/30/motorola-sholes- android-p...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/30/motorola-sholes-android- phone-headed-for-verizon/)

I'm definitely going to be watching that. I have an iPhone 3G right now and am fairly happy with it -- but I would really like to take advantage of Google Voice's voicemail transcription, as I'm deaf and if works even halfway decently it would be a huge thing for me.

That, and I do think Android does notifications (the drag-down notification panel) far better than the iPhone does. The potential sticking point for me is that for work, I need Exchange support that's at least as good as the iPhone's.

<comment><USER8> I don't use Exchange so I am not sure how good it is comparatively, but the HTC software in Canada (on Rogers) has Exchange support. That code has been taken and made available through back-channels to other android OS users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see in webos more potential than android. But google has a far more open/aggressive approach than palm.

<comment><USER10> I would have agreed with you a few months ago but Palm has totally dropped the ball on WebOS. It's slow, buggy, missing tons of basic features. I just don't think Palm has the resources to put into WebOS that are required to keep up with Apple & Android. Unfortunately they are falling further behind, not catching up. It would be generous to say WebOS is even on par with iPhone 1.0 at this point IMO.</comment></comment>


Darpa Seeking AI That Learns All the Time - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/robotics/artificial-intelligence/darpa-seeking-ai-that-can-learn-all-the-time <comment><USER2> Yes, life-long learning is a major issue in AI, but there's also the problem of sparsity of training data (especially in learning relations between objects) and the fact that it takes too many examples to learn something. Another problem is that of explainability, and another problem is that of compressing massive neural nets to work on small devices.

So there's life-learning, sparse-learning, fast-learning, explainable-learning and efficient prediction to name just a few of the major ones.

What we can do besides launching challenges like this one is to collect massive public datasets, make simulators (which are like dynamic datasets), and endow researchers with enough compute and Amazon turk credits.

Companies are short-term focused, you can't run a fundamental research project with shareholders behind your back. This part needs to be addressed by the government and academia.</comment>


My first five minutes in Atom Editor on Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> I've been using Sublime Text for quite some time, and a little research I decided to try switching to the Atom editor on my new Windows 10 installation.
I was really optimistic about using Atom, but within the first five minutes I've encountered several issues that are giving me second thoughts.
1. I open my first file through the windows context menu, and immediately encounter a bug with the Tree View displaying the file as a directory. https://github.com/atom/tree-view/issues/471
2. I fiddle with settings to remove line numbers, unfortunately this also disables the gutter. Possible solutions seem hacky and unreliable. https://discuss.atom.io/t/use-the-gutter-without-enabling-linenumbers/2461
3. Trying to save the file by using the "ALT+F S" menu shortcut instead moves to the end of the current word. https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/4057 <comment><USER2> For what it's worth, I've spent years learning Emacs and making mistakes. Then again, it's learning curve is acknowledged to be steep.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try Visual Studio Code.</comment>


Tinder user, 69, who identifies as a 49-year-old asks court to change his age - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-xl/europe/europe-top-stories/tinder-user-69-who-identifies-as-a-49-year-old-asks-court-to-change-his-age/ar-BBPsBgW? <comment><USER2> For some background: this guy is a pretty excentric motivational coach who's really into neurolinguistic programming. He's big in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER3> I'd say he's well-known because of various stunts, most of them long ago, but not 'big'. More Weird Al if he retired a decade ago than Kanye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would this guy think he needs government approval to lie about his age on the internet?

<comment><USER5> It's not just about Tinder. In the article it says he wants to avoid general discrimination he faces based on that 20 year difference in age. For example, he wants to work again, but no one wants to hire someone at retirement age.

This is still pretty silly, but because there are cases where people change other facts of their birth like their names or gender, you could say there's a precedent.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Small house vs. big house? - <AUTHOR> A question, perhaps to anybody who has lived through this situation.
I am luckily in an economic position to do one of the following over the next 4 years.
a) Pay off mortgage on small house b) Sell said house and buy bigger house with mortgage that will last me another 10-20 years.
Has anybody faced such a situation? I quite like the idea of paying off the mortgage and slowly becoming self sufficient whilst building personal projects without the worry of the bank stealing my house? <comment><USER3> How is this related to "Hacker News"? Are we slowly becoming "The Middle Class Life Advice Club"?

</comment><comment><USER4> There's also c) Don't pay off mortgage on small house, rent it out instead (and hopefully have it cover its own mortgage and property tax), and then also get a new mortgage and buy a bigger house.

It's similar to (a), but makes more sense if you're in an area like SF bay area where you might take a bet on real estate to keep rising. London may be similar? Just another idea!

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want my opinion, it is to pay off your mortgage.

It's not sexy, but the idea of interest rates staying low for the next two decades is unbelievable to me.

Of course I and we don't know your full set of circumstances so ultimately you have to make the choice for yourself.

I think though - the reassurance will enable you to sleep at night and keep you on track doing your projects.

Personally I intend to construct my own house - and it is mostly because I want the security, I think it is underrated when the economy is proceeding in a generally positive direction.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks bachbach.. it requires a level of self discipline to fly against the societal movement towards the work / spend continuum..

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/)

<comment><USER7> While this whole post is off topic for this site, r/personalfinance has lost it ways in the past few years. everyone thinks their a stock market genius and no one is saving for the future because the market is full of gains. I'd really think carefully about any advice coming from there.

<comment><USER8> I thought everyone was recommending index funds these days and holding them forever?

<comment><USER9> That's not saving, because stock market goes up and down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you've got that kind of money, and you're after financial freedom and a house to live in, have you considered dumping it all into index funds and living off (rent+bills) the winnings?

Sure, there are no guarantees in life, but the same truism applies to a house. I don't know your circumstances, but it's not uncommon to need far less money in investments to cover the rent than the amount needed to buy outright.

</comment><comment><USER11> My parents went thru the depression and war as kids and anti-debt is encoded in my DNA. It has led to less-than-optimal choices.

That said, you should do what gives you the most flexibility with acceptable debt risk. Where do you want to be in 10 or 20 years? How many kids will you have? How much room do your hobbies require? Do you like the neighborhood.

What about something between option a & b? Maybe you're growing out of your house, but you don't need 1200 more sqft. Maybe there's a nicer neighborhood, you could design something to your needs or resale will be more profitable.

Are you really at risk with equal or greater debt? Can there be a situation where your industry could collapse and banks won't be interested in negotiating? If you have a fear of a 2008 event, debt will be managed unless you are really over-leveraged and there's a market for your property.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this is also a lifestyle question. Are you happy with your current home, and will you need a bigger house shortly? If you get a bigger house, you'll eventually expand to fill it. That might not be a great thing if you are happy right now.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've done both.

It really depends on your age and what your life objectives are. I paid off my mortgage in my early 40s and ended up regretting it to certain extent - <USER2> have paid into my pension pot and got the tax benefits and growth.

On the other hand it's nice to have zero debt!

Just recently bought a bigger house after renting. Mortgage is same as rent was, but house has a self contained room for renting out. It's a new build and energy efficient. I have no plans to pay down mortgage right now as fixed on 1.44%. I love the freedom having lots of cash gives you.

<comment><USER13> Reverse anecdote here. I paid into my pension and hindsight clearly shows I should have paid off the mortgage instead thanks to horrific long term pension performance. Actually I should have completely skipped any pension at all and paid it into yearly ISAs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Check out F.I.R.E, financial independence retire early. Basis is reduce your spending as much as you can and basically save 40 to 70% of your income.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pay off the mortgage.

The sense of freedom and security from no longer being on that particular 25 year debt treadmill is quite profound. Mortgage rates could return to 1980s 10%+ and you couldn't care less.

Course if you're planning on 3 children and you currently have a two bed property I may change my answer.

<comment><USER8> I would agree and as you say we don't really have enough info here. If the OP is planning a family he needs a bigger house for sure!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> pay off the mortgage. You don't know, right now, where you'll want to be when it comes to needing a larger house.

When it comes time to move, try to sit down and figure out what you actually need in a house vs what you see other people at your pay scale and age buying.</comment>


How to Secure MongoDB? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsb-9iM_tiw <comment><USER2> just sent you and email</comment>


Tumblr's business model... - <AUTHOR> http://www.tumblr.com/theme/8943

<comment><USER2> Tumblr's business model should probably include buying a few more servers or updating their code a bit. For me right now the only acceptable way of posting something is through their email gateway; the web admin has been excruciatingly slow ever since I started using the service about 1 month ago.</comment>


Ask HN: Co-living houses in the bay area? (Alternatives to Campus) - <AUTHOR> Curious what exists.
Campus was really cool. (buildcampus.com)
I compiled what I know so far:
https://quip.com/SerKA2wVqgQl <comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

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

[https://quip.com/SerKA2wVqgQl](https://quip.com/SerKA2wVqgQl)

<comment><USER2> fyi.. campus is dunzo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep</comment></comment></comment>


Tap. Pay. UK - <AUTHOR> http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2016/03/tap-pay-uk.html <comment><USER2> Anything at all would be better than the current chip-on-card with my visa credit card. Many terminal with the chip slot will sit there for a while and then say "swipe card". When it does work it seems to take forever. Luckily I've only run into one store, Home Depot, that demands the chip be used.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Does anybody know why the Android Pay rollout in the UK is so far behind Apply Pay (launched July 14)? Also, doesn't it feel like this is the sort of thing you would expect to be using on Android before iOS? (considering it had NFC etc)</comment>


Unthinkable Futures - <AUTHOR> http://www.kk.org/ct2/2008/06/unthinkable-futures.php

<comment><USER2> Some of these, like _Video phones inspire a new sexual revolution whereby everybody sits at home doing rude things electronically with everyone else. Productivity slumps; video screens get bigger and bigger._ are already happening. It's called skype, msn, etc.

Others, like _News is understood to be a creation of our attention and interests (rather than "the truth") and news shows are redesigned as "thinktanks," where four interesting minds from different disciplines are asked the question, "So what do YOU think happened today?_ don't seem so unthinkable.

<comment><USER3> I'd stick the second in the first category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ooh I really like this one:

>* DIRECTED TAXES -- Software gains allow a certain portion of taxes to fall to the discretion of the payer. John Public can assign X amount of his taxes toward one service, to the exclusion of another. It's a second vote that politicians watch closely.

<comment><USER5> That would be an interesting experiment to conduct, although I fear the outcome slightly.

It would truly suck to not have any army should the need for one properly arise. As well, culture must lose in some form without galleries for art and dance, for instance.

Wonder how long it would take to set up a web app to test the theory...

<comment><USER4> eh negotiation works ~15x better than war ([http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cf...](http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11670918))

<comment><USER6> Does it work when one side has no leverage because they defunded their military into extinction?

<comment><USER7> They still have people and can buy weapons with their superior economy.

<comment><USER8> I think states which pursue this strategy will find that with an aggressive enemy "just buy a competent military" is not something that you can accomplish in less than a generation.

How many European nations could "buy weapons" and then pull off a minor shooting war against a local tinpot dictator whose military budget would be lost in Toyota's R&D expenditures? (e.g. Save Kosovo... without calling the US.)

I think the answer to the rhetorical question is "exactly one", although I can name two others which would actually have the capability of showing up in time to drop a bomb or two, to no strategic effect. The others are universally incapable of even getting to the theatre.

And if Russia decided to get frisky and send in the tanks? Most nations in Europe would fold about as fast as Georgia did -- their sole means of defense is not being "acceptable, if regrettable, losses" in Washington.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A highly successful new magazine -- Ordinary People, edited by the nonagenarian Studs Terkel -- focuses only on people who have never done anything in particular to deserve attention.

this would be a hilarious subversion of celebrity worship.

<comment> puzzle-out Subversion? Dude that is celebrities!

<comment><USER9> ...that's kind of the joke... >_>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In many ways these are more interesting as windows into the minds of the writers than into the future.

Part of the exercise should be imagining things that are contrary to one's beliefs and expectations.</comment>


Our Decadent Elites - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2014/02/18/our-decadent-elites/

<comment><USER2> How fortunate that a blog at the Wall Street Journal and service as speechwriter to US presidents does not qualify one to be a member of an elite.

</comment><comment><USER3> The irony of this is that Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan's favorite Rethug to idolize and write hagiographic BS about, is responsible (in part) for the messed up state of society (the 1% etc, 2008 - everything over the past 30 years that has lead America into its current quagmire). Reagan laid the groundwork for blatant hypocrisy among the right to be acceptable.

Yes, an analysis of the actual actions of Reagan, etc would show he was really more "liberal" than the BS artists who hold him up to be the epitome of 'conservatism' would like to believe, but what I'm talking about is the shift in social attitudes - "Greed is good" etc - the _propaganda_ that the right / authoritarians successfully use as a smoke screen to wreak havoc on the rest of us, the global economy, etc. That mantra has only gathered steam over the years and now America is reaping what it has sown. Reagan should have been impeached for the Iran-Contra debacle, and by giving him a pass, a precedent was established that finally lead to the Iraq war (and $3 trillion dollars wasted on an illegal war - and no one who lead the West down that road will ever be punished)

So once again, yet another hypocritical Republican "conservative" incapable of taking responsibility for their actions. Yes, there are other factors in play, but the veneration of Reagan makes me sick because it is a symbol of how screwed up a society America is, contrary to its self-delusions. And now we have Obama, Marxist liberal, who is busily turning the US government into the harbinger of the New World Order (which the authoritarians on both sides are going to love). Don't get me started on the hypocrisy level of Obama...

Yes, lots of hand waving generalizations. But I'm trying to get at some abstract aspect of how societies can change. I suppose it was all inevitable, given what we know of how empires collapse. I really don't see America fundamentally recovering from any of this.</comment>


Microsoft asks Intel to build a 16-core Atom server-chip | WinRumors - <AUTHOR> http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-asks-intel-to-build-a-16-core-atom-server-chip/ <comment><USER3> Seamicro is already building servers out of atom chips

<http://www.seamicro.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I thin having Atom cores for servers is reasonable. Atom cores have enough power for many company level computing...

<comment><USER4> which means ARM do too, especially Tegra 2 (dual core, 1GHz)

it's possible to recompile server apps for a new architecture - <USER2> theoretically effortless, if running on a VM (e.g. Java, C#) that has been ported.

ARM chips use much less power per processing throughput, and since power consumption and heating are serious issue in huge server farms, this seems a clear opportunity. eg. just googled to find: Calxeda is building a 480 core ARM server, and claiming x10 cost savings and x10 performance gains. But sounds like vapourware (and is; doesn't exist yet). <http://www.calxeda.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I've read many articles about ARM movement onto Non-mobile platforms (especially for server virtualization). Indeed, power consumption is one of the biggest problem of today's datacenters. Hence, if we can stack to scale- out cheap and low power servers like legos, that'd be great...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu 11.10 named Oneiric Ocelot - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/646

<comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of the names most times I don't know what I am using, even now I'm using Ubuntu 10.10 whatever animal it is.

It's much easier to remember 10.10 (released 2010 October) than whatever year Monkey, Bat, Cow or Hedgehog came out.

<comment><USER3> >It's much easier to remember 10.10

The oddball names aid greatly as search markers. 10.10 is not a great differentiating search term in computing whilst "maverick" (or indeed "meerkat") doesn't often appear alongside "wifi setup" (or whatever) except in pages referring to ?Ubuntu.

"Oneiric ocelot" seems to be going too far in searching out little used vocab though - who knows how to pronounce or spell oneiric?

>[Mark:] " _The pronunciation is like "an-EAR-rick"._ "

But dictionary.com tells me it should be "oh-nay-rick" and their sound bite is "oh-nai-rik" (in my pronounciation). Given the Greek origins (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneiros>) I'd go with on-eye-ross and hence on- eye-rick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It strikes me as distinctly odd for a flagship open source distro to _have_ a "skunk works," never mind what they produce.

<comment><USER5> I was wondering the same too. Anyone have any info on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, at least they didn't name it Django.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I don't get you. Can you explain?

<comment> mkr-hn The last release of WordPress was originally named Django.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> o·nei·ric/ōˈnīrik/ Adjective: Of or relating to dreams or dreaming.

OK, this should be a fairly easy term to google.

<comment><USER9> I knew what Oneiric was, but not Ocelot. It seems to be a kind of leopard native to Central and Southern America.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelot>

<comment><USER10> Maybe a little smaller than a leopard. :)

Ocelot: The ocelot ranges from 68 to 100 centimetres (27 to 39 in) in length, plus 26 to 45 centimetres (10 to 18 in) tail length, and typically weighs 8 to 18 kilograms (18 to 40 lb)

Leopard: Head and body length is between 125 and 165 cm (49 and 65 in), and the tail reaches 60 to 110 cm (24 to 43 in). Shoulder height is 45 to 80 cm (18 to 31 in). Males are about 30% larger than females, weighing 30 to 91 kg (66 to 200 lb) compared to 23 to 60 kg (51 to 130 lb) for females.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The objective is to capture the essence of our next six months work in a > simple name.

Nailed it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hopefully, they can work a Liquid Ocelot reference into it.

<comment><USER13> Or Revolver Ocelot, if you didn't totally block out MGS2 from your memory...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of Otto's Mops: <http://audiopoetry.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/ottos- mops/></comment>


Photo format from Google and Mozilla could leave JPEG in the dust - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/google-mozilla-av1-photo-format-could-outdo-aging-jpeg/ <comment><USER2> I really hope "the next JPEG" will not be some patent/licensing nightmare, so from what I read here, we should hope for this to beat Apple and their HEIF?

<comment><USER3> I think HEIF itself is royalty-free:

[https://github.com/nokiatech/heif](https://github.com/nokiatech/heif)

It's the formats you use inside of HEIF (such as H.264 and especially H.265) that can require royalty-payments, although HEIF can also contain JPEG.

Apple will probably just add AV1 support to HEIF. Apple joined the Alliance for Open Media and maybe AV1 based images will be their first AV1 application.

<comment><USER4> Royalty free isn't good enough, it needs to be a FOSS compatible license or too many free (as in libre) OS's and applications won't be able to support it. Further to that point, the code itself needs to be free in order for users to have guarantees they own the ability, for all time, to decode files. If they don't have decode guarantees, then images can in effect become locked; either legally or practically. And that's not something the world should tolerate.

<comment><USER3> > _Royalty free isn 't good enough_

Yes it is. It means there can be many HEIF implementations, open source or otherwise. Pick the implementation you want to use and use it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What if HN was biased against submissions on very popular topics? - <AUTHOR>

Keep track of trending keywords, and if X% of frontpage topics are about one topic, make it tend not to rise on the front page. Perhaps a small bias for something with 3 or 4 topics already popular, and a larger one if the threads increase.
This might be able to solve the "_why problem" and the "Erlang problem" if they recur.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> If the site can detect that different submissions are on the same topic, maybe it should group them together. That makes them easier to skip for people who aren't interested in that topic, while without burying them from people who are interested.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was thinking the same thing. I have a feeling pg might be before too long as well.</comment>


Building a WiFi Twitter Display: Scrolling Tweets - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/49606294

<comment><USER2> This seems a little small to be practical to read...</comment>


Self-Adjusting Computation - <AUTHOR> http://www.umut-acar.org/self-adjusting-computation <comment><USER2> This is in my opinion one of the important things that modern software engineering is missing. Often, the most difficult part of writing software is to keep everything in a consistent state. With self-adjusting computation, it becomes possible to write a program as if the input-data is static, and all changes in the input are propagated by the framework/compiler for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> Incremental computation is an interesting idea, and could be very useful to big data processing. However, the particular incremental technique of self- adjusting computation has two big flaws:

\- There is a significant storage overhead due to all of the data that is collected about the computation (the "dynamic dependency graph").

\- It makes the assumption that if the input to your algorithm changes a little, the execution path and intermediate variable values will still be the same for most of the computation. This is not true for many algorithms you might wish to make incremental.

I'm not necessarily saying these issues couldn't be overcome, but a lot more research is needed.

For some other alternatives to incremental computation that avoid these flaws (while introducing other problems of their own), you could look into:

DBToaster: [http://www.dbtoaster.org/](http://www.dbtoaster.org/) LINVIEW: [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2588555.2610519](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2588555.2610519)

<comment><USER4> _There is a significant storage overhead due to all of the data that is collected about the computation (the "dynamic dependency graph")._

The storage overhead is massive. It's a non-starter with this approach. Our experiments with self-adjusting computation were in the range of 30-100x for simple algorithms. That means if you have a 1TB data set, you need 30TB just to store the intermediate results.

A relational database with materialized views or the special purpose systems that you cite (DBToaster, LINVIEW) are better approaches.

<comment><USER5> storage overhead of self-adjusting computation depends on the granularity at which dependencies are tracked, which is in the control of the programmer. my post above provides more information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can please anyone explain the differences / similarities of this approach and FRP?

</comment><comment><USER5> \- It is not true that self-adjusting computation necessarily leads to large space overheads.

For example recent paper on InCoop (SOCC 2011) and iThreads (ASPLOS 2015) show small space overheads even for very large datasets. If my memory is not failing me I recall space overheads to be less that 20% in many cases. Another paper in ICFP 2014 on DeltaML shows techniques for reducing space overheads.

Here are links to these papers: Incoop: [http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/socc2011.pdf](http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/socc2011.pdf) IThreads: [http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/asplos2015.pdf](http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/asplos2015.pdf) DeltaML: [http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/icfp2014.pdf](http://www.umut- acar.org/publications/icfp2014.pdf)

All of the papers above use the following idea: in self-adjusting computation, the programmer has full control over the granularity of dependency tracking. In one extreme, all dependencies are tracked and even fine grained updates can be updated efficiently but such fine-grained dependency tracking can lead to 10-100x space overheads. In the other extreme, the dependency on the input as a whole is tracked, leading to essentially no space overhead but then any change to the input triggers a whole recomputation. In principle anything in between is possible. For example in InCoop dependencies are tracked at the level of large disk blocks. In iThreads, dependencies are tracked at the level of OS pages. In DeltaML (ICFP 2014) paper, dependencies are tracked at a level blocks determined by the programmer.

\- Self-adjusting computation does not _assume_ that a small change has to lead to a small change in the execution path. The change in the execution path however determines the update time. This is the cost model that self-adjusting computation offers. There are many techniques for controlling the size of the change in the execution path, as can be seen by some of the more sophisticated applications of self-adjusting computation on large data sets (incoop, ithreads, deltaML), machine learning (inference), and computational geometry. In all of these cases, self-adjusting computation leads to asymptotic improvements compared to batch computation.

One ultimately powerful technique that allows the programmer/designer to control the efficiency is traceable data structures (PLDI 2010 paper), which allows application specific logic to be exploited as desired.

Traceable data structures also allow defining domain-specific solutions (by using the appropriately designed traceable data structures).

Paper on traceable data structures: www.umut- acar.org/publications/pldi2010.pdf</comment>


The (lack of) security at PayPal - <AUTHOR> https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/the-lack-of-security-at-paypal/

<comment><USER2> Ignore this article, clueless author using debunked data as fact.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment, but I thought I was pretty clear that the original claims were indeed false.

There are other issues with PayPal that I covered, as well as their poor response to the false allegations.

<comment><USER3> But you do have to confirm your email address to do anything important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Some script content on this website is insecure, and has been blocked for your safety"

Y U NO FIX YOUR OWN SECURITY ISSUES.</comment>


Game of Thrones Deadpool - <AUTHOR> https://www.playbalto.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Season 8 GoT starts this Sunday. Think you know who will be dead, alive or a white walker? Put your fan IQ to the test and join us in our 'Deadpool' that we created for fun for GoT fans alike.

Your feedback, ideas, suggestions are appreciated and welcomed! Feel free to share in the comment section.

Thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: How would you expose local Raspberry PI to Internet without third party? - <AUTHOR> I want to expose it to Internet because once that happens I can think of quite a few possibilities that would open up. I am listing some here of the top of my head:
1. Host a blog
2. Host a small private social network
3. Connect to my personal media server, streaming services, file server.
4. Monitor "smart" home. Car and other home utilities should be able to feed data into this PI.
5. Host alternate services for Google Keep, Calendar, etc,.
Currently my PI sits behind a NAT and can't be access through web. But I think it should be possible to access it form outside because my BitTorrent client works  flawlessly. Can we create a similar PI network for discovery of other PIs and make them accessible from Internet? How would we go about building such a network? <comment><USER2> Host it on IPv6? I've never tried it, but I would think that it's just a matter of opening a hole in your home router's firewall. I don't think any ISP is doing dynamic IPv6, or at least I hope they're not, so your Raspberry PI should always have the same global IPv6 address.

Anyway, this is one of the principal points of IPv6, to not only reach the internet, but let the internet reach you.

Maybe in the future, we'll reach a point where it's common for households to have symmetrical bandwidth and host their own stuff from their home instead of having no option but to rely on VPS companies for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> The obvious way to do it would be to forward a port in your router and then keep a dynamic DNS service (DuckDNS, for example) updated with your external IP address.

As for networks, I personally use the Yggdrasil Network [1] to connect to my homeserver. Since it is a self-contained network, a blog hosted on there wouldn't be visible to the web, but it's very, very convenient for private access. It traverses NAT without any hassle once you connect to other peers.

If you do connect to the network, you probably want to also set a whitelist of peers that are allowed to access your machine, otherwise it is open to the entire network.

[1] [https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/](https://yggdrasil- network.github.io/)

<comment><USER4> I think his issue is that his ISP is behind a CGNat, so he can't hit the port.

I presume.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not CGNAT. My home router is behind ISP's NAT. It's double NAT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, your ISP would be a third party, yes?

I think it would be pretty hard to expose yourself to the internet without using your ISP, don't you?

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you consider wireguard ? Its fast and easy to setup with PI</comment>