Boeing cutting more than 12,000 U.S. jobs with thousands more planned - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-jobs/boeing-laying-off-6700-u-s-workers-with-thousands-more-planned-idUSKBN2332EP <comment><USER2> This is what happens when you let the accountants run the business.

First the research goes. Then the product engineering drops. Then there's mass layoffs. Then the whole thing falls apart.

To an accountant, a drop in costs is as valuable to the business as a rise in revenue. To everyone else, this is obviously not true. Risking future profits to cut current costs is a great move according to an accountant. For everyone else, it's corporate suicide.

Edit: I realise COVID. But that's the excuse, not the reason.

<comment><USER3> I think it would be more accurate to say this is what happens when you let the shareholders who are too far removed from the business itself run the business. Those are the people who'd like a company to be a simple growing- asset in their portfolio, who specifically don't want to be bothered with its nuances or long-term health, and who have the leverage to impose their ill- informed will on everyone else.

I have a pet theory that a large portion of the decay in our society can be traced back to the layers of abstraction between stakeholders and the things (and people) they have power over. Usually this kind of thing doesn't happen before a company has gone public.

<comment><USER4> If you're interested in corporate governance, you might enjoy reading the book "Pay without performance"

One of the points it makes is that shareholders have very little power in practice, as even if you own a million dollars of Apple shares, that's only 0.00007% of the company. Not exactly enough to force through a motion on your own.

And if you think you'll build up a coalition to get a majority? Good luck doing that when you can't even find out the names of other shareholders.

Minority shareholder lawsuits? They're actually a negligible force; rare, unlikely to succeed, and low impact even when they do.

And that's without getting into 'preference shares' that grant CEOs outsized voting rights.

The book argues management can neglect shareholders' interests with impunity for these reasons.

<comment><USER3> Well there are two kinds of public shareholders, right. There may be a small number who own large enough shares to bother attending board meetings and voting, and then there are the millions with pensions, 401ks, index funds, etc. I think you're talking about the latter, who have the same issue but a slightly different version of it. In their case, the "ill-informed management" comes down to "price goes up, buy, price goes down, sell". Through share price they wield an extremely blunt version of the same weapon.

This is almost worse, because it very explicitly cares only about the short- term price. It's also a much harder problem to solve, because you can't just tell those people "think long-term and ethically when you're exercising your impact on the marketplace!". No matter how ethical they may be as individuals, most of them probably don't even know _which_ companies they have stakes in, much less whether those companies are heading in the right direction!

<comment><USER5> I think there's a third class: Institutional investors like CalPERS or NYSLRS. CalPERS has something like $300B in assets. When they talk, companies listen.

While they might be implicitly in your first group, attending significant meetings AND ensuring long term growth are primary responsibilities.

<comment><USER6> Calpers is like a king with no pants everyone pretends to respect them but they are as dumb as money gets

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> DC-3 This is just the start of the trouble for Boeing. They are technologically quite substantially in arrears to Airbus, and with none of their products able to pull in particularly hefty profits anymore they don't have the funds to make the necessary investment in R&D to close the gap. The double-punch combo of the 737 MAX scandal and the pandemic will have left them in serious strife.

<comment><USER7> US Gov will bail them out (even if optically it doesn't look like a bail-out), boeing is a huge defence contractor.

<comment><USER8> The article is about the jobs disappearing, not Boeing disappearing.

Any such bailout isn't going to be enough to bring back jobs in the commercial aircraft business, which is likely where most of these job cuts are coming from.

<comment> munk-a The original comment was that Boeing is in trouble itself - and the parent comment was addressing that trouble and what the US response will be.

I agree that those jobs are likely not coming back, but the company isn't going anywhere since the US just lost a lot of clout covering Boeing when the MAX incident happened - they're not going to give up on it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of Boeing's current dilemma is the failure of executive management. A commonly written story is that the competent executives at Boeing, who were focused on solid engineering, were pushed aside by the political McDonnell Douglas executives.

McDonnell Douglas was purchased almost 25 years ago, so perhaps it may be a little unfair to ascribe all of Boeing's current problems to that one event. Still, as an engineer, I can't help but notice executive management operate in similar politically-bent ways at some tech companies I've worked at.

<comment><USER10> "McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money" as the saying goes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aviation is going to be the last thing to recover so this is unsurprising. I could easily see it being years before new aircraft are ordered as there are just so many parked right now.

<comment><USER12> hopefully flights will be cheaper too, but i doubt that will happen.

<comment><USER13> Even cheaper?! If anything I think prices should be tripled. It's ridiculous how cheap it is to fly nowadays. Often cheaper than way more environmentally friendly ways of travelling.

<comment><USER14> First of all, they should be seriously taxed. It's ridiculous that air fuel is untaxed.

<comment><USER15> Have you checked the breakdown of a ticket lately? Taxes accounted for 45% of my Sydney to San Francisco ticket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No matter how you look at it, Boeing's business appears to be in terrible shape. The Atlantic has a decent article on how the company lost its way: "a company once driven by engineers became driven by finance."[a]

However, from "the stock market's perspective," everything at Boeing is _honky dory_ \-- the stock is _up_ +2% today.

\--

[a] [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how- boeing...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost- its-bearings/602188/)

<comment><USER17> Stock being up 2% today is myopic and meaningless. Look at the performance over the last year. FWIW, Wall St isn't a bunch of morons trying to financially engineer an airplane to take off.

[https://imgur.com/a/lv0yYq9](https://imgur.com/a/lv0yYq9)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's going to happen to all the highly skilled and specialized labor of building aircrafts? Where would they go? I wonder if we won't see a situation like the early 90's when suddenly all the top scientific and engineering talent of the USSR migrated to the US looking for work. If China was smart they would try to poach as many of these guys as possible. Layoff the propaganda and pay the top guys well. You could be looking at massive knowledge transfer in the years to come.

Securing IP and existing tech within borders is much easier then preventing people from moving around.

</comment><comment><USER19> Really feel for those employees in a time like this. I mean, if you're a web software engineer and you get laid of, there are literally many thousands of companies who would have a need for your skills. If you're an aerospace engineer, how many options are there really besides Boeing and a couple of other big guys?

Curious what folks in the aerospace community think.

<comment><USER20> Ex-aerospace engineer here, now software developer. This is one major reason why a lot of younger folks at Boeing leave (at least the ones with a more broader view of their industry).

A lot of "engineers" at Boeing are actually project / program / product managers and can pivot to similar roles at tech firms. The stress engineers have it a lot tougher.

<comment><USER21> > The stress engineers have it a lot tougher.

Well, there's always automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, etc.

For mechanical engineers, market is not great, but not too bad I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seeing Boeing engineering practices first hand gave me anxiety and concern for the safety of air travel and US defense. Boeing is basically 100's of siloed companies living under a broken umbrella. Everyone is reinventing the wheel. Sharing code is not possible. No inner sourcing. Tons of duplication everywhere. It's crazy the amount of waste. I watched nothing happen for 3 years other than catastrophic failure and honestly I'm glad to be gone and not working with them.

Military projects have it the worst. Depending on the program and funding, they either have access to modern tooling or such little funding that it prevents them from using something made in the last century. This company probably has one of the most impressive development tool catalogs a company can have, but most developers can't even take advantage of it. They have everything and a lot of the teams I worked with just couldn't use the stuff so the licenses sit on shelves burning cash. They renewed software we migrated away from, just in case... for auditing purposes. WTF?

They always had a crazy security protocol for why they cant do something too. I get it, defense is important. They tell me they want an air gapped system for X, cool here is the link to software X and MD5 from our authorized site/customer area. They're not allowed to download it, I still get it. Looks like I'm traveling to Colorado to hand over a USB stick. Without a second thought, I watched the SRE plug it right into his machine. Dude no. WTF? This would have been safer to download. Countless screen shares with people exposing private keys and passwords. The list just goes on and on and on. It's security theatre.

This company is also in love with the H1-B program. I don't mind H1-B at all, but when companies exploit humans from other countries so they don't have to pay American wages, that's where I draw the line, it's bad for everyone except Boeing. They are specifically gouging people from India. Couple this with their time tracking policies which I wont cover, their business practices are fairly absurd and rather disgusting.

Purchasing, holy balls. Every team purchases software differently. There is no consolidation or money saving practices. This has to do with funding, but someone could do this more intelligently. I tried having the conversation with them. Boeing, we want to give you back 250K in savings a year by not having 45 pieces of paper, it's a burden for us too. They don't care. Nothing matters over there. You follow the policy or look for a new job/vendor. It made me really sad having to work with them. I was so excited too, and it quickly faded with all the stupid stuff they've imposed on themselves which has led to lives being lost and costing people jobs.

<comment><USER23> > This company is also in love with the H1-B program.

What ? That rings completely counter to everything I know about the aerospace field.

I spent my whole undergrad (Indian citizen) building planes and the big reason I left it was that no one in the airplane industry would hire engineers without security clearance. H1B engineers were legally impossible.

One of my aunts (US citizen) was a top level exec in GE Aviation, and she straight laughed in my face at the possibility of non-permanent residents / citizens getting jobs at any company deeply involved in defense. I have interviewed (2019) with Pratt and Whitney, and they too made it clear they won't apply for H1bs but they would apply for EB1 Green Cards...until which point (first 2-3 years) I would have to work on the small subset of non- defense projects. My friends who went to US top 10 universities for their masters in Aerospace literally returned to India because no one would hire them and another of my friend who was a scientist at ISRO (and more prestigious Indian defense programs he can't even state on his resume) hasn't gotten any call backs for job applications at Aerospace companies in the US because of being Indian. He has now pivoted to Applied Math as his graduate education.

As an Indian, I literally do not know a single person in the US with a job in the aeronautics industry. (Bar one that works at NASA-JPL in robotics and got his PR on hire, but he is literally one of the smartest and hardest working guy I know)

Now I understand that you aren't lying. But I would actually love to know more about the type of roles these H1Bs fulfill and how they get past these very real security issues.

<comment><USER22> Easy, they bring most of the people in through the front door aka Boeing of India ([https://www.boeing.co.in/](https://www.boeing.co.in/)). Do a Linkedin search. I will admit most of H1-B is on the commercial side of the house which doesn't interact with the defense side at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> May 7th: Boeing has raised $25 billion in a massive debt sale, allowing it to avoid tapping a $17 billion coronavirus bailout fund meant to shore up businesses critical to national security.

[https://metroairportnews.com/boeing-passes-on-accepting- fede...](https://metroairportnews.com/boeing-passes-on-accepting-federal-aid- via-cares-act/)

[edit]

"That stance concerned lawmakers from Washington state, who urged Calhoun in a letter to "consider utilizing the economic assistance provided by the Cares Act to safeguard thousands of jobs at Boeing in Washington State and across the country.""

These corporate only care about bottom line

</comment><comment><USER25> If markets continue to behave as they have, this job cut is a signal that BA is going to soar in the next few days.

<comment><USER26> I suspect you're, unfortunately, going to be correct.

[https://www.nasdaq.com/market- activity/stocks/ba](https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/ba)

It's interesting how the common narrative uses metrics like low unemployment rates during certain touted "economic highs" and claim correlates, yet the popular narrative casts aside the correlation during times like this and jump into ambiguities and positive outlook for justification during certain "economic downturns."

It really, IMHO, helps illustrate just how disconnected many of these metrics are from economic prosperity for the vast majority of Americans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain to me how this works? Weeks ago they had a backlog of several thousand orders, getting a plane takes years of waiting.

Airbus says they still habe a queue of 7000(!) planes to deliver, with only a few cancellations.

[https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/market/orders- deliveries.htm...](https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/market/orders- deliveries.html)

How is there a need to fire people if there is still so much demand?

</comment><comment><USER28> Boeing will survive on the backs of the government, but GE is going to have to do a lot more to survive this. Every time people mentioned that GE is going belly up they said: no, GE is still the leader in aviation engines. Also, GE has billions of dollars in loans that need to be repaid, and they were counting on selling some of their business to make the payments. Some people thought that they were in great shape for "recovery".

</comment><comment><USER29> From article:

> The company announced in April it would cut 10% of its worldwide workforce > of 160,000 by the end of 2020.

From boeing.com:

> The company employs approximately 145,000 employees across the United States > and in more than 65 countries.

90% of 160 is 144. The math checks out.

<comment><AUTHOR> That Boeing website you note may be referencing old data. Based on their 2019 annual report, on page 18 under item 6, Boeing cites that they had a year-end workforce of 161,100 employees. The annual report is available here: [https://investors.boeing.com/investors/financial- reports/def...](https://investors.boeing.com/investors/financial- reports/default.aspx)

So, the article is roughly correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Boeing busts aren't a new thing in the Seattle area. My dad was involved in one in 1969 or so...that bust is where "will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights" came from.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. I've been in the PNW since the mid-80's and Boeing issues are not unusual.

They are one of the largest military contractors (who supplies the country that spends the most on military), and it the only National aircraft manufacturer.

I feel for the people affected by this, but I don't doubt that Boeing will turn things around.

[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1998-dec-02-mn-49854...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1998-dec-02-mn-49854-story.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > The company announced in April it would cut 10% of its worldwide workforce > of 160,000 by the end of 2020

With production halted for indefinite time for the 737 MAX, and no new orders for other planes due to covid that seems reasonable.

Still, even if planes don't do well right now and they had a few setbacks in their space business (Starliner delayed, and Boeing's moon lander proposal losing to competitors), they are still one of the largest defense contractors. They will be just fine.

<comment><USER33> Wars are a cost center. The US is eventually going to have to start redirecting tax revenue back to taxpayers, away from the military.

<comment><USER34> U.S. governments spend almost $7 trillion annually. Federal defense spending is a bit over 10% of that. Does 90% not count as "redirecting tax revenue back to taxpayers?" At what point does it count?

<comment><USER35> Federal defense spending is a bit over 25% of the federal budget. Adding _all_ US government spending together to make the point you're trying to make is highly misleading; any given tax payer likely only pays into one, maybe two state governments in any given year; cuts or spending in other state governments don't effect them. (I would entertain summing an _average_ of local, state, and federal, to compare to, but not _all_.)

<comment><USER34> Defense spending is about 15% of the federal budget. Which makes sense, because defense one of the key areas entrusted to the federal government, as compared to state and local governments. Leaving out spending from the layers of government assigned primary responsibility for things like health and education is a deception intended to make defense spending look artificially large.

As to your other point: my calculation results in an average. Total spending on defense divided by total spending gives you the average spending on defense as a percentage of average spending at local plus state plus federal levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the letter from the Boeing CEO: [https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news- releases-statements?item=1...](https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases- statements?item=130684)

</comment><comment><USER36> Bad news for the economy. Market is going to new highs today

<comment><USER37> pRiCed iN.

I joke, but also, I throw my hands into the air and say, "damn, I honestly have no idea how this all works, best just stick to target date mutual funds."

<comment><USER38> Free money has to be put somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Let it die. Free up lots of skilled engineers to work in smaller more productive enterprises. E.g. the Nokia collapse [1]. The growth a few years after the dinosaur death is significantly better for society than keeping the beast alive on life support.

[1] [https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how- oulu-...](https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-finland- rebounded-from-the-collapse-of-its-largest-employer/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Now maybe we can acknowledge the US shouldn't have axed development of a robust high speed train system.

<comment><USER34> Why is that? Bailing out Boeing every now and then is almost certainly cheaper than bailing out a rail operator to the tune of tens of billions of dollars _every year_ , and still having them teeter on the verge of insolvency: [https://skift.com/2018/03/05/frances-rail-system-is- falling-...](https://skift.com/2018/03/05/frances-rail-system-is-falling- apart/)

> Underused stations on expensive tracks are one of the many reasons France's > vaunted rail system is insolvent, subsisting on life support from the state. > Rail operator SNCF runs an annual deficit of 3 billion euros despite > receiving 14 billion euros of public subsidies annually—just under half the > defense budget. Its debt, at 45 billion euros, equals the national debt of > New Zealand.

<comment><USER41> It's important to point out that it's low speed, aging infrastructure that's a big problem for French rail. Bullet trains make a lot of money and in general people complain because as a result the SNCF invests a lot more into the high- speed infrastructure than to maintain the old, slow, regional lines.

The high-speed axes like Paris<->Marseille or the Paris<->Bordeaux are definitely not underused and the tickets are quite expensive, often more so than plane tickets but trains are generally a lot more comfortable and convenient (and about as fast or even faster door-to-door).

More broadly the problem is whether you consider that the SNCF should be run uniquely for-profit (in which case they'd probably end up closing all the small regional lines and only run the bullet trains) or if it's a public service that can lose money if it provides an important service for the citizens (in which case it makes sense to maintain the local lines even if they lose a lot of money).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm curious if this impacted the Foreflight development team, since they were recently acquired by Boeing.

I'm really hoping not, since Foreflight is my favorite app for aviation and up until now has been doing a great job of adding new functionality.

<comment><USER43> Totally forgot that Boeing owned them. They have been on fire lately with all the new features and I hope this doesn't impact them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > Edit: I realise [sic] COVID. But that's the excuse, not the reason.

Not sure how it's not the reason? (Or, at least a major reason?)

I think there's two things going on:

1\. The long-term vision at Boing: the investment in R&D, etc.

2\. The short-term cashflow issues.

No amount of vision is going to save you from the cashflow crunch that a 96% drop in air travel is going to cause. [1]

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/airline- passengers-d...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/politics/airline-passengers- decline/index.html)

To put this a different way: How could Boing have positioned itself to handle a dramatic drop in orders?

</comment><comment><USER45> Boeing spent $43B on buybacks last decade - 74% of free cash flow. _Got record $8.7B subsidy from WA state, then cut 17,000 jobs there_ Fired its CEO over 2 plane crashes/jet grounding & gave him $80.7M on the way out

</comment><comment><USER46> This is one of the hardest things as you scale the business. Make sure that the company's hiring effort isn't captured by politics, but stays aligned to the mission and rewards those who are competent. In a startup it's easy. You have direct market feedback. In a big company it's one of the most difficult problems to solve.

Feel pretty sure that in those 12k people fired were some of the most competent people at Boeing, while some of those better at politics were retained.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wish I could fast-forward 5 years and see how America has responded to the pandemic.

Will America's economic system have finally met its match with COVID, or will they be churning along with lower unemployment numbers than the EU as they have post-2007/8 pre-COVID?

</comment><comment><USER48> I know someone in data analytics as Boeing. As of Sunday he had a job. Obviously Boeing is in multiple sectors and don't have all of their eggs in the 737-Max basket, working in other areas of aerospace and rocketry (see ULA).

</comment><comment><USER49> this is a good time for Boeing to invest into R&D so that when aviation does recover (a while from now) Boeing would be ready with a novel high quality offering.

<comment><USER50> Happy I studied engineering in university at times like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Boeing has been bloated for a while. Seems likes covid was just a good excuse to lay off.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's funny these news are published the day spaceX launches their first crewed mission

</comment><comment><USER53> Boeing kinda does this though. The fact that Boeing benefits accumulate based on time employed and not duration of employment is a nod to this.

They have a reputation for building a 'company within the company' for new plane models, which basically means there's a lot of vertical integration that goes on, and you will know a great deal about one airplane but maybe not much about any of the others. At the height of each cycle they have far more people than they can sustain. They seem like a huge company but they're market cap isn't that high. Yes, they have a bigger market cap than Detroit, but it's also been over 10 years since Apple had enough money its war chest to buy Boeing _for cash_.

So when a plane hits pre-production they start to get an itchy trigger finger. They get rid of the idiots and the non-essential people, and the non-essential people can hop onto the next thing in a couple of years.

There's a graph in this article that illustrates:

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/in- go...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/in-good-times- and-bad-boeings-force-field-has-shaped-regions-fortunes/)

They hired like mad for the 787, then did a round of R & D layoffs a while after the first flight. If I'm not mistaken the rampup of staff after that was to build all of the -8 planes which were basically redesigning their other planes with 787 tech.

So it seems the new triple-7 flew in January, so yep, time to trim again. Meanwhile all of those people on the 737-Max are probably furloughed, or retraining on another assembly line, and there would not be an infinite supply of those even without Covid.

It might be more noteworthy to look at how many people _haven 't_ been laid off in a lockdown situation. A long time ago, the powers that be in Washington state looked at traffic patterns around Puget Sound and realized that Boeing commuters were a large percentage of this traffic. Boeing has offices all over King County, but the project you work on might be at an office across town, and you might pass several offices on your way to work.

So they made a tax deal with Boeing to divert traffic rather than building more roads. My understanding is that as part of that Boeing allowed people to work from other branch offices, and while working from home wasn't encouraged, some bosses would let you get away with 1 day a week telecommuting. And I'm not sure when 4x10 and 9x9 schedules (four day workweek, 10 hours a day, or 9 day fortnight, 9 hours a day) came in, but those helped too.

Conference call software de rigeur, and whole disk encryption since before it was cool. There are a lot of quite old building blocks in place for at least some departments to keep working without being in the same room.

<comment><USER14> >Boeing benefits accumulate based on time employed and not duration of employment

What does that mean? What's the difference between "time employed" and "duration of employment"?

<comment><USER53> Leaving Boeing stops the benefits clock instead of resetting it.

A lot of old companies had benefit carrots designed to keep you from leaving, so those benefits come on work anniversaries, rather than cumulative years of service. If you leave at 4 years to start your own company and then get bought or come back, tough luck, you start over.

If you worked at Boeing off and on for your whole career you'd still be in the pension program, even if you kept leaving every 4 years to do something else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The same day SpaceX launches two astronauts to the ISS. How ironic.

</comment><comment><USER55> Yeah, unless that vaccine everyone is working on _really, really_ works I don't see demand for airplanes (or other forms of public transportation, for that matter) coming back to anywhere near the level it was before C19. FWIW, whatever travel I do this year will be by car.

And chances of that vaccine working _reliably_ are pretty slim: we do not have vaccines for any other coronaviruses, and they mutate. Our vaccines against the flu (which is not a coronavirus, but which also mutates) leave a lot to be desired.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm too lazy to look this up, and probably a bit too cynical, but how much stimulus money did they receive?

<comment><USER57> I believe $0: [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/boeing-raises- monster-25-bil...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/boeing-raises- monster-25-billion-in-bond-offering-rules-out-federal-aid.html)

<comment><USER56> Ah, thanks. See, too cynical :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Meanwhile SpaceX is launching a manned flight today

<comment><USER8> How is this relevant at all? Boeing's cuts are being caused by a collapse of its commercial airplane business brought on by the pandemic. SpaceX doesn't compete in commercial aviation at all.

If you're referring to SpaceX winning the launch contract over Boeing, that happened a while ago, and has no connection to the pandemic or this layoff.

Congratulations to SpaceX for their accomplishment today, but it's neither here nor there for the topic of this article.

<comment><USER32> Boeing's Space branch hasn't been doing well in general. Starliner delays lost them a big PR opportunity, their Delta IV rocket is getting increasingly fewer launches due to Falcon 9 being a serious competitor, and their moon lander proposal lost to much less well established competitors.

Their problems in commercial aviation are undoubtedly worse and the bigger reason for this layoff, but another major division struggling certainly didn't improve Boeing's situation.

<comment><USER8> To me at least, the GP's comment read more like a shallow aggrandizement of SpaceX, whose successes and failures can stand on their own.

To connect the current layoffs at Boeing to the competition in the commercial space launch industry really seems to be motivated reasoning that focuses on irrelevant minutiae while the whale in the room is the impact of the pandemic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> and market still going up!

</comment><comment><USER60> I feel sorry for the people who lose their jobs because of this, but I think less air travel would in many ways be a good thing for the world.

<comment><USER61> Agreed. Furthermore, traveling is overrated - yes I said that. Traveling to other places IMP is not as fun as going to national parks and exploring nature right here at home. Just my personal take on it - I've travelled extensively and I don't enjoy it anymore.

<comment><USER62> So because you don't enjoy ANYMORE, other people shouldn't be able to enjoy in the first place?

<comment><USER61> Yeah, I thought we are expressing our opinions on this site?

<comment><USER62> You are of course free to, but I think your opinion has an air of elitism and condescension, so I'm expression my own opinion to criticize it.

<comment><USER61> How so? Please read the comment again. Where is the exact wording that made you feel that way? I can correct it.

<comment><USER62> You were agreeing with the statement "I feel sorry for the people who lose their jobs because of this, but I think less air travel would in many ways be a good thing for the world. ".

That necessarily implies that fewer people should be able to travel.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make your product less useful - <AUTHOR> http://yardley.ca/2011/03/04/make-your-product-less-useful/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting ideas. I have been dealing with some of this myself as my company has been developing a lead management product over the past year. We started trying to incorporate every feature under the sun thinking people would use it. In my experience the biggest problem seems to be that for each feature you add, the lower value of each feature becomes. Maybe this would be called "feature-value dilution" if there isn't already something better to describe it. In an attempt to solve the problem we have been breaking out the larger chunks and developing them as separate products and then tying them back together via public API.</comment>


Ubuntu Hit by a Vulnerability in "Eject" - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Eject-Vulnerability <comment><USER2> [0]Ilja Van Sprundel discovered that dmcrypt-get-device does not properly handle errors returned from setuid()/setgid() despite being a setuid-root binary. Although it looks to be handling trustworthy input from the kernel after the setuid()/setgid() calls, the intent is to be parsing the data as a non-root user.

[0] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eject/+bug/1673627](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eject/+bug/1673627)</comment>


How to be an expert - <AUTHOR> http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html <comment><USER2> Good post!

It does however contains some potential misconceptions. Your brain does grow new neurons when you are old, but at a scale rather trivial compared to kids. Don't count on thse new neurons to hold your newly-mastered skill. They will not make you a native speaker of a new language.

Skill is developed by wiring, rewiring, and more rewiring, which for us mortals, per Ericsson, means "deliberate practice". If you work hard, you have a stab of reaching awesomehood. If you don't work hard, you are guaranteed to suck. The risks/benefits are clear. Work hard.

The problem is, some people's brains wire faster than others. And when speed is all the concern, some others are quickly deterred from attempting what they may eventually excel at. I think this is a problem of the education system. schools with big resources don't do as much to create experts as they do to attract them. /semi-rant

</comment><comment><USER3> Basically, do anything, keep learning and expanding on it and you'll be an expert in the field relative to most others you work with. Do it with something you love and you'll come out on top.

I'd love to see a salary polling site that mashed wages over time with a person's level of interest in the job and time spent learning and training more on the subject.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "...schools with big resources don't do as much to create experts as they do to attract them."

You said a mouthful! Just imagine all our schools did just the opposite? Where they focused on helping people become experts and where recruiting was a foreign concept. How different would things be? It's a compelling idea.</comment>


Sleep() is Poorly Design - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msmvps.com/peterritchie/2007/04/26/thread-sleep-is-a-sign-of-a-poorly-designed-program/ <comment><USER2> Article is from 2007. This is not a value judgement.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> in current tech, using sleep is still poorly design.</comment>


Tufts student claims innocence after being expelled for grade hacking - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/08/tufts-grade-hacking/ <comment> j-c-hewitt If you or others you know of are involved in any of these kangaroo court type situations, it does help to hire an attorney to try to get these kinds of proceedings taken out of the kangaroo court system whenever possible and as soon as possible. This goes for both companies with internal kangaroo courts and universities with internal kangaroo courts.

If you allow yourself to be placed at the mercy of these kinds of systems, you are going to get clowned on because they are designed to achieve that goal and to prevent you from pressing whatever actual legal rights you may have. If you are on "trial" in a kangaroo court system you have to recognize that the court trappings are there to disarm you, convince you to do things against your interest, and to railroad an outcome that benefits the institution and not you.

<comment><USER2> > If you or others you know of are involved in any of these kangaroo court > type situations, it does help to hire an attorney to try to get these kinds > of proceedings taken out of the kangaroo court system whenever possible and > as soon as possible.

Understand that in the US students have no rights to challenge a college's rulings, whether it be a public or private institution. They can absolutely do arbitrary decisions like expel you.

I was in this situation. A friend did a stupid thing and police were called. I had filed a witness statement with the police as supporting evidence that the stupid thing he did was not malicious. Instead of a criminal charge, he got a petty disorderly persons charge.

School didn't like that, the police got their blood but the administration wanted to power trip. As I was signing up for classes for next semester, I noticed the system had a financial hold on my account. So I contacted the dean of academics, which responded by email saying that by student handbook regulations I would have to give an account of what happened on school grounds, this was procedural and no charges were being brought against me.

I go to give my account with other student witness, the 'kangeroo court' was made up of 50% administration, 50% student body. I was given a school advocate. I told them they had an official account from my police witness statement. They informed me that they were looking to sanction me, but wouldn't state what they would do that day. I told them the dean had said there would be no charges against me, I was literally only a witness. I demanded due process, claiming that since I hadn't been informed of potential charges/sanctions I wasn't given the opportunity to retain legal advice. They said they didn't have to abide by any sort of due process. I had to wait a week for the outcome of the tribunal to come in the mail. I was to have my records marred by the event, would be forced to do an absurd number of community service hours, letters of apology, and a paper about the event.

I hired an attorney and spent 2 years in civil courts fighting. The school retaliated by expelling me. They also did things like tell the other witness that they would have reduced his sanctions, but because I was challenging them he would have to serve out the full amounts. It was a gigantic waste of time and money. I did get my credits out and was able to continue on with my life but there was no other upside to this.

The disgust I have for US university administration knows no bounds. Going to university in the US is like living in a concentration camp: the goal is not to challenge the masters, but rather to keep one's head down and survive.

EDIT: Best part of the above. School couldn't touch the guy who was charged. He paid a small fine and the record was sealed after a year of no charges. Through the entire ordeal I had the support of my fellow students and the faculty that believed such things were not possible. It absolutely is and I have a large stack of court precedent detailing prior cases that have gone to trial where the school was affirmed in its absolute power over students.

<comment><USER3> As I understand it, state universities are bound by law a bit more than private ones.

I was adjacent to a similar situation that led to a student being improperly involuntarily committed. I got a real attorney involved and they eventually settled with the state for a full ride at a different state university. It took a long time though.

<comment><USER2> >As I understand it, state universities are bound by law a bit more than private ones.

FWIW, the above happened at a state one. Maybe I could have had a better outcome if I could tolerate another year or two of court. It did not help in my case that the original judge retired and new one was pushing hard for a settlement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an utter goatrope from start to end, between clueless administrators and clueless IT department people who were clearly not qualified to do a proper forensic investigation.

I won't and can't claim to know what's going on here from third-hand hearsay but it's clear that there's more moving parts than the university claims were involved (like the presence of a mysterious iPhone 5S, the activity that happened when the student was demonstrably not anywhere near a computer). The only conclusion I can see is that university IT departments should not be doing these kinds of investigations, between their lack of training/skill/knowledge and the very serious issues around conflicts of interest.

Heck, for all we know, a guy in the IT department who illicitly changed grades for $$$$ was using her as a fall-guy/patsy -- having the IT department do a pseudo-forensic pseudo-investigation is a surefire way to prevent that sort of thing from coming to light.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a very similar experience happen to me in High School in which I was expelled for hacking and changing 28 peoples transcripts. We used rainbow tables to target weak NTLM hashes on library computers and exploited the fact that the local admin and domain admin password was the same giving us unlimited access to the entire districts files.

We were caught because one of the people I was working with left a flash drive with his homework as well as decrypted teacher passwords in a classroom workstation. When the teacher examined the drive to ascertain its owner, they discovered their own decrypted password.

Interestingly, there was absolutley zero evidence tying me to the case since I never needed to change my own grades. That didn't matter. One students testimony was all they needed to expell me. They used the fact that on back to back calculus tests during the time in suspicion, I went from a 79% to a 95%. They didn't consider that the tests covered 2 different chapters. It was a good life experience in hindsight however.

<comment><USER6> >there was absolutley zero evidence tying me to the case

From your description it sounds like there was actually quite a significant amount of evidence (e.g. the testimony of one of the students).

<comment><USER5> The kid who left his flash drive and was caught red handed. He had a big incentive to downplay his role as much as possible. Didn't work though, just caused more people to get expelled

<comment><USER6> No witness is 100% reliable, but it sounds like he was in fact telling the truth and the school came to more or less the right conclusions about who did what.

People have been convicted of murder on the basis of the testimony of a single witness, so it's not that shocking to me that a similar standard of evidence suffices for expulsion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the picture timeline it says:

>Tiffany Filler is accused of logging in with the "Scott Shaw" account from her MacBook Air from Tufts' wireless network to view answers for a small animal medicine bonus quiz, then minutes later on her own account to take the quiz

That's smoking gun evidence. It's theoretically possible that she is the victim of an elaborate scheme to frame her but it seems pretty extraordinarily unlikely.

I don't quite see the evidence for the requirement of "detailed and extensive hacking ability". It seems like on administrator account was compromised and used to create/access other accounts. The initial compromise could be as simple as looking over a shoulder, swiping a post it, or guessing an obvious password. After that, it's just basic computer skills to do what they did.

<comment><USER8> > That's smoking gun evidence.

Even after you consider all the counter evidence, such as the time she hacked the network when working in a lab without computer access (according to many witnesses)?

I don't know what could have happened here, but going off the TechCrunch article, the school's story doesn't add up.

<comment><USER7> >network when working in a lab without computer access (according to many witnesses)?

Someone else was using her laptop.

<comment><USER8> So now she had an accomplice too?

<comment><USER9> Or she had it automated to run a script when she wasn't there.

<comment><USER8> That's a whole lot of effort for someone who according to the school didn't bother to spoof their MAC address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's an imprecision in much of this article, particularly -- but not exclusively -- in quotes from administrators whose cluelessness is revealed thereby, the cumulative effect of which I find infuriating. Settle A before you move on to B, people.

Analogy: I place two champagne glasses in a box, close the box, put in earplugs so I can't hear glass breaking, then shake the box violently. Then, without opening the box, I decide champagne sucks forever and throw away the _champagne bottle_. That's what this feels like.

Example: What does the word "hack" mean? There are at least two overall "families" of connotations it has, one of which is in the name of this site. But if someone told you to hack, that is in no way enough information to carry out any specific action. That's how you know you're dealing with a derived or secondary concept. Too many statements here are being formulated in secondary concepts. Like the closed box of maybe-broken champagne-glass glass. And then those vague concepts are being related vaguely to other vague secondary concepts, and decisions made about those concepts based on that. Like throwing away the champagne bottle. What a clusterfuck. Idiocracy is here.

And it's quite possible this girl is innocent but Jesus H. Christ don't post your password on the WALL! Unless maybe you can satisfy yourself that you have sole control of the room!

<comment><USER8> Does it really matter whether or not we call it "hacking"? Let's call it "unauthorized access" instead.

Whoever actually broke into this account was behaving _maliciously_ , regardless of how easy it was (or wasn't) to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hate the attempt at framing this as a "guilty until proven innocent" the actual facts laid out its more of a "innocent until we had tons of evidence that we deem sufficiently proves you did it at which point you'll need to mount a defense."

<comment><USER12> It's worth noting the following facts:

\- There were a chain of human and technical vulnerabilities exploited

\- MAC addresses can be changed – nearly all ethernet controllers and some wireless chipsets support changing the MAC address;

\- MAC addresses are public knowledge. Anybody who ever receives a packet from your machine has your MAC address – and don't forget that Apple devices send tons of auto-discovery broadcast packets; and

\- Anybody suitably competent to pull off the technical side of the attack is likely to be able to spoof MAC addresses.

It's worth noting that Knoll's letter also includes this gem of total misunderstanding:

"... date stamps are easy to edit. In fact, the photos you shared with me clearly include an "edit" button in the upper corner for this very purpose."

The article seems to me to be far more about low-burden-of-proof disciplinary panels – where the same people who set the rules interpret and administer the rules whilst trying to appear reasonable.

The fact that a "defendant" asks for a date and time of alleged incidents before submitting evidence is not at all "puzzling" – the alternative is submitting every photo over a months-long time-frame, which is certainly not reasonable.

<comment><USER13> The more important part of the letter regarding the photos is the fact that they weren't produced until after the student was given the exact time periods of the incidents.

<comment><USER14> Obviously there would of been no point in producing random photos until they counted for an alibi.

<comment><USER15> That's true. But nevertheless it's still low quality evidence of her innocence.

<comment><USER16> They could have said, ok, send us photos from this wide date range and then we will look to see.

Even so, if she knew when she hacked the accounts she could create edited photos _without_ them telling her when she hacked them (assuming she recalled when she did it)

<comment><USER13> Not necessarily, if she enlisted someone else to do it.

<comment><USER15> The possibility would be there though, forcing anybody considering the evidence to consider the possibility that she was the culprit and, as the culprit, was capable of fabricating evidence of her innocence.

<comment><USER13> The standard of proof in cases like these isn't "beyond a reasonable doubt".

<comment><USER15> I'm well aware, not sure why you think I'm not.

If she were guilty of hiring somebody to do the hacking but not actually doing it herself, then she might not know when the sensitive times were and would therefore be unable to fabricate evidence covering the sensitive times. That's what you pointed out, however it's _not particularly relevant_. The possibility that she was the technically competent hacker who was capable of fabricating EXIF data is a strong enough possibility for the university to meet their low standard of proof, and consequently determine she's guilty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Similar to "FerSris Bueller's Day Off" the teachers had the school's password written on a list posted on a cork bulletin board in the teacher's lounge. I had to have access to the teacher's lounge to use the scanner for my 6th grade newspaper. This was like 1992, and I initiated a push to move the paper to use computers.

Anyway, I got caught because I used the tool to remove some of the kids I didn't like from classes I was in... but for every person I dropped I had to add another... and I probably had to change about 300 people around to make it all work out. The school kept the classes the way I left them, and my "punishment" was that from then on I had to be "on call" for add / drop periods every semester to help the administrators handle requests from other students.

Let me tell you, I hated the first half of 6th grade, but 7th & 8th were pretty cool since I got to pick all the people I went to class with.

Oh, and I called in a snow day once... you just had to know the verification word associated with the school when you called the news. That word was also written on the bulletin board. I miss how simple things were back then.

</comment><comment><USER15> > _" insofar that she pinned her password to a corkboard in her room."_

I did something very similar to this in highschool, I believe after reading about RMS doing the same, to give myself some sort of plausible deniability.

</comment><comment><USER18> It seems possible that her computer was used with remote access tools, but its also possible that other grades were changed including hers to make it less obvious who the actual culprit might be.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you think you have a computer security problem and the operating system has been pwned, you don't hire some random person off Fiverr to "scan" your computer.

<comment><USER20> You might if you are a vet and don't know much about computers. She had her password on the wall of her room.

That's the most implausible thing about this - the university is suggesting that a vet is some kind of l337 hacker. In my experience vets and hackers are about the most distant groups of people possible.

However, it is plausible that someone else stole the librarian's password, created the account and sold access to her.

<comment><USER21> Vet and former high school hacker here. Just saying.

<comment><USER22> where were you on the night in question?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't support this student , why wiping her hard drive when there is a serious hacking case allegedly committed through her laptop? Is her personal bank account and ATM card passwords also written on her room wall? School administrator pointed out that one of her supporting evidence was altered( not the original rounds sheet.) Finally, when her results were bumped up she should have exposed that .. to free herself.

</comment><comment><USER24> meta: This was auto-killed, probably due to being an outline.com link

<comment><USER25> We've updated the link from [https://outline.com/ZTzSYa](https://outline.com/ZTzSYa).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Couldn't they trace the IP that the RAT was phoning home to for a lead on the external culprit, given they were on campus and the possibility of matching the times of the RAT accessing victim's machine and possible CCTV footage of any dorm hall entrances indicated by IP and logs of users etc.

<comment><USER27> The whole RAT idea doesn't make sense. There's no reason for someone to infect her computer to go give her better marks. That's not how it works.

Countless engagements I have spoofed my MAC to 11:22:33:44:55:66 with a hostname of 'you're being hacked'

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In other news: A private uni knows how to attribute cyber attacks correctly.

I'm sure, some intel people would love to have that knowledge !

</comment><comment><USER29> How hard is it to fool the fitness tracker? Unless it has some robust detection of being taken off and being put back on it would seem like it could be fooled in a variety of ways.. not that it means she is guilty but fitness trackers being used in court is already a thing so I wonder if they are actually hard to fool by just normal people doing something simple..

<comment><USER15> > _" fitness trackers being used in court is already a thing"_

It seems to me the quality of that sort of evidence really depends on the nature of the accusations. If somebody is accused of being a technically proficient hacker, this sort of technical evidence of their innocence may have a lower value than if somebody is accused of murdering their business rival in some mundane non-technical way.

In other words "accused is a murderer _and a hacker_ " is less likely than "accused is a hacker _and a hacker "_

<comment><USER30> These sorts of arguments are sometimes made, that the suspect was technically proficient and thus could manufacture/manipulate lots of evidence to cover his/her tracks. My experience is that it's rarely justified. Given the repeated pattern of connections alleged by Tufts, it would be difficult not to have trace evidence on the Mac corroborating it. Unfortunately, that evidence is gone — the fact it was conveniently wiped makes it hard for me to be on the student's side. However, it's also the case that Tufts did not conduct a worthy forensic investigation.

As an example, macOS maintains a separate, hidden resource fork on every file downloaded via the browser. There's a corresponding SQLite database of such "quarantined" files, providing some redundancy. I'd be curious about whether the discovered RATs had quarantine entries. I'd also be curious about what the system logs say.

<comment><USER8> > macOS maintains a separate, hidden resource fork on every file downloaded > via the browser. There's a corresponding SQLite database of such > "quarantined" files, providing some redundancy. I'd be curious about whether > the discovered RATs had quarantine entries. I'd also be curious about what > the system logs say.

Um, separate from this case, that's a bit worrying from a privacy perspective.

<comment><USER31> In what way? You probably aren't proficient enough to cover your tracks on a computer (short of wiping it--and maybe not even then) from a competent computer forensics examiner? That shouldn't really be surprising.

<comment><USER30> Wiping works. The old saw about needing to wipe more than once is bunk.

<comment><USER31> I meant that, even if you wipe your computer, there may be evidence generated automatically elsewhere such as routers, backup/sync accounts, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This feels like lawsuit material.

</comment><comment><USER33> Sounds like there may have been someone who she knows or doesn't know who wanted to "help" her get better grades and such. They thought they were helping without her knowledge and it backfired.

Just another theory I thought could be plausible.

</comment><comment><USER34> >Filler is back home in Toronto. As her class is preparing to graduate without her in May, Tufts has already emailed her to begin reclaiming her loans.

Guess she better default on those then. good luck collecting from someone in Toronto

<comment><USER35> And hope for the rest of your life nothing comes of it crossing the border

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > elaborate months-long scheme involving stealing and using university logins > to break into the student records system, view answers, and alter her own > and other students' grades.

Is this actually considered hacking? My mental model of hacking has always involved discovering and exploiting security vulnerabilities in a software system, not just finding and using somebody's password.

<comment><USER37> You or your business are much more likely to have your information stolen because of credential theft than someone discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities. This is regardless of whether your attacker is a nation state or a cheating student. Whether you decide to call it "hacking" is irrelevant when they're in your network.

<comment><USER36> I never meant to suggest it shouldn't be taken seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Now that this has gained wide attention the Tufts university counsel and administrative layers are preparing themselves for the inevitable lawsuit. Defamation, actual damages, pain and suffering etc.

I doubt the public will learn what actually happened but just from that article we can conclude that all parties to that investigation were remarkably lax in their approach to DFIR and I've seen several people on twitter say she would have been better off under an FBI investigation with people who actually know the job than Tufts.

My guess; gender based harassment by a member of the Tufts IT staff who thinks he was extremely clever and will not be caught since he ran the investigation as well as the crime.

And we know what happens to people who think they are clever; they boast and it is their undoing.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm curious if this lady is a serial social media user like most young people? Going on a 70 mile trip and not doing social media updates or taking more than 2 pictures would be suspect behavior for some people.

Does iPhone have location history option like Google maps does on android?

How did she get there? Did she just drive herself 70 miles? Does she own a car or did she rent one? Did she take a train or bus and still has the ticket? Did she go with a friend? Did she eat a meal and pay with a credit card there? Did she buy gas?

How about checking in the provided photos if features present in the photos match what would be there at the date in question. Does the forecast show it was rainy there but it's sunny in her provided pictures? You could measure shadow length if it may have been faked at a particularly different part of the year. You could search social media for tagged pictures from others which may show her in the background. Were there displays or construction that was modified between the date of the alleged hack and when she could fake a photo there?

Does the xiaomi tracker differentiate between (on a human and human sleeping) vs (not on a human and sitting on a nightstand)?

Did any other student grades get modified upwards?

<comment> xkcd-sucks Shit, you're making me concerned that I should open a facebook account and start uploading records of everything + making paper trails of everything I do in case I'm accused of a crime in the future

<comment><USER40> I once read about a black guy who would, when out and about, make it a point to stop by places which have cameras (ATMs, stores, etc.) periodically, _just so_ he would have proof of being near those places. I'm sorry I don't remember where I read it, but it stuck with me.

<comment><USER41> I remember Patrice O'Neal had a bit about this.

[https://youtu.be/0xVF7yCKWno?t=60](https://youtu.be/0xVF7yCKWno?t=60)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Now Lets Users Vote on Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_ad_voting.php <comment><USER2> Why doesn't facebook just ask what people want a price break on? To hell with all the machine learning, etc. Just ask. Put out a form for asking what people intend on buying, and have advertisers bid on keywords and offer price break coupons through facebook. Not that hard to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what this means for Adpinion. If this works for Facebook, will ad- voting become more mainstream? If so, Adpinion is in a pretty good position.

Or do they feel like Facebook is stealing their idea?</comment>


China's Stock Market Isn't the Problem - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/588704/chinas-stock-market-isnt-the-problem/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm surprised there's no mention of the impact of recently rising Federal Reserve Rates[1] on the Chinese Currency or the fact that the Yen was recently added the IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency[2].

Since China's moves in August I think its fair to characterize this as a currency war. And it's Dollar Hegemony that's hanging in the balance[3]. Many have characterized it as a war for much longer. What's different now? The proxy wars between the United States and Russia are heating up and tensions between China and the rest of East Asia are heating up. Western sanctions on Russia for Ukraine pushed it toward China and that may just have been the tipping point[4].

I find it remarkable how able the performances of equity markets are to obfuscate the currency and bond markets that are driving them[5]. When equities move fortunes change, when currencies move, the balance of power on the planet changes.

[1] [http://qz.com/588049/what-the-fed-was-thinking-when-it- final...](http://qz.com/588049/what-the-fed-was-thinking-when-it-finally- raised-interest-rates-last-month/)

[2] [http://www.globalresearch.ca/chinese-yuan-incorporated- into-...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/chinese-yuan-incorporated-into-imf- special-drawing-rights-sdr-us-congress-gives-in-and-endorses-the-imf-quotas- reform/5499619)

[3] [http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben- bernanke/posts/2016/01/07...](http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben- bernanke/posts/2016/01/07-dollar-international-role)

[4] [http://www.economist.com/news/china/21650566-crisis- ukraine-...](http://www.economist.com/news/china/21650566-crisis-ukraine- drawing-russia-closer-china-relationship-far-equal)

[5] [http://qz.com/588704/chinas-stock-market-isnt-the- problem/](http://qz.com/588704/chinas-stock-market-isnt-the-problem/)

<comment><AUTHOR> O, I forgot about #Bitcoin</comment></comment>


Insect: high precision scientific calculator with full support for physical unit - happy-go-lucky https://github.com/sharkdp/insect <comment> happy-go-lucky Currently, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14625795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14625795)</comment>


How to Use a Differential Analyzer - <AUTHOR> https://twobithistory.org/2020/04/06/differential-analyzer.html <comment><USER2> This could use a lot more visual aids.

Here's a film that goes over a lot of the basics: "BASIC MECHANISMS IN FIRE CONTROL COMPUTERS" [1]. It's a 1953 US Navy instructional film explaining how mechanical fire control computers worked.

These machines took inputs giving the speed and direction the ship was traveling, the speed and direction the target was moving, the distance and direction to the target, the wind speed and direction, and other factors, and computed how to aim the guns to shell the target.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug)

<comment><USER3> These old-school education videos are such a treat. One of my favorite is on differential gearing - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc) (apologies about the clickbait title)

<comment><USER4> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAw79386WI) is the non-clickbait-title version, hosted by the channel with other popular recovered films in the same genre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Antikythera mechanism ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)) "variously dated to about 87 BC,[22] or between 150 and 100 BC,[13] or to 205 BC,[23][24]" \-- may have been an early _differential analyzer_ \-- but that's a hypothetical conjecture...

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't see this covered in this article and I don't remember. How were the coefficients for these differential equations calculated?

Also, how useful were these? Today, I think most people use vector field plots because differential equations are so complicated. And I can't think of an easy way to get from the output of this machine to a vector field.

</comment><comment><USER5> Basically, a differential equation is just a description of a _rate of change_ in exact _mathematical terms_.</comment>


Something's Odd About the Political Betting Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/07/why_political_betting_markets_are_failing.html <comment><USER2> The article discusses the interplay between polling and betting. But there's something that has changed recently, and that is polling. It's becoming very difficult to do polling. The response rate is under 1%, which IMO completely undermines the results.

Check out this article in Wired: [http://www.wired.com/2016/06/civis-election- polling-clinton-...](http://www.wired.com/2016/06/civis-election-polling- clinton-sanders-trump/)

Response rates to phone polls:

       1980 72%
       2000 61%
       2012  5.5%
       2016  0.9%

Good luck obtaining accurate data if fewer than 1 in 100 people answer the phone when you call them.</comment>


Show HN: website screenshot for dummies. Shotsrv.com - <AUTHOR>

This is my side project. I recently was in need of a screenshot service and most of them were un reliable. Those that worked were expensive. So I created my own:
Http://shotsrv.com
Your feedback is much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Most of the crappy screenshot services are expensive or filled with spammy ads because the bandwidth and processing power to serve the screenshots is not cheap. Wont the same thing happen with your service too if it becomes popular? TANSTAAFL

</comment><comment><USER3> With the rise of responsive websites, you may want to accept viewport parameters or at least identify which viewport you're screenshotting at.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting, I will add it to my features list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why when I write a link to try out Shotsrv an image appears that says "No images, deal with it!" ???

<comment><AUTHOR> oh wow, i guess i forgot to remove my dev images from testing :) i apologize for that.</comment></comment>


The No More Ransom Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.nomoreransom.org/en/index.html <comment><USER3> How common is it that paying the ransom doesn't work? Seems bad for the business model of ransomware, though I guess competing malware writers don't necessarily feel compelled to keep the market intact if they can squeeze out a bit more for themselves without the effort of writing a functional decryption routine.

<comment><USER4> I believe the common rule is that paying works, as per the business reasons you mention.

The issue is the victims on aggregate would rather not support the viability of that business. If no one has to pay, the business dies out. Perhaps a pipe dream, but less money at least means fewer actors in the space.

<comment><USER5> This is why the phrase "We do not negotiate terrorists" makes sense as a general policy to advocate. It's weakened when we ignore it in individual cases.

<comment><USER6> The good friday agreement was essentially brokered by ignoring it. That seemed preferable to me to the decades of sustained bombings.

It seems to me that no government can make a fully plausible promise that they won't yield under pressure and, in any case, terrorism is extremely ill defined.

<comment><USER7> I believe the phrase is rational for and applied to ransom situations - <USER2> generally pursuing peace with opposing parties is not encapsulated in that phrase, to my understanding.

<comment><USER8> What distinguishes an opposing party from a terrorist?

(My answer would be, the success of their terrorism. If you are mostly unsuccessful, nobody needs to negotiate with you.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just want to know one thing: is Dropbox a sufficient backup strategy to prevent this problem? Obviously it's enough to prevent a naive ransomeware. Can they get around Dropbox's automatic 30 day version history by some means? They can presumably have total control over my account.

<comment><USER10> The only protection I would trust, is a separate system makes inbound connections to my computer to pull a backup. Or push a backup to another computer, through a login ID that lets me write a backup but not delete / alter previous ones.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that sounds like what I'd like. But where can I find something like that accessible to consumers? Are there roll-your-own methods using AWS or similar that have reasonable costs?

<comment><USER11> What I do is a little complex, but works fairly well. I store my data in CephFS, mount that read-only (CephX permission also allow only read access) on a Linux box with a ZFS array which uses borg to copy from the mount to the array. The backup box also runs crashplan to back up from the mount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ransom is usually quite small (i.e. <1k), so it might be considered a 'cheap' lesson to learn that you should keep your software up-to-date and secure your network. (With the exception of 0-days, but you can't blame anyone falling victim to that)

My point is, the ransomware is just 'prove' that your computer is insecure. If criminals can encrypt your files, they can also steal it (i.e. upload it somewhere). So in some sense, the ransomware creators expose vulnerabilities that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure if you're trying to say that the ("cheap lesson to learn") should be paid or not; ≈$1,000 is _a lot_ of money for most people. I think the shock of having to pay it is enough to have the same effect — those affected can then hopefully use the decryption tool without having to directly fund criminals.

<comment><USER8> The target market of ransomware is supposedly businesses, not individual people—partly because businesses can afford the ransom and have clear incentives to get their data back reliably.

I guess I have no idea who it targets in practice. Are there lots of individual home users who fall victim to ransomware?

<comment><USER14> Yes. WannaCry is one such.

Randsomware is pretty common to home users in the past, at least. Back then it was quite easy to convince someone to click on "Warning! Your computer maybe infected! Try our software" pop-up. Then if your computer gets locked up, the screen will say "call tech support!"

There was a claim against Kaspersky [1]. I don't know if it is really true, but I personally believe that the AV industry does shady things out there, pay some blackhat to spread virus/malware, so consumers can rely on AV.

[1]: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kaspersky- rivals/exclusiv...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kaspersky- rivals/exclusive-ex-employees-russian-antivirus-firm-faked-malware-to-harm- rivals-idUSKCN0QJ1CR20150814)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What if there was a rapidly spreading ransomware that would not decrypt the user's files after ransom is paid? Ransomwares paradoxically require a certain level of trust in the attacker, that's why they often have their own tech support people and actively answer victims' questions. If there was a deceitful ransomware in the wild, it could help reduce trust in future attackers, reducing the chance of future victims paying up, and helping to make ransomware a thing of the past.

<comment><USER16> Consider 419 scams. They have nearly zero credibility, and also lack the kind of leverage you can get out of threatening that someone will never see their kid's baby photos again. Yet even they are still profitable enough that many people think they're a worthwhile operation to run.

Ransomware might have a higher bottom line, owing to the greater technical skill involved in operating such a racket, but still, in a world where 419 scams persist, it's hard for me to believe that you can damage ransomware's credibility to the point where it's no longer profitable.

More likely, such an endeavor would end up destroying more people's data than it saves.

<comment><USER17> The reason 419 scams have near zero credibility (with grammar errors, terrible English, etc) is to increase the signal to noise ratio _for the scammers_. The less intelligent people who fall for it and are scammable won't be put off since the red flags and bells are ringing. So if _they_ reply, the scammer knows he's got bait. Bots make clever use of this M.O. as well; they tend to behave a bit clumsy, fitting the character of a replier, and get away with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lots of discussion last time; quite a while ago, though:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12831430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12831430)

</comment><comment><USER19> Also check out: [https://id-ransomware.malwarehunterteam.com/](https://id- ransomware.malwarehunterteam.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> For those interested, there are also commercial alternatives to help with ransomware decryption: [https://products.drweb.com/decryption_from_ransomware/](https://products.drweb.com/decryption_from_ransomware/)

But I have no idea about the cost.

</comment><comment><USER21> Heh.. weird coincedence. I'm currently busy restoring customer backup files, because a funny little program decided to transform everything in to ...johntrudl.com].java files.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would just dispose of my computer if were hacked. All my valuables are backed up anyway. If my machine becomes compromised, why on earth would I want to continue using that machine?

<comment><USER23> Because you're clever enough to restore from a clean backup, and double check you're patched up and not running untrusted code. You're on HN, after all.

<comment><USER22> Figuratively dispose (i.e., reinstall the OS).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A repo of decryption keys is very useful because it obsoletes specific attacks without relying on the user to patch his computer ahead of time.

Additionally, ransomware encryption can be stopped at the file-system level:

[https://www.cryptodrop.org](https://www.cryptodrop.org)</comment>


Ask HN: Why Does Craigslist Have No Official Mobile Apps? - <AUTHOR>

It's reasonably beyond doubt that mobile is where most people will access information online - including classifieds. I understand Craigslist was founded on the desktop web however my question is; why do they still not have a native  app for mobile? Is this due to resource, or perhaps a business or philosophical choice?<p>Ebay appear to have revived their marketplace businesses with Ebay.com, Gumtree etc on mobile. Personally in regards to ecommerce, I much prefer mobile to the desktop experience. <comment><USER2> I don't know why, and the third party apps (at least the Android ones) have a track record of shady doings (revoking upgrades, creating new "premium" editions atop existing ones to force repayment, etc)

I always figured it was due to the site being simple enough to make work well on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does their website work well in a mobile browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I guess it does work but from a distribution perspective, they could probably reach a larger audience with apps (The UI could also be improved but that's another debate).

You could argue their current approach works for their mission - though not consumers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe for the same reason HN does not have an API and developers are forced to scrape the site.</comment>


Ask HN: Why Web Browsers REST client extensions doesn't have CORS policy erros? - <AUTHOR> Why Web browsers REST client extensions or curl command don't have CORS policy error? And when trying JavaScript on local file you experiment this sort of error? It is mandatory to run the file from a local web server? Thanks! <comment><USER2> CORS only apply to browsers

[http://performantcode.com/web/do-you-really-know- cors](http://performantcode.com/web/do-you-really-know-cors)

Common Misconception About CORS At the first glance, CORS configuration on a server side looks like some sort of ACL (Access Control List) – a server returns the origin that it accepts requests from. The only way to access a resource is to send a request from the origin whitelisted by a server, right? Not really. Remember that HTTP isn't used only by browsers and you can send an HTTP request from any client like curl, Postman, and so on. If you prepare a custom HTTP request in those tools, you can put any Origin header you want. You can also skip it and a server usually returns a correct result anyway. Why is that? Because as I mentioned earlier, Same-Origin Policy is a concept implemented in browsers. Other tools or software components don't care about it that much.

<comment><USER3> The question asked is for browser extensions. Chrome extensions can set this behavior in manifest file.</comment></comment>


Modern static site generation - <AUTHOR> https://kostasbariotis.com/modern-static-site-generation/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, I read all that, and yet ... I roll my own and use make! B^>

[http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site- technicals.html](http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhh, good old make! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's taking several seconds to load the about page. I'm not convinced at all.</comment>


Facebook AI Research Open Sources fastText - <AUTHOR> https://research.facebook.com/blog/fasttext/ <comment><USER2> Jupyter notebook with some numbers on _performance and accuracy_ of fastText:

[https://github.com/jayantj/gensim/blob/fast_text_notebook/do...](https://github.com/jayantj/gensim/blob/fast_text_notebook/docs/notebooks/Word2Vec_FastText_Comparison.ipynb)

This compares fastText against the word2vec implementation in gensim, on the syntactic/semantic word analogy task.

(raw pull request with comments: [https://github.com/RaRe- Technologies/gensim/pull/815](https://github.com/RaRe- Technologies/gensim/pull/815))

<comment><USER3> Note that this is only looking at the embeddings side of FastText (which looks quite impressive).

The classification side is equally interesting, and is better compared to things like VW, eg [http://nlpers.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/fast-easy-baseline- tex...](http://nlpers.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/fast-easy-baseline-text- categorization.html)

VW is a pretty strong baseline here, so equaling it is a good accomplishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion on fasttext: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12226988](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12226988)

This submission is apparently the official announcement.

</comment><comment><USER5> Link to the python interface [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/fasttext](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/fasttext)</comment>


Ask HN: Why are all my post Dead on publishing? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Perhaps they are links to banned domains.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that seemed to be the case!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> maybe because I used a url shrinker

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> like tumblr?</comment>


AirBnbWhileBlack Highlights Discrimination Faced by Black Travelers - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/airbnbwhileblack-discrimination-faced-by-black-travelers_us_572a66d6e4b016f37894a5c4?utm_hp_ref=black-voices& <comment><USER4> Has happened to me several times. Most blatant was a guy who had multiple open properties in Miami for Art Basel and denied that any of them were available. There should be some kind of agreement where hosts can not book a given slot if they deny a user in good standing that reservation. I'm not a host but I'm curious what are some legitimate reasons for a cancellation if the user agrees to all of the host's terms....

<comment><USER5> Why? Because the "host" is inviting people to stay in their home. I'd be totally justified in deciding that a user looks difficult to deal with (perhaps they look young and it's near a party time, or perhaps their other reviews indicate they're "difficult").

AirBNB isn't going to make everything right between two unknown parties. Minor hassles can add up into a major headache. Plus there's a lot of social pressure on reviews (both ways), so even that seems like limited recourse.

Edit: To clarify, I'm responding to why they should be able to refuse any guest.

<comment><USER4> Again, most hosts have published rules. If the guest agrees to those rules, is in good standing, and the place is available then how is there a legitimate reason for denying the reservation? "Because it's my house" is not a real reason. If you are that protective then why are you on Airbnb? If you are scared of parties in Miami during <insert holiday/allstar weekend> then why is your unit available at ALL on those dates?

<comment><USER5> Not applying to illegal hotel chains like the one you mentioned: AirBnB would have even more issues on hand if they mandated "you must accept all requests". That's probably a non starter for legitimate AirBnB hosts (not the people running a business).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Black Americans have highlighted what and where is safe for them during traveling for a long time now. I'd say there needs to be a 21 century version of the Negro Motorist Green Book

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

<comment><USER7> Technology has advanced well past the printing press, so Airbnb can actually do much better than that.

Technology problems and social problems go hand-in-hand. For an easy example, consider moderation. Online communities are improved (the /r/science subreddit), or torn apart (Twitter users) based on the strength or weaknesses of the available moderation tools.

So what, technologically, could Airbnb do to improve its user experience for marginalized?

It could use inclusiveness as a search signal. This style of tactic (forcing improvements through algorithmic penalties) works extremely well when Google uses it for search rankings. For instance, if users self-reported their race, and listing X systematically fails to rent to people of certain backgrounds, penalize it in the rankings. Make it well-known that this is a factor, but don't tell people when they are violating it.

Something less-likely to work is a report/moderate cycle, to manually review these types of cases. The problem here is that it's almost impossible to review intent; maybe I really DID think my vacation was going to be cancelled, but then a project at work got cancelled so it came back.

<comment><USER8> "The problem here is that it's almost impossible to review intent; maybe I really DID think my vacation was going to be cancelled, but then a project at work got cancelled so it came back."

Sure, people will lie about intent, not even be aware of their subconscious bias against black people, whatever...

That's why you look at the aggregate totals. It's just not going to be the case that _coincidentally_ black travelers have their rentals rejected at a larger rate because of random external forces like renter projects being canceled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it acceptable for women renting single rooms in their apartments to refuse to rent to men?

<comment><USER10> Maybe. But to refuse to rent to specific men based on their race? No that is not (or should not be) acceptable.

<comment><USER11> If you allow refusals for any reason, then someone can always pick an "acceptable" reason and not much you can do about it.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I am aware I can't actually do anything about this, I was answering a different question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems me to me that ultimately up to the owners to decide who they want to accept. If they turn down too many people with variation X, its their loss, and someone else will make money on that.

<comment><USER13> "The Invisible Hand will right all moral wrongs" is an argument that is unconvincing and historically hasn't been true. As is the idea that market forces will overall select for less discrimination.

After all, it has been a massive market opportunity to include women in the workforce since almost the dawn of civilization, and yet it's taken centuries for the allegedly rational market to realize this (and even then, not fully).

Ditto in the height of the Civil Rights era there was a massive market opportunity for restaurants that were willing to serve people of color - <USER3> this largely didn't happen.

The market - and its participants - are frequently irrational. Or maybe more accurately, sociopolitical forces have the power to skew market behavior in huge ways.

This is also why I'm also often skeptical of attempts to cast equality as an economic good - it frequently is, but basing a worldview around it seems dangerous, precisely because the market often selects against justice.

<comment><USER9> "Ditto in the height of the Civil Rights era there was a massive market opportunity for restaurants that were willing to serve people of color - <USER3> this largely didn't happen."

That's untrue. Black areas had high density of businesses that catered to blacks, and by large discrimination was _legally mandated_ , not a market outcome. Business groups were in general in favor of dismantling segregation because it increased their potential market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems the root issue is AirBnb is just facilitating, and the actual owners can and do choose who they let in their house (i.e. discriminate). While it's unfortunate and unfair, I'm not sure what regulatory environment could help with individuals. Perhaps allow reviews for people who could not rent a place?

<comment><USER10> People who discriminate based on race should at least come out and say who they refuse to rent to. If they're going to be racist pieces of shit they should at least own up to that and not waste the time of people who are trying to find somewhere to stay.

<comment><USER14> > People who discriminate based on race should at least come out and say who > they refuse to rent to.

Except it is illegal to do so in a good number of countries. Racists know that. That's why they make up excuses.

<comment><USER15> Both issues are illegal. Fight both or none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Huffington Post comments for this article are...something else.

<comment><USER17> [I've removed this comment since I guess I can't delete it altogether, see my edit below.]

<comment><USER18> [https://medium.com/humane-tech/against-don-t-read-the- commen...](https://medium.com/humane-tech/against-don-t-read-the-comments- aee43ce515b9#.bgjwjvxny)

"We've made a habit out of telling people not to read the comments online. But what started as a cynical in-joke has become a bad habit, and an excuse for enabling abuse across the web."

Just pointing out that while comments are terrible, it's Huffington Post that enables them to happen unchecked.

<comment><USER17> I did read that article when Anil first posted it and while I agree with him, it's tough to apply his lessons on a day-to-day basis. You might come across several articles per day, and on each one you have to decide what you want to do about the comments. You could use the opportunity to launch into Anil's manifesto, but most of the time you won't have the time or mental energy for that, and so just leaving without reading the comments is the only real option.

Edit: On further reflection, I guess Anil was writing as much or more about the "Don't read the comments" joke itself as about what to do when you come upon a comments section. And in that vein, it's true that my comment is pretty unhelpful. I've deleted it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has AirBnB commented?

<comment><USER20> David King, AirBnb's new director of "diversity and belonging," says AirBnb is aware of discrimination on their platform and they want to be a leader in addressing it. He says he's talking with Luca and others in finding potential solutions.

One thing that could help is removing people's names and photos or making them less prominent. But this isn't something AirBnb will improve their platform.

"The photos are on the platform for a reason," King said. "It really does help to aid in the trust between the guest and the host . . . You want to make sure that the guest who shows up at your door is the person you've been communicating with."

[http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475623339/-airbnbwhileblack- ho...](http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475623339/-airbnbwhileblack-how-hidden- bias-shapes-the-sharing-economy)

<comment><USER21> _" It really does help to aid in the trust between the guest and the host . . . You want to make sure that the guest who shows up at your door is the person you've been communicating with."_

How does a photo do that? The photo just ensures that the person at your door matches the photo. But why is that important? That is, what info are you trying to glean from the photo?

<comment><USER22> It is evidence that the guest's online persona that the host has been communicating with is the same as the offline persona who shows up at host's door.

<comment><USER21> Right, it makes sure the photo matches. But why is that important/useful? Do people show up at the door who try to pretend they are the renter, but really aren't?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The following is a totally reasonable point that some SJW on this site deleted. I would like to know exactly on what grounds.

\----

The one piece of actual research in this is about discrimination against "black sounding" names. In one quoted tweet the guy mentions having to use his middle name.

Has it occurred to anyone that the main issue here might be people with deliberately weird names, and not race per se?

If you are named Rainbow, Adolf, Cletus, or LaQuan, I'm going to conclude (from experience) your mother and you are both probably crazy.

</comment><comment><USER15> QuickFix: show statistics and reviews of denied booking.

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, stories like these sure don't help: [https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/04/28/police- searchi...](https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/04/28/police-searching- for-two-suspects-in-toronto-gang-war-kidnapping.html)

<comment><USER25> Is violence in an Airbnb apartment exclusively by black people? Does violence not happen in hotels? I'm having a hard time finding the relevance.

<comment><USER24> Not at all, just that people read these stories and form bad opinions from them.</comment></comment></comment>


Book Review: The Book of Inkscape - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/software/86062/book-review-the-book-inkscape <comment><USER2> I like Inkscape. It is certainly not as fancy as Illustrator but it gets the job done for making wireframes.</comment>


'It's a Lifelong Burden': The Mixed Blessing of the Medal of Honor - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-a-lifelong-burden-the-mixed-blessing-of-the-medal-of-honor-11558695600?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This is an interesting and thought-provoking take.</comment>