Facebook employees may face pay cut if they move to cheaper areas to remote work - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-employees-may-face-pay-cut-if-they-move-to-cheaper-areas-to-work-from-home-2020-05-21 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261394)

</comment><comment><USER3> Every company that I've worked for which has offices in the SF Bay area and offices somewhere else has had a location-based adjustment to pay. Every single one.

Honestly, if I exercise my imagination a little bit and try to remember what it was like to live in a city which didn't have jobs from most of the "big tech" companies, I would have loved to see a greater _variety_ of job opportunities without being asked to move to SF/Seattle/NYC etc. It would have meant that I could get career growth and keep my friends and support network.

<comment><USER4> Also if the value and quality of work is the same... shouldn't the pay remain the same.

Also this leads to income inequality. A person from a poor neighborhood/country gets paid less than someone in a wealthy area.

<comment><USER3> > Also if the value and quality of work is the same... shouldn't the pay > remain the same.

Why would this apply to remote workers but not local workers? Are you saying that you should pay convenience store workers the same everywhere, in New York and Lincoln, NE?

You could turn it around, and I'd say that if rent goes up, wages should go up too. People should get CoL adjustments separately from raises. If we get CoL adjustments for inflation over time (you get paid more in 2020 because 2020 is more expensive than 1990) why wouldn't it also apply to location (you get paid more in NYC because NYC is more expensive than Lincoln, NE).

(I'd also argue that the value & quality of local workers in dense cities is higher.)

<comment><USER4> if they work for the same company and deliver the same value... yes that is exactly what I'm saying.

<comment><USER3> Categorically, the value of remote workers is lower than the value of local workers.

This is largely due to network effects and the higher efficiency of communication with co-located teams. I'm a software engineer, and like other software engineers, my job is something like 50% communication and 50% coding/testing/operations. As you go up in seniority and expertise, the ratio shifts more and more in favor of communication. A fresh graduate or more junior employee might have a larger share of coding/testing/operations.

The communication side of my job is suffering like never before during mandatory WFH.

<comment><USER5> This might be on you and the company you work for. Many companies have remote work baked into their culture and from my experience, the quality of communication tends to be quite high

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel that I'm in the minority here, but this appears to be a somewhat understandable move. To be able to live in the location you most desire is, frankly, still a luxury for the time being and while I hope that's not the status quo forever it's definitely the case now.

And, to attempt to refute the points made that the worker a value adds to a company doesn't depend on location, I completely agree with the basic premise - but I feel that salary should be adjusted so that all employees can share a similar quality-of-life across the board wherever they're geographically based.

Maybe I am a little bit biased because I'm currently on the other side of this coin. I work at a company based in the US South, and managed to get into their more cutting-edge and innovative NYC office. Plus, I'm from NYC and love the city, it's my ideal location to live and work.

Yet, while their NYC office is "cost-of-living adjusted" for salary, I am certainly worse off than the employees based out of the HQ. The difference in pay to provide the same quality-of-life between a huge global city and a mid- sized regional city can be staggering.

And obviously, I know I could live way out in an outer borough or in Long Island / Westchester / NJ and have the same overall costs associated with someone in the HQ, but then I'm 60+ minutes from the office and my ideal life/work location anyway.

<comment><USER7> The Bay Area salaries paid by the big tech employers are not really representative of the "CoL allowances" historically paid for working in places like Manhattan and SV. With some exceptions, like successful Wall Street traders, Big Law, etc., additional comp earned in those places was still not usually enough to make up for higher living costs. Today that's probably not the case at at least a handful of big companies.

<comment><USER6> I'm a bit confused by your wording of your first sentence, honestly. Also, what's probably not the case? I feel that working at a big tech firm is akin to working in IB/consulting/law at this point in terms of pay/bonus (bonus at big tech being the RSUs as opposed to cash, but a "bonus" nonetheless).

I'd just like to best understand your point, as this is going to be an interesting topic we're going to see more and more in the coming months/years I think.

<comment><USER7> As many frequently argue here, dev comp at the big tech employers does generally compensate and more for the high CoL in the Bay Area.

Historically, I don't think that was generally the case in places like the Bay Area and Manhattan. I know when I looked at some Bay Area opportunities way back when, people were quite candid that the salaries on offer couldn't really compensate for housing prices. That said, there were probably some exceptions, especially in NYC, similar to how tech is today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of people are asking "why would they pay less" and that seems like a silly question to me. They'd pay less because of course they would. Less money spent is less money spent.

The real question is "why would they pay _more_?" It's not charity. I'm sure the company would be much happier to pay a livable wage in rural Kentucky. But for a livable in rural Kentucky wouldn't pay for rent and food at the same time in SF or NYC, and up until somewhat recently you needed all of your workers to live in the same place, which meant a high population density, and proximity to where everyone else is, because all of the talent was migrating to the same place.

</comment><comment><USER9> RIP high tech salaries. If you were teetering on a decision between working in a FAANG company or starting your own business, then this adds some weight for the "own business" side.

I get that high salaries are partly a result of war for talent. This demand will continue to prop up salaries to a certain level. But how much does location play into scarcity?

Line up all the people around the world who could work for a FAANG company. Eliminate everyone who can't get a visa to work in the US. Add back all the people living in the US who could work for a FAANG company. Eliminate everyone can can't or won't live in one of the most expensive cities in the world (maybe not a concern for foreign workers at this point because they have already accepted and received the visa, but it will cut out a lot of US citizens.) Eliminate everyone (mostly US) who already has a job and isn't bothering to look for another. Add moving into a city with not enough housing as friction. Add available office space as friction.

Am I missing anything?

How many more people do we now have that can compete for jobs at these companies? 2X? 10X?

If FAANG companies are now hiring from anywhere in the world, why wouldn't China create a state backed initiative to run Olympic level intensive programs specifically targeted at filling seats at these FAANG companies? It would be a national program for creating high paying jobs and it would provide a sense of national pride of having the greatest talent for the industry. Why wouldn't these countries become as competitive with providing workers for the tech industry as they have become with manufacturing?

Aside from having a greater pool of available workers to pull from, this is a major reset event. The other side of this reset could look very different than it did a few months ago. WFH is just the first big change.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm amused at all the highly-paid software engineers in this thread who legitimately feel entitled to their Silicon Valley pay-scale. The only reason you make more than the fellow laying your tile is because of supply and demand, not because you _deserve_ it. If anything, he certainly works harder and longer and risks more health consequences than you.

If Facebook is offering less than the market price for that labor, then employees will go elsewhere. Otherwise, they're paying the "right" amount for workers in that market. There's no moral dimension to this question.

</comment><comment><USER11> They should be paying you more, because they are saving on office space rental when you work remotely.

So they are not only saving on salaries, but on rents as well. Cheeky bastards.

<comment><USER8> What responsibility does a company have to pass profits onto it's employees? If you a share of the profits, buy some shares.

<comment><USER12> It's verging into the same old "this is not censorship it's a private company" argument.

What right has any human against a private company? Why even comment in this thread?

Sarcasm btw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tom-thistime Folks, with utmost respect: The only reason you're making 300k is that your physical butt is in Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER13> I do the same thing: I value a 100% effort let's say at 250k, if I get paid 100k I give my ~40%.

So far it has worked well. I get paid similar to my peers, and doing the same amount of work takes around ~40% of my day, although it's really variable.

I tried to work harder, but it's not worth it. I got small pay rises, but far bellow my effort. It was also psychologically harder as people would try to stop me one way or the other. With this dynamic, I can have peaceful work days now: I learn new technologies or spend time in the games room (with my family now), and almost never need to stay longer. In contrast, I see my peers working at home at 10-11pm or even on weekends to finish off things for the sprint. I even realized giving more difficult solutions makes my work life much easier, because people can't keep up :) (I have tests I don't commit and other automation projects that make my work much simpler).

It's ok when companies say this, but I have to hide my situation as I probably would get fired (or given more work) if people get to know what I do.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone have a good explanation why companies do this?

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to continue the same paying structure because of the retention?

My gut feel would be that if Facebook continued paying same rate even though people weren't in the bay area anymore that nobody would ever be able to compete and therefore the retention would be much longer.

<comment><USER7> At some point, having everyone in golden handcuffs isn't necessarily a wholly positive thing. If you're working for Facebook in a low-cost area at a (high- end) SV salary, you've got a huge incentive to just tough it out even if you hate your job.

Companies adjust pay scales because they mostly can and I doubt there are a material number of large distributed companies that don't do so. If they pay competitive Bay Area salaries everywhere, then they're paying more than they need to in order to hire people elsewhere.

<comment><USER15> This. Tbh even recently we have had something similiar in our city about a companie moving there and the pay was ridiculously above the median, golden handcuffs was of of the topics of the discussion, specially by colleagues that were part of a consulting company already working for them before them moved in. It's not a nice feeling knowing that if you leave a job, there is no way you can get the same payment. One of the nice things about being a programmer is that I can leave my job whenever I need, as employment is abundant, but if there is no comparable paycheck, then that perk goes away. And that is a very nice perk that lots of people here take for granted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I transferred out of the Bay Area a year ago, and my FAANG salary was cut 15%. For them, salaries are based on "Cost of Labor", or the cost of getting a person to join in that area, not "Cost of Living".

I'm still doing just fine.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am surprised to see comments on HN accusing the company of theft and greed for doing this. Isn't the cost of living in an area the biggest factor in the salary? If so moving to another area will automatically reduce the salary. I don't think they are being unfair or greedy. You don't want the salary structure to in a remote area to be the same as the Bay Area. That will be unfair to the rest of the companies that want to hire in that city.

<comment><USER18> > I am surprised to see comments on HN accusing the company of theft and greed > for doing this. Isn't the cost of living in an area the biggest factor in > the salary? If so moving to another area will automatically reduce the > salary. I don't think they are being unfair or greedy. You don't want the > salary structure to in a remote area to be the same as the Bay Area. That > will be unfair to the rest of the companies that want to hire in that city.

If this were the case, it would not be that so many companies have moved out of the Bay Area. I know of a small manufacturer that moved their entire operation 3000 miles away with 7 years left on their lease. That was a few years ago and the building is still empty.

The businesses that remain are ones where the salaries align with the living expenses, not the other way around.

I suspect this trend of lowering pay based on location will work while there are limited employers hiring remotely. If there is broad embracing, then salaries will likely rise to reduce attrition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I suppose this is a good and a bad thing. It's good in a sense that if remote companies wish to attract better talent, they just have to out-pay Facebook. It would be bad if all tech companies decided to pay everyone less however, following Facebooks lead. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone explain why companies do this, but still hire from the expensive areas? If they pay less for the same level of skill in Texas, why don't they stop hiring in SF full stop and only hire in Texas? Is it just a bluff and they'll cave if you challenge them?

<comment><USER8> Because they don't pay people based on how much they're worth. They pay based on how much you'd say yes to.

<comment><USER20> Right - but you have the same value either way, you just have to apply leverage, right? The gig's up if you don't have to say yes to the lowball offer. What force prevents you just pitting two+ SF companies against each other in a bidding war?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> honestly I've never seen so many people rush to defend a corporations right to pay them less.

<comment><USER21> That's a very one-sided view. What about the _worker 's_ right to get a competitive edge by _charging less_ for their labor? Why the hell should most of the jobs go to people who are in Silicon Valley? Why should people have to pay extortionate prices to live there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What if you want to work remotely from a nonfixed location?

<comment><USER8> Do to a lot of things (citizenship, licenses, taxes, etc) you aren't legally allowed to be employed without a address on a form somewhere

<comment><USER7> Furthermore, most companies still exercise some control over remote work whether formally or otherwise. That someone can work remotely mostly from a fixed address in the same country, doesn't mean they automatically have the right to work from a beach in Thailand or as a digital nomad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's to stop you nominating a family member's address as your household address and just physically living in another area?

<comment><USER24> It's fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What if that actually ends you up with more?

<comment><USER26> Then maybe the pay increase will help ameliorate what I can only imagine is the subtle pain in one's soul caused by working for Facebook in 2020.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One important point is that this is people that _willingly_. move from Bay Area to cheaper areas, not expatriates.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is disgusting. The value a worker provides the company does not magically go down just because their expenses go down. If I am providing the same value that another worker is, we should be compensated similarly regardless of where we choose to live.

Anything less is theft

<comment><USER29> Do you know of a single company that doesn't do this?

Even HN darlings famous for being remote-first like Gitlab adjust salary to cost of living.

<comment><USER15> Basecamp. But companies that do this don't pay SV level salaries, obviously.

<comment><USER7> Basecamp claims to--not including options. (Which is of course a big not including in some people's minds relative to the big public firms.) And they're probably (all?) relatively small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It is understandable. And it is also easy to define what a "fair" cut is: if there is no incentive to migrate between the regions of different salary levels.

</comment><comment><USER31> Would be nice if Menlo Park would rise to the challenge and actually allow some housing to be b built.

</comment><comment><USER32> GS wages are adjusted to MSA, so why shouldn't Facebook do the same?

</comment><comment><USER33> i mean that was wildly expected, right?

<comment><USER27> I expected it, and actually think that expecting otherwise is a little bit of _snowflake-thinking_.

<comment><USER34> +1. All the snowflakes will cry about "unfair" whine whine. And ignore reality. As per usual! There is no logical reason why they wouldn't pay based on location.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is in itself is an admission that capitalism doesn't work and that Facebook is a monopoly. If the environment was truly competitive, then companies would not be able to conflate the value of employees' skills with their location. It sounds like Facebook has the power to fully dictate the wages of their employees.

<comment><USER34> ...... what? This is an example that capitalism does work. If someone wants to live in Random City A then Facebook will still have to compete with the local wages there to get people to work for them. The labor market is supply and demand driven. And of course Facebook decides the wages of their employees, how else would it work? The employment agreement is two sided, if people don't like the offer they can go work somewhere else.

Massive caveat: Facebook is an absolutely garbage company and the world would be better off if they didn't exist. But paying less based on location is reasonable.

<comment><USER36> > Massive caveat: Facebook is an absolutely garbage company and the world > would be better off if they didn't exist. But paying less based on location > is reasonable.

Mmm...would garbage companies also include any of these Tik-tok, instagram, snapchat? Would you care to point out some non-garbage companies as well? I'm not against your perspective. I've encountered a few times already just on this thread. I'm just curious to see what is considered a good company. Amazon, Tesla, AirBnb, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP? Or maybe there are no good guys.

<comment><USER34> It's a good question. By garbage here I mean their entire existence is based on wasting people's time and then making money by showing Ads. Their entire incentive structure is to get people as addicted as possible. They are not trying to add value to the world. Also, most people aren't aware of the trade- off they are making (data being sold), or how they are being manipulated, which makes it doubly terrible. Or that there are armies of behavior psychologists trying to get them to spend as much time as possible on the site.

"Good" is a sliding scale here, we each have our own subjective definition. I try to define it as "Is the world a better place because this company exists?" I personally would answer Yes for the companies you listed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The '70s Photos That Made Us Want to Save Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/epa-gallery/

<comment><USER2> For me it was Apolo 8 Earthrise. [http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_10...](http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html)

For sheer horror there was a National Geographic story about pollution in Easter Europe somewhat later.</comment>


One-Quarter of American Restaurants Won't Reopen, OpenTable Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/one-quarter-of-american-restaurants-won-t-reopen-opentable-says <comment><USER2> Much more than 1 in 4 will end up toast as a result of these lockdowns.

Given that several states have already indicated a further 12-18 months of lockdown at minimum, we're looking at >90% of all businesses of all sorts disappearing.</comment>


Show HN: Kifi for Teams – Knowledge sharing and collaboration for teams - <AUTHOR> https://www.kifi.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Kifi is a knowledge management tool. Think social bookmarking, with lots more added. We index every page you keep, giving free full-text searching across all your content, integrated straight into Google with our Chrome and Firefox extensions.

Today we're launching our teams feature, letting you easily save, collaborate, and search content with a group of people. I'd love feedback and suggestions. It's completely changed bookmarking for me, and hope it can help others be more productive as well. Both the personal and teams product are free. If you want to check out the upgraded teams features, use code HACKERNEWS for $150 in credit.

<comment><USER3> I found it very interesting and a few months ago looked out for something like that for sharing interesting content with my team but didn't find anything.

We will give it a try and then I will post a feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems more like a glorified link list to me than a "knowledge sharing" tool. Such a pity, I'd be really interested in someone tackling the IMHO much harder topic of real persistent knowledge sharing (wikis, knowledge bases) - <USER2> suffers from constant abandonment, irrelevancy and still the need for everyone for good documentation.

<comment><USER5> I agree, but isn't that a user-engagement / motivation issue?

It seems one can make the most beautiful, intuitive wiki-style tool for enterprise knowledge sharing and it will quickly become irrelevant because no one will consistently contribute.

That's why, I think, enterprise communication is such a hotter market...its software consistently begs its users for attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks promising based on the landing page. At my previous workplace, we used Evernote exactly like this, especially because of integration with Google search.

Evernote's collaboration features are seriously lacking though. I'm curious to see how this will stack up against it.

What will be the pricing model? Before investing time and effort into something like this, I'd want to know it's backed by a sustainable business model and will be around for years to come.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're a startup, but I want it to exist for years to come too :). We're working on the sustainable business model, starting with paid premium teams plans. Currently, they allow more granular control over privacy/team settings, and will include more features like powerful integrations, content-saving, etc very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand what exactly is a "knowledge sharing tool for teams"? Why not use Trello for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, we're still honing the message. Here's some of our differentiating features:

• Full-text search. Keep a page—or a co-worker keeps something work related—and you can search for anything inside it. Great for finding that blog post where you remember some of the content, but not the title.

• Integration into Google. With our Chrome and Firefox extensions, your keeps show directly in Google. You don't have to remember you kept a page, and they come back when you're searching for them.

• Communication. The browser extension easily lets you chat on the page or send the page as an email. This makes isolating conversations to specific content very easy. Even highlight a section of the page and send the highlight.

• Libraries (groups of keeps) can be published, shared, and collaborated on. Here are some of my public ones: [https://www.kifi.com/andrew](https://www.kifi.com/andrew). We have tens more private that we use internally.

Trello is awesome for task collaboration, and we think we compliment them for keeping track and collaborating on web resources. Would love your feedback, feel free to email me direct at firstname.lastname@example.com with any more thoughts.

<comment><USER7> Well, I probably missed the specific use case for your product, but it sounds something that cannot easily be accomplished with Trello.

Or maybe can, but you have some features I had never even thought about. There's perhaps a subtle point from which a team should think about using your service instead of Trello or other more general services.</comment></comment></comment>


This document is confidential  - <AUTHOR> https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype:rtf+|+filetype:ppt+|+filetype:pptx+|+filetype:csv+|+filetype:xls+|+filetype:xlsx+|+filetype:docx+|+filetype:doc+|+filetype:pdf+%22this+document+is+confidential%22+site:gov&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= <comment><USER2> This really isn't that big of a deal. If you look through some of the results, you see things like blank forms (where "Confidential" refers to the information filled in by the applicant), boilerplate, attachments as part of public filings (where the document may have been confidential but came out in a trial) etc.

In one case, the "this document is confidential" is a phrase taken from the sentence " _nothing in_ this document is confidential." I'm working on a "confidential" document right now, but it's intended for litigation and will likely show up in a records search in a year or two.

There may be something juicy in here, but you're gonna have to go through a whole bunch of the mundane to find it.

</comment><comment><USER3> So much confidentiality, yet so little desire to actually read any of these documents. I hear Area 51 is cool, though.

Public is the new private - if you're hiding something, I'm not interested. If it's in plain view, I feel especially cool for seeing it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Changing it to site:gov.uk doubles the number of results.

<comment><USER5> Replace confidential with one of:

PROTECT COMMERCIAL, PROTECT PERSONAL, RESTRICTED

You have to sort through a bit, but there's plenty there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you think this search gets plenty of results, try searching for "XYZ Confidential", where XYZ is a Fortune 500 corporation.

<comment><USER7> [https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Ar...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Artf+|+filetype%3Appt+|+filetype%3Apptx+|+filetype%3Acsv+|+filetype%3Axls+|+filetype%3Axlsx+|+filetype%3Adocx+|+filetype%3Adoc+|+filetype%3Apdf+%22google+confidential%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

Nobody's perfect, I guess.

<comment><USER8> Most of these "confidential" documents are presentations made by google employees to other companies to sell adwords.

A peep into the documents reveal the huge investment Google does into Product Marketing Managers who do industry analysis, sell products predominantly adwords

[http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.co.uk/en/uk/intl/en/adtoolkit/pdfs/insights/comscore_google_ukretailstudy_summary.pdf)

[http://google.inxshare.de/01_Automotive/Google_AutomotiveMar...](http://google.inxshare.de/01_Automotive/Google_AutomotiveMarketInsights_2010.pdf)

[http://www.in.gov/tourism/pdfs/Compete- Google_Travel_Economy...](http://www.in.gov/tourism/pdfs/Compete- Google_Travel_Economy_Study-Jan_2009.pdf)

[http://www.mednet- tech.com/pdf/MedNet%20Webinar_11%2018%2020...](http://www.mednet- tech.com/pdf/MedNet%20Webinar_11%2018%202009.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ha, you get even more interesting results if you change the domain to .mil.

</comment><comment><USER10> What's the significance of "<https://encrypted.google.com>?

<comment><USER11> It's a feature they added not long ago: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/search-more- securely-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/search-more-securely- with-encrypted.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I haven't browsed it in about five years, but the Google Hack Database (<http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ghdb/>) had a lot of these kind of things.

</comment><comment><USER13> What did surprise me was that when I changed it from gov to mil there were only 7 results. Expected more from the military. ;)

<comment><USER14> Please don't confuse the US military with the US government. In the military if you can't do the job you're assigned, you get reassigned. If it doesn't do what it's supposed to do it gets axed. In the government...

<comment><USER15> ... the FBI will accidentally declassify military communique on the reproduction of Tesla's experiments: <http://bit.ly/aT5AZ0>

<comment><USER16> Well, _that_ was a waste of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Title of this item should be changed to "Eternal September has arrived."

</comment><comment><USER18> Apple and Google turn up nothing, but Microsoft...

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Ar...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Artf+|+filetype%3Appt+|+filetype%3Apptx+|+filetype%3Acsv+|+filetype%3Axls+|+filetype%3Axlsx+|+filetype%3Adocx+|+filetype%3Adoc+|+filetype%3Apdf+%22this+document+is+confidential%22+site%3Amicrosoft.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> See also:

?intitle:index.of? mp3

# -FrontPage-" inurl:service.pwd

intitle:"Index of" config.php

Not to mention the credit card number hacks... :)

<comment><USER20> They will CAPTCHA you if you go too far with SSN/CCN regexes.

<comment><USER21> Or just about anything involving complicated number-range searches. I got bot- blocked while looking for something a month or two ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Haha. Who needs wikileaks?

<comment><USER23> Anyone who wants to read stuff more interesting than water permits being issued in Montana or business fluff like "Developing a Transparent Business Case that builds true Accountability" :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> oh noes, you must be a hacker!

On a different note, this is not surprising in the least (although quite clever ;).

<comment><AUTHOR> Credit goes to Dan Crowley: <http://twitter.com/dan_crowley/status/21426534709>

<comment><USER25> Really interesting stuff -- thanks for reposting here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> And this is data that managed to seeped through the cracks of Google's scrubbing. I would imagine the raw index from spiders are far more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER27> It sounds asinine since it requires the creator of documents to make the mistake in the first place, but is there possibly a useful service to be made for detecting sensitive documents of a company in a public location (public URI location, not physical location)? Is there nothing more useful than a google search? Just brainstorming.

</comment><comment><USER28> take out 'this document is confidential', add SSN. a lot of false hits, but some genuine government employee records too. also the bush era whitehouse visitors logs which are just kinda interesting to skim through

</comment><comment><USER29> are there any search engines out there that ignore robots.txt, that this could be done with?

</comment><comment><USER30> Drop the site:gov from the query for some more interesting results.

</comment><comment><USER31> ...What's Wikileaks, again?

</comment><comment><USER32> this of course led me to search for TOP SECRET:

[http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=filetype%3A...](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=filetype%3Artf+%7C+filetype%3Appt+%7C+filetype%3Apptx+%7C+filetype%3Acsv+%7C+filetype%3Axls+%7C+filetype%3Axlsx+%7C+filetype%3Adocx+%7C+filetype%3Adoc+%7C+filetype%3Apdf+%22TOP+SECRET%22+site%3Agov&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=c56ed3f460fe1172)

<comment><USER33> which of course led me to a search for "EYES ONLY"

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&sa...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=filetype%3Artf+|+filetype%3Appt+|+filetype%3Apptx+|+filetype%3Acsv+|+filetype%3Axls+|+filetype%3Axlsx+|+filetype%3Adocx+|+filetype%3Adoc+|+filetype%3Apdf+%22eyes+only%22+site%3Agov&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

<comment><USER29> you could try NOFORN</comment></comment></comment>


Single-file C/C++ public-domain/open source libraries with minimal dependencies - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nothings/single_file_libs <comment><USER2> I've lately found myself wondering why there isn't a C/C++ tool comparable to npm, cargo, cpanm, etc. There's more C/C++ code in the wild than most languages, but it's not easy to find, not easy to install, not easy to update (though that's a problem in the npm ecosystem, too), and not easy to integrate. A good package manager would go a long way toward modernizing the C ecosystem, I think.

<comment><USER3> coz c++ itself is architecture dependent. and even lots of c++ code are architecture dependent. c++ has much longer history than js or java. It runs on bare metal machine for all kind of purpose. So it is much harder to write universal useful libs.

<comment><USER4> Totally. When you consider linking and binary compatibility, C/C++ does well with the Linux package management world that's grown up around it.

Package management is somewhat less useful modern code that tends to self contain things (Java/Groovy/Scala) or where you want to pin dependencies for stability and create unique environments for them (Python's virtual env, Ruby's RVM, or .. and this is kinda a stretch, but Docker containers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great list, it looks useful!

In addition to clib[1] mentioned in this list, there's also CCAN[2]. It's another collection of small C libraries, but unlike clib and this list, the libraries are maintained as a single project (for better or worse).

I'd love to see some more convergence on library search and package management for C. I was glad to see clib and CCAN consider coordinating.[3] Hopefully that effort will eventually bear fruit.

1\. [https://github.com/clibs/clib](https://github.com/clibs/clib) 2\. [https://ccodearchive.net/](https://ccodearchive.net/) 3\. [https://github.com/clibs/clib/issues/69](https://github.com/clibs/clib/issues/69)

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, since they seem to be including collections of elements, each with dependency on one or two files, SaferCPlusPlus[1] could be added to the "data structures" category. It's a collection of safe compatible substitutes for C/C++'s unsafe elements that's generally intended to be used as a whole, but certainly supports cherry picking of individual elements. For example, you could choose to use its safe substitutes for std::vector (and std::array) while foregoing its safe pointer substitutes.

The implementation design was a trade-off between minimizing redundancy and minimizing dependencies (and inter-dependencies). Ultimately I decided minimal dependencies would be more appealing to the user.

[1] shameless plug: [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus)

<comment><USER7> There is also _GLIBCXX_DEBUG - if you have defined this symbol, glibc will use safer variant of std::vector, iterators etc, which asserts when you attempt to do bad things like reading out of range.

<comment><USER6> Yup. SaferCPlusPlus has vector and array substitutes that will also catch "use-after-free" bugs and use of invalid iterators. Clang/LLVM and gcc also provide "sanitizers" with much more comprehensive checking. But there are still situations when you'd want to use SaferCPlusPlus [1].

[1] [https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#safercplusp...](https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus#safercplusplus- versus-clangllvm-sanitizers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am glad that developers are willing to create truly free software under public-domain license, so one can just use it at will (for example copy just one method from the code) without worrying about licenses or needing to hire a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER9> For anyone wondering why the FAQ says:

>Q. Why isn't SQLite's amalgamated build on this list?

>A. Come on.

For the answer, look at the SQLite Amalgamation page[1]

>1\. Executive Summary

>Over 100 separate source files are concatenated into a single large files of C-code named "sqlite3.c" and called "the amalgamation". The amalgamation contains everything an application needs to embed SQLite. The amalgamation file is more than 180,000 lines long and over 6 megabytes in size.

So although it's technically a single file, at 180 000 lines and 6 Megabytes, it's not really in the spirit of the page.

[1] [https://www.sqlite.org/amalgamation.html](https://www.sqlite.org/amalgamation.html)

<comment><USER10> This is so funny. BTW, even now, browser still love your JavaScript project in few large files. And before HTTP2 widely used, I think it's still the way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the FAQ it just says "Come on" for SQLite included in the list. Can you provide a bit more detail? This feels like a pretty great option to include here.

<comment><USER12> My theory: everybody knows sqlite can be distributed as a single-file library that you can happily embed. However, it's a pretty complex beast compared to the rest of the list and maybe it's outside the vision of the list altogether, which features much simpler projects.

Edit: to be even clearer, sqlite is 100+ .c files. Yes, you can make it one "amalgamated" .c file, but no developer works on that file; they work on the 100+ smaller .c files.

<comment><USER13> I guess you mean SQLite developers don't use the amalgamation. It is used by users.

The amalgamation is used for instance in the most popular Golang library to provide SQLite engine.

<comment><USER14> For the record: [https://github.com/mattn/go- sqlite3](https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good idea, but submissions require forking the project, editing their directory file, and submitting a pull request. All this does is maintain a list. I just submitted "algebra3.h", vector functions for 2, 3, and 4 element vectors, all as inline C++. I've had that on a web site of mine since the 1990s.

<comment><USER16> That one seems to be in there now? Or at least in the recent additions section. It was the first one I clicked on :)

I'm not very familiar with C++ (it's been a long time ago), but a friend recently came to me with some questions about vector/matrix algebra (though at first he didn't know his questions went by those names), wanted to write a toy physics engine in C++. I kind of assumed that C++ would have at least a basic selection of your typical vec2/3/4 data types and functions in its standard library--because C++ pretty much invented (or at least made popular, right?) operator overloading, and I don't know about everybody else, but vector math would be the very first thing that comes to mind learning about operator overloading and thinking "huh, what useful thing could I do with this".

But it's not there (unless I didn't look properly?). So I told him (after explaining why vectors and matrices are nice to have in the first place) to write his own, because it's not hard if you don't need _all_ the functionality in algebra3.h and it's a nice exercise for C++ classes and operator overloading.

Now my questions, since we're in a thread with people that know a whole lot more about C++ than I do:

Is there really no mathematical vector/matrix algebra data type with associated functions in the C++ standard libraries? (And I don't mean the one called Vector, that's really sorta-kinda like a list)

If no, what do people generally use? Lightweight, or big framework?

On the lightweight side of things, is algebra3.h a relatively good choice?

I looked through the code and saw a few things that bugged me. Angles are in degrees (math code and functions use radians internally _everywhere_ , this is just burning some useless muls and divs for a unit change that _will_ be mistaken and cause a bug in someone's code some day somewhere). That one I'd immediately change before using this lib :) I'd like to reserve degrees just for displaying and input.

I've been coding a lot of GLSL recently, and IMO their built-in vector math functions are pretty well thought-out, so there's some choices that differ. Like the overloaded asterisk (multiply) operator is sometimes a dot product, other times element-wise mul. From experience, I've found my code to be more readable when using an asterisk for operations just interchangeable with a scalar multiply (which is element-wise), 'dot' and 'cross' as names functions (you don't use the cross-product nearly as much to warrant its own operator, and the name 'dot' hits the sweet spot between being short enough so it doesn't matter you use it a bit more often) and preferably another operator for matrix-multiply (maybe the '@'? is that possible in C++?) to signify it's not commutative and just really really not at all what the asterisk-operator usually does with scalars and vectors (bonus, you also get an element-wise multiply for matrices, yay).

Ooh and here's a nice one, is there any nice way to implement dimension swizzling of vectors in C++ like GLSL has? Like you could say P.xzyy and get a vec4 consisting of elements 0,2,1 and 1 of vector P, respectively. Because that was like the coolest thing ever when first learning GLSL, I've never seen anything like it :)

<comment><USER15> The design of that library isn't mine. It's from "Graphic Gems IV". I just rewrote it in C++ as all inline, when I needed it for a physics engine in the 1990s. It's been used in a few college courses.

In general, overloading operators beyond arithmetic is a bad idea. It just leads to confusion and strange mixed-mode semantics. Python suffers from this. "+" is concatenate for vectors of numbers, but addition for numpy arrays. You can add a vector to a numpy array in Python without getting an error. Guess which action takes place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been wondering where I can find guys to write a few dozen lines of C/C++ for my Go and/or bash scripts.

I often need some simple thing that can take input from Stdin while I'm piping stuff around in a bash script. Like telling me the db audio level of a mp3 file while reading through all the files in a directory.

<comment><USER18> Just a heads up, in case you haven't seen it. Go has pretty nice handling of pipes for certain use cases. HTH

[http://blog.ralch.com/tutorial/golang-command-line- pipes/](http://blog.ralch.com/tutorial/golang-command-line-pipes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's another set of similar libraries called the STB Libraries, primarily aimed at gamedev/graphicsdev: [https://github.com/nothings/stb](https://github.com/nothings/stb)

<comment><USER20> That's the exact same one as the first line in the OP, if you bothered to click the link

<comment> TD-Linux The OP one seems to be different - for example, it doesn't list stb_vorbis.c.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I couldnt really find anything useful in there...

</comment><comment><USER22> IMHO it's dumb to limit the libraries to just two files. Whether or not a library is included in the list should be determined on a per-library basis. Some header-only libraries simply require more than one header file or the source code becomes an absolute mess.

<comment><USER23> The single-file approach is to simplify including the library in your project. Just copy the file and type #include "whatever.h".

It's because C/C++ _still_ doesn't have a decent module system, nor a universally accepted library distribution system. You can still write the project as separate files and the concatenate them for distribution.

<comment><USER24> It sorta does. It's just we use the packaging tools of the operating system (like apt-get and equivalent tools on other systems). That and pkg-config solves 99% of the problem on Unix-based systems. Windows on the other hand... Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a great list, primarily for learning and experimenting. However I would not use these for production purpose. Typically production apps require Security, Performance, handling of edge cases, Memory leaks, and reliability in addition to functionality. It is easier to implement functionality in a single file library, however the scope increases significantly when you start adding things like os/hw/api abstraction layers, and aspects other than functionality.

<comment><USER26> You've not explained how a header-only approach precludes "security, performance, handling of edge cases, memory leaks [presumably you mean the absence of] and reliability".

<comment><USER27> Leave him be, he must've just learned all those words, and in the great tradition of average human discourse, put them together to form a grammatically coherent yet nonsensical utterance that nonetheless achieves its main objective, namely making him feel good about himself.

(See? I can do it too!)</comment></comment></comment>


How much did you save by nót buying Bitcoins? ;) - <AUTHOR> http://ididnotbuybitcoins.com/ <comment><USER2> And if you spend $10k at last ATH you'd still sit with more than $50k profit. This is such a pointless site made only to reel in some ad revenue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Clever. I just hope it gets updated when Bitcoin reaches a new high again. This would look pretty silly if it were based on the $1300 high a few years ago.

<comment><USER4> My nephew works for the largest financial firm in the world. He says they wrote off bitcoin long ago (as if they ever seriously considered it).

<comment><USER3> That's too bad. It's still up over 800% since January of last year. Perhaps they could have planned better to gain from that.

<comment><USER4> You miss the point. The point is, bitcoin is dead in the financial world where it counts, not here on HN.

<comment><USER3> It was dead in 2017, too. And 2016, and 2015...

[https://99bitcoins.com/obituary-stats/](https://99bitcoins.com/obituary- stats/)

Still dying strong!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Much like arguing against climate change because it's cold outside.

</comment><comment><USER6> Schadenfreude is the joy of losers.

<comment><USER7> Or winners who got out before the losers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like most things in life, timing matters.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bought at $6. So none yet ;)</comment>


See how 'astronauts' simulate a Mars mission in Oman - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/01/see-how-astronauts-simulate-mars-mission-on-earth/ <comment><USER2> How much law do we take with us? marslegalcode.org</comment>


You're Not Praised for the Bugs You Didn't Create - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@fagnerbrack/youre-not-praised-for-the-bugs-you-didn-t-create-ef3df6894d5c <comment><USER2> Similarly, if the architecture you choose to implement allows future features to be easily integrated into it, those who implement those features are made to look good. And that's OK, unsung hero is my fave role.</comment>


The Beginning of the End of the App Bubble - <AUTHOR> http://jeffwhelpley.com/2012/05/15/end-of-the-app-bubble/

<comment><USER2> Yeah sure native apps will die as soon as HTML5 can do a, b and c. Oh and also x and y and z.

Web apps are great for many things but they haven't killed native on the desktop. They seem even less likely to do so on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may be right, but my primary point was that something has to eventually change. It just seems crazy to me that I may have to think about hiring developers with knowledge of 6 - 12 different app platforms in the future. How does that make any sense?

<comment><USER2> Right now only two matter. If WP makes any real headway that might be the tipping point but it seems to be headed the other way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The "app store" was a shim, something put in place because webapps as Google and other invisioned them were not ready, for many reasons. They came to power with a single unified store when there was only one large market iOS. Much like when Windows had sole dominance people made apps for Windows that was were the money was. I can only think that nightmare of porting to all these app stores will push developers into a new model the web app. The real issue is monetizing web apps in a easy convenient tractionless form. Ads can not be the future for all software, can it?

<comment><USER4> I'm actually not sure if Chrome's app store allows developers to monetize apps... it would seem kind of absurd if they didn't, but a cursory examination doesn't display any prices. If nothing else, web app monetization is the focus of one of Mozilla's current projects, set to launch later this year.[1]

[1] <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/apps/partners/></comment></comment>


The "walled garden" becomes a prison for reality - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3331? <comment><USER2> One comment I found interesting:

"And I didn't check the source [of OpenBSD] for trojans or backdoors. Do I trust Theo DeRaadt that much? Not particularly, though I have nothing against him. Do I trust "the community"? No. Mostly I just didn't care at all."

I agree that in practice 1) it's not practical for anybody to audit an entire OS for security and 2) you don't know everyone in the community.

However, I think it's reasonable to feel safer using software that's audited and trusted by brilliant libertarian nutjobs than software that isn't. And if you truly DID need to know that a product didn't contain back doors, and it was worth enough money to you, you could hire people to audit it and stick to the specific version that you'd audited.

Most people don't care about this stuff. But I like knowing that some people do; that push come to shove, when your government becomes a tyranny, there ARE tools that are beyond their reach. And in many parts of the world, tyranny is not theoretical.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hard to say if just filing a patent on this is a sign of any sinister intent but I do agree with his earlier argument that Apple has placed its bets on the big content cartels and the iPad is a delivery device for the products of such. You could argue that iTunes has made self-publishing easier than before but if you actually shop in the iTunes store all you're ever going to see is Justin Bieber and American Idol and other major label garbage unless you already know what you're looking for. Don't forget that Steve is on the board of Disney.

Maybe it's slightly less user-friendly but a less centralized net is healthier and more interesting in the long run.

 _Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety._

\- Benjamin Franklin

<comment><USER4> Isn't it a bit much to say that Apple has sided against the consumer? They certainly didn't do that with publishers when they wouldn't give up subscriber data and they didn't show it with their constant battles with the music industry and NBC.

Regarding music discovery on iTunes, it has always been the case that if you want good music you're going to have to look for it. Popular music has always been the easiest to find, be it on iTunes or your local record store. My main concern is that iOS forces you to buy music only from iTunes.

As for the patent, Apple patents anything. It doesn't mean it'll ever see the light of day. Some other ridiculous Apple patents:

Apple patent application reveals ad-supported OS, desktop Armageddon [http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/apple-patent- application-...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/22/apple-patent-application- reveals-ad-supported-os-armageddon/)

Timely Apple Patent Introduces iMac-Like Docking Station [http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2008/01/timely-a...](http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently- apple/2008/01/timely-apple-patent-introduces-imac-like-docking-station.html)

Apple patent shifts controls to rear of iPod [http://www.slashgear.com/apple- patent-shifts-controls-to-rea...](http://www.slashgear.com/apple-patent- shifts-controls-to-rear-of-ipod-105191/)

<comment><USER2> Whether they'll do it isn't the point. If a patent is, by its nature, meant to restrict user and citizen freedom, why have it?

If your neighbor collects guns, that may be no cause for alarm; hunting is a legitimate activity. But if your neighbor stockpiles napalm, his saying "I wouldn't use it" isn't very reassuring. _It has no purpose but to burn you to death._

The only charitable reading I can see of this patent is that Apple patented it to keep its evil competitors from using this. But that's highly dubious. If that's what they wanted to do, they could have openly said so and immediately donated the patent to the EFF or someone like that.

<comment><USER5> Apple has a lot of legitimate IP business. They have in-house IP counsel. They retain outside IP counsel. It's inevitable that this group and process has grown into a bureaucratic fiefdom that exists to secure patents and trademarks for their own purposes, regardless of their applicability to Apple's business or plans.

That they pursued such a patent and retained it is evidence of little more than the existence of a report somewhere that conflates the quantity of patents to the effectiveness of the group.

I mean, what's really easier to believe? That a corporate group is following the trajectory of every studied social construct of man [1]. Or that the only consumer-focused computer maker is conspiring to shaft their paying customers in deference to a (comparatively tiny) industry they've long treated with borderline-contempt?

[1] becoming focused on its own interests at the expense of those it was created to further

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm starting to really dislike Apple for a number of reasons, but I can't switch.

No, not can't, but it would be tough.

Why? Because nobody else cares about design or user experience. Apple is the only company on Earth that can design a user interface, and their products are the only well designed (read: minimal... in industrial design, minimal is a synonym for good) products IMHO.

Everything else is covered by marketing-idiot-driven pimples like the "ThinkVantage" button on ThinkPads, etc., and both Windows and Linux UIs are horrible.

Edit: to clarify, what I'm really pointing out is that Apple has a near- monopoly, and like any near-monopoly they are starting to leverage it in disturbing ways.

Their near-monopoly is on good industrial and UI design.

<comment><USER7> I've been an enthusiastic Apple user since around 1993, and I have tremendous respect for their engineering and design. But IMHO, they've long since passed the threshold for antitrust investigation. If I had my druthers, every device manufacturer (including game consoles) would be federally mandated to offer some way of sideloading software. Hell, at least let people run their own code on it without having to buy a developer certificate!

As it stands, Apple has all the same incentives to behave badly as Microsoft did in the 90s, if not more so.

<comment><USER8> But what do they have a monopoly on (isn't a monopoly required for antitrust investigations in the US)? Good taste? Surely that's free for anyone.

<comment><USER9> Monopolies aren't required for antitrust, but monopolies are watched more carefully for antitrust violations. Antitrust is more about anticompetitive behaviour than market monopolisation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Until Apple releases hardware/software that turns this patent into a reality, I'll leave the aluminum foil in my pantry.

<comment><USER3> What sense does this make as a defensive patent?

<comment><USER11> The optimist could say that this prevents any mobile phone device having this feature, and hence Apple can defend the common man against opression.

<comment><USER3> That much trust in the altruism of any major corporation goes beyond anything that could reasonably be called optimism. Is there any precedent in Apple's patent history for this courageous leap of faith?

<comment><USER11> When it suits their interests it has been a boon to the general public. Their refusal to 'licence' their DRM system used on iPods/iTunes, and their refusal to allow another DRM system (as well as their own) on iPods meant that if you weren't Apple and wanted to sell music, and didn't want to cut of 75% of your customers (those with iPods), you _had_ to sell it in un-DRMed MP3s. Admitidly, the only reason Apple did this was to support the sale of iPods, but still.

<comment><USER3> So, not altruism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I submitted this 3 days ago. Isn't the software supposed to catch duplicates that recent? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2662662>

ADDED: Thanks, it just occurred to me to check the URL and I noticed that.

<comment><USER13> It was reposted with an extra question mark in the URL, that way the duplicate detection was bypassed:

      http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3331?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Restrictive licensing terms for software on the iPad &c. do not indict all non-open source software. Apple's hardware based approach to limiting device function is in many important ways less conducive to misuse than one based on geolocation or device ID (not to suggest that it is a good thing) because it does not rely on receiving and processing information about specific individuals.

My wild ass speculation is that Apple's research in this area may be a result of the popularity of their devices within the US military for whom the capability to affect function at a distance would have meaningful tactical application and for whom it would make sense to fund the underlying research - it is difficult to see a significant revenue stream for Apple from the commercial market given the many alternatives to Apple's products for illicit recording of performances.

</comment><comment><USER15> Since buildings and items can also be copyrighted, would it be a stretch to add recognition software to the photo app, so that you can't take a snapshot in front of a copyrighted building or teapot anymore?

Personally I'd say, let's blow up all the copyrighted buildings and things (and erase copyrighted videos, books and music). Since I am not allowed to process their existence in any meaningful way, I'd rather they don't exist at all.

<comment><USER16> Or a widely-available portable shunting device that broadcasts the "no video recording" code within a certain range. Attach a unique ID to each device. Create a bureaucracy to handle the registration and geolocation of such devices. Schools, libraries, govt offices, would all be equipped with them. Make possession of a jailbroken recording device in these areas a felony, of course. And equip the police with mobile versions so they can create a "cone of silence" around incidents and arrests, putting a stop to those pesky police brutality vids that keep popping up on YouTube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most consumers don't care about negative liberty, they care about positive liberty.

You want people to have more freedom? Build a better phone than an iPhone with a more convenient platform to get software and media with better support, better stores to buy them in, etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> so the "extremist" Richard Stallman was right all along?

</comment><comment><USER19> Luckily Apple is patenting this technology, so folks with other makes of camera phones wont have these restrictions.

</comment><comment><USER20> I haven't jail broken in a while because I don't have a need for tethering. If I go on a trip where I need it I will JB. And if Apple ever does this I will JB it too. If they somehow prevent JB'ing I will switch to another device.

<comment><USER21> The danger with this mentality is that you are still their customer, making them more powerful, giving them more control.

And when you'll switch to that other device, it may be too late to do that, as you won't be able to find a suitable device in a world where (a) Apple has a monopoly on such devices or (b) everybody else mimics them, yielding similar control over you.

Vote with your wallet, buy Android phones with unlocked bootloaders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> >Demand Android in your phones

Is it just me or is this not a sufficient demand? If we are to live in a truly open world, we need software which is truly Free, not something which is developed on top of open-source.

Google Chrome is no more open source than is Mac OS X. It is confusing to see people count adoption of Chrome as a victory for the open-source community when frankly it seems like anything but.

<comment><USER21>
        we need software which is truly Free

What is " _Free_ "?

According to the FSF definition, Chromium is as Free as it gets, with Chrome being a rebranding from stable releases of Chromium + proprietary codecs (which Google moved to eliminate with WebM).

Chromium versus Chrome is basically Fedora versus Red Hat.

        Google Chrome is no more open source than is Mac OS X

That's bollocks and you're either trying to spread FUD or you don't know what you're talking about.

If you're going to talk about battles and victories, show me the source code of Cocoa, show me the standard it is based on, show me another platform on top of which you can use it and show me what third-party contributors does it have (and no, Cocoa is not OpenStep). Also, show me how I can install OS X in a legal manner on top of non-Apple computers.

<comment><USER22> >Chrome being a rebranding from stable releases of Chromium + proprietary codecs (which Google moved to eliminate with WebM).

It does not matter: would Stallman use Chrome? Chromium, like Darwin, is indeed as Free as it gets.

>Chromium versus Chrome is basically Fedora versus Red Hat.

RHEL is fully Free, and can be recompiled at leisure, cf. Scientific Linux and Oracle Linux. It is not quite analogous.

>If you're going to talk about battles and victories, show me the source code of Cocoa, show me the standard it is based on, show me another platform on top of which you can use it and show me what third-party contributors does it have (and no, Cocoa is not OpenStep). Also, show me how I can install OS X in a legal manner on top of non-Apple computers.

Who said I was endorsing Mac OS X?

<comment><USER21>
        RHEL is fully Free

No it's not, the brand Red Hat is protected by trademarks and there's a license involved if you want to use software branded as Red Hat, a license for which you have to pay for. You also cannot redistribute RHEL, having many restrictions one would expect from proprietary software.

Also, only Red Hat, the company, gets to make releases of RHEL and only that company gets to decide what to include in that release. RHEL is commercial software and it makes no guarantees on whether you'll end up using only free software or not (unless you're paying close attention), although the process itself for the RHEL snapshot is fairly transparent and you can inspect what goes in and out of such a release.

What sets Red Hat apart from others in regards to open-source is their handling of in-house developments - they are one of the biggest contributors to Linux and they are giving back both through up-stream and through Fedora, not to mention they aren't very upset about CentOS.

Chrome to RHEL and Fedora to Chromium couldn't be more analogous, although I have to agree, Google doesn't play very well with upstream (but that's not a political issue, Google engineers are just stubborn).

        Who said I was endorsing Mac OS X?

Indeed, who said you were?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is American entrepreneurship is obsessed with chasing the next "unicorn"? - <AUTHOR>

This interview with the Founder of Endeavor,Linda Rotternberg intrigued me of how much a bubble Silicon Valley is(http://founderdating.com/linda-rotternber-on-the-future-of-social-entrepreneurship/ ):<p>"One of the problems I'm seeing with American entrepreneurship–it's always about chasing the next "unicorn."<p>Where is this obsession com from? And how can we change it? <comment><USER2> Investors chase unicorns because of the outsized returns they represent. Entrepreneurs chase unicorns because that is what many/most investors are looking for.

I'm not sure how to change this, or even that is _should_ be changed. There are alternate methods of fundraising besides venture capital (bank loans, bootstrapping, etc) available for non-unicorns.</comment>


Almost no one wants to run their own infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/NoPersonalInfrastructure <comment><USER2> Having all your stuff in the cloud means you MUST have cheap, fast, reliable, secure, private internet service providers and huge quotas.

Without any of those criteria, you are better off keeping all your stuff in- house.

I was an early believer in the wonderfulness of the cloud. But bitter experience has made me think otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I find that the article is true for most these days, I still prefer to have the hardware in-house.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way for monitoring Node.js in production? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
What do you use to monitor node.js processes in production? Assume that I would like to use nginx as my load balancer and some tool to keep node.js application running, like: forever or pm2. I would like to display data like heap, cpu usage, errors, maybe event loop state in realtime by web user interface remotely.
The best option would be to use some open source tool, but I am also thinking about using some proprietary solution.
What do you think?
Best, Wiktor <comment><USER2> Hey Wiktor,

First, you really shouldn't use forever or pm2 in production. May I suggest you use something like Dokku[0] or Deis[1] (if you are planning to scale to more than one server) to deploy your apps?

Dokku is really quick to setup and will save you a lot of time and trouble in the long term. Setup takes only 5 minutes and the learning curve is pretty low (maybe 30-60 minutes to be productive).

NewRelic[2] and DataDog[3] are popular for monitoring though they're not open source. Nagios[4] is open source and also popular.

[0] [https://github.com/dokku/dokku](https://github.com/dokku/dokku)

[1] [http://deis.io](http://deis.io)

[2] [http://newrelic.com](http://newrelic.com)

[3] [https://www.datadoghq.com](https://www.datadoghq.com)

[4] [https://www.nagios.org](https://www.nagios.org)

<comment><USER3> I agree that things like forever aren't a great process manager, immediately jumping from that to something like Dokku is the wrong move IMO.

Phusion Passenger will manage processes (including multiple concurrent processes if required) for a node (or python or ruby) app, and can run under Apache, Nginx or stand-alone.

This doesn't drastically change the infrastructure involved as Docku/Deis/etc would, but provides a much more robust solution.</comment></comment>


How Disney built and programmed an animatronic president (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2014/06/how-disney-built-and-programmed-an-animatronic-president/ <comment><USER2> When it originally opened in Disneyland, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room required a massive bank of computers which filled the basement floor and required air conditioning, the only building that had it, making it an excellent way to cool off during the hot summers. Another fun fact, it was so expensive that Walt funded the project himself and it required a separate admission ticket to experience it. Finally, a minor correction to the article: The Tiki Room was originally envisioned as a restaurant but was changed to be an attraction before opening because the Imagineers realized people probably wouldn't respond well to birds defecating in their food (which they obviously couldn't since they were automated).

<comment><USER3> In 1963? No. The first minicomputer, the PDP-8, didn't launch until 1964. Those birds were driven by audio tones on magnetic tape driving a reed receiver.[1] Reed receivers were used in early radio controlled aircraft.[2] They probably needed a big machine room for all the control gear, and it might have looked like a computer because of all the magnetic tape gear, but it wasn't.

The Lincoln system used a multichannel analog instrumentation recorder. Those could record signals down to DC, because they had FM modulators and demodulators. (You can't record DC on magnetic tape directly.) I saw a copy of the original system running in an art gallery in SF in the late 1980s, set up by some retired Disney employee.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_Enchanted_Tiki...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_Enchanted_Tiki_Room) [2] [http://www.rchalloffame.org/WhoFirst/First01/files/BIGrelayl...](http://www.rchalloffame.org/WhoFirst/First01/files/BIGrelayless-1.jpg.jpg)

<comment><USER2> You're entirely right, I misremembered the control gear as computers. As a disfan, I feel extreme shame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> The fantastic Walt Disney Family Museum [0] in the Presidio of San Francisco features a working animatronic programmer that you can use to see what the process was like for an Imagineer to program a figure. I highly recommend the museum, especially since it's run by the Disney family and not the Walt Disney Company.

0: [https://www.waltdisney.org/](https://www.waltdisney.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The rides since the 1990s with TV screens and shaky chairs are rather boring compared to earlier animatronics like Pirates. I generally never have done them a second time. You'd think with modern assembly line motion capture, robotics and computers that animatronics would be a cinch.

<comment><USER5> As a massive theme park fan, this has been especially pronounced lately (if you want an example about how bad it's gotten, check out Fast and the Furious Supercharged at Universal Studios Florida) but there have been rides since the 90s that mix physical sets and screens really well. If you want to check those out, my two favorites are The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, both at Islands of Adventure in Orlando.

<comment><USER6> Fast and Furious Supercharged is a terrible ride (and according to a friend of ours who works at Universal Orlando, the employees agree.) King Kong, also at Islands of Adventure, is the same ride type, and even uses the same vehicle, but is a vastly superior ride. I think a lot of it it comes down to the "story" the ride is trying to tell, and how well it tells it. Spiderman and Harry Potter Forbidden Journey are also excellent.

I know it's a different ride type than we're talking about, but I'm looking forward to heading down to Universal Orlando this fall and for the new Harry Potter ride. Hopefully we won't have to wait 10 hours in line, like the folks who rode it opening day. Just my opinion, but with the exception of the Avatar ride as DisneyWorld, I find the rides at Universal to be much more entertaining and engaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Firesign Theatre had fun with a routine about "breaking" an animatronic president. As the president crashes, he mutters stuff from PDP-10 jargon. "uh, Clem" is from earlier in the routine, where the park visitors were asked to say their names.

Firesign Theatre - The Breaking of the President (1971)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5x2xBa8p0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5x2xBa8p0A)

</comment><comment><USER8> The Lincoln Memorial in my hometown (Redlands, southern CA) hosted Disney's animatronic Lincoln and had a running show for several months last year. It was _really_ good. Though my (then) 3-year-old son still shivers with fear when he recalls the "talking statue" :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't count the number of times my wife and I have been to Disney properties (Anaheim, Orlando, France, Japan, Hong Kong so far), and even though she's seen everything Disney has to offer, the animatronic Abraham Lincoln is still the thing that most impresses her.

Every time we go to the Hall of Presidents, she eagerly sits through the entire show waiting for the magic moment when Mr. Lincoln stands up. It's the highlight of the trip.

She's as addicted to Facebook as the next person of her age, but this is still the apex of modern technology.

(Then she drops me off at "daycare," which is the little film gallery showing old cartoons, while she goes shopping. Though I hear that is being desecrated with a gift shop, too.)

<comment><USER10> Is that this one? [https://youtu.be/dJg2Caz3TF0](https://youtu.be/dJg2Caz3TF0)

<comment><USER11> Very much in the uncanny valley. I think it's because it's only the head and face moving, with the shoulders acting like Mr. Lincoln forgot to take the the coat hanger out of his jacket.

<comment><USER9> Point of trivia: Never hold Abraham Lincoln's hat. He was notorious for using it as a combination trashcan and briefcase.

Surface history books tell you that he carried legal documents in there. But contemporaries knew him also for putting apple cores in there, and other assorted things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't miss Defunctland for more Disney attraction lore. [1]

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

</comment><comment><USER13> If they continuously upgrade the hardware, one day it may get elected.

edit - of course, by then we'll call it multivac - [https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html](https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://youtu.be/JVbliFdOuOM](https://youtu.be/JVbliFdOuOM)

</comment><comment><USER15> Tiki room was a big family favorite of ours. Interesting to get the backstory on what inspired the experience.

</comment><comment><USER16> I mean the last 3-4 presidents I could totally believe this.</comment>


Mean IQ of College Grads is Dropping - <AUTHOR> http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2008/06/mean-iq-of-college-grads-dropped-9.html <comment><USER2> "Mean IQ of College Grads is Dropping" is basically the same statement as "more people are graduating from college."

<comment><AUTHOR> True iff America is an IQ meritocracy, and college is an IQ measuring institution.

<comment><USER2> The mean IQ of college grads started out as higher than the mean IQ of the overall population. As you add more people from the overall population, you would expect the college grad mean IQ to get closer to the overall population mean IQ.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, if your situation is just "X is the IQ cutoff for getting into college," you could infer that as more people go to college, X gets lower. But you could also see a situation in which smart people opt _out_ of college, so even if the number of people who wanted to go to school were constant, the average IQ would drop -- e.g. fifty years ago a smart person could succeed by getting a scholarship to a great school; now said person gets 90% of what he needs to know from Wikipedia, and can spread a great idea by uploading something to Sourceforge rather than muddling through the thesis-writing, thesis-approving process.

I don't think it's just one phenomenon, and a model that either considers America a pure IQ meritocracy or assumes that college's role has changed by degree and not kind is clearly inadequate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori I have a few issues with this post. First, it's a mistake to assume IQ is a perfect measure of intelligence, especially over long time scales. I'm highly suspicious of psychometrics.

Second, I don't understand US race dynamics, but would anyone care to explain why this guy split the data by race, then disregarded all Black data points? Furthermore, it's well-documented that IQ scores are culture-specific. If you're from a different culture than whomever developed the test, you will score lower. This could also apply to the micro-cultures of two races even within the same country.

Finally, he says explicitly that the "sample size is very small", which makes any results drawn from them suspect.

(Karma Nazi says, "no upmod for you!")

<comment><USER3> > I'm highly suspicious of psychometrics. > it's well-documented that IQ > scores are culture-specific.

Psychometrics is not BS. There's a mountain of data showing properties like IQ (i.e. g) are real, useful measures, not culture specific, and are highly heritable. These are inconvenient truths to a lot of people with egalitarian ideals so there's mountains of FUD clouding the cold hard facts about IQ.

<comment> a-priori Let me clarify. I don't think psychometrics are BS; I think they are real measures of certain skills. However, the results of IQ tests have certain, significant limitations that people often don't appreciate. In practice, the tests are overused and the results are over-generalized. This article is a prime example of my criticisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author's conclusion that lowered admission standards are why IQ has dropped is suspect. Any number of factors could be causes for this (ex: the average amount of TV watched by a student may have increased over the last 40 years).

<comment><USER5> Given his conclusion and brief rant, you'd think it would occur to him to grab data about the percentage of the population with a bachelor's degree for each decade, and plot that versus the IQ data.

(No, I wasn't going to, it's not my rant.)

Also, there's zero discussion of the scores ticking back up from the 1990s to the 2000s. Stricter admissions standards? Somehow that doesn't seem likely. Teaching against standardized tests in high school helping students to score better on the standardized IQ test? Better than nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> obv if a bigger percentage of the population goes to college they wont be as smart on average. i mean this is article is a bit ridiculous in the sense that is trying to state this as something alarming or weird and not something obvious.

secondly i dont think intelligence matter THAT much, obv it matters but other skills matters too.

more people are graduating because we need to, not letting people in wouldnt make things better.

</comment><comment><USER7> Check out the sidebar of this guy's blog. Wonder what his agenda is. Wonder what he could mean by presenting this data, ripped out of context in this way?</comment>


Offshore wind in Europe won't need subsidies much longer - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/offshore-wind-in-europe-wont-need-subsidies-much-longer/ <comment><USER2> A factor not mentioned in this article that makes these calculations difficult is that, the more turbines get deployed, the lower the prices in times of peak supply will be.

Some people think that means that, in order to get decent supply in times of unfavorable winds, subsidizing providers will remain necessary. Alternatively, countries can build storage infrastructure. That's why there are projects underway for large scale hydrogen storage near the North Sea.</comment>


Free printable app sketch paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.meganeholstein.com/writing/idea-to-app/paper/

<comment><USER2> Why sell it for tweets? The paper is a great idea, but I can use a ruler.

A link on a page for a tweet seems out of place. But maybe I'm just getting old. I remember using rotary phones made of bakelite.

If it were in the context of twitter I'd retweet it immediately. But since I'm not in twitter mode, I'll pass. Still, it looks really pretty!</comment>