New bill threatens journalists' ability to protect sources - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/01/new-bill-threatens-journalists-ability-to-protect-sources/ <comment><USER3> There have been quite a few large threads about the EARN IT act:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E30%20%22earn%20it%22&sort=byDate&type=story)

This one doesn't seem to add significant new information:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

<comment><USER4> It's understandably a very controversial law, but there hasn't been any new information in a while. There may be some coming when they hold another hearing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is akin to reporting "Giant asteroid on collision course with earth, many journalists expected to be killed."

Basically, the article is saying that the EARN IT act would defacto outlaw end-to-end encryption. Thus people could not securely communicate with each other. One group of people affected by this would be journalists trying to securely communicate with sources.

<comment> Paul-ish Focusing on concrete harms is important. In front of the supreme court you want to be able to say "This law is devastating to journalism, a fundamental institution in our democracy." Rather than sounding like a screeching privacy activist to nine nontechnical judges.

<comment><USER5> And the justices will point out that journalism predates end-to-end encryption and investigative journalism used phones and mail and in person meetings quite effectively.

<comment><USER6> And they would be incorrect. End-to-end encryption existed long before journalism. Ciphers have been in use for a very long time. Romans used ciphers to encrypt messages.

That the medium of transmission of the message is different should make no difference.

What it boils down to is whether people are allowed to have private speech or not. Any argument that says I'm not permitted to write an electronic message to you in a way that only you can read is fundamentally equivalent to one that argues I cannot speak to you where someone else is unable to record.

I can't tell you which part of the U.S. Constitution pertains, but I'm fairly certain the Founding Fathers had a robust belief in the right to maintain a private life separate from a public life. Having zero separation between public and private was a more primitive state in ancient Athens, for example. One of the advances of Republican Democracy as a form of government was to say that a) there is a distinction, and b) the government should be restricted from interfering with private life, so long as your actions didn't damage someone else's freedom.

The Founding Fathers explicitly denounced legal _mechanisms_ that could be used to encroach on things like a mother expressing her opinions to a child, or teaching them religion. The trade off for this freedom was to make it harder for the government to police. It was a trade off gladly accepted, because it was well and viscerally understood what the other side of that equation looks like.

We seem to have forgotten that.

<comment><USER7> I believe that, with respect to government, the separation of private and public life you're referring to falls squarely under the 4th amendment.

The open question to me is how we can maintain this separation with respect to employers. The nature of employment as changed dramatically since the early days of the republic, and I don't believe the Founding Fathers could have conceived of the type and size of employers we have today.

That employers have abused their power over employees to control their private lives is a matter of historical fact (see the Ford Sociological Department: [https://jalopnik.com/when-henry-fords-benevolent-secret- poli...](https://jalopnik.com/when-henry-fords-benevolent-secret-police-ruled- his-wo-1549625731)). Clearly, we need legal protections for workers to prevent these types of abuses of power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, this seems to be the gist of the article.

> [I]t's not possible to identify [child exploitation material] without also > having the ability to identify any and all other types of material — like a > journalist communicating with a source, an activist sharing a controversial > opinion or a doctor trying to raise the alarm about the coronavirus.

Other people suspect that the real goal of the bill is to force facebook/WhatsApp et al to do away with end-to-end encryption, which would be the only way the companies could police the material (and AG Barr has "expressed his desire for this outcome": [https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/03/the-earn-it- ac...](https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/03/the-earn-it-act- partially-repeals-section-230-but-it-wont-help-children.htm) )

<comment><USER9> The EARN IT act is not about child exploitation at all. Because the effect will be the opposite -- it'll be pushed underground and away from law enforcement's reach.

It will put children in direct danger in order to further the actual goals of the legislation, which is to effectively ban E2EE in order for the intelligence community to put more deep surveillance in place.

<comment><USER10> I agree. These things are really about expanding bulk collection programs, not about catching whoever the big bad guy is at the moment.

<comment><USER9> Australia's metadata retention law was sold as a child protection scheme, and immediately after it was made into law it was repeatedly abused by intelligence employees to spy on girlfriends, used to investigate petty crimes and given out to any government agency who asked for it including local councils and tax agencies.

As soon as it's law, the children are irrelevant. This is mass surveillance legislation, and child protection is the shiny marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The scary part about the EARN IT act is that I've written both my congressman and my senator (both Democrats), and they're completely on board with the "Think of the children!" bullshit justification for this. I _really_ expected better out of Mark Warner.

<comment><USER12> Fear-mongering wins elections. It is a sound bite. "Senator Mark Warren thinks we should protect criminals who exploit children!!!!!" The general voter doesn't care about the rest of the details. People are afraid to be on the wrong side of it. If this doesn't pass, then even a single case is proof that we should have voted yes on EARN IT.

<comment><USER13> Why does "think of the children" work but "senators want to look into your bedroom" doesn't?

<comment><USER14> Because you can come up with all sorts of rebuttals from certain individuals, like "I don't care if they invade my privacy, they are welcome to look into my bedroom all they want, there is nothing interesting there". We already see a form of that reasoning from people regarding personal data tracking, saying stuff like "i have nothing to hide".

On the other hand, you cannot come up with a similar simplistic argument when someone brings up "think of the children" without giving out some really bad soundbites of yourself. You cannot just say "well, I don't care about children, it wouldn't affect them much anyway" without being represented as a heartless moron by the opposition.

Disclaimer: this is just all for the sake of the argument. I, personally, am very strongly against this "think of the children" bs tactic and am fully in favor of E2E encryption. It is just sad that the "think of the children" argument is so effective solely due to the emotional appeal and how difficult it is to fight against that argument without coming off in poor light.

<comment><USER15> Flip the script: "Senators want to look into your children's bedroom".

Weakening encryption endangers _everyone_ , children included. I don't want my kids to be using digital products that can be backdoored by bad actors.

<comment><USER14> That move would be pretty high-risk/high-reward, but I would be for sure cheering if/when that happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> seph-reed > The same New York Times investigation found that law enforcement agencies > devoted to fighting online child exploitation "were left understaffed and > underfunded, even as they were asked to handle far larger caseloads." The > National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), established by > Congress in 1984 to reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child > victimization, "was ill equipped for the expanding demands." It's worth > asking, then, why EARN IT does not instead empower these agencies with > additional resources to solve crimes.

This is a very striking point that I think even the least tech aware person could understand.

Also, the acronym EARN IT is marketing genius for the US. I can really easily see that convincing a lot of people of its validity just because it's kind of sassy/obstinate and for some reason Americans gobble things like that up. "You want encryption? Well why don't you EARN IT by not being a pedophile. - <USER2> 2020"

<comment><USER9> The EARN IT act is not really to prevent online child exploitation. It can't be. Because this act will push the people involved in those practices underground to places that cannot be censored like Tor.

In fact, the EARN IT act puts children directly in danger.

When evidence of child exploitation is pushed out of the regular internet, it becomes much harder to discover and prosecute.

<comment><USER16> Do you have any experience in investigating online child sexual offences?

I am just wondering what basis you are making claims like "the EARN IT act puts children directly in danger".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I never understood one thing about American Politics. A lot of folks who are fierce advocates for people being able to keep weapons, go quickly up in arms against encryption. As if the guns somehow can't harm the children. Even though the US has had so many school shootings, it seems a lot of politicians are still hell bent on saying encryption harms children, while guns somehow don't land in the conversation.

<comment><USER9> Playing devil's advocate, it's easy to say there are far more victims of CSA and child pornography than of school shootings among children.

Personally speaking, I think opponents of encryption and guns are in the same anti-freedom camp. Neither should be banned or regulated because all arguments in favor of those things I find to be dishonest or questionable.

Gun deaths are on a consistent downward trend for the last 30+ years despite record gun and ammunition sales. Plotted on the same chart, you'll find as gun sales increased the amount of gun deaths was decreasing at the same time. This isn't to say they're correlated, my argument is that they're not correlated in either direction (and so a ban argument makes no sense).

<comment><USER18> > Playing devil's advocate, it's easy to say there are far more victims of CSA > and child pornography than of school shootings among children.

Is there any decent data that backs this up? Anecdotally, I have always felt like CSA is a fairly niche issue that is blown way out of proportion, but I don't know how/haven't bothered to confirm or deny this belief.

EDIT: I found this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311357/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311357/) which seems way too high. Then again it's not exactly something the victims would openly talk about in most cultures, so maybe I'm severely underestimating the prevelance of the issue?

Nevertheless, if it is true that 95% of perpetrators are well known to the victim, that doesn't sound like this abuse is happening online. So I don't see how backdooring E2E could possibly help here.

<comment><USER19> About 1% of the male population has a sexual interest in children. Most of these people will never act on that interest, but some of them do go on to commit offences.

There is a range of jargon, and that makes searching for information a bit trickier.

OCSE = online child sexual exploitation. CSEA = Child sexual exploitation and abuse. CSAM = child sexual abuse material.

Here are some UK stats:

> Law enforcement agencies in the UK are currently arresting around 450 > individuals and safeguarding over 600 children each month through their > efforts to combat online CSE.

> In the UK alone, it is estimated there are 80,000 people who present a > sexual threat to children online.

> Statistics from the National Crime Agency (NCA) show that last year 2.88 > million accounts were registered globally across the most harmful child > sexual abuse dark web sites, with at least 5% believed to be registered in > the UK.

These are good reports, although they're obviously written from a child protection viewpoint.

[http://www2.paconsulting.com/rs/526-HZE-833/images/WePROTECT...](http://www2.paconsulting.com/rs/526-HZE-833/images/WePROTECT%202019%20Global%20Threat%20Assessment%20%28FINAL%29.pdf)

[https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/25/fact-sheet- on...](https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/25/fact-sheet-on-online- child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse/)

[https://www.iwf.org.uk/report/iwf-2019-annual-report-zero- to...](https://www.iwf.org.uk/report/iwf-2019-annual-report-zero-tolerance)

>> Nevertheless, if it is true that 95% of perpetrators are well known to the victim, that doesn't sound like this abuse is happening online

But that abuse often gets put online, or is traded to access other images.

<comment><USER4> How do we know 1% of the male population has such an interest?

How do we know it is often put online? Surely, it's incredibly stupid to upload evidence of yourself committing a crime? How much is happening behind closed doors that does not? Can we even tell?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That article said nothing. Here's the bill text for the curious: [https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate- bill/339...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate- bill/3398/text)

</comment><comment><USER21> This was the least informative article I've ever read on TC. It does not make clear how the ability to protect sources is endangered.

Can't journalists continue to protect sources by not naming them, and communicating via encrypted apps? What is changing?

<comment><USER22> The EFF has a good write up that explains what's actually wrong with it[0].

[0]: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act- violates-c...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act-violates- constitution)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do cloud providers require section 230 protection for mere hosting? Or does the buck stop at their customers operating user-facing services on their infrastructure?

</comment><comment><USER23> I read the whole article and couldn't understand what the proposed legislation actually proposed, specifically rather in vague "it's gonna cause problems!" way. Completely terrible journalistic work. Ironically, in an article emphasizing how important it is to protect journalists.

<comment><USER4> The article doesn't really add much that we didn't know already (through other articles). You can search EARN IT on here or EFF for details or Signal's write-up on it. They want to hold people liable for "reckless endangerment" for offering anything that could be used to facilitate child exploitation.

Encryption by it's very nature makes it very difficult to pursue, Barr has pushed much rhetoric of what he would push in the committee for this bill, and the writers of the law refuse to specifically exempt encryption despite having many opportunities to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23040209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23040209) CLOUD Act may also be attack on encryption.

</comment><comment><USER24> I like the sound of that. I hear the words "according to someone familiar with X" far too often. Not interested in speculation, hearsay, gossip, scapegoat to promote one's own intentions...Lazy and agenda ridden through and through.

</comment><comment><USER25> Sometimes I wonder if there are unintended side consequences of an explosion in the ability of people to be private and have all their concerns / issues kept private (or more strongly, anonymous). And sometimes it makes me feel like an old Scalia for asking whether privacy is really a fundamental right. Or at least, whether we're fully considering the downsides of privacy as strongly as its benefits.

Privacy now lets us hide things that we didn't want others to intrude upon. That may be a good thing. But I can also imagine that a byproduct of increasingly stronger privacy is that the social function of monitoring and group shaming of bad behavior is diminished. You no longer are allowed to know what your neighbors are doing, or speak up because someone's privacy might be violated. People used to know what taxes their neighbors paid. If you didn't want to be gossipped about, you didn't engage in certain behaviors.

It cuts both ways I think. People now can report on things privately, yet increasing privacy itself enabled more bad behavior.

Privacy (and anonymity) allows people to get help that they previously felt ashamed to raise or report. That may be a good thing. But maybe it also lets smaller and smaller (more individual) concerns take the stage away from things that are bigger more pervasive but less attention-grabbing important issues. Maybe we become a more individual-focused society because we gravitate towards paying attention to individual stories of troubles.

I don't know. I'm not an expert in this area. But I wonder if sometimes privacy isn't overdramatized by its advocates and painted with the positive brush when there are negatives as well.

<comment><USER12> This is the "I've nothing to hide" fallacy. The question will become: who gets to decide? Who will watch the watchers? If everything you say and do is captured, it won't be societal norms but some singular point of view based on who is in power. Governments have shown an inability to protect citizen's rights when give this kind of power. Look at China and North Korea and Russia for proof. We don't have to conjecture about this, we know. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I prefer freedom with consequences.

Honest question: do you know your neighbors are doing _today_ , pre EARN IT passing?

<comment><USER25> Well, I'm certainly not advocating for the "you've got nothing to hide" position. I'm not even actually engaging on the specific topic of this thread, the journalistic vs. anti-crime etc aspect of privacy.

What I'm talking about is that the technologically-driven, everyone-of-course- wants-more-privacy natural inclination will produce certain side effects that you may not realize. And at some point governments (or social networks, down to the neighbor-level) will be powerless to counter -- and again I'm not even talking about those anti-terrorist/anti-crime points. I mean the gradual degradation of a sense of community. There's a bunch of writings on this topic.

<comment><USER4> The fall of close knit communities could be attributed to the rise of urbanisation, rather than privacy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ThemesForApp – Free bootstrap themes for your startup and side-project - <AUTHOR> https://themesfor.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

We have created Themes For App for Indie hackers and creators like us to save their valuable time and energy on designing a landing page or website for their side-project or startup.

If you have any question or suggestion please feel free to ask or share.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is very useful - Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I am glad you liked it!!:)</comment></comment>


The Story of a New Brain - <AUTHOR> https://logicmag.io/01-the-story-of-a-new-brain/ <comment><USER2> Disappointed by journalism in this area, but perhaps not surprising because so few neuroscience classes are a part of mainstream education. Would anyone here start an exercise routine or even a new hobby and expect major improvements after one week?

<comment><USER3> >expect major improvements after one week?

Beginner's gains ?

<comment><USER4> Visible results? That would be more in the order of "after 6 months".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article babbles _so_ much. I know you want to be dramatic but really I only care about the details of the article as they relate to the EEG devices NOT the details of your trip to the doctor's office or if he answers a call about taking insurance..?

</comment><comment><USER6> Article is very information light and could stand some editing. I got the feeling that the author was going for a non-technical, "Is-any-of-this-real- or-are-they-just-taking-our-money?" subtext, but didn't push it far enough, so she ended up with mush.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you're interested in developing software for the Muse or other commercial EEG systems, check out the NeuroTechX community. We've got several open-source projects that we'd love to have some more contributors on. A lot of us are working hard on making commercial EEG less 'garbage'.

[https://github.com/neurotechx/](https://github.com/neurotechx/)

<comment><USER8> Theoretically, can one use that EEG as input device to drive interaction with software? Genuinely interested in future of having /dev/neurointerface . Newbie daddy now, often having both hands busy, but willing to do some work.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely, though the fine-grained ness of that interaction won't be very good for a while.

People are working right now on replicating some classic BCI paradigms with these consumer headsets (i.e. motor imagery and the P300 speller). These are slow and require training to use, though.

What I think is more promising in the near term is using these devices to passively influence software. Like in Muse's app, EEG could be used to determine whether you're engaged, distracted, fearful, or frustrated. This affective data could lead to a whole host of interesting possibilities in gaming and health.</comment></comment></comment>


HealthIT and Doctors: A framework for successful partnerships - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hackinghealth.ca/post/17611839170/healthit-and-doctors-a-framework-for-successful

<comment><USER2> Like most industries, health care tech can benefit from rapid user-oriented iteration (users = anyone, not just doctors, but doctors are frequently not engaged). Unfortunately the "enterprise" forces and entrenched interests hold this back. IT leadership needs to embrace a more agile model for the end users to see significant gains.

</comment><comment><USER3> trying to teach doctors in their own language how they can work with hackers.</comment>


Things about Git - <AUTHOR> http://www.matheuslima.com/things-you-didnt-know-about-git/

<comment><USER2> > Last friday I lost a commit using git reset --HARD

You don't lose a commit just because you use git reset --hard. The author either doesn't know how git branches work and/or how to use reflog, or he means to say he lost the uncommitted content of his working tree.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was 'git reset --HARD <commit-id>', like a cherry pick, before pushing.

<comment> X-Istence

      git reflog

Might be your saviour here next time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll update the post. This worked for me. Thanks a lot!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > If you want to check what it's difference between two branches, you can > simply do: git diff branch1..branch2.

This won't give you the difference between two branches, it will give you the commits in the second branch which are not in the first one (technically it will give you the commits accessible from the second revspec which are not reachable from the first one, they need not be branches).

This means you won't see things in branch1 which have changed since the branches split.

If you want to see the differences between the two branches, you need to use <rev1>...<rev2> (three dots)

In set-theoretic notation, the first one is `a(branch2) \ a(branch1)` while the second one is `a(branch1) △ a(branch 2)` (where a is the ancestors-and- self function)

> Most people just use git status, but you can pass arguments to change the > way status is shown. With git status -sb you have an output like this:

> ## master > M Gemfile > M Gemfile.lock > M > app/controllers/home_controller.rb > M app/views/home/index.html.erb

This is mixing 2 changes and missing important information:

-s will provide what most people are looking for here, that is an SVN-like "short status" with no prose or suggestion text. Because of the index, Git has 2 status flags, the index state (difference between repository and index) and the second one is the working copy state (difference between working copy and index). The flags also feature specific states for merging situations.

-b adds branch information to the short status format, as `local[...remote]` (with the remote being absent if the local branch has no configured upstream).

<comment><USER4> Hi. You appear to be too smart for your own good. "git diff A..B" is synonymous with "git diff A B" (i.e. just compare the two points in the tree without regard to their history). "git diff A...B" is equivalent to "git diff $(git-merge-base A B) B" (i.e. ... does what you think .. does). The manpage is very clear about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Last friday I lost a commit using git reset --HARD (shit happens), so I > decided it was time to study

Mercurial?!

> git again

Aw.

It may be interesting to compare the safety nets that Git and Mercurial provides. Mercurial tries to steer you away from rewriting history, but it does supply a complete set of tools for doing it - it has rebase, strip, commit --amend and so on. The difference is in what happens to deleted history.

In Git, as i understand it, history is defined by the branch pointers and the commits reachable from those. Deleting history simply means fiddling the branch pointers; the underlying commits are still there, completely unchanged. But now you can only find them via the reflog (unless you wrote their hashes down or something). They will stay there until the next garbage collection cycle. I don't know what determines when garbage collection occurs, so that might be ages, or it might not be long.

In Mercurial, history is defined by the commit graph. If something is in the graph, it's in history. That means that to delete something from history, you need to actually remove it from the graph. Commits which are removed are written as bundle files to the .strip-backup directory inside the repository's .hg directory. These are compressed binary files, so they're not much fun to look at directly, and i'm not aware of any way to display their contents, but Mercurial can import them, so restoring the changes. These files are never deleted automatically.

Really, Git's safety net is more tractable - once you have identified a deleted commit, you can work with it in the same way as any other commit. Mercurial's safety net is purely cold storage. I believe this reflects the tools' different opinions on rewriting history: in Git, it's normal, so you'll need the safety net a lot, whereas in Mercurial, it's not normal, so you will only need it if you have been bad, and you should feel bad.

Fortunately, something that is slowly arriving in Mercurial is the concept of changeset evolution:

[http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ChangesetEvolution](http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ChangesetEvolution)

Which basically keeps deleted commits in the tree, like Git, but marks them as deleted. Moreover, when you do things like amend or rebase, it marks commits as having been replaced by other commits. Those marks are in the committed metadata, and are propagated between repositories, which means it becomes possible to do things like safely rebase public commits, merge different attempts at rebasing some commits, and more besides. If changeset evolution works as well as is hoped, it will provide all the advantages of history mutation without any of the drawbacks, which will be super sweet.

<comment><USER6> Speaking of Evolve, I would like to promote my own talk + demo about it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OlDm3akbqg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OlDm3akbqg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> #3 is no longer the default behavior since 2.0 was released.

[http://blog.nicoschuele.com/posts/git-2-0-changes-push- defau...](http://blog.nicoschuele.com/posts/git-2-0-changes-push-default-to- simple)

<comment><USER8> > The 'matching' option is the default behavior in Git 1.x.

Is Git 1.9.2 (latest binary release for Windows) actually Git 2.x? By definition, shouldn't 1.9 do matching rather than simple?

<comment><USER8> Downvoter, please comment on what you think I did wrong here? You clearly have been here long enough to get downvoting privileges but I guess you failed to learn proper etiquette? Maybe they ought to consider raising the bar to something like 1000 points instead of 500?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related, I'm sure many people here know this, but it's super useful for those that don't. To undo any uncommitted work and go back to the original state of the branch use: 'git checkout .'

<comment><USER10> I like doing a 'git stash' or 'git stash save deleteme' instead. That way if I realize a moment later that I needed anything, it's still available (if I haven't done a 'git stash drop' yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also useful:

        git checkout -

to switch to the previous branch. Similarily,

        git merge -

to merge the previous branch into the current branch.

</comment><comment><USER12> Since it looks like the author is idling in this thread:

I'm a enthusiastic git user, and I've ranted about a few git topics here: [http://gitdoctor.com/](http://gitdoctor.com/)

I also use the @gitdoctor twitter handle for helping people out in those moments of "oh shit, what is happening?!" with git :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> For people coming from TFS who might think stash is similar to shelve... stash is local. It does not go to your remote (origin?) unless you do some special gymnastics. I don't know if it is even officially supported to push a stash to remotes.

<comment><USER13> > I don't know if it is even officially supported to push a stash to remotes.

I usually just create a temporary branch that I push upstream if I want to save my 'stash'. Is there a use case I'm not thinking of where pushing a stash upstream is useful?

<comment><USER14> The only use casei can think of is not knowing how easy branching and merging is with git. Or someone coming from svn thinking branches take up a lot of disk space and time. Stashes are meant to be local.

Its pretty easy to turn one into a branch too if you feel you should make a stash available over the net.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This post was mostly misleading and unnecessary.

<comment><USER16> Even if that's true, you're talking like a dick.</comment></comment>


How a 17 year old girl won a hackathon - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/unforgettable-moments/a320774d20b5

<comment><USER2> tl;dr: "the same way as any 25 year old guy would have done, by having a good idea and the skill necessary to implement it"

Kind of depressing to think that this is "news", as if the idea of judging a programmer by their programming, and not by their gender, is a radical new idea...

<comment><USER3> Exactly what I was going to say.

I'm not impressed that she is a girl, because I don't care. I am, however, impressed that a 17 year old won. I love when younger people have the motivation and drive to be really great at something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I took my 13 y/o daughter to a non-competitive Windows Phone / Windows 8 one day hackathon a few months ago, thinking she would just enjoy seeing it and maybe play with a dev environment. She wound up building and presenting a minimal Windows Phone app. Now she's got the bug and wants to do more.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of discussion last time this was posted: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5634600>

</comment><comment><USER6> My Big Question about women in technical fields is more about why, in general, I see so few women who are genuinely curious about the world in which they live. I have _never_ heard a woman posit aloud how they put the graphics on the field of a football game, or how Facebook knows that they might know someone, or, fuck, how a microwave works.

This young girl was simply curious and inquisitive. It wasn't about brains or interest in technology; it was about asking questions and wondering.

So again I ask: why are so few women and girls inquisitive about their world?

<comment><USER7> Maybe they're uncomfortable openly expressing their curiosity in front of people (especially men) who are overeager to make generalizations about presumed correlations between gender and intellectual curiosity. Turning some questions back to you:

* Have you considered that these same people may have intellectual conversations that don't involve you?

* Is there anything wrong with expressing intellectual curiosity in a non-verbal format, or choosing not to express something that is thought?

* Would you like to be judged in the same tone for not caring about the underlying principles of politics? art? or fashion?

 _Note: I don't actually care about getting answers to these questions, but I won't let such shallow thinking go without response._

<comment><USER6> First question: No, because I'm a very inquisitive person and often bring up conversations that involve a heavy amount of curious observations.

Second: Of course not, but I tend to find people who _are_ inquisitive about the world like to talk about it.

Third: I suppose if there was a negative tone associated with it, I probably wouldn't, but I don't see how that has anythign to do with what I said

Note: If you don't care to have a conversation, then you're being overly sensitive and spouting off emotionally. I'd rather not have a conversation with someone who can't have a real conversation about real issues. Sometimes that takes looking at a situation objectively and asking uncomfortable questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Parenting done right.

</comment><comment><USER9> Her winning hack is a great idea. Any link to the app?

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm much more impressed about the age than the gender. The title of the article makes it sound that by virtue of being female she overcame a handicap. Kind of silly to think like that nowadays don't you think?

But good on her for being young and accomplished.

<comment><USER11> I'm impressed by neither. It's cool for her that she won but neither her gender nor her age should be really worth of mentioning (in a sensationalist manner).

Just look at what 15year old kids did with the demo scene in the 90s.

Not diminishing her (or anyone's) achievements but that kind of article is usually written by people who think that computers are hardcore black magic and only prodigies and people with a master in CS are able to program them.</comment></comment>


OpenSnitch: LittleSnitch clone for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.opensnitch.io <comment><USER2> Sadly it hasn't been updated for a while - yet still has many open bugs. Seems it's inactive.

I would love a linux equiv of LittleSnitch so I installed this last year but found too many bugs/issues.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the last commit was eight months ago —- yikes. There is an open issue about porting to a different language (it's currently written in Python) but that hasn't seemed to take-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks interesting conceptually. TIL about NFQUEUE in iptables. I've only run such tools on Mac/Windows and haven't really searched for something like this on Linux.

I know trying to do this on Windows isn't trivial. I currently use Windows 10 Firewall Control, but I don't really like how it fails the first connection attempt from an application instead of holding it until you select an option.

<comment><USER5> On windows, have you tried glasswire? It takes a similar idea/approach to little snitch in terms of notifying the user of new outbound connections and allowing for monitoring/blocking.

<comment><USER6> If you don't need fancy features, I would ditch GlassWire for something like [https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall](https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like this function should just be built in to the DE's, like windows (does mac have this too?). i guess doing it manually with (g)ufw isn't too hard, but it's another one of those things that i can't teach my parents.

btw, does anyone recognize the wm/theme in the screenshot?</comment>


How to create a code editor as fast as a videogame - <AUTHOR> based on recent comments here on HN let's collect thoughts on the challenges on the
why we have noticable 120ms - 500 ms reaction times in code editors while we have fluidly running raytracing in games
and how to overcome them,  the why everything is electron based, and so on. Let this be a fruitful discussion.
I'm using SpaceVim on a 6gen X1 Carbon - and I'm verry pissed off by the performance, still dont want to miss all the gooodies, still use it every day. <comment><USER2> This talk by John Carmack talks about lag and responsiveness in games [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHLpKzUxjGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHLpKzUxjGk)</comment>


Why was MegaUpload really shut down? - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/111314089359991626869/posts/HQJxDRiwAWq#111314089359991626869/posts/HQJxDRiwAWq

<comment><USER2> I think it's a bit of a stretch. The FBI had been investigating the MegaEmpire for years. If anything, their plan to legitimatize their business was a reaction to the inevitable raid, not the other way around. Conspiracy theories make great link bait, but it's ridiculous to believe that somebody at UMG called somebody at the FBI and said "those gosh darn do-gooders at MegaUpload want to take down our evil empire and offer artists 90%, they must be stopped!" and the FBI complied.

Anyways, this made me laugh.

> "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey > business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Yeah, they tested it alright.

<comment><USER3> > but it's ridiculous to believe that somebody at UMG called somebody at the > FBI and said "those gosh darn do-gooders at MegaUpload want to take down our > evil empire and offer artists 90%, they must be stopped!" and the FBI > complied.

After years of exposure to American media, I actually find this relatively easy to believe as far as conspiracy theories go.

<comment><USER4> Very unlikely, if you want some more background read the indictment (actually very interesting) in its raw glory here: [http://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/files/images/78786408-Meg...](http://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/files/images/78786408-Mega- Indictment.pdf)

It certainly changed my opinion on the whole matter.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the link. I started to read the court case and to be honest, the wording and descriptions really rubbed me the wrong way. I only read the first 7 or so pages.

The more I read about the case, the more I feel that Megaupload did not break the law.

Here's the best evidence against Megaupload that I can see:

* Questionable characters (criminal background)

* Obnoxious Lifestyle (Kim DotCom, license plates, etc.)

* Loads of illegal content available

The only one of these items that could be a crime is whether the site broke the law in providing incentives to reward popular content which often happened to be illegal.

As far as I can tell, the following is true:

* Megaupload rewarded popular content even if it was illegal

* Megaupload took down all illegal content upon request following DCMA

* The Megaupload employees did not seek out or upload illegal content.

If my reasoning is correct, then Megaupload did not break the law. They followed DCMA.

The scariest thing for me about this is the wording of this complaint and the ease at which its participants were criminalized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is stupid and wrong. The investigation into MegaUpload took two years. This post wants me to believe the US government convinced the New Zealand government to perform a 70+ person raid in two weeks? The government can't give authorization to someone to tie their shoe in under two weeks!

More importantly, this is an opinion piece with zero facts or evidence posted by a freaking high school student. Why in the hell is this nonsense being posted to HN?

<comment><USER7> _"Why in the hell is this nonsense being posted to HN?"_

I think it's a very interesting business model. One way to kill the movie and music industry is to give artists a better place to sell there art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think you only have to look at the indictment to see why they were shut down. Whilst it's an interesting point, and perhaps if the mega empire had attempted to legitimize their business a lot quicker then the indictment would never have been put together, I simply think this falls into the realms of conspiracy theory.

I have posted the full Indictment as a news story, with highlights, for those that are interested in the actual reason for their shut down: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3487808>

</comment><comment><USER9> aside - is there a way to remove the stupid, fat search bar from the top of the page, or at least let it scroll with the rest of the page. I'm a habitual space-to-page-up user, and this type of design means I have to scroll back a few lines each time.

I know, their site they can do what they like and all, but it's messing with my muscle memory :)</comment>


Apple patents a way to transform your iPhone or iPad into a MacBook - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/03/23/apple-iphone-ipad-macbook-dock-patent/#LwzaSTaaygqf <comment><AUTHOR> What if Emirates put one of these in each seat so you would just have to plug in your phone to be productive?

Or a dual Android/iPhone version?</comment>


RailsConf 2008 - Video Interview with Phusion - <AUTHOR> http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/6/24/railsconf-2008-video-interview-with-phusion <comment><USER2> Great insight on their part - (rails memory footprint) - I wonder if it can be applied elsewhere - i.e. to mongrel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, they're just kids.

<comment><USER4> Which is great. This is an industry where age or tenure are irrelevant. Anyone can make an impact.

If I may, a quote from one of my favorite movies, Antitrust: "Anybody working in a garage can put us out of business"</comment></comment>


We can confirm that there was a successful 51% attack on Ethereum Classic - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/etherchain_org/status/1082329360948969472 <comment><USER2> This is inevitable. Ethereum Classic (ETC) isn't the only currency such attacks have been successful on. The site [https://www.crypto51.app/](https://www.crypto51.app/) puts the cost of running a 51% attack on ETC at ~$5k per hour. The incentive for running these attacks for profit becomes higher as the market cap of these coins increases, making long-term 'investment' in these coins nonsensical.

<comment><USER3> Really surprised by the relatively low cost of attacking Bitcoin with 51% for one hour - claimed to be about $300k.

Is this number for real? I can think of many actors for whom this is just small change, and who might have incentive to break trust in the Bitcoin network by successfully performing such an attack.

<comment><USER4> Seems like it would be very difficult to make back your $300k with a double- spend in one hour, based both on my intuition and the fact that it doesn't appear to be happening.

<comment><USER5> If I'm reading it correctly you need 600k to have a 50/50 chance at double spending. So say you acquire 500k in bitcoin and you spend $600k to have your chance to double spend the 500k. Assuming your $600k in mining actually gets you $600k in bitcoins mined the expected result is.

50% chance spend 1.1 million get 1.1 million back minus substantial overhead. Say 10% overhead although I have no idea what the actual overhead would be. So negative 100k.

50% chance spend 1.1 million + 100k overhead get 1.6 million back. Net gain of 400k

So average gain of 200k assuming you can find a market to move that much bitcoin that quickly and always assuming your creativity isn't rewarded with jail time.

People with substantial resources can find way to make money that are repeatable and don't involve finding new and exciting ways to go to jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing, this blockchain technology really just keeps on giving. I have to say, it's quite entertaining to watch. It's pretty much a car crash happening in slow motion at this point. At least it provides something else to nerd joke about by the watercooler that isn't brexit for once.

<comment><USER7> That's what it was like in 2016. I remember seeing the headline for the DAO hack on HN back then and thinking "Wow, good thing I didn't invest in this Ethereum thing". Someone had told me about it in 2015, I took a quick glance and passed thinking "Looks like a scam." Then 2017 happened and the joke was on me. Then 2018 happened and the joke was on them again.

New technologies are _always_ shitshows when they get started. I remember DoubleClick ads hanging every copy of Netscape they ran on, ActiveX controls that could pwn your computer just by viewing a webpage, and unusable college Internet because the SQL Slammer worm had infected 50% of computers on campus and would reinfect anything as soon as it was plugged back in. The last was in 2003, _14 years_ after the Internet was introduced - put on the Bitcoin timeline, that's 4 years in the future, assuming cryptocurrency is adopted as fast as the Internet (and there're good reasons to believe it won't be).

The thing about disruptive technologies is that people continue to use them _despite_ how shitty the technology is - they're so desperate for a solution that they put up with a solution that basically doesn't work.

<comment><USER8> "New technologies are always shitshows when they get started. "

A key difference is most of the new techs like Internet, email, Paypal, and so on improved on what people already had in a way that delivered obvious value. They also came with problems. Whereas, nobody I know in real life wants the drawbacks of these cryptocurrencies that come with giving up the benefits of their current, centralized offerings. The only folks I know out here doing crypto are speculators (esp day traders). That's the difference.

Now, if they wanted to solve those problems, they'd start with whatever tech/law/orgs already worked, identify their problems, and then mitigate them using proven methods. So, we're looking at credit unions, non-profits, or public-benefit companies chartered to make sure they do specific good things and don't do specific bad things. The most important stuff at least. These can be in the licenses and contracts, too, for re-enforcement. Then, centralized systems with decentralized checking of what's exchanged a la SWIFT all using existing high-performance tech we know how to secure. Open protocols and agreements for how disputes will be resolved in situations using decentralized mode with experts from both centralized and decentralized models weighing in on that. I've been talking about that in Gerard's threads on Lobsters:

[https://lobste.rs/s/wxqkyj/bitcoin_s_stupendous_power_waste_...](https://lobste.rs/s/wxqkyj/bitcoin_s_stupendous_power_waste_is_green#c_mygfqo)

[https://lobste.rs/s/opge2r/electricity_consumed_by_bitcoin#c...](https://lobste.rs/s/opge2r/electricity_consumed_by_bitcoin#c_cds5tt)

I can't find the other ones sense the search feature is limited.

"they're so desperate for a solution that they put up with a solution that basically doesn't work. "

That's true when there's a need. This is part of a hype cycle pushing stuff people don't need to replace stuff that would meet their needs fine. Accelerated by massive amounts of money being thrown all over this area. Totally different kind of thing. The stuff that bubbles, bankruptcies, and broken dreams are made of.

<comment><USER9> > A key difference is most of the new techs like Internet, email, Paypal, and > so on improved on what people already had in a way that delivered obvious > value.

I'd argue that for most people the value was only obvious afterwards.

To put email in perspective, early adopters had to choose between what they already knew and all the hurdles involved in connecting to the internet and using the new technology. There was also a good chance the people they were trying to communicate with didn't even have email. Outside of a few niche areas, email provided no obvious value to the vast majority of people for decades.

<comment><USER8> The thing I was getting at is, if you had a computer and Internet, then email would be a free, fast alternative to traditional mail. That has obvious benefit. Whereas, these currencies are volatile, slower, often dont allow charge backs, use more energy, and accepted at fewer places. Worse in every way to checking accounts and credit cards. Esp if we have multiple cards or accounts to reduce risk of single institution.

<comment><USER10> _Worse in every way to checking accounts and credit cards._

Quite a few Venezuelans would beg to differ about that.

<comment><USER11> So for cryptocurrencies to be the "better solution" you just need your entire country to have a total meltdown lasting multiple years?

<comment><USER12> > you just need your entire country to have a total meltdown

That happens more often than one might think. There are quite a few countries, that are currenly on the brink of collapse, so it is not unlikely that one or more of them will adopt a cryptocurrency some time in the not to far-off future.

<comment><USER11> I agree, but it's a super narrow niche for most people. Definitely one much smaller than the current hype for blockchains.

<comment><USER9> While I don't necessarily disagree with you on that, and I do think a lot of the hype comes from speculation, its worth noting that many ubiquitous technologies we take for granted started as a narrow niche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An update from eth classic amount linked in that thread: (not sure what they mean by selfish mining...)

Regarding the recent mining events. We may have an idea of where the hashrate came from. ASIC manufacturer Linzhi confirmed testing of new 1,400/Mh ethash machines #projectLavaSnow

\- Most likely selfish mining (Not 51% attack)

\- Double spends not detected (Miner dumped bocks)

<comment><USER14> Coinbase mentions a few reorgs without double spends, and a quite a few more with: [https://blog.coinbase.com/ethereum-classic-etc-is- currently-...](https://blog.coinbase.com/ethereum-classic-etc-is-currently- being-51-attacked-33be13ce32de?gi=cb294c058a6d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What does this mean?

(Not all of us know a whole lot about how crypto works or why this is good or bad and what it means for our investments)

<comment><USER14> The most typical way to profit from this, is to have quite a bit of ETC, and then sell it on an exchange or buy something expensive. This transaction would then end up on the block chain, and eventually be considered secure / part of history.

Privately, you are building a chain where said transaction did _not_ occur. Because your hash rate is high enough, you are generating blocks at at least the pace of the public chain. You keep mining your chain (without your transaction) privately until the bank transfer from the exchange goes through, or you are sure whatever you bought is on its way. Then you broadcast your private chain as soon as it has at least one block more than the public chain and voila, you have your ETC back and the USD/EUR/crypto you sold it for (or the product you bought). You can have your cake and eat it too. This is because the rule of most cryptocurrencies is that the longest chain is the truth, and everyone mines on top of the longest chain. If a longer chain appears out of nowhere, all miners will jump on top of this one. There is no such thing as "finality" in most cryptocurrencies, where something becomes actually (read: much more) irreversible.

Of course, doing this only makes sense if what you gain outweighs the costs of performing such an attack.

Note that you typically _cannot_ steal coins from specific wallets, as you do not have the keys to those coins. You can however censor transactions that you may not want, but the above is a common way to benefit from a 51% attack.

<comment><USER16> so to be safe, an exchange should require more confirmations depending on size of deposit. Basically the number of confirmations you could finance an attack for with the deposit.

<comment><USER17> Shouldn't any sale/transaction be considered "not final" (goods can't be shipped, for example) until the official chain has progressed to a point where you can be sure the cost of producing a censored fork is _higer_ than the transaction in question? That is: you buy something expensive then it might not ship for a month or two.

I guess you could buy a hundred gadgets at $100 each from a hundred places in one day and then produce a fork censoring your whole $10k shopping spree?

<comment><USER18> you can't predict that - the alternative chain is mined privately and it is a matter of amount at stake how long this mining will continue.

<comment><USER17> But in the publicly visible (longest, official) chain, can't I estimate the effort that was used to mine from a certain transaction up to the head? Say the transaction I want to hide is b, then the attacker would need to mine a longer alternative chain (c', d'...). If transaction b was for $1000 and we can estimate that the mining of the visible chain c...f is at least $2k with a conservative estimate, can't we estimate that the attackers chain c'...g' must cost something at least vaguely proportoinal to that as well? Is it not even possible to make a conservative guesstimate of cost-vs-chain-length?

        a<-b<-c<-d<-e<-f
         \
          c'<-d'<-e'<-f'<-g'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think I would be satisfied with the distributed consensus model in these blockchain systems if someone could solve the non-repudiation problem.

In many of these blockchain systems, the 51% attacks only applies to money in motion. I can't move all of your funds out of 'your account' unless I have stolen your wallet, and if I have stolen your wallet I don't need to change anything else about the network. I can just spend on your behalf.

Lacking that, I can convince you you got paid for services and then claw them back by making the network change their mind after the fact. I can repudiate all payments to you with a 51% attack, by voting again on what transactions just finished.

Congress has rules about votes. If you have a quorum, everybody sticks with the outcome. If you don't show up, you don't get a vote. To make that work, you have rules. A quorum is defined and static. Obstruction is not allowed - no secret votes, no locking the doors.

It may be as simple as this: When my transaction is settled I need to know the health of the system. If some definition of quorum is met I know my transaction can't be hijacked. If the network was degraded a revote is possible. I need to wait for more confirmation before rendering services.

<comment><USER20> That idea of having quorums voting to establish consistency is essentially what Stellar does in their consensus protocol: [https://www.stellar.org/developers/guides/concepts/scp.html](https://www.stellar.org/developers/guides/concepts/scp.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> According to [1], running a 51% attack for an hour is incredibly cheap for most currencies. Why doesn't this happen more often, or is running the attack for an hour not a long enough time frame to double spend?

[1] [https://www.crypto51.app/](https://www.crypto51.app/)

<comment><USER22> I think it's just not worth the time. What do you do when you've successfully run a 51% attack? You go on an exchange and double spend the money, which means you have to maintain the 51% attack for longer than min # of confirmations for this currency on said exchange. And even after that, most exchanges (in NA at least, can't say much about intl) require KYC.

<comment><USER2> Exactly, it's not worth the time. And once the attack is underway, it'll be detected and everyone can simply increase the number of confirmations needed before finalising.

<comment><USER23> How is the 51% attack detected?

<comment><USER24> It's really obvious once the new chain is broadcasted. "Honest" miners switch over to mine on the deepest chain as soon as they become aware of it. It's very rare to even see a 2-block conflict. When you see a large N-block conflict then it's obvious there's a 51% attack going on.

<comment><USER25> But isn't the point of the whole thing that you do not broadcast it until after you are done? So yes, it's obvious in hindsight, but the damage will be done.

<comment><USER24> The question was how do you detect it. You obviously can't detect it until it's broadcasted because until then it's all happening in secret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's okay, just fork it. Ethereum Classic Classic.

<comment><USER27> Ethereum Classic is not a fork. It's precisely called classic because it's ETH the one that forked out of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure I think the word 'attack' is right here. Crypto by design says that if anyone controls over half the network, they get to say what happens. Sounds like democracy, specifically the 'tyranny of the majority': over half the network votes that they get more of your money, so they do!

Of course if you're in the other 49% you might feel attacked, but ultimately this is working as intended.

<comment><USER29> The intent is a currency which can be reliably used for exchange of goods and services. This would seem to cause a failure of the basic reason for its existence.

<comment><USER30> The intent of democracy was a sensible way of running countries but it seems to show similar failures. This is leading presently to quite a lot of odd debate in the UK on how having another democratic vote would be a betrayal of democracy and similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think one's opinion on this depends on what you believe Ethereum Classic to be. I think of it as a testnet variant. So $5,000 _per hour_ to mess with a test framework... that actually seems pretty robust to me.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hm, doesn't even seem to be that expensive (ETC $4,996, ETH $107,536) to run a 51% attack: [https://www.crypto51.app/](https://www.crypto51.app/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Some updates. Money stolen about $1.1m:

>exchange has since uncovered another 12 attacks that "included double spends, [now] totaling 219,500 ETC ($1.1 million) [https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/08/ehtereum- classic-...](https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/01/08/ehtereum- classic-51-percent-attack/)

Cost of attack according to [https://www.crypto51.app/](https://www.crypto51.app/) about $5k

</comment><comment><USER33> Doesnt this mean that the coin is worthless when people are able to manipulate the value of coins like this? Why would you still invest in these coins when you know this is possible.

<comment><USER30> They stole $1.1m out of a cap of $542m approx and will hopefully be more careful next time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> "A vote occurred and in July 2016 it was decided to implement a hard fork in the Ethereum code [...].

Ethereum Classic came into existence when some members of the Ethereum community rejected the hard fork on the grounds of "immutability", the principle that the blockchain cannot be changed, and decided to keep using the unforked version of Ethereum."

\-- Wikipedia

</comment><comment><USER35> I feel like this is getting so many upvotes because people are confusing Ethereum Classic with Ethereum.

</comment><comment><USER36> Mining pools reported it at least 15hours ago [https://twitter.com/pool2miners/status/1082157492875022337](https://twitter.com/pool2miners/status/1082157492875022337)

</comment><comment><USER37> Given enough time, chains behind the lead position will always succumb to this attack vector. Ethereum's design was flawed in other ways, but at least now it's clearly best used as the sandbox that it is.

<comment><USER38> You are aware that Ethereum Classic is not the same as the much, much higher- hashpower Ethereum chain, right?

<comment><USER37> The mining on that chain is largely pointless, as it's directly controlled by Vitalik. If I held assets on either, it'd be on the chain that didn't hard- fork to reverse a single user's transaction.

<comment><USER39> Mining without knowing that miners collectively have the control is largely pointless.

> If I held assets on either, it'd be on the chain that didn't hard-fork to > reverse a single user's transaction.

Enjoy using Ethereum Classic then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> An unbrokechain less on the world.

</comment><comment><USER41> This could have been prevented with Komodo's delayed Proof of Work (dPoW) Security for about $250.

dPoW explained here. [https://blog.komodoplatform.com/delayed-proof-of-work- explai...](https://blog.komodoplatform.com/delayed-proof-of-work- explained-9a74250dbb86)</comment>


Am I the Only One Who Thinks Mailbox Sucks? - <AUTHOR> http://nibletz.com/2013/02/25/earth-thinks-mailbox-sucks/

<comment><USER2> Well, it depends on your email usage. Mailbox imposes a certain way to deal with email. If you don't like that way, you will hate Mailbox (it's not too flexible). For now, Mailbox's way is fine for me, until someone comes up with a better email system.

</comment><comment><USER3> No after reading that he's right. Anyone who gets more than 10 emails a day will probably agree</comment>


The Boss Who Laid Himself Off - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/hbreditors/2009/07/the_boss_who_laid_himself_off.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-WEEKLY_HOTLIST-_-JUL_2009-_-HOTLIST0720 <comment><USER2> > My brother-in-law "Bob" (not his real name, because I promised not to > identify him)

That sentence seems counter-intuitive. It's hardly difficult to track such a firm relation.....</comment>


Mitigating Spectre and Other Security Threats: Cloudflare Workers Security Model - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/mitigating-spectre-and-other-security-threats-the-cloudflare-workers-security-model/ <comment><USER2> This post is a tremendous resource, worth it for the Spectre intro section alone. The most chilling part of the article to me:

> A dirty secret that the industry doesn't like to admit: no one has "fixed" > Spectre. Not even when using heavyweight virtual machines.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is insanely awesome.</comment>


"Customer support at Tesla is even worse than I claimed last time" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1217471369350348807 <comment><USER2> There needs to be a process within customer support teams in which they can escalate problems if the rules feel wrong to them.

If a purchase was unintentional and very large ($4,333) a refund should be offered. This feels like common sense to me.

That's a large amount of money to lose. Providing annoyingly bad customer service to people and then signing off with "Warm Regards" is likely to make enemies of customers.

Edit: Somebody mentioned that Taleb might be bullshiting about there being no confirmation, however, to be honest, I still think at this price level, customer support should be able to refund purchases. Keep your customers happy (and they will eventually purchase upgrades from you)!

<comment> crooked-v Also, Tesla upgrades are universally either software unlocks ("boost mode") or promises of future hardware/software upgrades ("full self driving"), as far as I know, and so should all be entirely reversible in an automated way.

I think of Apple, Microsoft, and Steam for comparison, each of which have software stores that allow refunds for purchases, some of which could potentially be pretty significant. For example, Train Simulator has about $10,000 in DLC [1], and a single bundle purchase of all of it would still qualify for Steam's two-weeks-from-purchase/less-than-two-hours-of-play refund policy.

[1]: [https://ganker.com/train-simulator-game-all-dlc-total- cost-a...](https://ganker.com/train-simulator-game-all-dlc-total-cost- almost-10000-usd/)

<comment><USER3> Nitpick: while I agree that "full self driving" is kind of a promise and that all those charges should be reversible, you still get immediate feature unlocks today immediately after paying for it, like navigate on autopilot/smart summon.

<comment> crooked-v > you still get immediate feature unlocks today

So... turn those off again, then.

<comment><USER4> So I can just _borrow_ boost mode to impress my dates and turn it off afterwards? For free?

<comment><USER5> There have been entire TV shows build around the premise of not paying a cent with "borrowed" cars, clothes, etc. . Hell there are millions lost by people ordering clothes on Amazon and sending them back when they don't like them. Tesla stands out badly if it cannot even offer doing so one time.

<comment><USER6> I think the clothes-on-amazon thing is fair and a cost of doing business, though. If my only choices, as a customer, were "all sales are final"-buy- online or go in-store, I would 100% go in-store. I would never, ever buy what could be a brick in a box online if I wasn't allowed to return it if it turned out to be a brick in a box.

And clothes have another dimension (heh, literally) of size/fit/feel. I think it's totally reasonable to buy a shirt online, put it on, think "wow this material is awful" and return it. That's what you can do in-store, and it's not your fault that that loop is a lot more expensive for online retailers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Complaint was from Nassim Nicholas Taleb ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb))

Elon responded - [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217493904297058304](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217493904297058304)

<comment><USER8> It's shouldn't take twitter and involvement of the CEO to get basic customer service.

<comment><USER9> This is not a Tesla only problem, mind you. Most companies I've had the (dis-)pleasure of working with lately seem to be lacking in this area. It isn't until the brass steps in that a decision can be made to unlock an outcome.

<comment><USER8> I've heard it a lot of Telsa owners where I live. And for something that costs on avg 50k+ it shouldn't be this bad.

<comment><USER9> I can't argue with you there. My previous Fifth Wheel RV had a sinking floor issue that took months for the manufacturer to take seriously. It required me to press the issue many times before they got me an appointment. That was a 60k purchase.

<comment><USER8> Im not saying Tesla is the only company that does this. RV dealers are renown for doing the same thing. That is why everyone recommends buying an RV that is 3 years old because everything should be fixed by then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When customer support resorts to justification by analogy it's not gone well.

<comment><USER11> I was shocked by the middle school level English grammar coming from the company's official customer support. Who knew you could get so much wrong in seven sentences! Bad image for a luxury product.

<comment><USER12> I would imagine that email support is outsourced abroad. Less likelihood of customers getting irate over accent/communication issues, and easier to respond to customers at all times of the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _" flipping a few bits to refund a digital asset is as hard as refunding a house" what a joke_

</comment><comment><USER14> TIL Tesla sells DLCs for their vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER15> What software does Tesla sell that costs $4000?

<comment> crooked-v There are several software-unlock 'upgrades' they sell, like the $2000 'boost mode' [1].

[1]: [https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a30294938/tesla- model-...](https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a30294938/tesla- model-3-acceleration-boost-upgrade/)

<comment><USER16> Wow that just made med like Tesla a lot less. I know it's "just business" and all that but several thousand dollars for "unlockables" reminds of the way gaming has taken a turn for the worse.

<comment><USER17> I never understood this. If you want the latest tech, you should be expected to pay your share of the the R&D/materials that went into creating it.

<comment><USER18> Tiered pricing is a standard way to allow more price-conscious customers to get the product, while still charging higher prices to those who are willing to pay for the best features.

A big fraction of product cost is the overhead of setting up the manufacturing pipeline, so often the product tiers will be very small or even software changes to the exact same object.

This doesn't strike me as unfair. It's helped me recently, when I bought the lowest tier iPad pro (I don't care about storage or built-in cellular, and I want the smallest one). If someone wants to pay more for those things, let them. If it came full-price with all those features bundled, I simply wouldn't have bought it at all.

<comment><USER19> I once (like 15 years ago) bought a base model car and the buttons on the radio didn't work right. This was after the era of standard DIN radios, and it wasn't broken, it just didn't do what you told it to. So I took it to the dealer and after initial disbelief, they fixed it.

I realized what happened (they didn't explain in so many words) was that to be as efficient as possible, the difference between the mid level and base level trims was a different plastic faceplate with different labels, and a software switch. So mine apparently had the switch set for a different trim and all that was needed was to change it. But the exact same electronics were installed in all the cars.

<comment> o-__-o Still today. Audi users grab a VAGCOM and enable new features that where disabled by the dealer. Fords disable several cosmetic features based on initial programming that can be overwritten with a change of a single hex value. Etc etc

Once I rented an Audi Q5 from Avis, fancy with leather seats and the touchscreen stereo and all that jazz... but the Nav didn't work. I didn't pay for the Nav addon, but the car comes standard with Nav. Looked for the Sd card, and it was there. I figured I'd spend some time after the client to figure out why... well before I even left, while I was putting my bags in the trunk I noticed a panel missing and a cable dangling. I plugged the cable back in, suddenly the car chimes and Nav appears on the stereo.

Don't underestimate the lack of knowledge by people and the wolves who prey on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> But in spite of these problems, surveys find that Tesla owner satisfaction is very high.

Maybe the service problems effect a relatively small number of owners? Maybe quality has been getting better, and service has been too? Or maybe Teslas have outstanding positive qualities that offset the service deficiencies? Maybe other auto makers also have equally bad service? Or a bit of all of these possible explanations?

</comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone confirm it's this easy to make the purchase?

I'd rather enjoy discovering that Nicholas Taleb was bullshitting here...

<comment><USER22> This actually happened to my friend over the weekend who just bought a Model 3 Perf on a lease, and will only have the car for a few months until he moves out of country.

His phone purchased the $7k full self driving feature while it was in his pocket from the Tesla app.

Apparently Android has this feature where you don't have to do an unlock / purchase confirm if the phone is near your your body.

Contact to customer support said they can't do chargebacks and to contact the bank instead.

He managed to get the charge reversed at the bank level on Monday.

AFAIK he still has FSD enabled and we don't know what Tesla intends to do once the bank takes back the money from them.

<comment><USER23> Reversing the charges through the bank is a bold move given that Tesla has essentially complete control over your car, and the supercharger stations.

<comment><USER22> Yes, that was our concern as well, but customer support explicitly told him to go through his bank...

(He asked me for advice on this entire ordeal because I'm also a Model 3 owner, but I've always made my upgrade purchases through the web UI and not the app.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Surprisingly, Tesla hasn't optimized the processes for handling rare errors that affect 5 out of every 100,000 customers.

<comment> crooked-v Wanting a refund within a reasonable grace period ("immediately afterwards" definitely counts) isn't a 'rare error', even if the purchase itself could be considered such.

<comment><USER25> In the UK it's a statutory right - with digital downloads you have 14 days to either cancel for a refund or explicitly consent (i.e. opt-in, not out).

<comment><USER26> It's not just digital goods.

In the EU all "distance selling" purchases (internet, phone) must be fully refundable within 14 days of taking delivery.

The seller may only charge for incurred costs, like shipping.

<comment><USER27> The exception to this is customized goods, say for example a custom made piece of furniture or jewelry. I think even stuff like engraving counts as custom made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I feel like Tesla has optimized it's customer support for rich people who don't bat an eye at a few thousand here and there. I say this as a model 3 owner rather shocked at random costs that pop up from time to time...

<comment> Stephen-E Like what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reason #43546 why I'm NEVER buying a Tesla.

The laughably childish comparison to a contractor building an addition is beyond absurd and insulting. Tesla did not rip open the car and physically bolt on additions. No labour was performed and no materials were consumed. It simply flipped a few flag bits or downloaded an archive for $4,333. That should be very simple to reverse and refund, even if the software was used briefly.

Going back to that stupid contractor analogy it would be the equivalent of buying a house with extra rooms locked by the contractor. Doesn't sound like your house anymore. And that took me all of 10 seconds to think up. Try again, rep.

And lastly, what kind of customer service is that? What kind of company lets their reps fabricate awful analogies and patronize customers? That was just a really nice way of saying "fuck you, moron".</comment>


Ask HN: How you validate idea before implementing it? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I saw this recently and it's quite interesting <http://appsumo.com/google- docs-unleashed-free/>

I never thought of that, but yeah, things do not have to be very complex or pretty to test it out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fake doors. I saw @jesskah speak about these at an Ignite talk, and she did a great job. Here's the link (<http://bit.ly/lQpnOY>), but essentially it's putting up a "door" that leads to nowhere in your application, and you can see how many people try to check it out. Kind of like baiting for fish.

Obviously you don't want to do this on a large scale, but check out the talk, it's only 5 minutes and she can explain it much better than I can.

</comment><comment><USER4> In a word, test.

Testing is what you should be doing for everything, and that doesn't always mean BEFORE implementation. Some of the best feedback you can get is through implementing and THEN validating. If it works, keep it. If it fails, lose it.

If you're worried about sinking time into an idea that you're not sure of, talk to people. Build out a single landing page with the core ideas on it and see if people bite. Test. Test. Test.

</comment><comment><USER5> My first step is to write all my ideas in a small notepad as soon as I have them and then I get them out of my head. Then after a month I check these ideas and see if any of them look even better with this distance in time thus validating it with myself.

I have no formula for what's next though.

</comment><comment><USER6> 0) Set up an email invite request with one line of your offer of idea.

1) Look for competition.

2) Talk to friends/relatives.

3) Talk to target market.

4) Check 0). after some time.

Ongoing) Reiterate on feedback. Maybe a black top border is 'in' like HN is doing just now.

<comment><USER7> Aside: the black top border on HN is to do with <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you come up with side project ideas? - <AUTHOR> Everyone says to scratch your own itch and build something you would use.
What if nothing itches? Maybe I just live a simple life and don't feel I have a need for much.
What I do have is an itch to build something.
Unfortunately my job has changed so much over the years I hardly do any type of development work anymore. My job is shifting more into an Ad Farmer role.
Recently I have begun work on an internal system for work and it has reignited my love for it. Every time I get in this mode I have an urge to build something but I hit a roadblock when coming up with an idea.
I don't care to build yet another picture/messaging/food review/ web app.
So my question is, how do you come up with ideas for side projects? <comment><USER2> Talk to your market if nothing itches for you.

You may not have issues, but a lot of other people do.

Especially in more mature markets, you'll even find markets for these niche wants (think instagram, twitter) or as it is known as "first-world problems".

A good example is that recent front-page HN link about "I still haven't found the perfect photo organization tool yet" and through that, you'll have 10K users (if marketed well enough).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice.

I guess a first world problem for me would be the way private messaging works on Twitter. I wish there was a way to have a private group messaging feature. I find myself having to screen cap a conversation back and forth between recipients.

<comment><USER2> I'd avoid twitter for the single reason being their API user-limit.

If your service explodes somehow, you'll easily end up at 75,000 users with the stress that your product will die as user 100,001 will not be able to join.

Also, you need to determine whether your problem is either "a proper product" or just a "feature request".

In the case of the above, it seems like just a feature request.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, that sounds like a feature more than a product, plus I would hate to have to rely on third parties.

I want to build a product, something useful.

<comment><USER2> Try this:

[http://ideasquares.com/about](http://ideasquares.com/about)

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing I have been doing lately is going through sites like Freelancer.com and browsing their projects section. I have been looking for "build a website" projects and gathering ideas this way. Feels a little dirty since they are not my ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm the opposite, I always see opportunities. I'm marketing side of the world so I probably look at things a little differently from many here. My biggest challenges are time & reasonably priced development. I work fairly long hours and have a young family so pursing things is hard and there is only so much finance I can commit given my income is better than average but I'm not exactly rolling it it. I'm trying to find some affordable developer(s) I could fund to work for me in more affordable countries like India/Philippines/Indonesia but it's hard to find good people cheaply. I've used a guys in India for basic projects but found the quality and attention to detail on work terrible. The time cost to me on unessential back and forth was huge. I'm considering trying to find someone in the Philippines next as I've heard they can deliver better work and hopefully work a bit more independently... realised I'm ranting a bit...

But for me, I spot ideas in day to day life. I generally see market opening when I find personal frustration with something. Or see something existing that could be used in a new market. The latter can be good. Look at a few new hot start-ups and think to yourself, how would this work in an entirely new markets & user-case?

I keep a notebook when I spot these gaps/opportunities in the market that could be challenged. It can be frustrating when 6/12 months later you see companies forming in these niches.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great! I work for a newspaper and have thought about talking to some of our sales reps about any frustrations their clients may have expressed. I figure this would be a good place to start collecting ideas.

"Look at a few new hot start-ups and think to yourself, how would this work in an entirely new markets & user-case?" I will definitely do this to try and spot some opportunities. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting question. Going to have a shot at answering it.

You said:

>What if nothing itches?

Then the obvious thing is, find things that itch, or rather, pain, others. (It's been said on this site before. more than once.) Find processes that people do as part of their work or business, in which they have some pain, i.e. some area with friction, that potentially can be done better, using software (if they don't use any, or better software, if they do). Go to some meetups. And I don't mean tech meetups. We techies (not all) tend to live in our own echo chamber or bubble; I like to combine the two words and call it a bubble chamber, just for the heck of it - not really the same as this one: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_chamber](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_chamber)

So I mean business networking events. Talk to people there, introduce yourself, ask them about their business, and at least some of them will probably tell you about some problems they are having, without you even having to ask. I've seen it myself in real life. Some of the projects I've worked on, I interacted with people on the (factory) shop floor, and they often talked about issues with the existing software or with their work. Some of those issues could be made better with software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the ideas. There is a small group that organizes mixers around here, I'll make an effort to get out there again and network.

<comment><USER4> You're welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a lot of ways to come up with an idea if nothing itches:

1- Learn a new technology and you realize there is a missing feature in between 2 technologies and now you can full-fill it and make it happen: it can be a Rails gem, Node package, some library, or a service.

2- Try talking to peers and folks who you feel are smarter than you, if you can be influenced by them, they can give you a good insight on what solution is missing around you or in a specific field.

3- CHECKOUT PG's essay on coming up with startup ideas: [http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

4- DON'T push it, don't focus on coming up with an idea just for the sake of doing something. Once you let that go, some ideas will come to you.

5- Go to communities like /rails or /webdev or just go on Github and do a random search and see what people have built and left it alone, maybe you can fork something then rebuilt it or go on top of it.

6- I personally endurance through books, tweets, blogs, hackersnews, reddit, quora, github, my client startups every f#$kin content I can find when I get excited and want to build something :)! So I'm not sure if that is the smartest way to do it all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all are great suggestions, I will do some homework this week and see if I can get the ball rolling on something.

<comment><USER5> If you were still getting 404 idea not found, ping me maybe I can share some random thoughts :)!

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do! Thanks I appreciate it. More than likely I will take you up on that offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Jesus, I have more ideas that I can count, totally overflow my brain. Of course the first version is dazed and confused but over time some of those (those on whom I spend most time on) seem to come out somewhat polished...

IT is only a hobby to me, but all in all, until now I'm a sucker when it comes to implementations. Most of my projects are abandoned the moment I realize that _I solved the hard part and now I have to do boring part_ (e.g. the hard part is the back-end and boring part is the front-end which never gets finished/polished/presenable-to-thir-parties).

The best way to come up with an idea, is to try to _automate_ something in your daily life. Not something that _bothers_ or something that _someone else will find attractive_. Doesn't even have to make sense to others, up to the point where it is ready.

Anyway good luck :-)

ps. To give an _idea_ , I had thought of 4Square-like idea long before 4Sq. And at least 5-other things that turn-out to be startups and then big corps. But keep in mind that ideas are cheap, implementation costs.

</comment><comment><USER7> Work on someone else's side project. I think we too often ignore this as a possibility. There are tons of people out there with an awesome vision/idea, but without the resources to achieve it. Find an awesome open-source project that is busting at the seams with issues/PRs and lend a hand.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a lot of great suggestions in this topic. Here's what I want to add:

> "Serious Creativity" by Edward de Bono - excellent book on this topic. > Explains a lot about inventing new ideas.

> /r/SomebodyMakeThis - subreddit where people post ideas for apps and > projects.

> Look for new emerging markets/technologies. For example recently I've > discovered for myself Ubuntu Touch - mobile OS thar is awesome and, I > believe, is the future. So basically you can take any existing idea of an > app for android/iOS and implement it there. That way you immediately have an > infinity of new ideas. Same obviously goes for any new platform that you can > build apps/projects for.

</comment><comment><USER9> Keep a running log of anything that seems missing or any problem you encounter. Extend it to people you are close to, family, friends, colleagues, people you admire. Keep this somewhere you can access easily and from everywhere, like Evernote. What problems do people have? What could be easier? What could make something better? You'll orient your mind towards problems and solutions, and before long, you'll have a long list of side projects from which to choose!

</comment><comment><USER10> Usually I try to make things that are a need in certain niches that I am into.

I have no problem with projects, I just can never finish/put any of them into production

<comment><AUTHOR> I have hit this wall as well. Half way through a project I stop and ask myself:

Who is going to use this? Does anyone have a need for this? How do I get people to use this instead of X? Can I monetize this?

Half way through working a project I sometimes give up because I'm not sure I would even use it. That's the problem I'm trying to solve, figuring out what I can build that compels me to see it through and solve a real problem even if it's not MY problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most of my side projects tend to be mobile apps. Find things in the real world that either piss you off or make you wish that there was a better way of doing things. For example, public transport is usually a good source, and any PT company worth its salt has an API you can hit to do something useful with.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see how public transport can be a pain in a big city. I live in a city of about 100K on the Central Coast of California. We build out not up like some of the more densely populated cities. Big money here is agriculture.

<comment><USER12> Build something agricultural.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wikipedia builds a better picture of my town. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria,_California

Know of any webapps that connect customers to local farmers? Offline we have farmers markets.

<comment><USER13> A college friend in San Luis Obispo is working on this: [http://horsepower.com](http://horsepower.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome. I see that hes looking for developers, I'm mostly a PHP/Laravel dev. Great idea though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How do you _avoid_ coming up with side project ideas? Want to work on some of mine?

<comment><USER15> Are they too personal or would you be willing to share some of them?

<comment><USER14> Happy to share! Anything someone else takes up is one less thing distracting me from whatever I _should_ be focusing on.

First, there's Snowdrift.coop. This is my full-time project, and I'm paying another full-time dev (less than he's worth) out of my own pocket, but we're more than happy to welcome contributions from others. An interview with my co- founder was just published in Linux Magazine: [http://www.linux- magazine.com/Online/Features/Snowdrift.coop](http://www.linux- magazine.com/Online/Features/Snowdrift.coop) Drop in on IRC if you want to get involved!

I've also got a chore tracking site that I put together for my household, which my wife and I have been finding valuable. It needs some work before I do anything substantially public with it, but I'll share if anyone's interested.

Aside from that, there are a few things I'd like to have or see explored:

I'd like a notification daemon that lets me review recent messages and batch notifications by priority.

I'd like to see a file system (I've been calling it "cronfs") that lets you place filesystem objects in time. Working right, you could implement cron atop this in a couple lines using dnotify to watch a "now" subdirectory. A big advantage of this is that you can trivially do level testing ("should this service be up?") instead of just the edge triggers that cron supports, but I'd also like to see what else would grow out of it.

I'd like to see exploration of "genies" and an implementation of more of them. Genies are a framework (conceptual more than code, so far) for long running individual tasks requiring repeated interaction in the shell. The name is meant to invoke "not quite a daemon" or "a kind of daemon". The idea is that when you invoke a genie it registers with your shell before dropping into the background, future commands can be easily sent to the genies associated with your current shell, associated genies can be polled for updates before rendering the prompt, and the meaning of commands doesn't shift between polls/commands. I have a (hacky) libpurple client implemented this way, as well as associated scripts: [https://github.com/dlthomas/genies](https://github.com/dlthomas/genies)

Something I think would be worthwhile, but might be sticky politically/socially, is adding a couple new capabilities in terminfo and building out support in screen/tmux and enough terminal emulators to be meaningful. There's two things I would like to see here. The less controversial is a way of signalling "this is a notification, get it to the user appropriately" \- which urxvt should send to dmesg, ConnectBot should turn into an Android message, screen/tmux should forward if they're able and just note if they're not, &c. More controversial is a way of rendering graphics within a subset of characters that are then still treated like characters - there have been a few attempts in this area, none has quite worked out. Rich terminals in general - historical and future -are an interesting research topic.

I also have some things I'd like to blog about, but they probably _are_ too personal to hand off, at least in the sense that explaining them in enough detail for someone else to write them would basically be writing them myself.

I may add more as I think of them, but I should go do some cleaning...

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually love the idea of chore tracking. Furthermore, I think this can be turned into a game. Add a point system for chores where once a chore is completed you are awarded a point. After X amount of points you earn a reward.

If this is for kids, rewards can be video games, pizza, etc.

<comment><USER14> The way it currently works, chores have a frequency with which they need to be done, and the overall list is sorted by (time since last completion / period). This makes it easy to see the next few things that need doing. Chores can be claimed, which makes it slightly easier to avoid stepping on each other's toes. We require N chores be completed every day to maintain a streak. Every M chores completed, you also earn a credit, which can be spent in place of doing one chore. We've found this to be a nice tradeoff between the rigidity but motivation of "don't break the streak" and the flexibility to have days when we're genuinely too busy to do all the chores.

Another nice feature for us nerds is that the chore list is maintained in a git repository (or several).

What I'd like to do is split the front end from the back end in a way that allows me to interact with multiple households/contexts that might be shared with different groups of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I recently wrote a blog post[0] on this topic. Heads up my website is painfully slow ;)

[0] [http://www.bram.gg/post/how-to-get-ideas-for-side- projects](http://www.bram.gg/post/how-to-get-ideas-for-side-projects)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll look through some of those sites you recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I keep a list of things I want solved for personal reasons each time they come up

</comment><comment><USER18> I have wondered the same myself sometimes :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> check our yahoo q&a or quota...... they always have people posting questions.</comment>


The 10 Hottest Startups in NYC - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2016/03/23/the-10-hottest-startups-in-nyc/#b424da136d76 <comment><USER2> the actual title is "10 Hot Startups In NYC"</comment>